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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20555-8.txt b/20555-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c84497 --- /dev/null +++ b/20555-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8749 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond Holmes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What Is and What Might Be + A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular + +Author: Edmond Holmes + +Release Date: February 10, 2007 [EBook #20555] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE *** + + + + +Produced by R. Cedron, Andrew Sly and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +WHAT IS AND WHAT +MIGHT BE + +A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN GENERAL AND +ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN PARTICULAR + +BY + +EDMOND HOLMES + +AUTHOR OF +"THE CREED OF CHRIST," "THE CREED OF BUDDHA," "THE SILENCE +OF LOVE," "THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE," ETC. + + +LONDON +CONSTABLE & COMPANY +1912 + + + First published, May 1911. + Second impression, July 1911. + Third impression, September 1911. + Fourth impression, November 1911. + Fifth impression, January 1912. + Sixth impression, October 1912. + + ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All | +|other inconstancies in spelling or punctuation are as in the original.| ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +PREFACE + + +My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the _externalism_ of +the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undue regard to outward and +visible "results" and to neglect what is inward and vital, is the +source of most of the defects that vitiate Education in this country, +and therefore that the only remedy for those defects is the drastic +one of changing our standard of reality and our conception of the +meaning and value of life. My reason for making a special study of +that branch of education which is known as "Elementary," is that I +happen to have a more intimate knowledge of it than of any other +branch, the inside of an elementary school being so familiar to me +that I can in some degree bring the eye of experience to bear upon +the problems that confront its teachers. I do not for a moment +imagine that the elementary school teacher is more deeply tainted +than his fellows with the virus of "Occidentalism." Nor do I think +that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other +educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because, +though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so +deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to +eradicate. Also there is at least a breath of healthy discontent +stirring in the field of elementary education, a breath which +sometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams of sunshine, +whereas over the higher levels of the educational world there hangs +the heavy stupor of profound self-satisfaction.[1] I am not +exaggerating when I say that at this moment there are elementary +schools in England in which the life of the children is emancipative +and educative to an extent which is unsurpassed, and perhaps +unequalled, in any other type or grade of school. + +I am careful to say all this because I foresee that, without a +"foreword" of explanation, my adverse criticism of what I have called +"a familiar type of school" may be construed into an attack on the +elementary teachers as a body. I should be very sorry if such a +construction were put upon it. No one knows better than I do that the +elementary teachers of this country are the victims of a vicious +conception of education which has behind it twenty centuries of +tradition and prescription, and the malign influence of which was +intensified in their case by thirty years or more[2] of Code +despotism and "payment by results." Handicapped as they have been by +this and other adverse conditions, they have yet produced a noble +band of pioneers, to whom I, for one, owe what little I know about +the inner meaning of education; and if I take an unduly high +standard in judging of their work, the reason is that they +themselves, by the brilliance of their isolated achievements, have +compelled me to take it. I will therefore ask them to bear with me, +while I expose with almost brutal candour the shortcomings of many of +their schools. They will understand that all the time I am thinking +of education in general even more than of elementary education, +and using my knowledge of the latter to illustrate statements and +arguments which are really intended to tell against the former. They +will also understand that at the back of my mind I am laying the +blame of their failures, not on them but on the hostile forces which +have been too strong for many of them,--on the false assumptions of +Western philosophy, on the false standards and false ideals of +Western civilisation, on various "old, unhappy, far-off things," the +effects of which are still with us, foremost among these being that +deadly system of "payment by results" which seems to have been +devised for the express purpose of arresting growth and strangling +life, which bound us all, myself included, with links of iron, and +which had many zealous agents, of whom I, alas! was one. + + + + + +PART I + +WHAT IS + +OR + +THE PATH OF MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SALVATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE + + +The function of education is to foster growth. By some of my readers +this statement will be regarded as a truism; by others as a +challenge; by others, again, when they have realised its inner +meaning, as a "wicked heresy." I will begin by assuming that it is +a truism, and will then try to prove that it is true. + +The function of education is to foster growth. The end which +the teacher should set before himself is the development of +the latent powers of his pupils, the unfolding of their latent +life. If growth is to be fostered, two things must be liberally +provided,--nourishment and exercise. On the need for nourishment I +need not insist. The need for exercise is perhaps less obvious, but +is certainly not less urgent. We make our limbs, our organs, our +senses, our faculties grow by exercising them. When they have reached +their maximum of development we maintain them at that level by +exercising them. When their capacity for growth is unlimited, as in +the case of our mental and spiritual faculties, the need for exercise +is still more urgent. To neglect to exercise a given limb, or organ, +or sense, or faculty, would result in its becoming weak, flabby, and +in the last resort useless. In childhood, when the stress of +Nature's expansive forces is strongest, the neglect of exercise will, +for obvious reasons, have most serious consequences. If a healthy +child were kept in bed during the second and third years of his life, +the damage done to his whole body would be incalculable. + +These are glaring truisms. Let me perpetrate one more,--one which is +perhaps the most glaring of all. The process of growing must be done +by the growing organism, by the child, let us say, and by no one +else. The child himself must take in and assimilate the nourishment +that is provided for him. The child himself must exercise his organs +and faculties. The one thing which no one may ever delegate to +another is the business of growing. To watch another person eating +will not nourish one's own body. To watch another person using his +limbs will not strengthen one's own. The forces that make for the +child's growth come from within himself; and it is for him, and him +alone, to feed them, use them, evolve them. + +All this is-- + + "As true as truth's simplicity, + And simpler than the infancy of truth." + +But it sometimes happens that what is most palpable is least +perceptible; and perhaps it is because the truth of what I say is +self-evident and indisputable, that in many Elementary Schools in +this country the education given seems to be based on the assumption +that my "truisms" are absolutely false. In such schools the one end +and aim of the teacher is to do everything for the child;--to feed +him with semi-digested food; to hold him by the hand, or rather by +both shoulders, when he tries to walk or run; to keep him under close +and constant supervision; to tell him in precise detail what he is to +think, to feel, to say, to wish, to do; to show him in precise detail +how he is to do whatever may have to be done; to lay thin veneers of +information on the surface of his mind; never to allow him a minute +for independent study; never to trust him with a handbook, a +note-book, or a sketch-book; in fine, to do all that lies in his +power to prevent the child from doing anything whatever for himself. +The result is that the various vital faculties which education might +be supposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in the +over-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes for him +to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously cared for, he +is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless, +resourceless, without a single interest, without a single purpose in +life. + +The contrast between elementary education as it too often is, and as +it ought to be if the truth of my "truisms" were widely accepted, is +so startling that in my desire to account for it I have had recourse +to a paradox. "Trop de vérité," says Pascal, "nous étonne: les +premiers principes ont trop d'évidence pour nous." I have suggested +that the inability of so many teachers to live up to the spirit, or +even to the letter, of my primary "truism," may be due to its having +too much evidence for them, to their being blinded by the naked light +of its truth. + +But there may be another explanation of the singular fact that a +theory of education to which the teacher would assent without +hesitation if it were submitted to his consciousness, counts for +nothing in the daily routine of his work. Failure to carry an +accepted principle into practice is sometimes due to the fact that +the principle has not really been accepted; that its inner meaning +has not been apprehended; that assent has been given to a formula +rather than a truth. The cause of the failure may indeed lie deeper +than this. It may be that the nominal adherents of the principle are +in secret revolt against the vital truth that is at the heart of it; +that they repudiate it in practice because they have already +repudiated it in the inner recesses of their thought. "This people +draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their +lips; but their heart is far from me." Tell the teacher that the +function of education is to foster growth; that therefore it is his +business to develop the latent faculties of his pupils; and that +therefore (since growth presupposes exercise) he must allow his +pupils to do as much as possible by and for themselves,--place these +propositions before him, and the chances are that he will say "Amen" +to them. But that lip assent will count for nothing. One's life is +governed by instinct rather than logic. To give a lip assent to the +logical inferences from an accepted principle is one thing. To give a +_real_ assent to the essential truth that underlies and animates the +principle is another. The way in which the teacher too often conducts +his school leads one to infer that the intuitive, instinctive side of +him--the side that is nearest to practice--has somehow or other held +intercourse with the inner meaning of that "truism" which he repeats +so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional +assumptions on which he bases his life. Or perhaps this work of +subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being done for +him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by the +genius of the land in which he lives. + +Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything) +for the children whom he professes to educate? One obvious answer to +this question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the +"Education Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him. +For a third of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to +examine every child in every elementary school in England on a +syllabus which was binding on all schools alike. In doing this, they +put a bit into the mouth of the teacher and drove him, at their +pleasure, in this direction and that. And what they did to him they +compelled him to do to the child. + +So far as the action of the "Education Department" was concerned, +this policy was abandoned--in large measure, if not wholly--in 1895; +but its consequences are with us still. What conception of the +meaning and purpose of education could have induced "My Lords" to +adopt such a policy, and, having adopted it, to adhere to it for more +than thirty years? Had one asked "My Lords" at any time during those +thirty years what they regarded as the true function of education, +and had one suggested to them (as they had probably never turned +their minds to the question) that the function of education was to +foster the growth of the child, they might possibly have given an +indolent assent to that proposition. But their educational policy +must have been dictated by some widely different conception. They +must have believed that the mental progress of the child--the only +aspect of progress which concerned educationalists in those +days--would best be tested by a formal examination on a prescribed +syllabus, and would best be secured by preparation for such a test; +and they must have accepted, perhaps without the consent of their +consciousness, whatever theory of education may be implicit in that +belief. + +In acting as they did, "My Lords" fell into line with the +Universities, the Public Schools, the Preparatory Schools, the Civil +Service Commissioners, the Professional Societies, and (to make a +general statement) with all the "Boards" and "Bodies" that +controlled, directly or indirectly, the education of the youth of +England. We must, therefore, widen the scope of our inquiry, and +carry our search for cause a step farther back. How did the belief +that a formal examination is a worthy end for teacher and child to +aim at, and an adequate test of success in teaching and in learning, +come to establish itself in this country? And not in this country +only, but in the whole Western world? In every Western country that +is progressive and "up to date," and in every Western country in +exact proportion as it is progressive and "up to date," the +examination system controls education, and in doing so arrests the +self-development of the child, and therefore strangles his inward +growth. + +What is the explanation of this significant fact? In my attempt to +account for the failure of elementary education in England to foster +the growth of the educated child, I have travelled far. But I +must travel farther yet. The Western belief in the efficacy +of examinations is a symptom of a widespread and deep-seated +tendency,--the tendency to judge according to the appearance of +things, to attach supreme importance to visible "results," to measure +inward worth by outward standards, to estimate progress in terms of +what the "world" reveres as "success." It is the Western standard of +values, the Western way of looking at things, which is in question, +and which I must now attempt to determine. + +That I should have to undertake this task is a proof of the +complexity of education, of the bewildering tanglement of its +root-system, of the depths to which some of its roots descend into +the subsoil of human-life. The defect in our system of education +which I am trying to diagnose is one which the "business man," who +may have had reason to complain of the output of our elementary +schools, will probably account for in one sentence and propound a +remedy for in another. But I, who know enough about education to +realise how little is or can be known about it, find that if I am to +understand why so many schools turn out helpless and resourceless +children, I must go back to the first principles of modern +civilisation, or in other words to the cardinal axioms of the +philosophy of the West. + +This does not mean that I must make a systematic study of Western +metaphysics. Professional thinkers abound in the West; but the rank +and file of the people pay little heed to them. It is true that they +take themselves very seriously; but so does every clique of experts +and connoisseurs. The indirect influence of their theories has at +times been considerable; but their direct influence on human thought +is, and has always been, very slight. For the plain average man, who +cannot rid himself of the suspicion that the professional thinker is +a professional word-juggler, has a philosophy of his own which was +formulated for him by an unphilosophical people, and which, though it +is now beginning to fail him, was once sufficient for all his needs. + +At the present moment there are two schools of popular thought in the +West. For many centuries there was only one. For many centuries men +were content to believe that the outward and visible world--the world +of their normal experience--was the all of Nature. But they were not +content to believe that it was the "all of Being." The latter +conception would have said "No" to certain desires of the heart which +refuse to be negatived,--desires which are as large and lofty as they +are pure and deep: and in order to provide a refuge for these, +men added to their belief in a natural world which was bounded +by the horizon of experience (as they understood the word), the +complementary belief in a world which transcended the limits of +experience, and in which the dreams and hopes for which Nature could +make no provision might somehow or other be realised and fulfilled. +With the development of physical science, the conception of the +Supernatural has become discredited, and a materialistic monism has +begun to dispute the supremacy of that dualistic philosophy which had +reigned without a rival for many hundreds of years. But antagonistic +as these philosophies are to one another, they have one conception in +common. The popular belief that the world of man's normal experience +is the Alpha and Omega of _Nature_, is the very platform on which +their controversies are carried on. Were any one to suggest to them +that this belief was without foundation, that there was room and to +spare in Nature for the "supernatural" as well as for the normal, +that the supernatural world (as it had long been miscalled) was +nothing more nor less than "la continuation occulte de la Nature +infinie,"--they would at once unite their forces against him, and +assail him with an even bitterer hatred than that which animates them +in their own intestine strife. + +The dualistic philosophy which satisfied the needs of the West for +some fifteen centuries was systematised and formulated for it, in the +language of myth and poetry, by an Eastern people. The acceptance of +official Christianity by the Graeco-Roman world was the result of +many causes, two of which stand out as central and supreme. The first +of these was the personal magnetism of Christ, in and through which +men came in contact with, and responded to, the attractive forces of +those moral and spiritual ideas which Christ set before his +followers. The second was the readiness of the Western mind to accept +the philosophy of Israel,--a philosophy with the master principles of +which it had long been subconsciously familiar, and for the clear and +convincing presentation of which it had long been waiting. Of the +personal magnetism of Christ and the part that it has played in the +life of Christendom, I need not now speak. My present concern is to +show how the philosophy of Israel--accepted nominally for Christ's +sake, but really for its own--has influenced the educational policy +of the West. + +In the Old Testament the Western mind found itself face to face with +the philosophical theories--theories about the world and its origin, +about Man and his destiny, about conduct and its consequences--to +which its own mythologies had given inadequate expression, but which +the poetical genius of a practical people was able to formulate to +the satisfaction of a practical world. In the philosophy of Israel +"Nature" was conceived of, not as animated by an indwelling life or +soul, but as the handiwork of an omnipotent God. In six days--so runs +the story--"God created the heavens and the earth." Whether by the +word which we translate as "days" were meant terrestrial days or +cosmic ages matters nothing, for in either case the broad fact +remains that according to the Biblical narrative the work of creation +occupied a definite period of time, and that on a certain day in the +remote past the Creator rested from his labours, surveyed his +handiwork, and pronounced it to be very good. + +His next step was to stand aside from the world that he had made, +leave it to its own devices and see how it would behave itself in the +person of its lord and his viceroy,--Man. That the Creator should +place Creation on its trial and that it should speedily misbehave +itself, may be said to have been preordained. The idea of a Creator +postulates the further idea of a Fall. The finished work of an +omnipotent Creator is presumably good,--good in this sense, if in +no other, that its actualities must needs determine the creature's +ideals and standards of good. But the world, as Man knows it, seems +to be deeply tainted with evil. How is this anomaly to be accounted +for? The story of the Fall is the answer to this question. Whether +modern theology regards the story of the Fall as literally or only as +symbolically true, I cannot say for certain. The question is of minor +importance. What is of supreme importance is that Christian theology +accepts and has always accepted the consequences of the _idea_ of the +Fall, and that in formulating those consequences it has provided the +popular thought of the West with conceptions by which its whole +outlook on life has been, and is still, determined and controlled. + +The idea of the Fall, as dramatised by Israel and interpreted by the +"Doctors" of the West, gives adequate expression--on the highest +level of his thinking--to the crude dualism which constitutes the +philosophy of the average man. Hence the immense attractiveness of +the idea to the practical races of the West,--to peoples whose chief +idea is to get their mental problems solved for them as speedily, as +authoritatively, and as intelligibly as possible, that they may thus +be free to devote themselves to "business," to the tangible affairs +of life. + +Let us follow the philosophy of the Fall into some of its more +obvious consequences. The Universe (to use the most comprehensive +of all terms) is conceived of as divided into two dissevered +worlds,--the world of Nature, which is fallen, ruined, and accursed, +and the Supernatural world, which shares in the perfection and +centres in the glory of God. Between these two worlds intercourse is, +_in the nature of things_, impossible. But Man is not content that +his state of godless isolation should endure for ever. As a thinker, +he has exiled God from Nature and therefore from his own daily life. +But, as a "living soul," he craves for reunion with God; and so long +as the gulf between the two worlds remains impassable, his philosophy +will be felt to be incomplete. A supplementary theory of things must +therefore be devised. Corrupt and fallen as he is, Man cannot hope +to climb to Heaven; but God, with whom nothing is impossible, can at +his own good pleasure come down to earth. And come he will, whenever +that sense of all-pervading imperfection which exiled him, in its +premature attempt to explain itself, to his supernatural Heaven, is +realised in man's heart as a desire for better things. But what will +be the signs of his advent? The philosophy of the Fall is at no loss +for an answer to this question. There was a time when Nature was +the mirror of God's face. But it is so no longer. The mirror was +shattered when Adam fell. Henceforth it is only by troubling the +waters of Nature, by suspending the operation of its laws, by turning +its order into confusion, by producing _supernatural_ phenomena, or +"miracles" as they are vulgarly called, that God can announce his +presence to Man. + +The question of the miraculous is one into which we need not enter. +Let us assume that God can somehow or other come to Man, and that +Man can somehow or other recognise God's presence and interpret his +speech. We have now to ask ourselves one vital question. With what +purpose does God visit the world which has forfeited his favour, and +what does he propose to do for ruined Nature and fallen Man? For +Nature, nothing. For Man, to provide a way of escape from Nature. +The dualism of popular thought must needs control the very efforts +that men make to deliver themselves from its consequences. The +irremediable corruption of Man's _nature_ is the assumption on which +the whole scheme of salvation is to be hinged. His deliverance from +sin and death will be effected, not by the development of any natural +capacity for good, but by his being induced to quit the path (or +paths) of Nature, and to walk, under Divine direction, in some new +and narrow path. + +But how will this end be achieved? That Man cannot discover the path +of salvation for himself will, of course, be taken for granted. The +catastrophe of the Fall has corrupted his whole nature, and has +therefore blinded him to the light of truth. "The way of man is not +in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." The +promptings of his own nature, which he would follow if left to +himself, can do nothing but lead him astray. It will also be taken +for granted that the path of salvation is a path of action. When the +whole inward disposition is hopelessly corrupt, the idea of achieving +salvation by growing, by bringing one's hidden life to the perfection +of maturity, must perforce be abandoned. It is only by _doing_ God's +will that Man can hope to regain his favour. One thing, then, is +clear. Man must be told in exact detail what he is to do and also +(should this be necessary) how he is to do it. In other words, an +elaborate Code of Law, covering the whole range of human life and +regulating all the details of conduct, must be delivered by God to +Man. If Man will obey this Law he will be saved. If he will not obey +it, he will be lost. + +There is another aspect of the idea of a supernatural revelation on +which it is necessary to touch. As intercourse between Nature and the +Supernatural world takes place, not in the natural order of things +but at the good pleasure of the Supernatural God, revelation must +needs be conceived of as a highly-specialised process. A revelation +which was addressed to the whole human race, and to which the whole +human race was able to respond, could scarcely be regarded as of +supernatural origin. The distinction between the supernaturalness of +the appeal and the naturalness of the response would gradually tend +to efface itself: for "what is universal is natural," and the voice +which every man was able to recognise would come at last to be +regarded as a voice from within oneself. If the supernatural +character of an alleged revelation is to be established, its +uniqueness must be duly emphasised. A particular people must be +chosen for the purpose of the divine experiment. A particular +law-giver must be commissioned to declare to the chosen people the +will of the Supernatural God. And from time to time a particular +prophet must be sent to rebuke the chosen people for its +backslidings, to show it where it has gone astray, and to exhort +it to turn again to its God. + + For if it is far from Man to discern good, it is still farther from +him to desire it. How, then, shall he be induced to walk in the path +which the Law has prescribed for him? To this question there can be +but one answer: By the promise of external reward, and the threat of +external punishment. To set before Man an ideal of life--an ideal +which would be to him an unfailing fountain of magnetic force and +guiding light--is not in the power of legalism. For if an ideal is +to appeal to one, it must be the consummation of one's own natural +tendencies; but the current of Man's natural tendencies is ever +setting towards perdition, and the vanishing point of his heart's +desires is death. Were an ideal revealed to the Law-giver and by him +presented to his fellow-men, and were the heart of Man to respond +to the appeal that it made to him, the basic assumption of +legalism--that of the corruption of Man's nature--would be +undermined; for Man would have proved that it belonged to his nature +to turn towards the light,--in other words, that he had a natural +capacity for good. The plain truth is that legalism is precluded, by +its own first principles from appealing to any motive higher than +that instinctive desire for pleasure which has as its counterpart a +quasi-physical fear of pain. It is impossible for the lawgiver to +appeal to Man's better nature, to say to him: "Cannot you see for +yourself that this course of action is better than that,--that love +is better than hatred, mercy than cruelty, loyalty than treachery, +continence than self-indulgence?" What he can and must say to him is +this, and this only; "If you obey the Law you will be rewarded. If +you disobey it you will be punished." And this he must say to him +again and again. + +It is true that among the many commandments which the Law sets before +its votaries, there are some--the moral commandments, properly so +called--which do in point of fact, and in defiance of the +philosophical assumption of legalism, appeal to the better nature +of Man. But these are at best an insignificant minority; and their +relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development +into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism. For +legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident, +will try to cover the whole of human life. The religion that is +content to do less than this, the religion that acquiesces in the +distinction between what is religious and what is secular, is, as we +shall presently see, a religion in decay. Religion may perhaps be +defined as Man's instinctive effort to bring a central aim into his +life and so provide himself with an authoritative standard of values. +In its highest and purest form, Religion controls Man's life, both as +a whole and in all its essential details, through the central aim or +spiritual ideal which it sets before him and the consequent standard +of values with which it equips him. But legalism is debarred by its +distrust of human nature from trying to control the details of life +through any central aim or ideal; and its assumption that all the +commandments of the Law are of divine origin, and therefore equally +binding upon Man, is obviously incompatible with the conception of +a standard of moral worth. Its attempt to cover the whole of life +must therefore resolve itself into an attempt to control the details +of conduct _in all their detail_; to deal with them, one by one, +bringing each in turn under the operation of an appropriate +commandment, and if necessary deducing from the commandment a special +rule to meet the special case. In other words, besides being told +what he is not to do (in the more strictly moral sphere of conduct), +and what he is to do (in the more strictly ceremonial sphere), Man +must be told, in the fullest detail, how he is to do whatever may +have to be done in the daily round of his life. Such at least is the +aim of legalism. The nets of the Law are woven fine, and flung far +and wide. If there are any acts in a man's life which escape through +their clinging meshes, the force of Nature is to be blamed for this +partial failure, not the zeal of the Doctors of the Law. + +It is towards this inverted ideal that the doctrine of salvation +through obedience will lead its votaries, when its master +principle--that of distrust of human nature--has been followed out +into all its natural consequences,--followed out, as it was by +Pharisaism, with a fearless logic and a fixed tenacity of purpose. +An immense and ever-growing host of formulated rules, not one in a +hundred of which makes any appeal to the heart of Man or has any +meaning for his higher reason, will crush his life down, slowly and +inexorably, beneath their deadly burden. "At every step, at the work +of his calling, at prayer, at meals, at home and abroad, from early +morning till late in the evening, from youth to old age, the dead, +the deadening formula"[3] will await him. The path of obedience +for the sake of obedience speedily degenerates into the path of +mechanical obedience; and the end of that path is the triumph of +machinery over life. + +For it is to the letter of the Law, rather than to the spirit, that +the strict legalist is bound to conform. The letter of the Law is +divine; and obedience to it is within the power of every man who will +take the trouble to learn its commandments. What the spirit of the +Law may be, is beyond the power of fallen Man to determine; and were +an attempt made to interpret it, the result would be a state of +widespread moral chaos, for there would be as many interpretations of +it as there were minds that had the courage and the initiative to +undertake so audacious a task. As it is with the Law as such, so it +is with each of its numerous commandments. The man who professes to +obey the spirit of a commandment is in secret revolt against its +divine authority. For he is presuming to criticise it in the light +of his own conscience and insight, and to limit his obedience to it +to that particular aspect of it which he judges to be worthy of his +devotion. From such a criticism of the Fourth Commandment as "the +Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath" to open violation +of the letter of the commandment (on this occasion or on that) there +is but a single step. The whole structure of legalism would collapse +if men were allowed to absolve themselves from obedience to the +letter of the Law, out of regard for what they conceived to be its +spirit. To interpret a commandment, in the sense of providing for its +application to the fresh cases that may arise for treatment, is the +work, not of poets and prophets but of Doctors and Scribes. The path +of literal, and therefore of mechanical, obedience is the only path +of safety; and the more punctiliously the letter is obeyed, the more +perfect will be the machinery of salvation, and the nearer will +legalism get to the appointed goal of its labours,--the extinction +of spiritual life. + +As is the life that legalism expects us to lead, so is the scheme of +rewards and punishments by which (as we have already seen) it +constrains us to lead it. The materialisation of life that takes +place under the sway of the Law is accurately matched and measured by +the materialisation of the doctrine of moral retribution. The general +idea that virtue is rewarded and vice punished is profoundly true. +But the idea is easily misinterpreted; and it necessarily shares in +the degradation of one's general conception of life. Virtue rewards +the virtuous by making them more virtuous. Vice punishes the vicious +by making them more vicious. So long as the rewards for which we hope +and the punishments which we dread are conceived of as inward and +spiritual, we are on safe ground. But such a scheme of rewards and +punishments is wholly foreign to the genius of supernaturalism. It +is not by becoming more virtuous that we are saved. It is not by +becoming more vicious that we are lost. We are saved by obedience, +we are lost by disobedience, to the formulated rules of a +divinely-delivered law. To appeal to Man's higher self, when there is +no higher self to appeal to,--to set before him as the supreme reward +of virtue the development of his better nature, when his nature is +intrinsically evil,--would be an obvious waste of labour. And as, +apart from the presumed repugnance of the "natural man" to the +presumed delights of the Law, the intrinsic attractiveness of the +life that legalism prescribes must needs diminish in exact proportion +as the authority of the Law becomes oppressive and vexatious, and the +letter of it tends to establish itself at the expense of the +spirit,--it is clear that a scheme of rewards and punishments will +become, in effect as well as in theory, the only weapon in the +armoury of the legalist. It is also clear that there will be much +work for that one weapon to do. The central tendencies of Man's +nature, besides being _ex hypothesi_ evil, are antagonistic _de +facto_ to the galling despotism and the irrational requirements of +the Law; and the lawgiver, far from being able to enlist those +tendencies under his banner by appealing to the highest of them--the +natural leaders of the rest,--must be prepared to overcome their +collective resistance by winning to his side the lowest of them, by +terrifying Man's weaker self with threats, by corrupting his baser +self with bribes. The ruin of Man's nature, whether hypothetical or +actual,[4] has left intact (or relatively intact) only the animal +base of it. It is to his animal instincts, then, that legalism must +appeal in its endeavour to influence his conduct. In other words, the +punishments and the rewards to which Man is to look forward must be +of the same _genus_, if not of the same _species_, as the lash of +the whip that punishes the lagging race-horse, or the lump of sugar +that rewards his exertions. And with the inevitable growth of egoism +and individualism in the demoralising atmosphere with which legalism +(and its lineal successors) must needs invest human life, Man's +conception of the rewards and punishments that await him will +deteriorate rather than improve. The Jewish desire for national +prosperity was an immeasurably nobler motive to action than is the +Christian's fear of the quasi-material fires of Hell. Indeed it is +nothing but our familiarity with the latter motive that has blinded +us to its inherent baseness. It is no exaggeration to say that there +have been epochs in the history of Christendom (as there are still +quarters of Christian thought and phases of Christian faith) in which +the trumpet-call that was meant to rouse the soldiers of God to +renewed exertion has rung in their ears as an ignominious "_sauve qui +peut_." + +The tendency of legalism to externalise life has another aspect. In +the eyes of the strict legalist there is no such thing as an inward +state of human worth. The doctrine of the corruption of Man's nature +is incompatible with the idea of "goodness" being measurable +(potentially if not actually) in terms of the health and happiness +of the "inward man." Goodness, as the legalist conceives it, is +measurable in terms of correctness of outward conduct, and of that +only. And when life is regulated by an elaborate Law, the rules of +which are familiar to all men, there is no reason why a man's outward +conduct should not be appraised, with some approach to accuracy, by +his neighbours and friends. Hence it is that in the atmosphere of +legalism an excessive deference is wont to be paid to public, and +even to parochial, opinion. The life of the votary of the Law is +lived under strict and constant _surveillance_; and a man learns +at last to value himself as his conduct is valued by a critical +onlooker, and to make it the business of his life to produce +"results" which can be weighed and measured by conventional +standards, rather than to grow in grace,--with silent, subtle, +unobtrusive growth. + +Were I to try to prove that the _régime_ of the Law was necessarily +fatal to the development of Man's higher faculties--conscience, +freedom, reason, imagination, intuition, aspiration, and the rest--I +should waste my time. Legalism, as a scheme of life, is based on the +assumption that development along the lines of Man's nature is a +movement towards perdition; and to reproach the legalist for having +arrested the growth of the human spirit by the pressure of the Law +were to provoke the rejoinder that he had done what he intended +to do. The two schemes of Salvation--the mechanical and the +evolutional--have so little in common that neither can pass judgment +on the other without begging the question that is in dispute. When I +come to consider the effect of legalism--or rather of the philosophy +that underlies legalism--on education, I may perhaps be able to find +some court of law in which the case between the two schemes can be +tried with the tacit consent of both. Meanwhile I can but note +that in the atmosphere of the Law growth is as a matter of fact +arrested,--arrested so effectually that the counter process of +degeneration begins to take its place. The proof of this statement, +if proof be needed, is that legalism, when its master principle has +been fully grasped and fearlessly applied, takes the form of +Pharisaism, and that it is possible for the Pharisee to "count +himself to have apprehended," to congratulate himself on his +spiritual achievement, to believe, in all seriousness, that he has +closed his account with God. + +Pharisaism is at once the logical consummation and the _reductio ad +absurdum_ of legalism. It is to the genius of Israel that we owe that +practical interpretation of the fundamental principle of +supernaturalism, which was embodied in the doctrine of salvation +through obedience to the letter of a Law. And it is to the genius +of Israel that we owe that rigorously logical interpretation of +the _axiomata media_ of legalism, which issued in due season in +Pharisaism. The world owes much to the courage and sincerity +of Israel,--to his unique force of character, to his fanatical +earnestness, to his relentless tenacity of purpose. In particular, +it owes a debt which it can never liquidate to what was at once the +cause and the result of his over-seriousness,--to his lack of any +sense of humour,--a negative quality which allowed his practical +logic to run its course without let or hindrance, and prevented +the "brakes" of common-sense from acting when he found himself, in +his very zeal for the Law, descending an inclined plane into an +unfathomable abyss of turpitude and folly. The man (or people) who is +able, of his own experience, to tell the rest of mankind what a given +scheme of life really means and is really worth, owing to his having +offered himself as the _corpus vile_ for the required experiment, is +one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. Had Israel been +less sincere or less courageous, we might never have known what +deadly fallacies lurk in the seemingly harmless dualism of popular +thought. + + * * * * * + +But the West, it will be said, is Christian, not Jewish. Is it +Christian? If the word "Christian" connotes acceptance of the +teaching as well as devotion to the person of Christ, it is scarcely +applicable either to the official or to the popular religion of +the West. For Christ, the stern denouncer of the Pharisees, was +the whole-hearted enemy of legalism; and the legal conception of +salvation through mechanical obedience still dominates the religion +and life of Christendom. + +The Jewish Law tried to cover, and tended more and more to cover, the +whole of human life. It is true that it controlled the details rather +than the totality of life; but the reason why it dealt with life, +detail by detail, was that its exponents, owing to their spiritual +purblindness, were unable to see the wood for the trees. In +Christendom, while the doctrine of salvation through mechanical +obedience was retained, the authority of a Church was substituted +for that of a Code of Law. The growth of the idea of Humanity, as +opposed to that of mere nationality, made this necessary. As the +former idea began to compete with the latter, the need for a +divinely-commissioned society which should declare the will and +communicate the grace of God, not to one nation only but to all men +who were willing to hearken and obey,--and whose action, as a channel +of intercourse between God and Man, should be continuous rather +than spasmodic,--began to make itself felt. A Code of Law might +conceivably suffice to regulate the life of one small nation; +but when we consider under what varying conditions of climate, +occupation, custom, tradition, and so forth, the general life of +Humanity is carried on, we see clearly that no one Code can even +begin to suffice for the needs of the whole human race. Hence, and +for other reasons which we need not now consider, the West, in +accepting the philosophy of Israel, translated its master idea of +salvation through mechanical obedience into the notation of +ecclesiastical, as distinguished from legal, control. + +That obedience to a supernaturally-commissioned Church, or rather to +the One supernaturally-commissioned Church, is the first and last +duty of Man, is the fundamental assumption on which the stately +fabric of Catholic Christianity has been reared. In various ways the +Church has striven to exact implicit obedience from her children. +Through the medium of the Confessional she has secured some measure +of control over their morals. By regulating the worship of God--both +public and private--she has been able to rule off a sphere of human +conduct in which her own authority is necessarily paramount. By +supplying the faithful with rations of "theological information" (to +quote the apt phrase of a pillar of orthodoxy), and requiring them to +accept these on her authority as indisputably true, she has succeeded +in imposing her yoke on thought as well as on conduct. By claiming +to control the outflow of Divine grace, through the channels of +the Sacraments, she has been able to threaten the rebellious with +the dread penalty of being cut off from intercourse with God. +And by telling men, with stern insistence, that the choice between +obedience and disobedience to herself is the choice between eternal +happiness and eternal misery, she has sought to extend her dominion +beyond the limits of time and to raise to an infinite power her +supremacy over the souls of men. + +But just because the life of collective Humanity is large, complex, +and full of change and variety, the Church which aspires to be +universal, however strong may be her desire to superintend all the +details of human thought and conduct, and however ready she may be +to adapt herself to local and temporal variations, must needs allow +whole aspects and whole spheres of human life to escape from her +control. The history of Christendom is the history of the gradual +emancipation of the Western world from the despotism of the Church. +The various activities of the human spirit--art, science, literature, +law, statecraft, and the rest--have, one and all, freed themselves by +slow degrees from ecclesiastical control, till little or nothing has +been left for the Church to regulate but her own rites and +ceremonies, the morals (in a narrow and ever-narrowing sense of the +word), and the faith (in the theological sense of the word), of the +faithful. + +With the emancipation of Man's higher activities from ecclesiastical +control, the distinction between the _religious_ and the _secular_ +life has gradually established itself. That this should happen was +inevitable. Mechanical obedience being of the essence of supernatural +religion, the secularising of human life became absolutely necessary +if any vital progress was to be made. The Church patronised art, +music, and the drama so far as they served her purposes. When they +outgrew those purposes, in response to the expansive forces of human +nature, she treated them as secular and let them go their several +ways. In the interests of theology she tried to keep physical science +in leading-strings; but when, after a bitter struggle, science broke +loose from her control, she treated it too as secular and let it go +its way. + +Let us see what this distinction involves. As salvation is to be +achieved by obedience to the Church and in no other way, it follows +that in all those spheres of life which are outside the jurisdiction +of the Church (except, of course, so far as questions of "morals" may +arise in connection with them), Man's conduct and general demeanour +are supposed to have no bearing on his eternal destiny. This is the +view of the secular life which is taken by the Church. And not by the +Church alone. As, little by little, the Institution--be it Church, or +Sect, or Code, or Scripture--which claims to be the sole accredited +agent of the Eternal God, relaxes its hold upon the ever-expanding +life of Humanity, all those developments of human nature which cease +to be amenable to its control come to be regarded as mundane, as +unspiritual, as carnal, as matters with which God has no concern. + +Were this view of the secular life confined to those who call +themselves religious, no great harm would be done. Unfortunately, the +secular life, which is under the influence of the current conception +of God as one who holds no intercourse with Man except through +certain accredited agents, is ready to acquiesce in the current +estimate of itself as godless, and to accept as valid the distinction +between the religious life and its own. Hence comes a general +lowering of Man's aims. As the secular life is content to regard +itself as godless, and so deprives itself of any central and unifying +aim, it is but natural that success in each of its many branches +should come to be regarded as an end in itself. It is but natural, to +take examples at random, that the artist should follow art for art's +sake, that the man of science should deify positive knowledge, that +the statesman should regard political power as intrinsically +desirable, that the merchant and the manufacturer should live to make +money, and that the highest motive which appeals to all men alike +should be the desire to bulk large in the eyes of their fellow-men. +Even the ardent reformer, whose enthusiasm makes him unselfish, +pursues the ideal to which he devotes himself, as an end in itself, +and makes no attempt to define or interpret it in terms of its +relation to that supreme and central ideal which he ought to regard +as the final end of human endeavour. When we remind ourselves, +further, that secularism, equally with supernaturalism, tends to +identify "Nature" with lower nature--in other words, with the +material side of the Universe and the carnal side of Man's being,--we +shall realise how easy it is for the secular life, once it has lost, +through its divorce from religion, the tonic stimulus of a central +aim, to sink, without directly intending to do so, into the mire of +materialism,--a materialism of conduct as well as of thought. + +But if the loss to the secular life, from its compulsory +despiritualisation, is great, the loss to religion, from the +secularisation of so much of Man's rational activity, is greater +still. The very distinction between the secular and the religious +life is profoundly irreligious, in that it rests on the tacit +assumption that there is no unity, no central aim, in human life; +and the fact that official religion is ready to acquiesce in the +distinction, is ready, in other words, to make a compromise with its +enemy "the world," is a proof that it is secretly conscious of its +own failing power, and is even beginning to despair of itself. As it +resigns itself to this feeling (as yet perhaps but dimly realised), +its reasons for entertaining it must needs grow stronger. The +progressive enlargement of the sphere of Man's secular activities is +accompanied, step for step, by the devitalisation of the idea of the +Divine. What kind of intercourse can God be supposed to hold with Man +if the latter is to be left to his own devices in what he must needs +regard as among the more important aspects of his life,--in his +commercial and industrial enterprises, in his art, in his literature, +in his study of Nature's laws, in his mastery of Nature's forces, +in his pursuit of positive truth and practical good? As in these +matters Man frees himself, little by little, from the yoke of +supernaturalism, which he has been accustomed to identify with +religion, his formal conception of his relation to God and of the +part that God plays in his life--the conception that is defined and +elucidated for him by religious "orthodoxy"--becomes of necessity +more irrational, more mechanical, more unreal, more repugnant to his +better nature and to the higher developments of his "common-sense." +The tendency to exalt the letter of what is spoken or written, at the +expense of the spirit, is as much of the essence of ecclesiasticism +as of legalism. "_Si dans les rčgles du salut le fond l'emporterait +sur la forme, ce serait la ruine du sacerdoce._" And, as a matter of +experience, the hair-splitting puerilities of Pharisaism under the +Old Dispensation have been matched, and more than matched, in the +spheres of ritual, of dogmatic theology, and of casuistical morality, +under the New. As Man gradually shifts the centre of gravity of his +being from the religious to the secular side of his life, this +puerile element in religion--the element of ultra-formalism, of +irrationality, of unreality--tends, like a morbid growth, to draw to +itself the vital energies of what was once a healthy organism but +is now degenerating into a "body of death." If, in these days of +absorbing secular activity, Man continues to tolerate the theories +and practices of the religious experts, the reason is--apart from the +influence of custom and tradition and of his respect for venerable +and "established" institutions--that they are things which he has +neither time nor inclination to investigate, and which he can +therefore afford to tolerate as being far removed from what is vital +and central in his life. I am told that the Catholic Church holds, in +the case of a dying man, "that the eternal fate of the soul, for good +or for evil, may depend upon the reception or the non-reception of +absolution, and even of extreme unction." That the truly appalling +conception of God which is implicit in this sentence should still +survive, that it should not yet have been swept out of existence by +the outraged common-sense and good feeling of Humanity, is a proof of +the immense indifference with which the Western world, absorbed as it +is in secular pursuits, regards religion. + +It may indeed be doubted if men have ever been so non-religious as +are at the present day the inhabitants of our highly-civilised and +thoroughly-Christianised West. At any rate the absence of a central +aim in human life has never been so complete as it is now. Most men +are content to drift through life, toiling for the daily bread which +will enable them to go on living, yet neither knowing nor caring to +know why they are alive. There is a minority of stronger and more +resolute men who devote life with unwavering energy to the pursuit of +what I may call private and personal ends. Thus the man of business +lives for the acquisition of riches; the scholar and the scientist, +of knowledge; the statesman, of power; the speculator, of excitement; +the libertine, of pleasure; and so forth. Few are they who ever +dream of devoting life as a whole to the pursuit of an end which is +potentially attainable by all men, and which is therefore worthy of +Man as Man. The idea of there being such an end has indeed been +almost wholly lost sight of. Those among us who are of larger +discourse than the rest and less absorbed by personal aims, ask +themselves mournfully: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? +Is life worth living? and other such questions; and being unable to +answer them to their satisfaction, or get them answered, resign +themselves to a state of quasi-stoical endurance. That religion +cannot be expected to answer these questions--the very questions +which it is its right and its duty to answer--seems to be taken for +granted by all who ask them. Religion, as it is now conceived of, +is a thing for priests and ministers, for churches and chapels, for +Sundays and Saints'-days, for the private devotions of women and +children, for educational debates in Parliament, for the first lesson +on the time-table (9.5 to 9.45 a.m.) of a Public Elementary School. +The "unbeliever" is eager to run a tilt against religion. The +"non-believer" is content to ignore it. The "believer" is careful to +exclude it from nine-tenths of his life. It is to this pass that the +gospel of salvation by machinery has brought the most "progressive" +part of the human race. + +The phase of non-religiousness through which the West is passing has, +we may rest assured, a meaning and a purpose. At the meetings of the +Catholic Truth Society it is customary for the speakers to deplore +the steady relapse of Christendom into paganism, which is going on +before their eyes. As the Church had things her own way for ten +centuries or more, these complaints on the part of her champions are +equivalent to a confession on her part of disastrous failure. Why is +the Church, after having evangelised the West and ruled it for a +thousand years, allowing it to slide back into paganism? The answer +to this question is that she herself is unwittingly paganising it. +I mean by this that, without intending to do so, she is compelling +it to choose between secularised life and arrested growth. Were a +growing tree encircled with an iron band, the day would surely come +when the tree, by the force of its own natural expansion, would +either shatter the band or allow it to cut deep into its own stem. +The growing consciousness of Humanity has long been encircled by a +rigid and inadequate conception of God. The gradual secularisation of +the West means that the soul of man is straining that particular +conception of God to breaking-point: and it is infinitely better that +it should be broken to pieces than that its iron should be allowed to +sink deep into the soul. + +The secularisation of contemporary life means this, and more than +this. It means the gradual handing back of Man's life to the control +of Nature,--of Nature which is as yet unequal to the task that is +being set it, owing to its having been through all these centuries +identified with its lower self, taught to distrust itself, and +otherwise misinterpreted and mismanaged, but which, in obedience to +the primary instinct of self-preservation, will gradually rise to +the level of the responsibility that is being laid upon it. With the +further secularisation of Man's life, the need for religion to make +effective the control of Nature, by pointing out to it its own ideal +and so co-ordinating and organising all its forces, will gradually +make itself felt, and the regeneration of religion will at last have +begun. + + * * * * * + +For many centuries the current of religious belief in the West was +almost entirely confined to the one channel of Catholic Christianity. +There the mighty river pursued his course, "brimming and bright and +large," till the time came when, with the gradual loss of his +pristine energy-- + + "Sands began + To hem his wintry march, and dam his streams + And split his currents"; + +Side channels were formed, and grew in number; and though Catholicism +is still the central channel for the moving waters, the river has now +fallen on evil days, and "strains along," "shorn and parcelled," like +the river of the Asian desert-- + + "forgetting the bright speed he bore + In his high mountain cradle." + +Of the many side streams into which Western Christianity has split, +the majority may be spoken of collectively as Protestant. +Protestantism claims to have liberated a large part of Christendom +from the yoke of Rome; and it is therefore right that we should ask +ourselves in what sense and to what extent it has brought freedom +to the human spirit. The answer to this question is, I think, that +though Protestantism has fought a good fight for the _principle_ of +freedom, it has failed--for many reasons, the chief of which is that +it began its work before men were ripe for freedom--to lead its +votaries into the path of spiritual life and growth. Confronted by +the uncompromising dogmatism of Rome, it had to devise a counter +dogmatism of its own in order to rally round it the faint-hearted +who, though eager to absolve themselves from obedience to the +despotism of the Church, yet feared to walk by their own "inward +light." In making this move, which was not the less false because +it was in a sense inevitable, Protestantism may be said to have +renounced its mission. That it has done much, in various ways, for +human progress is undeniable; but the fact remains that it has +failed to revitalise Christianity. Its master-stroke in its struggle +with priestcraft--the substitution of "faith" for "works" as the +basis of salvation--has done little or nothing to relieve the West +from the deadly pressure of Israel's philosophy. For faith, as +Protestantism understands the word, is the movement of the soul, +not towards the ideal end of its being but towards an alleged +supernatural transaction,--the redemption of the world by the +death of Christ on the Cross. Gratitude to Christ for his love and +self-sacrifice may indeed be an effective motive to action, but faith +in the efficacy of Christ's atoning sacrifice is no guide to conduct. +The inability of Protestantism to deduce a scheme of life from its +own master-principle of salvation by "faith" has compelled it, in +its desire to avoid the pitfalls of antinomianism, to revive in a +modified form the practical legalism of the Old Testament. The +Protestant desires to show his gratitude to Christ by leading a +correct life; but his distrust of his own higher nature compels him +to go to some external authority for ethical guidance; and as he has +repudiated the authority of the supernaturally-inspired Church, he +is compelled to have recourse to the supernaturally-inspired Bible. +Hence the traditional alliance between Protestantism and the Old +Testament, in which the path of duty is far more clearly and +consistently defined than in the New. And hence the singular fact +that Calvinism, which is the backbone of Protestantism, and which in +theory, and even (at times) in practice, regards "works" as "filthy +rags," finds its other self in Puritanism, which is in the main a +recrudescence of Jewish legalism in the more strictly _moral_ sphere +of conduct. + +It is owing to its alliance with the legalism of Israel, that +Protestantism has been in some respects an even greater enemy of +human freedom than Catholicism, and has on the whole done more than +the latter to narrow and maim human life. The strict legalist tries, +as we have seen, to bring the whole of human life under the direct +control of the Law; and when he finds, as the Puritan did in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that whole aspects of life have +in point of fact escaped from the control of religion and won from +the latter a tacit acceptance of themselves as secular, he not +unnaturally tends to regard these non-religious aspects of life as +"carnal," and therefore as unacceptable to God. Hence the antipathy +of the Protestant, in his seasons of Puritanical fanaticism, to +art, music, the drama, and other noble fruits of the human spirit. +Catholicism has found itself compelled to tolerate the secular +activities of the layman; Protestantism, while tolerating those +activities by which man earns his daily bread and which may be spoken +of collectively as "business," has from time to time waged war +against all the developments of human nature which are neither +spiritual (in the narrow and rigid sense of the word) nor obviously +useful, and has sought to extirpate the corresponding desires from +the heart of Man. On the more artistic side of human life, it has +done as much to impede the growth of the soul as Catholicism has +done on the more intellectual side; and through its influence on +character it has done as much to harden the fibre of the soul as +Catholicism has done to relax it, the tendency of both religions +being to destroy that elasticity of fibre which mediates between +hardness and flabbiness, and which has its counterpart in vigorous +health and strength. + +The truth is--but it is a truth which Protestantism is apt +to misinterpret, and which Catholicism finds it expedient to +ignore--that religion is not a branch or department of human life, +but a way of looking at life as a whole. Indeed, it is of the essence +of religion (as has been already suggested) that it should look +at life as a whole, and so be able to look at each of its details +in the light of that supreme synthesis which we call Divine. And +the religion which sanctions, and by its own action necessitates, +the division of life into two branches--the secular and the +religious--has obviously missed its destiny and betrayed its trust. + + * * * * * + +A brief summary of the contents of this chapter will prepare the way +for the next. The movements of higher thought in the West have been +dominated, nominally by the professional thinker, really by the +average man. As a thinker, the average man is incurably dualistic. +Enslaved as he is to the requirements of his instrument, language, he +instinctively opposes mind to body, spirit to matter, good to evil, +the Creator to the Creation, God to Man; and in each case he fixes a +great gulf between the "mighty opposites" that constitute the given +antithesis. Confronted by the mystery of existence, he has explained +it by the story of Creation. Confronted by the twin mysteries of sin +and sorrow, he has explained them by the story of the Fall. From the +story of the Fall he has passed on to the doctrine of original sin, +to the belief that Nature in general, and human nature in particular, +is corrupt and ruined, and therefore intrinsically evil. Shrinking +from the hopeless prospect which this belief opens up to him, he +has found refuge in the conception of another world,--of a world +above and beyond Nature, a world of Divine perfection from which +information and guidance can at God's good pleasure be doled out +to Man. For a "supernatural revelation" (as theologians call this +sending of help from God to Man) special instruments are obviously +needed,--a special People, a special Scripture, a special Lawgiver, +a special Prophet, a special Church. Hence has arisen the idea that +certain persons, certain castes, certain institutions have a monopoly +of Divine truth and grace, and are therefore in a position to dictate +to their fellow-men how they are to bear themselves if they wish to +be "saved," what they are to believe, what they are to do. From this +the transition has been easy to the further idea that salvation is +to be achieved by blind and mechanical obedience,--by renouncing +the right to follow one's own higher nature, to obey one's own +conscience, to use one's own reason, to map out one's own life. In +order to induce men to yield the obedience which is required of them, +their lower instincts have had to be appealed to (for the higher, +ruined by the Fall, have presumably ceased to operate),--their desire +for pleasure by the promise of Heaven, their fear of pain by the +threat of Hell. And in order that their lives may be kept under +close supervision and their merits accurately appraised, an +ever-increasing stress has had to be laid on what is outward, +visible, and measurable in human life, as distinguished from what +is inward and occult,--on correctness in the details of prescribed +conduct, or again in the details of formulated belief. As the idea of +salvation through mechanical obedience develops into a systematised +scheme of life, the higher and more spiritual faculties of Man's +nature become gradually atrophied by disuse. In other words, the +channel of soul growth--the only channel that leads to spiritual +health, and therefore to "salvation"--becomes gradually obstructed, +with the result that the vital energies of the soul tend either to +dissipate themselves and run to waste, or to make new channels for +themselves,--channels of degenerative tendency, the end of which is +spiritual death. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] By "self-satisfaction" I mean satisfaction with the +existing system _as a system_. That strenuous efforts are being made +to improve the system, within its own limits, I can well believe. But +the system itself, with the defects and limitations which are of its +essence, seems to be regarded as adequate, and even as final, by +nearly all who work under it. + +[2] 1862 to 1895 A.D. + +[3] The _Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ_, by Dr. +Emil Schürer. + +[4] In its extreme form legalism tends to bring about that +ruin of human nature which it starts by postulating; for, by +forbidding Man's higher faculties to energise, it necessarily arrests +their development, and so makes it possible for the lower faculties +to draw to themselves an undue share of the rising sap of Man's +life. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EDUCATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE + + +The God of popular theology has been engaged for more than thirty +centuries in educating his child, Man. His system of education has +been based on complete distrust of Man's nature. In the schools which +Man has been required to attend--the Legal School under the Old +Dispensation, the Ecclesiastical School under the New--it has +been taken for granted that he can neither discern what is true, +nor desire what is good. The truth of things has therefore been +formulated for him, and he has been required to learn it by rote and +profess his belief in it, clause by clause. His duty has also been +formulated for him, and he has been required to perform it, detail by +detail, in obedience to the commandments of an all-embracing Code, or +to the direction of an all-controlling Church. + +It has further been taken for granted that Man's instincts and +impulses are wholly evil, and that "Right Faith" and "Right Conduct" +are entirely repugnant to his nature. In order to overcome the +resistance which his corrupt heart and perverse will might therefore +be expected to offer to the authority and influence of his teachers, +a scheme of rewards and punishments has had to be devised for his +benefit. As there is no better nature for the scheme to appeal to, +an appeal has had to be made to fears and hopes which are avowedly +base. The refractory child has had to be threatened with corporal +punishment in the form of an eternity of torment in Hell. And he has +had to be bribed by the offer of prizes, the chief of which is an +eternity of selfish enjoyment in Heaven,--enjoyment so selfish that +it will consist with, and even (it is said) be heightened by, the +knowledge that in the Final Examination the failures have been many +and the prize-winners few. + +And as, under this system of education, obedience is the first and +last of virtues, so self-will--in the sense of daring to think and +act for oneself--is the first and last of offences. It is for the +sin of spiritual initiative--the sin of trying to work out one's +own salvation by the exercise of reason, conscience, imagination, +aspiration, and other spiritual faculties--that the direst penalties +are reserved. The path of salvation is the path of blind, passive, +mechanical obedience. To deviate even a little from that path is to +incur the penalty of eternal death. + + * * * * * + +As Man is educated by his father, God, so must the child be educated +by his father, the adult man. If the nature of Man is intrinsically +evil, the child must needs have been conceived in sin and shapen in +iniquity. If Man, even in his maturity, cannot be trusted to think +or desire or do what is right, still less can he be so trusted when +he is that relatively immature and helpless being, the child. If +the adult man has to be told in the fullest detail (whether by a +formulated Law or by a living Church) how he is to conduct himself, +still greater is the need for such or similar direction to be given +to the child. If the adult is to be "saved" by strict and mechanical +obedience, and by no other method, still greater is the need for +such obedience on the part of the child. If a system of external +and quasi-material rewards and punishments is indispensable in the +education of the adult, still less can it be dispensed with in the +education of the child. These _a fortiori_ arguments are strong; but +there is a stronger. The child will develop into the adult, and he +cannot too soon be initiated into the life which, as the adult, he +will have to lead. The process of educating the child is not merely +analogous to the process of "saving" the man. It is a vital part +of it. For childhood is the time when human nature is most easily +moulded; and the bent that is given to it then is, in nine cases out +of ten, decisive of its ultimate destiny. + +It is clear, then, that if Man is to be "saved" by a _régime_ of +mechanical obedience, his education in his childhood must be based on +the same general conception of life and duty. This means, in the +first place, that the child must be brought up in an atmosphere of +severity. The God of the Old Testament--the Deity whose _nimbus_ +overshadows the life of the West--combines in his own person the +functions of law-giver, governor, prosecutor, judge, and executioner. +His subjects are a race of vile offenders, whose every impulse is +bad, and whose nature turns towards evil as inevitably as a plant +turns towards the light. As he cannot trust them to know good from +evil, he has had to provide them with an elaborate code of law; and +he has had to take for granted that, left to themselves, they will +break his commandments, and find pleasure in doing so. From the very +outset, then, his attitude towards them has been one of suspicion and +rising anger. He is always on the look-out for disobedience, and he +is ready to chastise the offender almost before he has had time to +commit the offence. His pupils, brought up in an atmosphere of +suspicion, and taught from their earliest days to disbelieve in and +condemn themselves, can scarcely be blamed for living _down_ to the +evil reputation which they have unfortunately gained. To persuade a +man that he is a miserable sinner is to go some way towards leading +him into the path of sin. Systematic distrust paralyses and +demoralises those who live under it, and so tends to justify the +cruelty into which it too readily develops. The penalties which God +has attached to the sins which he may almost be said to have provoked +Man to commit, are so terrible and unjust that if the fear of them +has not robbed life of all its sunshine, the reason is that their +very horror has numbed Man's imagination, and made it impossible for +him even to begin to picture to himself their lurid gloom. + +In the West men have loyally striven to reproduce towards their +children the supposed attitude of their God of Wrath towards +themselves. From very tender years the child has been brought up in +an atmosphere of displeasure and mistrust. His spontaneous activities +have been repressed as evil. His every act has been looked upon with +suspicion. He has been ever on the defensive, like a prisoner in the +dock. He has been ever on the alert for a sentence of doom. He has +been cuffed, kicked, caned, flogged, shut up in the dark, fed on +bread and water, sent hungry to bed, subjected to a variety of +cruel and humiliating punishments, terrified with idle--but to him +appalling--threats. In his misery he has shed a whole ocean of +tears,--the salt and bitter tears of hopeless grief and helpless +anger, not the soul-refreshing tears which are sometimes distilled +from sorrow by the sunshine of love. But of all the cruelties to +which he has been subjected, the most devilish has been that of +making him believe in his own criminality, in the corruption of his +innocent heart. In the deadly shade of that chilling cloud, the +flower of his opening life has too often withered before it has had +time to expand. For what is most cruel in cruelty is its tendency to +demoralise its victims, especially those who are of tender years--to +harden them, to brutalise them, to make them stubborn and secretive, +to make them shifty and deceitful, to throw them back upon +themselves, to shut them up within themselves, to quench the joy of +their hearts, to numb their sympathies, to cramp their expansive +energies, to narrow and darken their whole outlook on life. All this +the cruelty of his seniors would do to the child, even if he had not +been taught to believe in his own inborn wickedness. But that belief, +with which he has been indoctrinated from his earliest days, +necessarily weakens his power of resisting evil, and so predisposes +him to fall a victim to the malignant germs that cruelty sows in his +heart. We tell the child that he is a criminal, and treat him as +such, and then expect him to be perfect; and when our misguided +education has begun to deprave him, we shake our heads over his +congenital depravity, and thank God that we believe in "original +sin."[5] + +In the next place, if Man is to be faithful to his model, he must +bring up the child in an atmosphere of vexatious interference and +unnatural restraint. That Man himself has been brought up in such an +atmosphere in both his schools--the Legal and the Ecclesiastical--I +need not take pains to prove. What he has suffered at the hands of +his Schoolmaster--the God of Israel (and of Christendom)--he has +taken good care to inflict on his pupil, the child. Such phrases as: +"Don't talk," "Don't fidget," "Don't worry," "Don't ask questions," +"Don't make a noise," "Don't make a mess," "Don't do this thing," +"Don't do that thing," are ever falling from his lips. And they are +supplemented with such positive instructions as: "Sit still," "Stand +on the form," "Hold yourself up," "Fold arms," "Hands behind backs," +"Hands on heads," "Eyes on the blackboard." At every turn--from +infancy till adolescence, "from early morning till late in the +evening"--these "dead and deadening formulas" await the unhappy +child. The aim of his teachers is to leave nothing to his nature, +nothing to his spontaneous life, nothing to his free activity; to +repress all his natural impulses; to drill his energies into complete +quiescence; to keep his whole being in a state of sustained and +painful tension. And in order that we may see a meaning and a +rational purpose in this _régime_ of oppressive interference, we must +assume that its ultimate aim is to turn the child into an animated +puppet, who, having lost his capacity for vital activity, will be +ready to dance, or rather go through a series of jerky movements, in +response to the strings which his teacher pulls. It is the inevitable +reaction from this state of tension which is responsible for much of +the "naughtiness" of children. The spontaneous energies of the child, +when education has blocked all their lawful outlets, must needs force +new outlets for themselves,--lawless outlets, if no others are +available. The child's instinct to live will see to that. It +sometimes happens that, when the channel of a river has been blocked +by winter's ice, the river, on its awakening in Spring, will suddenly +change its course and carve out a new channel for itself, reckless of +the destruction that it may cause, so long as an outlet can by any +means be found for its baffled current. It is the same with the river +of the child's expanding life. The naughtiest and most mischievous +boy not infrequently develops into a hero, or a leader of men. The +explanation of this is that through his very naughtiness the current +of soul-growth, which ran stronger in him than in his school-mates, +kept open the channel which his teachers were doing their best to +close. Even Hooliganism--to take the most serious of the periodic +outbursts of juvenile criminality--resolves itself, when thoughtfully +considered, into a sudden and violent change in the channel of a +boy's life, a change which is due to the normal channel (or channels) +of his expansive energies having been blocked by years of educational +repression. His wild, ruffianly outrages are perhaps the last +despairing effort that his vital principle makes to assert itself, +before it finally gives up the struggle for active existence. + + * * * * * + +When severity and constraint have done their work, when the spirit of +the child has been broken, when his vitality has been lowered to its +barest minimum, when he has been reduced to a state of mental and +moral serfdom, the time has come for the system of education through +mechanical obedience to be applied to him in all its rigour. In other +words, the time has come for Man to do to the child, what the God +whom he worships is supposed to have done to him,--to tell him in the +fullest and minutest detail what he is to do to be "saved," and to +stand over him with a scourge in his hand and see that he does it. In +the two great schools which God is supposed to have opened for Man's +benefit, freedom and initiative have ever been regarded (and with +good reason) as the gravest of offences. Literal obedience has +been exacted by the Law; blind obedience by the Church; passive +obedience--the obedience of a puppet, or at best of an automaton--by +both. The need for this insistence on the part of Law and Church is +obvious. If any lingering desire to think things out for himself, if +any intelligent interest in what he was taught, survived in the +disciple, the whole system of salvation by machinery would be in +danger of being thrown out of gear. + +As it has been, and still is, in the schools which God has opened +for Man, so it has been, and still is, in the schools which Man +has opened for the child. Blind, passive, literal, unintelligent +obedience is the basis on which the whole system of Western education +has been reared. The child must distrust himself absolutely, must +realise that he is as helpless as he is ignorant, before he can begin +to profit by the instruction that will be given to him. His mind must +become a _tabula rasa_ before his teacher can begin to write on it. +The vital part of him--call it what you will--must become as clay +before his teacher can begin to mould him to his will. + +The strength of the child, then, is to sit still, to listen, to say +"Amen" to, or repeat, what he has heard. The strength of the teacher +is to bustle about, to give commands, to convey information, to +exhort, to expound. The strength of the child is to efface himself in +every possible way. The strength of the teacher is to assert himself +in every possible way. The golden rule of education is that the child +is to do nothing for himself which his teacher can possibly do, or +even pretend to do, for him. Were he to try to do things by or for +himself, he would probably start by doing them badly. This is not to +be tolerated. Imperfection and incorrectness are moral defects; and +the child must as far as possible be guarded from them as from the +contamination of moral guilt. He must therefore trust himself to his +teacher, and do what he is told to do in the precise way in which +he is told. His teacher must stand in front of him and give such +directions as these: "Look at me," "See what I am doing," "Watch my +hand," "Do the thing this way," "Do the thing that way," "Listen to +what I say," "Repeat it after me," "Repeat it all together," "Say it +three times." And the child, growing more and more comatose, must +obey these directions and ask no questions; and when he has done what +he has been told to do, he must sit still and wait for the next +instalment of instruction. + +What is all this doing for the child? The teacher seldom asks himself +this question. If he did, he would answer it by saying that the end +of education is to enable the child to produce certain outward and +visible results,--to do by himself what he has often done, either in +imitation of his teacher, or in obedience to his repeated directions; +to say by himself what he has said many times in chorus with his +class-mates; to disgorge some fragments of the information with which +he has been crammed; and so forth. What may be the value of these +outward results, what they indicate, what amount or kind of mental +(or other) growth may be behind them,--are questions which the +teacher cannot afford to consider, even if he felt inclined to +ask them. His business is to drill the child into the mechanical +production of quasi-material results; and his success in doing this +will be gauged in due course by an "examination,"--a periodic test +which is designed to measure, not the degree of growth which the +child has made, but the industry of the teacher as indicated by the +receptivity of his class. + +The truth is that inward and spiritual growth, even if it were +thought desirable to produce it and measure it, could not possibly be +measured. The real "results" of education are in the child's heart +and mind and soul, beyond the reach of any measuring tape or weighing +machine. It follows that if the work of the teacher is to be tested, +an external test must be applied. This means that external results, +results which can be weighed and measured, must be aimed at by both +teacher and child, and that the value of these as symbols of what is +inward and intrinsic must be wholly ignored. Not that the inward +results of education would in any case be seriously considered. When +education is based on the passivity of the child, nothing matters to +him or to his teacher except the accuracy with which he can reproduce +what he has been taught,--can repeat what he has been told, or do by +himself what he has been told how to do. What connection there may be +between these achievements and his mental state matters so little +that the bare idea of there being such a connection is, as a rule, +entirely lost sight of. The externalisation of religion in the West, +as evidenced by its ceremonialism and its casuistry, has faithfully +mirrored itself in the externality of Western education. The +examination system (which I will presently consider) keeps education +in the grooves of externality, and drives those grooves so deep as +to make escape from them impossible. Yet it does but give formal +recognition to, and in so doing crown and complete--as the keystone +crowns and completes the arch--the whole system of education in the +West. It is because what is outward and visible counts for everything +in the West, first in the life of the adult and then in the life of +the child, that the idea of weighing and measuring the results of +education--with its implicit assumption that the real results of +education are ponderable and measurable (a deadly fallacy which now +has the force and authority of an axiom)--has come to establish +itself in every Western land. + + * * * * * + +The tendency of the Western teacher to mistake the externals for the +essentials of education, and to measure educational progress in terms +of the "appearance of things," gives rise to many misconceptions, +one of the principal of which is the current confusion between +information and knowledge. To generate knowledge in his pupils is +a legitimate end of the teacher's ambition. In schools and other +"academies" it tends to become the chief, if not the sole, end; and, +things being what they are, the teacher may be pardoned for regarding +it as such. But what is knowledge? The vulgar confusion between +knowledge and information is the accepted answer to this question. +But the answer is usually given before the question has been +seriously considered. One who allowed himself to reflect on it, +however briefly or cursorily, would quickly realise that it is +possible to have intimate and effective knowledge of a subject +without being able to impart any information about it. Successful +action, as in arts, crafts, games, sports, and the like, must needs +have subtle and accurate knowledge behind it; but the possessor of +such knowledge is seldom able to impart it with any approach to +lucidity. On the other hand, it frequently happens that one who has a +retentive memory is able to impart information glibly and correctly, +without possessing any real knowledge of the subject in question. + +The truth is that knowledge, which may perhaps be provisionally +defined as a correct attitude towards one's environment, has almost +as wide a range as that of human nature itself. At one end of the +scale we have the quasi-animal instinct which governs successful +physical action. At the other end we have the knowledge, of which, +and of the possession of which, its possessor is clearly, conscious. +Between these extremes there is an almost infinite series of strata, +ranging through every conceivable degree of subconsciousness. The +knowledge that is real and effective is absorbed into one or more of +the subconscious strata, from which it gradually ascends, under the +influence of attention and reflection, towards the more conscious +levels, gaining, as it ascends, in scope and outlook what it may +possibly lose in subtlety and nearness to action. When knowledge, +after passing upwards through many subconscious strata, rises to +what I may call the surface-level of consciousness, it is ready, on +occasion, to give itself off as information. This exhalation from the +surface of consciousness is genuine information, not to be confounded +with knowledge, to which it is related as the outward to the inward +state, still less to be confounded with that spurious information +which floats, as we shall presently see, like a film on the surface +of the mind, meaning nothing and indicating nothing except that it +has been artificially deposited, and that in due season it will be +skimmed off, if the teacher's hopes are fulfilled, for the +delectation of an examiner. + +There are, of course, many cases in which the conscious acquisition +of information is a necessary stage in the acquisition of knowledge. +But in all such cases, if the information acquired is to have +any educative value, it must be allowed to sink down into the +subconscious strata, whence, after having been absorbed and +assimilated and so converted into knowledge, it will perhaps reascend +towards the surface of the mind, just as the leaves which fall in +autumn are dragged down into the soil below, converted into fertile +mould, and then gradually lifted towards the surface; or as the fresh +water that the rivers pour into the sea has to be slowly absorbed +into the whole mass of salt water before it (or its equivalent) can +return to the land as rain. When information which has been received +and assimilated rises to the surface of the mind, it will be ready, +when required to do so, to reappear as information, and perhaps +to return in that form to the source from which it came. But the +information which is given off will differ profoundly from that which +has been received, for between the two will have intervened many +stages of silent absorption and silent growth. + +It may be necessary, then, in the course of education, both to supply +and to demand information. But the information which is supplied must +be regarded as the raw material of knowledge, into which it is to be +converted by a subtle and secret process. And the information which +is demanded must be regarded as an exhalation (so to speak) from the +surface of a mind which has been saturated with study and experience, +and therefore as a proof of the possession of knowledge. To assume +that knowledge and information are interchangeable terms, that to +impart information is therefore to generate knowledge, that to give +back information is therefore to give proof of the possession of +knowledge,--is one of the greatest mistakes that a teacher can make. + +But the mistake is almost universally made. Information being related +to knowledge, as what is outward to what is inward, it is but natural +that education in the West, which on principle concerns itself with +what is outward, and ignores what is inward, should have always +regarded, and should still regard, the supplying of information as +the main function of the teacher, and the ability of the child to +retail the information which has been supplied to him as a convincing +proof that the work of the teacher has been successfully done. In +nine schools out of ten, on nine days out of ten, in nine lessons out +of ten, the teacher is engaged in laying thin films of information on +the surface of the child's mind, and then, after a brief interval, +in skimming these off in order to satisfy himself that they had been +duly laid. He cannot afford to do otherwise. If the child, like the +man, is to be "saved" by passive obedience, his teacher must keep +his every action and operation under close and constant supervision. +Were the information which is supplied to him allowed to descend into +the subconscious strata of his being, there to be dealt with by the +secret, subtle, assimilative processes of his nature, it would +escape from the teacher's supervision and therefore from his control. +In other words, the teacher would have abdicated his function. He +must therefore take great pains to keep the processes by which the +child acquires knowledge (or what passes for such) as near to the +surface of his mind as possible; in rivalry of the nurse who should +take so much interest in the well-being of her charges that she would +not allow them to digest the food which she had given them, but would +insist on their disgorging it at intervals, in order that she might +satisfy herself that it had been duly given and received. It is no +doubt right that the teacher should take steps to test the industry +of his pupils; but the information which the child has always to keep +at the call of his memory, in order that he may give it back on +demand in the form in which he has received it, is the equivalent +of food which its recipient has not been allowed to digest. + +The confusion between information and knowledge lies at the heart of +the religion, as well as of the education, of the West. In this, as +in other matters, the training of the child by his teacher has been +modelled on the supposed training of Man by God. It is scarcely an +exaggeration to say that the whole scheme of salvation by mechanical +obedience is pivoted on the assumed identity of information and +knowledge. In both the schools which Man has attended three things +have always been taken for granted. The first is that salvation +depends upon right knowledge of God. The second, that right knowledge +of God and correct information about God are interchangeable phrases. +The third, that correct information about God is procurable by, and +communicable to, Man. From these premises it has been inferred that +if Man can be duly supplied with correct information about God, and +can be induced to receive and retain it, he will be able to "save +his soul alive." The difference between the two schools is, that in +the Legal School the information supplied to Man has been largely +concerned with the _Will_ of God, so far as it bears on the life +of Man, and has therefore taken the form of a Code of formulated +commandments; whereas in the Ecclesiastical School it has mainly been +concerned with the _Being_ of God, as interpreted from his doings and +especially from his dealings with Man, and has therefore taken the +form of catechisms and creeds. And there is, of course, the further +difference that in the Legal School Man's acceptance of what he is +taught has taken the _practical_ form of doing what he is told to do, +detail by detail; whereas in the Ecclesiastical School it has been +mainly _oral_ (though also partly ceremonial), the business of the +disciple being to commit to memory the creed or catechism which has +been placed in his hands, and recite it, formula by formula, with +flawless accuracy. But the difference between the two schools is +wholly superficial, being, in fact, analogous to that between the +conventional teaching of Drawing, in which the pupil finds salvation +in doing what he is told to do, line by line, and stroke by stroke, +and the conventional teaching of History and Geography, in which the +pupil finds salvation in saying what he is told to say, name by name, +and date by date. The relation between the two great branches of +education, the education of Man by God, and the education of the +child by the man, is one, not of analogy merely, but also of cause +and effect. It is because the Jew thought to "save his soul alive" by +obeying, blindly and unintelligently, a multitude of vexatious rules, +that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils in Drawing by +telling them in the fullest detail (either in his own person or by +means of a diagram) what lines and strokes they are to make. And it +is because the Christian has thought to "save his soul alive" by +reciting with parrot-like accuracy the formulć of his creeds and +catechisms, that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils +in History and Geography by making them repeat from memory a series +of definitions, dates, events, names of persons, names of places, +articles of commerce, and the like. I do not say that the modern +teacher consciously imitates his models; but I say that he and they +have been inspired by the same conception of life, and that the +influence of that conception has been, in part at least, transmitted +by them to him. + + * * * * * + +That education in the West should ultimately be controlled by a +system of formal examination, may be said to have been predestined by +the general trend of religious thought and belief. Wherever literal +obedience is regarded as the first, if not the last, condition of +salvation, the tendency to measure worth and progress by the outward +results that are produced will inevitably spring up and assert +itself. In this tendency we have the whole examination system in +embryo. When Israel, with characteristic thoroughness, had embodied +in Pharisaism the logical inferences from his religious conceptions, +a merciless examination system came into being, in which every +one was at once examiner and examinee, and in which the whole of +human life was dragged out (as far as that was possible) into the +fierce light of public criticism, and placed under vigilant and +unintermittent supervision. When Pharisaism was revived, with many +modifications but with no essential change of character, under the +name of Puritanism, the tendency to arraign human life at the bar of +public opinion reasserted itself, and gave rise, as in New England +and covenanting Scotland, to an intolerable spiritual tyranny. In +Catholic countries the believer is subjected in the Confessional to a +periodical oral examination, in which he passes in review the outward +aspect of his inward and spiritual life, detailing for the benefit of +his confessor his sins of ceremonial omission or laxity, and such +lapses from moral rectitude as admit of being formulated in words and +accurately valued in terms of expiatory penance. Even in the Anglican +Church, which has too great a regard for the Englishman's traditional +love of personal freedom to be unduly inquisitorial, the clergyman is +apt to measure the spiritual health and progress of his parishioners +by the frequency with which they attend church and "Celebration," +while the Bishop measures the spiritual health and progress of each +parish by the number of its communicants and the frequency with which +they communicate, statistics under both heads being (I am told) +regularly forwarded to him from all parts of his diocese. + +It was inevitable, then, the relation between that sooner or later +the education of the young should come under the control of a +system of formal religion and education being what it was and is, +examination, and that it should be as much easier to apply the system +to education than to religion as it is easier to test knowledge (in +the conventional sense of the word) than conduct. It is to the vulgar +confusion between knowledge and information that we owe the formal +examination, as it is now conducted in most Western countries. In a +society which mistakes the externals for the essentials of life, it +is but natural that the teacher, with the full consent of the parents +of his pupils, should regard the imparting of knowledge as the end +and aim of his professional life, and that the parents should demand +some guarantee that knowledge has been successfully imparted to their +children. If by knowledge were meant a correct attitude of mind, the +teacher would realise that the idea of testing it in any way which +would satisfy the average parent was chimerical; and his clients, if +they continued to ask for a guarantee of successful teaching, would +require something widely different from that which has hitherto +contented them. But when information is regarded as the equivalent of +knowledge, the testing of the teacher's work becomes a simple matter, +for it is quite easy to frame an examination which will ascertain, +with some approach to accuracy, the amount of information that is +floating on the surface of the child's mind; and it is also easy to +tabulate the results of such an examination,--to find a numerical +equivalent for the work done by each examinee, and then arrange the +whole class in what is known as the "order of merit," and accepted +as such, without a moment's misgiving, by all concerned. + +Unfortunately, however, it is equally easy to prepare children for an +examination of this, the normal type. As children have receptive +memories, it is easy for the teacher to lay films of information +on the surface of their minds. As they have capacious and fairly +retentive memories, it is easy for the teacher, especially if he is a +strict disciplinarian, to make his pupils retain the greater part of +what they have been taught. To skim off and give back to the teacher +(or examiner) portions of the floating films of information, is a +knack which comes with practice, and which the average child easily +acquires. The teacher will, of course, demand that his school shall +be examined on a clearly-defined syllabus; and the examiner, in his +own interest, will gladly comply with this demand. The examiner will +go further than this. If he happens to be employed by the State or by +a Local Authority, and has, therefore, many schools of the same type +to examine, he will, in order to save himself unnecessary trouble, +prescribe the syllabus on which all the schools in his area are to +be examined. This means that he will dictate to the teacher what +subjects he is to teach, how much ground he is to cover in each year +(or term), in what general order he is to treat each subject, and on +what general principles he is to teach it. Intentionally he will do +all this. Unintentionally he will do far more than this. As he wishes +his examination to be a test and not a mere formality, as he wishes +to sift the examinees and not to set the seal of approval on all of +them indiscriminately, he will take care that some at least of his +questions are different from what the teacher might expect them to +be. Also, as he is himself a rational being, he will probably +endeavour to test intelligence as well as memory; and, with this end +in view, he will set questions, the precise nature of which it will +be difficult for the teacher to forecast. But the teacher will make a +practice of studying the questions set in the periodical examinations +and of preparing his pupils accordingly, equipping them (if he is an +expert at his work) with a stock of superficial intelligence as well +as of information, and putting them up to whatever knacks, tricks, +and dodges will enable them to show to advantage on the examination +day. In his desire to outwit the teacher, the examiner will turn and +double like a hare who is pursued by a greyhound. But the teacher +will turn and double with equal agility, and will never allow himself +to be outdistanced by his quarry. + +The more successful the teacher is in keeping up with the examiner, +the more fatal will his success be to his pupils and to himself. +In the ardour of the chase he is being lured on into a region of +treacherous quicksands; and the longer he is able to maintain the +pursuit, the more certain is it that he will lose himself at last +in depths and mazes of misconception and delusion. It is only by +stripping himself of his own freedom and responsibility that the +teacher is able to keep pace with the examiner, and each turn +or double that he makes involves a fresh surrender of those +prerogatives. In consenting to work on a prescribed syllabus he has +given up the idea of planning out his work for himself. In attempting +to adapt his teaching to the questions set by the examiner, he is +allowing the latter to dictate to him, in the minutest detail, how +each subject is to be taught. In other words, in order to achieve the +semblance of success, he is delivering himself, mind and soul, into +the hands of the examiner, and compelling the latter, perhaps against +his will, to become a Providence to him and to order all his goings. +This means that his distrust of himself is as complete as his +distrust of the child, and that his faith in the efficacy of +mechanical obedience has led him to seek salvation for himself, +as well as for his pupils, by following that fatal path. + +It is in this way that a formal examination reacts upon and +intensifies the sinister tendencies of which it is at once a product +and a symptom. The examination system is, as I have said, the +keystone of the arch of Western education, crowning and completing +the whole structure, and at the same time holding it together, and +preventing it from falling, as it deserves to fall, into a ruinous +heap. Education, as it is now interpreted and practised in the West, +could not continue to exist without the support of the examination +system; but the price that it pays, and will continue to pay, for +this deadly preservative, is the progressive aggravation of all its +own inherent defects. The plight of an organism is indeed desperate +when the very poison which it ought, if healthy, to eliminate from +its system, has become indispensable to the prolongation of its life. + +It is notorious that the application of the examination principle to +religion--the attempt to estimate spiritual health and growth in +terms of outward action--generates hypocrisy, or the pretence of +being more virtuous (and more religious) than one really is. When +applied to the education of the young, the same principle generates +hypocrisy of another kind,--the pretence of being cleverer than one +really is, of knowing more than one really knows. So long as the +hypocrite realises that he is a hypocrite, there is hope for him. But +when hypocrisy develops into self-deception, the severance between +outward and inward, between appearance and reality, is complete. +In a school which is ridden by the examination incubus, the whole +atmosphere is charged with deceit. The teacher's attempt to outwit +the examiner is deceitful; and the immorality of his action is +aggravated by the fact that he makes his pupils partners with him in +his fraud. The child who is being crammed for an examination, and who +is being practised at the various tricks and dodges that will, it +is hoped, enable him to throw dust in the examiner's eyes, may not +consciously realise that he and his teacher are trying to perpetrate +a fraud, but will probably have an instinctive feeling that he is +being led into crooked ways. If he has not that feeling, if the +crooked ways seem straight in his eyes, we may know that his sense +of reality is being poisoned by the vitiated atmosphere which he +has been compelled to breathe. Nor, if that is his case, will +he lack companionship in his delusion. In the atmosphere of the +examination system, deceit and hypocrisy are ever changing into +self-deception; and all who become acclimatised to the influence of +the system--pupils, teachers, examiners, parents, employers of +labour, ministers of religion, members of Parliament, and the +rest--fall victims, sooner or later, to the poison that infects +it, and are well content to cheat themselves with outward and +visible results, accepting "class-lists" and "orders of merit" as of +quasi-divine authority, mistaking official regulations for laws of +Nature, and the clumsy movements of over-elaborated yet ill-contrived +machinery for the subtle processes of life. + +Of the many evils inherent in Western education, which the +examination system tends to intensify, one of the greatest is that of +starving the child's activities, of making him helpless, apathetic, +and inert. Original sin finds its equivalent, in the sphere of mental +action, in original impotence and stupidity. It is not in the child +to direct his steps, and the teacher must therefore direct them for +him, and, if necessary, support him with both hands while he makes +them. Even if the outward results which are the goal of the teacher's +ambition were to be produced for his own satisfaction only, he would +take care to leave as little as possible to the child's independent +effort. But when the results in question have to satisfy an examiner, +and when, as may well happen, the teacher's own professional welfare +depends on the examiner's verdict, it is but natural that he should +hold himself responsible for every stroke and dot that his pupil +makes. When the education given in a school is dominated by a +periodical examination on a prescribed syllabus, suppression of +the child's natural activities becomes the central feature of the +teacher's programme. In such a school the child is not allowed to do +anything which the teacher can possibly do for him. He has to think +what his teacher tells him to think, to feel what his teacher tells +him to feel, to see what his teacher tells him to see, to say what +his teacher tells him to say, to do what his teacher tells him to do. +And the directions given to him are always minute. Not the smallest +room for free action is allowed him if his teacher can possibly help +it. Indeed, it is the function of the skilful teacher to search for +such possible nooks and crannies, and fill them up. It is true that +if an examination is to be passed with credit some thinking has to be +done. But the greater part of this thinking must be done by the +teacher, the _rôle_ of the pupil, even when he is an adult student, +being essentially passive and receptive. The pupil must indeed be +actively passive and industriously receptive; but for the rest, he +must as far as possible leave himself in the teacher's hands. How +to outwit the examiner is the one aim of both the teacher and the +examinee; and as the teacher is presumably older, wiser, and far +more skilful at the examination game than his pupil, the duty of +thinking--of planning, of contriving, and even (in the deeper sense +of the word) of studying--necessarily devolves on the former; and the +latter, instead of relying upon himself and learning to use his own +wits and resources, becomes more and more helpless and resourceless, +and gradually ceases to take any interest in the work that he is +doing, for its own sake, his chief, if not his sole, concern being +to outwit the examiner and pass a successful examination. (One +frequently meets with clever University students who, having read a +certain book for a certain examination and had no question set from +it, regard the time given to the study of it as wasted, and have +no compunction about expressing this opinion!) If these are evils +incidental--I might almost say essential--to the examination of adult +scholars, it stands to reason that they will be greatly aggravated +when the examinees are young children. For the younger the child, the +more ignorant and helpless he is (however full he may be of latent +capacity and spontaneous activity), and therefore the more ready he +is to lean upon his teacher and to look to him for instruction and +direction. + +The desire to outwit, and so win approval from, an examiner, is not +the only reason why the teacher so often reduces to an absurdity the +traditional distrust of the child. His own inability to educate the +child on other lines is another and not less potent reason. The +examination _régime_ to which he has been subjected himself, partly, +perhaps, under compulsion, but also and in larger measure of his +own choice, deprives him, as we have already seen, of much of his +freedom, initiative, and responsibility; and that being so, it is +inevitable that within the limited range of free action which is left +to him, he in his turn should devote his energies to depriving his +pupils of the same vital qualities, and to making them the helpless +creatures of habit and routine which he himself is tending to become. +To give free play to a child's natural faculties and so lead him +into the path of self-development and self-education, demands a high +degree of intelligence on the part of the teacher, combined with the +constant exercise of thought and initiative within a wide range of +free action. If you tell a teacher in precise detail, whether +directly or indirectly, that he is to do this thing, and that +thing, and the next thing, he will not be able to carry out your +instructions, except by telling his pupils, again in precise detail, +that they are to do this thing, and that thing, and the next thing. +He cannot help himself. He has no choice in the matter. He is the +victim of a quasi-physical compulsion. The pressure which is put upon +him will inevitably be transmitted by him and through him to his +pupils, and will inevitably be multiplied (the relations between +teacher and pupil being what they are) in the course of transmission. + +There is nothing that a healthy child hates so much as to have the +use of his natural faculties and the play of his natural energies +unduly restricted by parental or pedagogic control. We may therefore +take for granted that the child will find himself ill at ease in a +school in which every vital activity is rigidly repressed, and in +which he spends most of his time in sitting still and waiting for +orders. Nor will it add to his happiness to live habitually in an +atmosphere of constraint, of austerity, of suspicion, of gloom. But I +need not take pains to prove that education, as it is conducted in +Western countries, is profoundly repugnant to the natural instincts +of the healthy child. For that is precisely what it is intended to +be. The idea of a child enjoying his "lessons" is foreign to the +genius of the West. Dominated as he is by the inherited conviction +that Man's nature is corrupt and that his instincts are evil, the +Western teacher has set himself the task of doing violence to the +child's instinctive tendencies, of thwarting his inborn desires, of +working against the grain of his nature. He has expected the child to +rebel against this _régime_, and he has welcomed his rebellion as a +proof of the corruption of Man's nature, and therefore of the +soundness of the traditional philosophy of education. + +But if education is hateful to the child, how is he to be induced to +submit to being educated? Some co-operation on his part will be +necessary. How is it to be secured? By precisely the same methods as +those by which Man, in the course of his education, has been induced +to co-operate with God. The child, like Man, is to be "saved"--to be +rescued from Nature and from himself--by being led into the path of +mechanical obedience. The child, like Man, is to be kept in that path +by a system of external rewards and punishments. If he will not do +what he is told to do, he will be punished by his teacher. If he +will do what he is told to do, he will escape punishment, and he may +possibly, when his merits have accumulated sufficiently, receive a +reward. In the education of Man by the God of Israel the balance +between rewards and punishments has been kept fairly even. Hell has +been balanced by Heaven, calamity by prosperity, death by life. It +has been far otherwise with the child. His punishments have been +many, and his rewards few. At the present day men are more humane +than they used to be; and corporal punishment, though still resorted +to, counts for less than it used to do in the training of the child. +But punishments of various kinds are still regarded as indispensable +adjuncts to school discipline; and it is still taken for granted in +far too many schools that the fear of punishment and the hope of +reward are the only effective motives to educational effort. + +It is difficult to say which of the two motives is the more likely to +demoralise the child. A _régime_ of punishment is not necessarily a +_régime_ of cruelty; but punishment can scarcely fail to savour of +severity, and when the doctrine of original sin is in the ascendant, +and the inborn wilfulness and stubbornness of the child are +postulated by his teachers, the indefinable boundary line between +severity and cruelty is easily crossed. Of the tendency of cruelty +to demoralise its victims I have already spoken. But the effect of +punishment on the child must be considered in its relation to his +mental, as well as to his moral, development. Scholarships, prizes, +high places in class, and other such rewards are for the few, not for +the many. If the many are to be roused to exertion, the fear of +punishment (in the hypothetical absence of any other motive) must +be ever before them. What will happen to them when that motive is +withdrawn, as it will be when the child becomes the adolescent? His +education has been distasteful to the child, partly because his +teachers have assumed from the outset that it would be and must be +so, but chiefly because in their ignorance they have taken pains to +make it so, his school life having been so ordered as to combine the +maximum of strain with the maximum of _ennui_. His teachers have done +everything for him, except those mechanical and monotonous exercises +which they felt they might trust him to do by himself. Some of +his mental faculties have become stunted and atrophied through lack +of exercise. Others have been allowed to wither in the bud. If he +happens to belong to the "masses," he will have completed his school +education at the age of thirteen or fourteen. What will he do with +himself when there is no longer a teacher at his elbow to tell him +what to do and how to do it, and to stand over him (should this be +necessary) while he does it? Why should he go on with studies which +he has neither the inclination nor the ability to pursue, and +which, in point of fact, he has never really begun? And why should he +continue to exert himself when, owing to his being at last beyond the +reach of punishment, the need for him to do so--the only need which +he has been accustomed to regard as imperative--has ceased to exist? + +The objections to the hope of reward as a motive to educational +effort are of another kind. Prizes, as I have said, are for the few; +and it is the consciousness of being one of the elect which invests +the winning of a prize with its chief attraction. The prize system +makes a direct appeal to the vanity and egoism of the child. It +encourages him to think himself better than others, to pride himself +on having surpassed his class-mates and shone at their expense. The +clever child is to work hard, not because knowledge is worth winning +for its own sake and for his own sake, but because it will be +pleasant for him to feel that he has succeeded where others have +failed. It is a just reproach against the examination system that +while, by its demand for outward results it does its best to destroy +individuality, the essence of which is sincerity of expression, it +also does its best to foster individualism, by appealing, with its +offer of prizes and other "distinctions," to those instincts which +predispose each one of us to affirm and exalt that narrow, +commonplace, superficial aspect of his being which he miscalls his +_self_. + +Thus the hope of reward tends to demoralise the clever child by +making an appeal to basely selfish motives. At the same time it is +probably deluding him with the belief that he has more capacity than +he really has. If the examination system is, as I have suggested, the +keystone of the arch of Western education, it is by means of the +prize system that the keystone has been firmly cemented into its +place. An examination which had no rewards or distinctions to offer +to the competitors would not be an effective stimulus to exertion. +That being so, our educationalists have taken care that to every +examination some external reward or rewards shall be attached. Even +if there are no material prizes to appeal to the child's cupidity, +there is always the class-list, with its so-called "order of merit," +to appeal to his vanity. Our educationalists have also taken care +that during the periods of childhood, adolescence, and even early +maturity, every prize that is offered for competition shall be +awarded after a formal examination and on the consideration of its +tabulated results. The appointments in the Home, Colonial, and Indian +Civil Services, the promotions in the Army and Navy, the fellowships +and scholarships at the Universities, the scholarships at the Public +Schools, the medals, books, and other prizes that are offered to +school-children, are all awarded to those who have distinguished +themselves in the corresponding examinations, no other qualification +than that of ability to shine in an examination being looked for in +the competitors. There are, no doubt, exceptions to these general +statements, but they are so few that they scarcely count. We have +seen that the ascendency of the examination system in our schools and +colleges is largely due to the vulgar confusion between information +and knowledge; and we have also seen that the examination system +reacts upon that fatal confusion and tends to strengthen and +perpetuate it. If, then, the effect of the prize system is to +consolidate the authority of the formal examination and intensify +its influence, we shall not go far wrong in assuming that in the +various competitions for prizes the confusion between information +and knowledge will play a vital part. And, in point of fact, the +cleverness which enables the child--I ignore for the moment the +adolescent and the adult student--to win prizes of various kinds is +found, when carefully analysed, to resolve itself, in nine cases out +of ten, into the ability to receive, retain, and retail information. +As this particular, ability is but a small part of that mental +capacity which education is supposed to train, it is clear that the +clever child who gets to the top of his class, and wins prizes in so +doing, may easily be led to over-estimate his powers, and to take +himself far more seriously than it is either right or wise of him to +do. His over-confidence may for a time prove an effective stimulus to +exertion; but the exertion will probably be misdirected; and later +on, when he finds himself confronted by the complex realities of +life, and when problems have to be solved which demand the exercise +of other faculties than that of memory, his belief in himself, which +is the outcome of a false criterion of merit, may induce him to +undertake what he cannot accomplish, and may lead at last--owing to +his having lost touch with the actualities of things--to his complete +undoing. + +And as under the prize system the child who is high in his class is +apt to over-estimate his ability, so the child who is low in his +class is apt to accept the verdict of the class-list as final, and to +regard himself as a failure because he lacks the superficial ability +which enables a child to shine on the examination day. Again and +again it happens that the dunce of his class goes to the front in the +battle of life. But numerous and significant as these cases are, they +are unfortunately exceptions to a general rule. For one dunce who +emerges from the depths of "apparent failure," there are ten who go +under after a more or less protracted struggle, and sink contentedly +to the bottom. The explanation of this is that though every child +has capacity (apart, of course, from the congenital idiot and the +mentally "defective"), there are many kinds of capacity which a +formal examination fails to discover, and which the education that +is dominated by the prize system fails to develop. The child whose +particular kind of capacity does not count, either in the ordinary +school lesson or on the examination day, is not aware that he is +capable; and as he is always low on the class-list, and is therefore +regarded by his teachers as dull and stupid, he not unnaturally +acquiesces in the current and apparently authoritative estimate, of +his powers, and, losing heart about himself, ends by becoming the +failure which he has been taught to believe himself to be. In brief, +while the prize system breeds ungrounded and therefore dangerous +self-esteem in the child whom it labels as bright, it breeds +ungrounded but not the less fatal self-distrust in the child whom +it labels as dull. + +We have seen that there comes a time in the life of every man when +the fear of punishment ceases to act as a stimulus to educational +exertion. It is the same with the hope of reward. Examinations, and +the prizes which reward success in examinations, are for the young. +What will happen to the prize-winner when there are no more prizes +for him to compete for? Will he continue to pursue knowledge for its +own sake? Alas! he has never pursued it for its own sake. He has +pursued it for the sake of the prizes and other honours which it +brought him. When he has won his last prize the chances are that +he will lose all interest in that branch of learning in which he +achieved distinction, unless, indeed, he has to earn his livelihood +by teaching it. Of the scores of young men who distinguish themselves +in "Classics" at Oxford and Cambridge, how many will continue to +study the classical writers when they have gained the "Firsts" for +which they worked so diligently? Apart from those who are going +to teach Classics in the Public Schools or Universities, a mere +handful,--one in ten perhaps, though that is probably an extravagant +estimate. And yet the poets, philosophers, and historians whom they +have studied are amongst the greatest that the world has produced. +What is it, then, that kills, in nine cases out of ten, the +classical student's interest in the masterpieces of antiquity? The +obvious fact that he was never interested in them for their own +sakes--that he studied them, not in order to enjoy them or profit by +them, but in order to pass an examination in them, of which he might +be able to say in after years: + + "I am named and known by that hour's feat, + There took my station and degree." + +How many Wranglers, other than those who have or will become +schoolmasters or college tutors, continue to study mathematics? How +many of the First Classmen in Science, History, Law, and other Honour +"Schools" continue to study their respective subjects? In every case +an utterly insignificant minority. + +But if the prize system does this to the young man of twenty-two or +twenty-three, if it kills his interest in learning, if it makes him +register an inward vow never again to open the books which he has +crammed so successfully for his examinations, what may it be expected +to do to the child whose school education comes to an end when he +is only thirteen or fourteen years old? When, with the fear of +punishment, the complementary hope of reward is withdrawn from him, +is it reasonable to expect him to continue his education, to continue +to apply himself to subjects with which his acquaintance has been +entirely formal and superficial, and which he has never been allowed +to digest and assimilate? The utter indifference of the average +ex-elementary scholar to literature, to history, to geography, to +science, to music, to art, is the world-wide answer to this question. + +For what is, above all, hateful in any scheme of rewards and +punishments, when applied to the school life of the young, is that it +wholly externalises what is really an inward and spiritual process, +the evolution of the youthful mind. Just as in the sphere of religion +it is postulated as a self-evident truth that righteousness is not +its own reward, nor iniquity its own punishment,--so in the sphere of +education it is postulated as a self-evident truth, that knowledge is +not its own reward, nor ignorance its own punishment. And just as in +the sphere of religion the appeal to Man's selfish hopes and ignoble +fears has generated a radical misconception of the meaning and +purpose of righteousness, which has caused his moral and spiritual +energies to be diverted into irreligious or anti-religious channels, +to the detriment of his inward and spiritual growth,--so in the +sphere of education the appeal to the child's selfish desires and +ignoble fears has generated a radical misconception of the meaning +and purpose of knowledge, which has caused his mental energies to be +diverted into uneducational channels, to the detriment of his mental +growth. In each case the scheme of rewards and punishments, acting +like an immense blister, when applied to a healthy body, draws to the +surface the life-blood which ought to nourish and purify the vital +organs of the soul (or mind), thereby impoverishing the vital +organs, and inflaming and disfiguring the surface. For if the surface +life, with its outward and visible "results," is to be happy and +productive, the health of the vital organs must be carefully +maintained. This is the fundamental truth which those who control +education in the West have persistently ignored. + +The system of education which I have tried to describe is a practical +embodiment of the ideas that govern the popular philosophy of the +West. One who had studied that philosophy, and who wished to +ascertain what provision it made for the education of the young, +would in the course of his inquiry construct _a priori_ the precise +system of education which is in vogue in all Western countries. +The supposed relation between God and his fallen and rebellious +offspring, Man, is obviously paralleled by the relation between the +teacher and the child; and it is therefore clear that the supposed +dealings of God with Man ought to be paralleled by the dealings of +the teacher with the child. That they are so paralleled--that +salvation by machinery has found its most exact counterpart in +education by machinery--the history of education has made abundantly +clear. + +Whatever else the current system of education may do to the child, +there is one thing which it cannot fail to do to him,--to blight his +mental growth. What particular form or forms this blighting influence +may take will depend in each particular case on a variety of +circumstances. Experience tells us that what happens in most cases is +that Western education strangles some faculties, arrests the growth +of others, stunts the growth of a third group, and distorts the +growth of a fourth. + +Is it intended that education should do all this? This question is +not so paradoxical as it sounds. My primary assumption that the +function of education is to foster growth may be a truism in the +eyes of those who agree with it; but Western orthodoxy, just so +far as it is self-conscious and sincere, must needs repudiate it +as a pestilent heresy. For if what grows is intrinsically evil, +what can growth do for it but carry it towards perdition? + +What is it that grows? It is time that I should ask myself this +question. My answer to it is, in brief, that it is the whole human +being that grows, the whole nature of the child,--body, mind, heart +and soul. When I use these familiar words, I am far from wishing +to suggest that human nature is divisible into four provinces or +compartments. In every stage of its development human nature is a +living and indivisible whole. Each of the four words stands for a +typical aspect of Man's being, but one of the four may also be said +to stand for the totality of Man's being,--the word _soul_. For it +is the soul which manifests as _body_, which thinks as _mind_, which +feels and loves as _heart_, and which is what it is--though not +perhaps what it really or finally is--as _soul_. + +The function of education, then, is to foster the growth of the +child's whole nature, or, in a word, of his soul. I ought, perhaps, +to apologise for my temerity in using this now discredited word. In +the West Man does not believe in the soul. How can he? He does not +believe in God either as the eternal source or as the eternal end of +his own nature. It follows that he does not and cannot believe in +the unity of his own being. He has been taught that his nature is +corrupt, evil, godless; and that the "soul," which is somehow or +other attached to his fallen nature during his "earthly pilgrimage," +was supernaturally created at the moment of his birth. He is now +beginning to reject this conception of the soul; but he cannot yet +rise to the higher conception of it as the vital essence of his +being, as the divine germ in virtue of which his nature is no mere +aggregate of parts or faculties, but a living whole. So deeply rooted +in the Western mind is disbelief in the reality of the soul that it +is difficult to use the word, when speaking to a Western audience, +without exposing oneself to the charge of insincerity,--not to speak +of the graver charge of "bad form." A savour either of _cant_ or +_gush_ hangs about the word, and is not easily detached from it. That +being so, it must be clearly understood that I mean by the soul the +nature of Man considered in its unity and totality,--no more than +this, and no less. + +In the opening paragraph of this book I said that some of my readers +would regard my fundamental assumption as a truism, others as a +challenge, and others again as a wicked heresy. Whether it shall be +regarded as a truism, a challenge, or a heresy, will depend on the +way in which it is worded. To say that the function of education is +to foster the growth of human nature, is to invite condemnation from +those who regard human nature as ruined and corrupt. To say that the +function of education is to foster the growth of the soul, is to +issue a challenge to Western civilisation, which is based on the +belief that the end of Man's being is not the growth of his soul, but +the growth of his balance at the bank of material prosperity. To say +that the function of education is to foster the growth of certain +faculties, is to insist on what no one who had given his mind to +the matter would care to deny. For even the orthodox, who regard +Man's nature in its totality as intrinsically evil, admit without +hesitation that there are faculties in Man which can be and ought +to be trained; while the "man of the world," whom we may regard as +the most typical product of Western civilisation, is clamorous in +his demand that education shall foster the growth of certain mental +faculties which will enable the child to become an efficient clerk or +workman, and so contribute to the enrichment of his employer and the +community to which he belongs. + +The Western educationalist will admit, then, that the function of +education is to foster growth; and if you ask him what it is that +grows or ought to grow under education's fostering care, he will give +you a long list of faculties--mental, for the most part, but also +moral and physical--and then break off under the impression that he +has set education an adequate and a practicable task. But he has +set it an inadequate and an impracticable task. For behind all the +faculties that he enumerates dwells the living reality which he +cannot bring himself to believe in,--the soul. And because he cannot +bring himself to believe in the soul, he deprives the faculties +which he proposes to cultivate of the very qualities which make +them most worthy of cultivation,--of their interrelation, their +interdependence, their organic unity. In other words he devitalises +each of them by cutting it off from the life which is common to all +of them, and so paralyses its capacity for growing in the very act +of taking thought for its growth. He forgets that every faculty which +is worth cultivating both draws life from, and contributes life to, +the general life of the growing child. He forgets that the child +himself--"the living soul"--is growing in and through the growth of +each of his opening faculties; and that unless, when a faculty seems +to be growing, the life of the child is at once expressing itself in +and renewing itself through the process of its growth, its semblance +of growth is a pure illusion, the results that are produced being in +reality as fraudulent as artificial flowers on a living rose-bush. + +But the whole question may be looked at from another point of view. +Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the function of education +is to train, or foster the growth of, certain faculties, which are +mainly though not exclusively mental, and that when those faculties +have been duly trained the teacher has done his work. What, then, +are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt +to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary +school,--the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance +at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to +us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained--those +which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those +which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science +are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. +When such subjects as Composition, Drawing or Singing are being +taught, the child's expressive faculties are being trained. So at +least one might be disposed to assume. + +In what relation do the perceptive faculties stand to the expressive? +Is it possible to cultivate either group without regard to the other? +It must be admitted that the methods employed in the ordinary +elementary school seem to be governed by the assumption that the +perceptive and the expressive faculties are two distinct groups which +admit of being separately trained. In the ordinary Drawing lesson, +for example, the child is trying to express what he does not even +pretend to have perceived; whereas in the ordinary History or Science +lesson the process is reversed, and the child pretends to perceive +what he makes no attempt to express. + +But is the assumption correct? Do the two groups of faculties admit +of being separately trained? Is it possible to devote this hour or +half-hour to the training of perception, and that to the training +of expression? Surely not. Perception and expression are not two +faculties, but one. Each is the very counterpart and correlate, each +is the very life and soul, of the other. Each, when divorced from +the other, ceases to be its own true self. When perception is real, +living, informed with personal feeling, it must needs find for +itself the outlet of expression. When expression is real, living, +informed with personal feeling, perception--the child's own +perception of things--must needs be behind it. More than that. _The +perceptive faculties_ (at any rate in childhood) _grow through the +interpretation which expression gives them, and in no other way. And +the expressive faculties grow by interpreting perception, and in no +other way_. The child who tries to draw what he sees is training his +power of observation, not less than his power of expression. As he +passes and repasses between the object of his perception and his +representation of it, there is a continuous gain both to his vision +and to his technique. The more faithfully he tries to render his +impression of the object, the more does that impression gain in truth +and strength; and in proportion as the impression becomes truer and +stronger, so does the rendering of it become more masterly and more +correct. So, again, if a man tries to set forth in writing his views +about some difficult problem--social, political, metaphysical, or +whatever it may be--the very effort that he makes to express himself +clearly and coherently will tend to bring order into the chaos and +light into the darkness of his mind, to widen his outlook on his +subject, to deepen his insight into it, to bring new aspects of it +within the reach of his conscious thought. And here, as in the case +of the child who tries to draw what he sees, there is a continuous +reciprocal action between perception and expression, in virtue of +which each in turn helps forward the evolution of the other. Even in +so abstract and impersonal a subject as mathematics, the reaction of +expression on perception is strong and salutary. The student who +wishes to master a difficult piece of bookwork should try to write +it out in his own words; in the effort to set it out concisely and +lucidly he will gradually perfect his apprehension of it. Were he to +solve a difficult problem, he would probably regard his grasp of the +solution as insecure and incomplete until he had succeeded in making +it intelligible to the mind of another. When perception is deeply +tinged with emotion, as when one sees what is beautiful, or admires +what is noble, the attempt to express it in language, action, or art, +seems to be dictated by some inner necessity of one's nature. The +meaning of this is that the perception itself imperatively demands +expression in order that, in and through the struggle of the artistic +consciousness to do full justice to it, it may gradually realise its +hidden potentialities, discover its inner meaning, and find its true +self. + +Once we realise that expression is the other self of perception, it +becomes permissible for us to say that to train the perceptive +faculties--the faculties by means of which Man lays hold upon the +world that surrounds him, and draws it into himself and makes it his +own--is the highest achievement of the teacher's art. Even from the +point of view of my primary truism, this conception of the meaning +and purpose of education holds good. For according to that truism the +business of the teacher is to foster the growth of the child's soul; +and the soul grows by the use of its perceptive faculties, which, by +enabling it to take in and assimilate an ever-widening environment, +cause a gradual enlargement of its consciousness and a proportionate +expansion of its life. But the perceptive faculties in their turn +grow by expressing themselves; and unless they are allowed to express +themselves--unless the child is allowed to express himself (for +expression, if it is genuine, is always self-expression)--their +growth will be arrested, and the mission which _all_ educationalists +assign to education will not have been fulfilled. + +The question is, then, Does the system of education which prevails in +all Western countries provide for self-expression on the part of the +child? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] I mean by the words "original sin" what the plain, +unsophisticated, believing Christian means by them. A modern poet, +in a moment of impulsive orthodoxy, praises Christianity because it + + "taught original sin, + The corruption of man's heart ..." + +This definition is sufficiently accurate. "Original sin," says the +Ninth Article of the Anglican Church, "... is the fault and +corruption of the Nature of every man ... whereby man is of his own +nature inclined to evil ... and therefore, in every person born into +the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." How far the +popular interpretation of the doctrine of original sin coincides with +the latest theological refinement of the doctrine, I cannot pretend +to say. When it finds it convenient to explain things away, theology, +like Voltaire's Minor Prophet, "est capable de tout"; and the need +for reconciling the doctrine of original sin with the teaching of +modern science has in recent years laid a heavy tax on its +ingenuity. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A FAMILIAR TYPE OF SCHOOL[6] + + +In this chapter I shall have in my mind a type of school which is +familiar to all who are interested in elementary education. What +percentage of the schools of England are of that particular type +I cannot pretend to say. In the days of payment by results the +percentage was unquestionably very high. The system under which we +all worked made that inevitable. The days of payment by results are +over, but their consequences are with us still. The pioneer is abroad +in the land, but he has had, and still has, formidable difficulties +to overcome. The percentage of routine-ridden schools is considerably +lower than it used to be, and it is falling from year to year. Of +this there can be no doubt. Each teacher in turn who reads this +chapter will, I hope, be able to say that the school which is in my +mind is not his. But I can assure him that there are thousands of +schools in which all or most of the evils on which I am about to +comment are still rampant; and I will add, for his consolation, that +it would be a miracle if this were not so. + +The first forty minutes of the morning session are given, in almost +every elementary school, to what is called _Religious Instruction_. +This goes on, morning after morning, and week after week. The child +who attends school regularly and punctually, as many children do, +will have been the victim of upwards of two thousand "Scripture +lessons" by the time he leaves school. + +The question of religious education in elementary schools has long +been the centre of a perfect whirlpool of controversial talk. The +greater part of this talk is, to speak plainly, blatant cant. Every +candidate for a seat in the House of Commons thinks it incumbent upon +him to say something about religious education, but not one in a +hundred of them has ever been present in an elementary school while +religious instruction was being given. The Bishops of the Established +Church wax eloquent in the House of Lords over the wickedness of a +"godless education" and the virtue of "definite dogmatic teaching," +but it may be doubted if there is a Bishop in the House who has in +recent years sat out a Scripture lesson in a Church of England +school. It would be well if all who talked publicly about religious +education could be sentenced to devote a month to the personal study +of religious instruction as it is ordinarily given in elementary +schools. At the end of the month they would be wiser and sadder men, +and in future they would probably talk less about religious education +and think more. + +The Scripture lesson, as it is familiarly called, is supposed to make +the children of England religious, in the special sense which each +church or sect attaches to that word,--to make them good Catholics, +good Churchmen, good Wesleyans, good Bible Christians, good Jews. But +as those who are most in earnest about religion, and most sincere in +their religious convictions, unite in assuring us that England is +relapsing into paganism, it may be doubted if the religious education +of the elementary school child--a process which has been going on for +half a century or more--has been entirely successful. While the fact +that the English parent, who must himself have attended from 1,500 +to 2,000 Scripture lessons in His schooldays, is not under any +circumstances to be trusted to give religious instruction to his own +children, shows that those who control the religious education of the +youthful "masses" have but little confidence in the effect of their +system on the religious life and faith of the English people. + +They have good ground for their subconscious distrust of it. We have +seen that the vulgar confusion between information and knowledge is +at the root of much that is unsound in education. There is no branch +of education in which this confusion is so fallacious or so fatal as +in that which is called religious. The process of converting +information into knowledge is a comparatively easy one when we are +dealing with matters of detailed fact. Information as to the dates of +the kings of England, as to the bays and capes of the British Isles, +as to the exports and imports of Liverpool, as to the weights and +measures of this or that country, is in each case readily convertible +into knowledge of the given facts. But directly we get away from mere +facts, and begin to concern ourselves with what is large, vague, +subtle, and obscure,--with forces, for example, with causes, with +laws, with principles,--the difficulty of collecting adequate and +appropriate information about our subject becomes great, and the +difficulty of converting such information into knowledge becomes +greater still. Information as to the dates and names of the English +kings, and other historical facts, is easily converted into knowledge +of those facts, but it is not easily converted into knowledge of +English history. Information as to the names and positions of capes +and bays, as to areas and populations, and other geographical facts, +is easily converted into knowledge of those facts, but it is not +easily converted into knowledge of geography. Information as to +arithmetical rules and tables, as to weights and measures, and other +arithmetical facts, is easily converted into knowledge of those +facts, but it is not easily converted into knowledge of arithmetic. +In each case a _sense_ must be evolved if the information is to be +assimilated, and so converted into real knowledge; and though it is +true that the sense in question grows, in part at least, by feeding +on appropriate information, it is equally true that if, owing to +defective training, the sense remains undeveloped, the information +supplied will remain unassimilated, and the tacit assumption that the +possession of information is equivalent to the possession of real +knowledge will delude both the teacher and the taught. It is +possible, as one knows from experience, for a boy to have mastered +all the arithmetical rules and tables with which his master has +supplied him, and to have all his measures and weights at his +fingers' ends, and yet to be so destitute of the arithmetical sense +as to give without a moment's misgiving an entirely nonsensical +answer to a simple arithmetical problem,--to say, for example, as I +have known half a class of boys say, that a _room_ is _five shillings +and sixpence wide_. Such a boy, though his head may be stuffed with +arithmetical information, has no knowledge of arithmetic. + +The gulf between memorised information and real knowledge becomes +deep and wide in proportion as the subject matter is one which +demands for its effective apprehension either intellectual effort or +emotional insight. When both these variables are demanded, the gulf +widens and deepens at a ratio which is "geometrical" rather than +"arithmetical"; and when a high degree of each is demanded, the +separation between knowledge and information is complete. + +The Art Master who should try to train the ćsthetic sense of his +pupils by making them learn by heart a string of propositions in +which he had set out the artistic merits of sundry masterpieces of +painting and sculpture, would expose himself to well-merited +ridicule. So would the teacher who should try to train the scientific +sense of his pupils by no other method than that of making them +learn scientific formulć by heart. What shall we say, then, of the +teacher who tries to train the religious sense of his pupils by +supplying them with rations of theological and theologico-historical +information? Whatever else we may mean by the word God, we mean what +is infinitely great, and therefore beyond the reach of human thought, +and we mean what is "most high," and therefore beyond the reach of +the heart's desire. It follows that for knowledge of God the maximum +of intellectual effort is needed, in conjunction with the maximum of +emotional insight; and it follows further that the gulf between +knowledge of God and information about God is unimaginably wide and +deep,--so wide and so deep that out of our very attempts to span or +fathom it the doubt at last arises whether the idea of acquiring +information about God may not, after all, be the idlest of dreams. + +Nevertheless the pastors and masters of our elementary schools are, +with few exceptions, engaged, _sanctâ simplicitate_, in trying to +make the children of England religious by cramming them with +theological and theologico-historical information,--information as to +the nature and attributes of God, as to the inner constitution of +his being, as to his relations to Man and the Universe, as to his +reported doings in the past. And in order that the giving, receiving, +and retaining of this unverifiable information may be regarded by +all concerned as the central feature of the Scripture lesson, to +the neglect of all the other aspects of religious education, the +spiritual "powers that be" (and also, I am told, some of the Local +Education Authorities) have decreed that the schools under their +jurisdiction shall be subjected to a yearly examination in +"religious knowledge" at the hands of a "Diocesan Inspector," or some +other official. + +To one who has convinced himself, as I have, that a right attitude +towards the thing known is of the essence of knowledge, and that +reverence and devotion--to go no further--are of the essence of a +right attitude towards God, the idea of holding a formal examination +in religious knowledge seems scarcely less ridiculous than the idea +of holding a formal examination in unselfishness or brotherly love. +The phrase "to examine in religious knowledge" has no meaning for me. +The verb is out of all relation to its indirect object. What the +Diocesan Inspector attempts to do cannot possibly be done. The test +of religious knowledge is necessarily practical and vital, not formal +and mechanical. Even if I were to admit, for argument's sake, that +the information with which we cram the elementary school child +between 9.5 and 9.45 a.m. had been supernaturally communicated by God +to Man, my general position would remain unaffected. For experience +has amply proved that a child--or, for the matter of that, a man--may +know much theology and even be "mighty in the Scriptures," and yet +show by his conduct that his religious sense has not been awakened, +and that therefore he has no knowledge of God; just as we have seen +that a child may know by heart all arithmetical rules and tables, and +yet show, by his helplessness in the face of a simple problem, that +his arithmetical sense has not been awakened, and that therefore he +has no knowledge of arithmetic. + +The time given to religious instruction is, to make a general +statement, the only part of the session in which the children are +being prepared for a formal _external_ examination. That being so, it +is no matter for wonder that many of the glaring faults of method and +organisation which the examination system fostered in our elementary +schools between the years 1862 and 1895, and which are now being +abandoned, however slowly, reluctantly, and sporadically, during the +hours of "secular" instruction, still find a refuge in the Scripture +lesson. Overgrouping of classes, overcrowding of school-rooms, +collective answering, collective repetition, scribbling on slates, +and other faults with which inspectors were only too familiar in +bygone days, are still rampant while religious instruction is being +given.[7] The Diocesan Inspector is an examiner, pure and simple, and +is never present when the Scripture lesson is in progress. Whether he +would find anything to criticise if he were present, may be doubted. +I have frequently been told by teachers that it is his demand for a +good volume of sound, when he is catechising the children, which +keeps alive during the Scripture lesson the pestilent habit of +collective answering, in defiance of the obvious fact that what is +everybody's business is nobody's business, and that an experienced +bell-wether can easily give a lead to a whole class. An inconvenient +train service may compel H.M. Inspector to be present when religious +instruction is being given; but though he may find much to deplore +in what he sees and hears, he must abstain from criticism, and be +content to play the _rôle_ of the man who looks over a hedge while a +horse is being stolen. + +In most elementary schools religion is taught on an elaborate +syllabus which is imposed on the teacher by an external authority, +and which therefore tends to destroy his freedom and his interest in +the work. It is not his business to take thought for the religious +training of his pupils, to consider how the religious instinct may +best be awakened in them, how their latent knowledge of God may +best be evolved. His business is to prepare them for their yearly +examination, to cram them with catechisms, hymns, texts, and +collects, and with stories of various kinds,--stories from the +folk-lore of Israel, from the history of the Jews, from the Gospel +narratives. To appeal to the reasoning powers of his pupils would be +foreign to his aim, and foreign, let me say in passing, to the whole +tradition of religious teaching in the West. The burden of preparing +for an examination, whatever the examination may be, falls mainly on +the faculty of memory. This is a rule to which there are very few +exceptions. When the examination is one in "religious knowledge," the +burden of preparing for it falls wholly on the faculty of memory. +To appeal to the reasoning powers of the scholars might conceivably +provoke them to ask inconvenient questions, and might even give +rise to a spirit of rationalism in the school,--the spirit which +"orthodoxy" has always regarded as the very antipole to religious +faith. + +But what of the child's emotional faculties? Will not the beauty of +the Gospel stories, will not the sublimity of the Old Testament +poetry, make their own appeal to these? They might do so if they were +allowed to exert their spiritual magnetism. But what chance have +they? The chilling shadow of the impending examination falls upon +them and cancels their educative influence. It is not because the +Gospel stories are full of beauty and spiritual meaning that the +child has to learn them, but because he will be questioned on them by +the Diocesan Inspector. It is not because certain passages from the +Old Testament are poetry of a high order that the child commits them +to memory, but because he may have to repeat them to the Diocesan +Inspector. We cannot serve God and Mammon,--the God of poetry and the +inward life, the Mammon of outward results. The thing is not to be +done, and the pretence of doing it is a mockery and a fraud. The +compulsory preparation of the plays of Shakespeare and other literary +masterpieces for a formal examination, too often gives the schoolboy, +or the college student, a permanent distaste for English literature. +The study of the Ancient Classics for the Oxford "Schools" or the +Cambridge "Tripos" too often gives the studious undergraduate a +permanent distaste for the literatures of Greece and Rome. Does it +not follow _a fortiori_ that to cram a young child, for the purposes +of a formal examination, to cram him, year after year, with the +idyllic stories of the New Testament and the poetic beauties of the +Old, will in all probability go a long way towards blighting in the +bud the child's latent capacity for responding to the appeal, not of +the Bible alone, but of spiritual poetry as such? + +I do not wish to suggest that the religious instruction given in +our elementary schools is always formal and mechanical. There are +teachers who can break through the toils of any system, however +deadly, and give life to their teaching in defiance of conditions +which would paralyse the energies of lesser men. As I write, I recall +two teachers of elementary schools, who, in spite of having to +prepare their pupils for diocesan inspection, succeeded in quickening +their religious instincts into vital activity. The first was a +schoolmaster,--a "strong Churchman," and a sincerely religious man. +The second was a woman of genius, whose extraordinary sympathy with +and insight into the soul of the child, enabled her to give free play +to all his expansive instincts, and in and through the evolution of +these to foster the growth of his religious sense. I can never feel +quite sure that this teacher fully realised how deeply, and yet +healthily, religious her children were. If she did not, I can but +apply to her what Diderot said to David the painter, when the latter +confessed that he had not intended to produce some artistic effect +which the former had discovered in one of his pictures: "Quoi! c'est +ŕ votre insu? C'est encore mieux." To make children religious without +intending to do so is a profoundly significant achievement, for +it means that the fatal distinction between religious and secular +education has been "utterly abolished and destroyed." + +Both these teachers fell, as it happened, under the ban of the +Diocesan Inspector's displeasure. The schoolmaster took over a +school which was not only inefficient in the eyes of the Education +Department, in respect of instruction and discipline, but was also +tainted in its upper classes with moral depravity. He speedily +restored it to efficiency, and reformed its moral tone. In +accomplishing these salutary changes, he relied mainly on an appeal +which he made, in all manly sincerity, to the religious sense of the +older boys. The faith in human nature which prompted him to make this +appeal was justified by the response which it evoked. In less than a +year the school was transformed beyond recognition. In less than two +years it was one of the best in its county; indeed in respect of +moral tone and religious atmosphere it was perhaps _the_ best. +Meanwhile the work of cramming the children for the yearly diocesan +examination must have fallen into arrears; for the school, which +under my friend's incompetent predecessor had always been classed as +"Excellent," sank to the level of "Good" in the year after he left, +and in the following year to the level of "Fair." Any one who has any +acquaintance with the reports of the Diocesan Inspector knows that +the summary mark "Fair," when employed by him, is equivalent to +utter damnation. + +The schoolmistress always had a horror of formal teaching, and a +special horror of cramming young children for formal examinations; +and I can only wonder that her downfall was so long delayed. Sooner +or later, if she was to remain true to her own first principles, her +work was bound to incur the condemnation of the Diocesan Inspector. + +Nevertheless, having read hundreds of diocesan reports, and realised +how lavish of praise and chary of blame the Diocesan Inspector +usually is, I am inclined to suspect that the comparative failure +of the children on the examination day was not the sole or even the +chief cause of the severe censure which these two schools received. +I am inclined to think that in each case the inspector recognised in +the exceptional religious vitality of a school which was deficient, +from his point of view, in religious knowledge, an implicit challenge +to his own preconceived notions, and that, without for a moment +intending to be unfair, he responded to this challenge by giving the +school a strongly adverse report. Immorality and irreligiousness +as such are comparatively venial offences in the eyes of religious +orthodoxy. What it cannot tolerate is that men should be moral and +religious in any but the "orthodox" ways. + +Apart from these two exceptional cases, there are of course hundreds +and even thousands of teachers whose personal influence is a partial +antidote to the numbing poison which is being distilled but surely, +from the daily Scripture lesson. But the net result of giving formal +and mechanical instruction on the greatest of all "great matters" is +to depress the spiritual vitality of the children of England to a +point which threatens the extinction of the spiritual life of the +nation. My schoolmaster friend, who, besides being deeply religious +(in the best sense of the word), is a man of sound judgment and wide +and varied experience, has more than once assured me that religious +instruction, as given in the normal Church of England school (his +experience has been limited to schools of that type), is paganising +the people of England,--paganising them because it presents religion +to them in a form which they instinctively reject, accepting it at +first under compulsion, but turning away from it at last with +deep-seated weariness and permanent distaste. + +The boy who, having attended two thousand Scripture lessons, says to +himself when he leaves school: "If this is religion, I will have no +more of it," is acting in obedience to a healthy instinct. He is to +be honoured rather than blamed for having realised at last that the +chaff on which he has so long been fed is not the life-giving grain +which, unknown to himself, his inmost soul demands. + +That England is relapsing into paganism is, as we have seen, the +sincere conviction of many earnest Christians. Why this should be so, +they cannot understand. In their desire to account for so distressing +a phenomenon, they will have recourse to any explanation, however +far-fetched and fantastic, rather than acknowledge that it is the +Scripture lesson in the elementary school which is paganising the +masses. If the Churches could have their way, they would doubtless +try to mend matters by doubling the hours that are given to +religious instruction, by making the Diocesan Inspector's visit +a half-yearly instead of a yearly function, and by cramming the +children for it with redoubled energy. In their refusal to reckon +with human nature, they are true to the first principles of their +religion and their philosophy. But it is possible to buy consistency +at too high a price. The laws and tendencies of Nature are what they +are; and it is madness, not heroism, to ignore them. To those who +refuse to reckon with human nature, the day will surely come when +human nature, evolving itself under the stress of its own forces and +in obedience to its own laws, will cease to take account of them.[8] + +When the hands of the clock point to a quarter to ten, the religious +education of the child is over for the day, and his secular +instruction has begun. That the religious education of the child +should be supposed to end when the Scripture lesson is over, is the +last and strongest proof of the fundamental falsity of that +conception of religion on which, as on a quicksand, his education, +religious and secular, has been based. + + After Scripture comes as a rule Arithmetic. During the former lesson +the teacher, acting under compulsion, does his best, as we have seen, +to deaden the child's spiritual faculties. During the latter, he not +infrequently does his best to deaden the child's mental faculties. In +each case he is to be pitied rather than blamed. The conditions under +which he works, and has long worked, are too strong for him. If we +are to understand why secular instruction, as given in our elementary +schools, is what it is, we must go back for half a century or so and +trace the steps by which the "Education Department" forced elementary +education in England into the grooves in which, in many schools, +it is still moving, and from which even the most enlightened and +enterprising teachers find it difficult to escape. + +In 1861 the Royal Commission (under the Duke of Newcastle as +Chairman), which had been appointed in 1858 in order to inquire into +"the state of popular education in England, and as to the measures +required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary instruction +to all classes of the people," issued its report, in which it +recommended _inter alia_ that the Grants paid to elementary schools +should be expressly apportioned on the examination of individual +children. This recommendation was carried into effect in the Lowe +Revised Code of 1862; and from that date till 1895 a considerable +part of the Grant received by each school was paid on the results of +a yearly examination held by H.M. Inspector on an elaborate syllabus, +formulated by the Department and binding on all schools alike. On the +official report which followed this examination depended the +reputation and financial prosperity of the school, and the reputation +and financial prosperity of the teacher.[9] The consequent pressure +on the teacher to exert himself was well-nigh irresistible; and he +had no choice but to transmit that pressure to his subordinates and +his pupils. The result was that in those days the average school was +a hive of industry. + +But it was also a hive of misdirected energy. The State, in +prescribing a syllabus which was to be followed, in all the subjects +of instruction, by all the schools in the country, without regard to +local or personal considerations, was guilty of one capital offence. +It did all his thinking for the teacher. It told him in precise +detail what he was to do each year in each "Standard," how he was to +handle each subject, and how far he was to go in it; what width of +ground he was to cover; what amount of knowledge, what degree of +accuracy was required for a "pass," In other words it provided him +with his ideals, his general conceptions, his more immediate aims, +his schemes of work; and if it did not control his methods in all +their details, it gave him (by implication) hints and suggestions +with regard to these on which he was not slow to act; for it told him +that the work done in each class and each subject would be tested +at the end of each year by a careful examination of each individual +child; and it was inevitable that in his endeavour to adapt his +teaching to the type of question which his experience of the +yearly examination led him to expect, he should gradually deliver +himself, mind and soul, into the hands of the officials of the +Department,--the officials at Whitehall who framed the yearly +syllabus, and the officials in the various districts who examined +on it. + +What the Department did to the teacher, it compelled him to do to the +child. The teacher who is the slave of another's will cannot carry +out his instructions except by making his pupils the slaves of +his own will. The teacher who has been deprived by his superiors +of freedom, initiative, and responsibility, cannot carry out his +instructions except by depriving his pupils of the same vital +qualities. The teacher who, in response to the deadly pressure of a +cast-iron system, has become a creature of habit and routine, cannot +carry out his instructions except by making his pupils as helpless +and as puppet-like as himself. + +But it is not only because mechanical obedience is fatal, in the +long run, to mental and spiritual growth, that the regulation of +elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is +to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the +nature of things, a bad syllabus, and because the degree of its +badness varies directly with the area of the sphere of educational +activity that comes under its control. It is easy for us of the +Twentieth Century to laugh at the syllabuses which the Department +issued, without misgiving, year after year, in the latter half of the +Nineteenth. We were all groping in the dark in those days; and our +whole attitude towards education was so fundamentally wrong that the +absurdities of the yearly syllabus were merely so much by-play in +the evolution of a drama which was a grotesque blend of tragedy and +farce. But let us of the enlightened Twentieth Century try our hands +at constructing a syllabus on which all the elementary schools of +England are to be prepared for a yearly examination, and see if +we can improve appreciably on the work of our predecessors. Some +improvement there would certainly be, but it would not amount to very +much. Were the "Board" to re-institute payment by results, and were +they, with this end in view, to entrust the drafting of schemes of +work in the various subjects to a committee of the wisest and most +experienced educationalists in England, the resultant syllabus would +be a dismal failure. For in framing their schemes these wise and +experienced educationalists would find themselves compelled to take +account of the lowest rather than of the highest level of actual +educational achievement. What is exceptional and experimental cannot +possibly find a place in a syllabus which is to bind all schools and +all teachers alike, and which must therefore be so framed that the +least capable teacher, working under the least favourable conditions, +may hope, when his pupils are examined on it, to achieve with decent +industry a decent modicum of success. Under the control of a uniform +syllabus, the schools which are now specialising and experimenting, +and so giving a lead to the rest, would have to abandon whatever was +interesting in their respective curricula, and fall into line with +the average school; while, with the consequent lowering of the +current _ideal_ of efficiency, the level of the average school would +steadily fall. A uniform syllabus is a bad syllabus, for this if for +no other reason, that it is compelled to idealise the average; and +that, inasmuch as education, so far as it is a living system, grows +by means of its "leaders," the idealisation of the average is +necessarily fatal to educational growth and therefore to educational +life. + +It was preordained, then, that the syllabuses which the Department +issued, year by year, in the days of payment by results should have +few merits and many defects. Yet even if, by an unimaginable miracle, +they had all been educationally sound, the mere fact that all the +teachers in England had to work by them would have made them potent +agencies for evil. To be in bondage to a syllabus is a misfortune for +a teacher, and a misfortune for the school that he teaches. To be in +bondage to a syllabus which is binding on all schools alike, is a +graver misfortune. To be in bondage to a bad syllabus which is +binding on all schools alike, is of all misfortunes the gravest. Or +if there is a graver, it is the fate that befell the teachers of +England under the old _régime_,--the fate of being in bondage to a +syllabus which was bad both because it had to come down to the level +of the least fortunate school and the least capable teacher, and also +because it was the outcome of ignorance, inexperience, and +bureaucratic self-satisfaction. + +Of the evils that are inherent in the examination system as such--of +its tendency to arrest growth, to deaden life, to paralyse the higher +faculties, to externalise what is inward, to materialise what is +spiritual, to involve education in an atmosphere of unreality and +self-deception--I have already spoken at some length. In the days of +payment by results various circumstances conspired to raise those +evil tendencies to the highest imaginable "power." When inspectors +ceased to examine (in the stricter sense of the word) they realised +what infinite mischief the yearly examination had done. The children, +the majority of whom were examined in reading and dictation out of +their own reading-books (two or three in number, as the case might +be), were drilled in the contents of those books until they knew +them almost by heart. In arithmetic they worked abstract sums, in +obedience to formal rules, day after day, and month after month; +and they were put up to various tricks and dodges which would, it +was hoped, enable them to know by what precise rules the various +questions on the arithmetic cards were to be answered. They learned +a few lines of poetry by heart, and committed all the "meanings and +allusions" to memory, with the probable result--so sickening must +the process have been--that they hated poetry for the rest of their +lives. In geography, history, and grammar they were the victims of +unintelligent oral cram, which they were compelled, under pains and +penalties, to take in and retain till the examination day was over, +their ability to disgorge it on occasion being periodically tested by +the teacher. And so with the other subjects. Not a thought was given, +except in a small minority of the schools, to the real training of +the child, to the fostering of his mental (and other) growth. To get +him through the yearly examination by hook or by crook was the one +concern of the teacher. As profound distrust of the teacher was the +basis of the policy of the Department, so profound distrust of the +child was the basis of the policy of the teacher. To leave the child +to find out anything for himself, to work out anything for himself, +to think out anything for himself, would have been regarded as a +proof of incapacity, not to say insanity, on the part of the teacher, +and would have led to results which, from the "percentage" point of +view, would probably have been disastrous. + +There were few inspectors who were not duly impressed from 1895 +onwards by the gravity of the evils that inspection, as distinguished +from mere examination, revealed to them; but it may be doubted +if there were many inspectors who realised then, what some among +them see clearly now, that the evils which distressed them were +significant as symptoms even more than as sources of mischief,--as +symptoms of a deep-seated and insidious malady, of the gradual +ossification of the spiritual and mental muscles of both the teacher +and the child, of the gradual substitution in the elementary school +of machinery for life. + +For us of the Twentieth Century who know enough about education to +be aware of the shallowness of our knowledge of it, and of the +imperfection of the existing educational systems of our country, it +may be difficult to realise that in the years when things were at +their worst, at any rate in the field of elementary education, the +Nation in general and the "Department" in particular were well +content that things should remain as they were,--well content that +the elementary school should be, not a nursery of growing seedlings +and saplings, but a decently efficient mill, and that year after year +this mill should keep on grinding out its dreary and meaningless +"results." But in truth that ignorant optimism, that cheap content +with the actual, was a sure proof that things _were_ at their +worst;--for + + "When we in our viciousness grow hard, + (O misery on't) the wise gods seal our eyes + In our own filth; drop our clear judgments: make us + Adore our errors"; + +and the multiform discontent with education in its present stage of +development, which is characteristic of our own generation, and which +is in some ways so confusing and disconcerting, and so unfavourable +to the smooth working of our educational machinery, has the merit of +being a healthy and hopeful symptom. + +But bad as things were in those days, there was at least one +redeeming feature. The children were compelled to _work_, to exert +themselves, to "put their backs into it." The need for this was +obvious. The industry of the child meant so much professional +reputation and, in the last resort, so much bread and butter to his +teacher. It is true that the child was not allowed to do anything by +or for himself; but it is equally true that he had to do pretty +strenuously whatever task was set him. He had to get up his two (or +three) "Readers" so thoroughly that he could be depended upon to pass +both the reading and the dictation test with success. He had to work +his abstract sums in arithmetic correctly. He had to take in and +remember the historical and geographical information with which he +had been crammed. And so forth. There must be no shirking, no +slacking on his part. His teachers worked hard, though "not according +to knowledge"; and he must do the same. Active, in the higher sense +of the word, he was never allowed to be; but he had to be actively +receptive, strenuously automatic, or his teacher would know the +reason why. + +Such was the old _régime_. Its defects were so grave and so vital +that, now that it has become discredited (in theory, if not in +practice), we can but wonder how it endured for so long. As an +ingenious instrument for arresting the mental growth of the child, +and deadening all his higher faculties, it has never had, and I +hope will never have, a rival. Far from fostering the growth of +those great expansive instincts--sympathetic, ćsthetic, and +scientific--which Nature has implanted in every child, it set itself +to extirpate them, one and all, with ruthless pertinacity. As a +partial compensation for this work of wanton destruction, it made the +child blindly obedient, mechanically industrious, and (within very +narrow limits) accurate and thorough. I have described it at some +length because I see clearly that no one who does not realise what +the elementary school used to be, in the days of its sojourn in the +Land of Bondage, can even begin to understand why it is what it is +to-day. + +Having for thirty-three years deprived the teachers of almost every +vestige of freedom, the Department suddenly reversed its policy and +gave them in generous measure the boon which it had so long withheld. +Whether it was wise to give so much at so short a notice may be +doubted. What is beyond dispute is that it was unwise to expect so +great and so unexpected a gift to be used at once to full advantage. +A man who had grown accustomed to semi-darkness would be dazzled to +the verge of blindness if he were suddenly taken out into broad +daylight. This is what was done in 1895 to the teachers of England, +and it is not to be wondered at that many of them have been purblind +ever since. For thirty-three years they had been treated as machines, +and they were suddenly asked to act as intelligent beings. For +thirty-three years they had been practically compelled to do +everything for the child, and they were suddenly expected to give him +freedom and responsibility,--words which for many of them had +well-nigh lost their meaning. To comply with these unreasonable +demands was beyond their power. The grooves into which they had been +forced were far too deep for them. The routine to which they had +become accustomed had far too strong a hold on them. The one change +which they could make was to relax their own severe pressure on the +child. This they did, perhaps without intending to do it. Indeed, +now that there was no external examination to look forward to, the +pressure on the child may be said to have automatically relaxed +itself. What happened--I will not say in all schools, but in far too +many--was that the teaching remained as mechanical and unintelligent +as ever, that the teacher continued to distrust the child and to do +everything for him, but that the child gradually became slacker and +less industrious. Not that his teacher wished him to "slack," but +that the stimulus of the yearly examination had been withdrawn at a +time when there was nothing to take its place. Exercise is in itself +a delightful thing when it is wholesome, natural, and rational; +but when it is unwholesome, unnatural, and irrational, it will not +be taken in sufficient measure except in response to some strong +external stimulus. Under the old examination system an adequate +stimulus had been supplied by the combined influence of competition +and fear (chiefly the latter). When the examination system was +abolished, that stimulus necessarily lost its point. Had it then been +possible for the teacher to make the exercise which his pupils were +asked to take wholesome, natural, and rational, a new stimulus--that +of interest in their work--would have been applied to the pupils, and +they would have exerted themselves as they had never done before. +But it was not possible for the average teacher to execute at a +moment's notice a complete change of front, and it was unwise of the +Department to expect him to do so. Apart from an honourable minority, +who had always been in secret revolt against the despotism of the +Code, the old teachers were helpless and hopeless. The younger ones +had been through the mill themselves, first in the Elementary School, +then in the Pupil-Teacher Centre, and then in the Training College +(both the latter having been in too many cases cramming +establishments like the Elementary School); and when they went back +to work under a head teacher who was wedded to the old order of +things, they found no difficulty in falling in with his ways and +carrying out his wishes. If a young teacher, fresh from an +exceptionally enlightened Training College, became an assistant under +an old-fashioned head teacher, he soon had the "nonsense knocked out +of him," and was compelled to toe the line with the rest of the +staff. + +But it was not only because the teachers of England had got +accustomed to the Land of Bondage, that they shrank from entering the +Promised Land. There was, and still is, another and a stronger +reason. Wherever the teacher looks, he sees that the examination +system, with its demand for machine-made results, controls education; +and he feels that it is only by an accident that his school has +been exempted (in part at least) from its pressure. The Board of +Education still examine for labour certificates, for admission as +uncertificated assistants, for the teacher's certificate. They expect +head teachers to hold terminal examinations of all the classes in +their schools. They allow Local Authorities to examine children in +their schools as formally and as stringently as they please, and to +hold examinations for County Scholarships, for which children from +elementary schools are eligible. Admission to secondary schools of +all grades depends on success in passing entrance examinations. So +does admission to the various Colleges and Universities. In the +schools which prepare little boys for the "Great Public Schools," +the whole scheme of education Is dominated by the headmaster's desire +to win as many entrance scholarships as possible. In the "Great +Public Schools" the scheme of education is similarly dominated by +the headmaster's desire to win as many scholarships as possible +at the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. In the Universities all the +undergraduates without exception are reading for examinations of +various kinds,--pass "schools," honour "schools," Civil Service +examinations, and the like. Officers in the Army and Navy have never +done with examinations; and there is not a single profession which +can be entered through any door but that of a public examination. +Wherever the teacher looks he sees that examinations are held in high +honour, and that the main business of teachers of all grades is to +produce results which an outside examiner would accept as +satisfactory; and he naturally takes for granted that the production +of such results is the true function of the teacher, whether his +success in producing them is to be tested by a formal examination or +not. The air that he breathes is charged with ideas--ideas about life +in general and education in particular--which belong to the order of +things that he is supposed to have left behind him, and are fiercely +antagonistic to those as yet unrecognised ideas which give the new +order of things its meaning, its purpose, and its value. + +How can we expect the teacher to look inward when all the conditions +of his existence, not as a teacher only but also as a citizen and a +man, conspire to make him look outward? But if the Fates are against +his looking inward, to what purpose has he been emancipated from the +direct control of a system which had at least the merit of being in +line with all the central tendencies of Western civilisation? How +does it profit him to be free if, under the pressure of those +tendencies, the chief use that he makes of his freedom is to grind +out from his pupils results akin to those which were asked for in the +days of schedules and percentages? Freedom was given him in order +that he might be free to take thought for the vital welfare of his +pupils. Or, if freedom was not given to him for that purpose, it were +better that it had been withheld from him until those who were able +to give or withhold it had formed a juster conception of its meaning. + +The truth is that the exemption of the elementary school, and of it +alone among schools, from the direct pressure of the examination +system, is an isolated and audacious experiment, which is carried on +under conditions so unfavourable to its success that nothing but a +high degree of intelligence and moral courage (not to speak of +originality) on the part of the teacher can make it succeed. Can we +wonder that in many cases the experiment has proved a failure? + +At the end of the previous chapter I asked myself whether the +education that was given in the ordinary elementary school tended to +foster self-expression on the part of the child. We can now see what +the answer to this question is likely to be. For a third of a +century--from 1862 to 1895--self-expression on the part of the child +may be said to have been formally prohibited by all who were +responsible for the elementary education of the children of England, +and also to have been prohibited _de facto_ by all the unformulated +conditions under which the elementary school was conducted. In 1895 +the formal prohibition of self-expression ceased, but the _de facto_ +prohibition of it in the ordinary school is scarcely less effective +to-day than it was in the darkest days of the old _régime_. For + + "The evil that men do lives after them," + +and the old _régime_, though nominally abrogated, overshadows us +still. When I say this I do not merely mean that many teachers who +were brought up under the old _régime_ have been unable to emancipate +themselves from its influence. I mean that the old _régime_ was +itself the outcome and expression of traditional tendencies which +are of the essence of Western civilisation, of ways of thinking +and acting to which we are all habituated from our earliest days, +and that these tendencies and these ways of thinking and acting +overshadow us still. The formal abrogation of the old _régime_ counts +for little so long as the examination system, with its demand for +visible and measurable results and its implicit invitation to cram +and cheat, is allowed to cast its deadly shadow on education as +such,--and so long as the whole system on which the young of all +classes and grades are educated is favourable to self-deception on +the part of the teacher and fatal to sincerity on the part of the +child. Constrained by every influence that is brought to bear upon +him to judge according to the appearance of things, the teacher can +ill afford to judge righteous judgment,--can ill afford to regard +what is outward and visible as the symbol of what is inward and +spiritual, can ill afford to think of the work done by the child +except as a thing to be weighed in an examiner's balance or measured +by an examiner's rule. + +Things being as they are in the various grades of education and in +the various strata of social life, it is inevitable that the +education given in many of our elementary schools should be based, +in the main, on complete distrust of the child. In such schools, +whatever else the child may be allowed to do, he must not be allowed +to do anything by or for himself. He must not express what he really +feels and sees; for if he does, the results will probably fall short +of the standard of neatness, cleanness, and correctness which +an examiner might expect the school to reach. At any rate, the +experiment is much too risky to be tried. In the lower classes +the results produced would certainly be rough, imperfect, untidy. +Therefore self-expression must not be permitted in that part of the +school. And if not there, it must not be permitted anywhere, for the +longer it is delayed the greater will be the difficulty of starting +it and the greater the attendant risk. The child must not express +what he really perceives; and as genuine perception forces for itself +the outlet of genuine expression, he must not be allowed to exercise +his perceptive faculties. Instead of seeing things for himself, he +must see what his teacher directs him to see, he must feel what his +teacher directs him to feel, he must think what his teacher directs +him to think, and so on. But to forbid a child to use his own +perceptive faculties is to arrest the whole process of his growth. + +I will now go back to the _Arithmetic_ lesson. During the years in +which the children in elementary schools were examined individually +in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the one virtue which was +inculcated while the arithmetic lesson was in progress was that of +obedience to the formulated rule. On the yearly examination day it +was customary to give each child four questions in arithmetic, of +which only one was a "problem." Two sums correctly worked secured +a "pass"; and it was therefore possible for the child to achieve +salvation in arithmetic by blindly obeying the various rules with +which his teacher had equipped him. He had, indeed, to decide for +himself in each case which rule was to be followed; but he did this +(in most schools), not by thinking the matter out, but by following +certain by-rules given him by his teacher, which were based on a +careful study of the wording of the questions set by the inspector, +and which held good as long as that wording remained unchanged. For +example, if a subtraction sum was to be dictated to "Standard II," +the child was taught that the number which was given out first was to +be placed in the upper line, and that the number which came next was +to be subtracted from this. He was not taught that the lesser of the +two numbers was always to be subtracted from the larger; for in order +to apply that principle he would have had to decide for himself which +was the larger of the two numbers, and the consequent mental effort +was one which his teacher could not trust him to make. It is true +that in his desire to save the child from the dire necessity of +thinking, the teacher ran the risk of being discomfited by a sudden +change of procedure on the part of an inspector. The inspector, for +example, who, having been accustomed to say "From 95 take 57," chose +to say, for a change, "Take 57 from 95," would cause widespread havoc +in the first two or three schools that were the victims of his +unlooked-for experiment. But the risks which the teacher ran who +taught his pupils to rely on trickery rather than thought were worth +running; for the inspectors, like the teachers and the children, were +ever tending to become creatures of routine, and the vagaries of +those who had the reputation of being tiresomely versatile could be +provided against--largely, if not wholly--by increased ingenuity on +the part of the teacher, and increased attention to tricky by-rules +on the part of the child. + +The number of schools in which arithmetic is intelligently and even +practically taught is undoubtedly much larger than it was in the days +of payment by results; but there are still thousands of schools in +which obedience to the rule for its own sake is the basis of all +instruction in arithmetic. Now to live habitually by rule instead of +by thought is necessarily fatal, in every field of action, to the +development of that _sense_ or perceptive faculty, on which right +action ultimately depends. Following his reputed guide blindly, +mechanically, and with whole-hearted devotion, the votary of the rule +never allows his intuition, his faculty of direct perception and +subconscious judgment, to play even for a moment round the matters +on which he is engaged; and the result is that the faculty in +question is not merely prevented from growing, but is at last +actually blighted in the bud. This is but another way of saying what +I have already insisted upon,--that to forbid self-expression on the +part of the child is to starve his perceptive faculties into +non-existence. + +There is no folly perpetrated in the elementary school of to-day for +which there are not authoritative precedents to be found in the +conduct of one or other of the two great schools which the God of +Western theology is supposed to have opened for the education of Man. +And it is in that special development of the Legal School which +is known as Pharisaism that we shall look for a precedent for the +conventional teaching of arithmetic in our elementary schools. The +ultra-legalism of the Pharisee in the days of Christ finds its exact +counterpart in the ultra-legalism of the child who has been taught +arithmetic by the methods which the yearly examination fostered, and +which are still widely prevalent. In the one case there was, in the +other case there is, an entire inability on the part of the zealous +votary of the rule to estimate the intrinsic value of the results of +his blind and unintelligent action. The sense of humour, which is a +necessary element in every other healthy sense, and which so often +keeps us from going astray, by suddenly revealing to us the inherent +absurdity of our proposed action, is one of the first faculties to +succumb to the blighting influence of an ultra-legal conception of +life. As an example of the unwavering seriousness of the Pharisee in +the presence of what was intrinsically ridiculous, let us take his +attitude towards the problem of keeping food warm for the Sabbath +day. "According to Exodus xvi. 23, it was forbidden to bake and to +boil on the Sabbath. Hence the food, which it was desired to eat hot +on the Sabbath, was to be prepared before its commencement, and kept +warm by artificial means. In doing this, however, care must be taken +that the existing heat was not increased, which would have been +'boiling.' Hence the food must be put only into such substances as +would maintain its heat, not into such as might possibly increase it. +'Food to be kept warm for the Sabbath must not be put into oil-dregs, +manure, salt, chalk, or sand, whether moist or dry, nor into straw, +grape-skins, flock, or vegetables, if these are damp, though it may +if they are dry. It may, however, be put into clothes, amidst fruits, +pigeons' feathers, and flax tow. R. Jehudah declares flax tow +unallowable and permits only coarse tow.'"[10] Following his rule +out, step by step, with unflinching loyalty, into these ridiculous +consequences, the Pharisee had entirely lost the power of seeing that +they were ridiculous, and was well content to believe, with Jehudah, +that the difference between keeping food warm in coarse tow and in +flax tow was the difference between life and death. This _reductio +ad absurdum_ of legalism is exactly paralleled, in many of our +elementary schools, in the answers to arithmetical questions given by +the children. The "Fifth Standard" boys who told their inspector, as +an answer to an easy problem, that a given room was five shillings +and sixpence wide, had followed out their rule--they had +unfortunately got hold of a wrong rule--step by step, till it led +them to a conclusion, the intrinsic absurdity of which they were one +and all unable to see.[11] There are many elementary schools in +England in which a majority of the answers given to quite easy +problems would certainly be wrong, and a respectable minority of them +ludicrously wrong. Nor is this to be wondered at; for though the +types of problems that can be set in elementary schools are not +numerous, to provide his pupils with the by-rules which shall enable +them in all, or even in most cases, to determine which of the +recognised rules are appropriate to the given situation, passes the +wit of the teacher. But if the helplessness of so many elementary +scholars in the face of an arithmetical problem is lamentable, still +more lamentable is the fact that the scholar is seldom met with who, +having given an entirely wrong answer to an easy problem, is able to +see for himself that, whatever the right answer may be, the answer +given is and must be wrong. So fatal to the development of the +arithmetical sense is the current worship of the rule for its own +sake, and so deadly a narcotic is the conventional arithmetic lesson +to all who take part in it! + + It is not in the arithmetic lesson, then, that provision is +ordinarily made for the development of a sense, or perceptive +faculty, through the medium of self-expression on the part of the +child. On the contrary, the very _raison d'ętre_ of the arithmetic +lesson, as it is still given in many schools, is to destroy the +arithmetical sense, and make the child an inefficient calculating +machine, which, even when working, is too often inaccurate and +clumsy, and which the slightest change of environment throws at +once and completely out of gear. + +After the arithmetical lesson come, as a rule, lessons in "_Reading_" +and "_Writing_"--in reading in some classes, in writing in others. +The first thing that strikes the visitor who enters an ordinary +elementary school while a reading lesson is in progress, is that the +children are not reading at all, in the accepted sense of the word. +They are not reading to themselves, not studying, not mastering the +contents of the book, not assimilating the mental and spiritual +nutriment that it may be supposed to contain. They are standing up, +one by one, even in the highest class of all, and reading aloud to +their teacher. + +Why are they doing this? Is it in order that their teacher may show +them how to master the more difficult words in their reading lesson? +This may be the reason, in some schools; but there are others, +perhaps a majority, in which the teacher tells his pupils the words +that puzzle them instead of helping them to make them out for +themselves. Besides, if reading were properly taught in the lower +classes, the children in the upper classes would surely be able to +master unaided the difficulties that might confront them. + +Or is it in order that elocution may be cultivated? But elocution is +seldom, if ever, cultivated in the ordinary elementary school, the +veriest mumbling on the part of the child being accepted by his +teacher (who follows him with an open book in his hand), provided +that he can read correctly and with some attempt at "phrasing." +Indeed, the indistinct utterance of so many school children may be +attributed to the fact that they have read aloud to their teachers +for many years, and that during the whole of that time a very low +standard of distinctness has been accepted as satisfactory. + +Or is it in order that the teacher may help his pupils to understand +what they are reading? This may be one of his reasons for hearing +them read aloud; but so far as the higher classes are concerned it is +a bad reason, for the older the child the more imperative is it that +he should try to make out for himself the meaning of what he reads; +and the teacher who spoon-feeds his pupils during the reading lesson +is doing his best to make them incapable of digesting the contents of +books for themselves. + +No, there are two chief reasons why the teacher makes children of +eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen years of age read aloud to him +as if they were children of six or seven. The first reason is that +the unemancipated teacher instinctively does to-day what he did +twenty years ago, and that twenty years ago, when children were +examined in reading from their own books, the teacher heard them read +aloud, day after day in order that he might make sure that they knew +their books well enough to pass the inspector's test. The second +reason, which is wider than the first, and may be said to include and +account for it, is that the reading-aloud lesson fits in with the +whole system of Western education, being the outcome and expression +of that complete distrust of the child which is, and always has been, +characteristic of the popular religion and philosophy of the West. If +you ask the teacher why the children, even in the highest classes, +are never allowed to work at such subjects as history and geography +by themselves, he will tell you frankly that he cannot trust them to +do so, that they do not know how to use a book. And he cannot see +that in giving this excuse he is condemning himself, and making open +confession of the worthlessness of the training that he has given to +his pupils. + +Whatever else the reading-aloud lesson may be, it is a dismal waste +of time. Child after child stands up, reads for a minute or so, and +then sits down, remaining idle and inert (except when an occasional +question is addressed to him) for the rest of the time occupied +by the so-called lesson. In this, as in most oral lessons, the +elementary school child passes much of his time in a state which is +neither activity nor rest,--a state of enforced inertness combined +with unnatural and unceasing strain. Activity is good for the child, +and rest, which, is the complement of activity, is good for the +child; but the combination of inertness with strain is good for +neither his body nor his mind. Indeed, it may be doubted if there is +any state of mind and body which is so uneducational as this, or so +unfavourable to healthy growth. + + But the main objection to the reading-aloud lesson is, I repeat, that +while it is going on the children are not reading at all, in the +proper sense of the word, not attacking the book, not enjoying it, +not extracting the honey from it. And the consequences of the +inability to read which is thus engendered are far-reaching and +disastrous. The power to read is a key which unlocks many doors. One +of the most important of these doors--perhaps, from the strictly +scholastic point of view, _the_ most important--is the door of study. +The child who cannot read to himself cannot study a book, cannot +master its contents. It is because the elementary school child cannot +be trusted to do any independent study, that the oral lesson, or +lecture, with its futile expenditure of "chalk and talk," is so +prominent a feature in the work of the elementary school. And it is +because the oral lesson necessarily counts for so much, that the +over-grouping of classes, with all its attendant evils, is so widely +practised. The grouping together of "Standards" V, VI, and VII, with +the result that the children who go through all those Standards are +compelled to waste the last two years of their school life, is a +practice which is almost universal in elementary schools of a certain +size. And there are few schools of that size in which those Standards +could not be broken up into two, if not three, independent classes, +if the children, whose ages range as a rule between eleven and +fourteen, could be trusted to work by themselves. In many cases this +over-grouping is wholly inexcusable, the headmaster having no class +of his own to teach, and being therefore free to do what obviously +ought to be done,--to separate the older and more advanced children +from the rest of the top class, and form them into a separate class +(a real top class) for independent study and self-education under his +direction and supervision. But so strong is the force of habit, and +so deeply rooted in the mind of the teacher is distrust of the child, +that it is rare to find the head teacher to whom the idea of breaking +up an over-grouped top class has suggested itself as practicable, or +even as intrinsically desirable. + +We owe it, then, to the reading-aloud fetich that in many of our +schools the children are compelled to spend the last two (or even +three) years of their school life--the most important years of all +from the point of view of their preparation for the battle of +life--in marking time, in staying where they were. It is to those +years of enforced stagnation that the reluctance of the ex-elementary +scholar to go on with his education is largely due; for no one can +keep on moving who is not already on the move, and the desire to +continue education is scarcely to be looked for in one who has been +given to understand that his education has come to an end. But there +is another and a shorter cut from the conventional reading lesson to +the early extinction of the child's educational career. The child who +leaves school without having learned how to use a book, will find +that the one door through which access is gained to most of the halls +of learning--the door of independent study--is for ever slammed in +his face. Not that he will seriously try to open it; for with the +ability to read the desire to read will have aborted. The distrust of +the child, on which Western education is based, is a bottomless gulf +in which educational effort, whatever form it may take or in whatever +quarter it may originate, is for the most part swallowed up and made +as though it had not been. The child who leaves school at the age of +fourteen will have attended some 2,000 or 3,000 reading lessons in +the course of his school life. From these, in far too many cases, he +will have carried nothing away but the ability to stumble with +tolerable correctness through printed matter of moderate difficulty. +He will not have carried away from them either the power or the +desire to read. + +In the days of percentages, instruction in "_Writing_" below Standard +V was entirely confined to handwriting and spelling; and even in the +higher Standards the teacher thought more about handwriting and +spelling than any other aspect of this composite subject. Now +handwriting and spelling are merely means to an end,--the end of +making clear to the reader the words that have been committed to +paper by the writer. But it is the choice rather than the setting +out of words that really matters, and the name that we give to the +choosing of words is Composition. The excessive regard that has +always been paid in our elementary schools to neat handwriting and +correct spelling is characteristic of the whole Western attitude +towards education. No "results" are more easily or more accurately +appraised than these, and it follows that no "results" are more +highly esteemed by the unenlightened teacher. For wherever the +outward standard of reality has established itself at the expense of +the inward, the ease with which worth (or what passes for such) can +be measured is ever tending to become in itself the chief, if not the +sole, measure of worth. And in proportion as we tend to value the +results of education for their measureableness, so we tend to +undervalue and at last to ignore those results which are too +intrinsically valuable to be measured. + + * * * * * + +Hence the neglect of _Composition_ in so many elementary schools. I +mean by composition the sincere expression in language of the child's +genuine thoughts and feelings. The effort to "compose," whether +orally or on paper, is one of the most educational of all efforts; +for language is at once the most readily available and the most +subtle and sympathetic of all media of expression; and the effort +to express himself in it tends, in proportion as it is sincere +and strong, to give breadth, depth, and complexity to the child's +thoughts and feelings, and through the development of these to weave +his experiences into the tissue of his life. But sincerity of +expression is not easily measured, and the true value of the thoughts +and feelings that are struggling to express themselves in a child's +composition is beyond the reach of any rule or scale; whereas +neatness of handwriting and correctness of spelling are, as we have +seen, features which appeal even to the carelessly observant eye. + +Knowing this, the teacher takes care that the exercise-books of his +pupils shall be filled with neat and accurate composition exercises, +and that some of the neatest and most accurate of these shall be +exhibited on the walls of his school. The visitor whose eye ranges +over these exercises and goes no further may be excused if he forms +a highly favourable opinion of the school which can produce such +seemingly excellent work. But let him spend a morning in the school, +and see how these "results" have been produced. He will probably +change his mind as to their value. The teaching of composition in +the ordinary elementary school is too often fraudulent and futile. +Indeed, there is no lesson in which the teacher's traditional +distrust of the child goes further than in this. In the lower classes +the child is taught how to construct simple sentences (as if he +had never made one in the previous course of his life), and he is +not trusted to do more than this. He listens to a so-called object +lesson, and when it is over he is told to write a few simple +sentences about the Cow or the Horse, or whatever the subject of the +lesson may have been; and lest his memory (the only faculty which he +is allowed to exercise) should fail him, the chief landmarks of the +lesson are placed before him on the blackboard. This string of simple +sentences reproduced from memory passes muster as composition. And +yet that child began to practise oral composition at the age of +eighteen months, and at the age of three was able to use complex +sentences with freedom and skill. In the upper classes the +composition is too often as mechanical, as unreal, and as insincere +as in the lower. Sometimes a given subject is worked out by the +teacher with the class, the children, one by one, suggesting +sentences, which are shaped and corrected by the teacher and then +written up on the blackboard, until there are enough of them to fill +one page of an ordinary exercise book. Then the whole essay (if one +must dignify it with that name) is copied out, very neatly and +carefully, by every child in the class; and the result is shown to +the inspector as original composition. At other times or in other +schools the class teacher does not go quite so far as this. He +contents himself with talking the subject over with the class, and +then writing a series of headings[12] on the blackboard. Or, again, +trusting to the child's red-hot memory, he will allow him to write +out what he remembers of an object-lesson, or a history lesson, or +whatever it may be. Composition exercises which are the genuine +expression of genuine perception, which have behind them what the +child has experienced, what he has felt or thought, what he has read, +what he has studied, are the exception rather than the rule; for +in such exercises there would probably be faults of spelling, +faults of grammar, colloquialisms, careless writing (due to the +child's eagerness), and so forth; and the work would therefore be +unsatisfactory from the showman's point of view. The child's natural +capacity for expressing himself in language is systematically starved +in order that outward and visible results, results which will win +approval from those who judge according to the appearance of things, +may be duly produced. + +The case of oral composition in the unemancipated elementary school +is even more hopeless than that of written composition. The latter +has a time set apart for it on the time-table, and is at any rate +supposed to be taught. The former is wholly ignored. Many teachers +seem to have entirely forgotten that the desire and the ability to +talk are part of the normal equipment of every healthy child. There +was, indeed, a time when children were taught to answer questions +in complete sentences even when one-word answers would have amply +sufficed. For example, when a child was asked how many pence there +were in a shilling, he was expected to answer, "There are twelve +pence in a shilling"; when he was asked what was the colour of snow, +he was expected to answer, "The colour of snow is white "; and so on. +And both he and his teacher flattered themselves that this waste of +words was oral composition! In point of fact the sentence in each of +these cases was worth no more, as an effort of self-expression, than +its one important word--_twelve_, _white_, or whatever it might be; +and the child, who was allowed to think that he had produced a real +sentence, had in effect done no more than envelop one real word in a +hollow formula. There are still many schools in which this ridiculous +practice lingers, and in which it constitutes the only attempt at +oral composition that the child is allowed to make. Where it has died +out the idea of teaching oral composition has too often died with it. +Young children are, as a rule, voluble talkers, with a considerable +command of language. But it not infrequently happens that at the +close of his school life the once talkative child has lapsed into a +state of sullen taciturnity. In common with other vital faculties, +his power of expressing himself in speech has withered in the +repressive atmosphere to which he has so long been exposed. + +It is in the oral lesson that one would expect oral composition to +be taught or at any rate practised. In such subjects as _History_, +_Geography_, _English_, _Elementary Science_, the teaching in most +elementary schools is mainly, if not wholly, oral. In the days of +payment by results separate and variable grants were given for these +subjects; and which, if either, of two grants should be recommended +depended in each case on the result of an oral examination conducted +by H.M. Inspector, the employment of a written test in any class +being strictly forbidden by "My Lords." In this examination proof +of the possession of information was all that the inspector could +demand; and the quickest and easiest way of obtaining such proof +was to ask the class questions which could be briefly answered by +the children individually. Questions which were designed to test +intelligence might, of course, have been asked, and in some districts +were freely asked; but to have reduced the grant because the children +failed to answer these would have provoked an outcry; while, had the +inspector asked questions which demanded long answers, he would, in +the limited time at his command, have given but few children the +chance of showing that they had been duly prepared for the +examination. The consequence was that the oral lesson on a "class +subject" usually took the form of stuffing the children with pellets +of appropriate information, some of which they would, in all +probability, have the opportunity of disgorging when they were +questioned by the inspector on the yearly "parade day." + +Not only, then, did the official examination in history, geography +and elementary science direct the teaching of these subjects into +channels in which the golden opportunities that they offer for the +practice of written composition were perforce thrown away, but also +the examination was so framed that even the practice of oral +composition, in preparation for it, was actively discouraged. And the +neglect of composition acted disastrously on the teaching of the +subjects in question; for wherever self-expression on the part of the +child is forbidden, the appropriate "sense," or perceptive faculty, +cannot possibly evolve itself,--perception and expression being, as +we have elsewhere seen, the very life and soul of each other; and in +the absence (to take pertinent examples) of the historical or the +geographical sense, the possession of historical or geographical +information cannot possibly be converted into knowledge of history +or geography. The prompt, accurate, and general answering which was +rewarded by the award of the higher grants for "class subjects" was, +in nine cases out of ten, the outcome of assiduous and unintelligent +cram,--a mode of preparation for which the policy of the Education +Department was mainly responsible. + + But when separate grants ceased to be paid for class subjects, were +not the teachers free to teach them by rational methods? No doubt +they were--in theory. In point of fact they were in bondage to the +strongest of all constraining influences,--the force of inveterate +habit. For twenty years they had taught the class subjects by the one +safe method of vigorous oral cram. This method had answered their +purpose, and it was but natural that they should continue to teach by +it. What happened, when separate grants ceased to be paid, was that +the need for responsiveness on the part of the scholar gradually +lessened. The pellets of information were still imparted, but it +became less and less incumbent upon the teacher to see that his +pupils were ready to disgorge them at a moment's notice. And so the +cramming lesson gradually transformed itself into a _lecture_, in +which the teacher did all or nearly all the talking, while the +children sat still and listened or pretended to listen, an occasional +yawn giving open proof of the boredom from which most of them were +suffering. + +That is the type of oral lesson which is most common at the present +day. "Results" in history, geography, nature study and English are +seldom asked for by the inspector; and the teacher takes but little +trouble to produce them. But his distrust of the child is as firmly +rooted as ever, and his unwillingness to allow the child to work by +or for himself is as strong as it ever was. The consequence is that +there are many schools in which the teacher now does everything +during the oral lesson, while the child does as nearly as possible +nothing. Formerly the child was at any rate allowed (or rather +required) to be actively receptive. Now he is seldom allowed to do +anything more active than to yawn. And all the time he is secretly +longing to energise--to do something with himself--to use his mental, +if not his physical faculties--to work, if not to play. One might +have thought that in the history and geography lessons, if in no +other, "Standards VI" and "VII" (where the numbers were too small +to admit of these standards having a teacher to themselves) would +be separated from "Standard V," and allowed to work out their own +salvation by studying suitable text-books under proper supervision +and guidance. But no; the force of habit is too strong for the +machine-made teacher. Twenty years ago history and geography were +"class subjects," and as such were taught orally to whole classes of +children. And they must still be taught as "class subjects," even +if this should involve the "Sixth" and "Seventh Standards" being +brigaded with, and kept down for one or even two years to, the level +of the "Fifth,"--kept down, it would seem, for no other purpose than +that of being the passive recipients of the teacher's windy "talk," +and the helpless witnesses of his futile "chalk," and of having their +own activities paralysed and their own powers of expression starved +into inanition. + +I will deal with one more "secular" subject before I bring this +sketch to a close. There are still many schools in which the hours +that are set apart for _Drawing_ are devoted in large measure to the +slavish reproduction of flat copies. A picture of some familiar +object--outlined, shaded, or tinted as the case may be, and not +infrequently highly conventionalised--hangs in front of the class; +and the children copy it, stroke by stroke, and curve by curve, and +put in the shading and lay on washes of colour. As long practice at +work of this kind develops a certain degree of manual dexterity, and +as the free use of india-rubber is permitted and even encouraged, the +child's finished work may be so neat and accurate as to become worthy +of a place on the school wall. But what is the value, what is the +meaning of work of this kind? When such a drawing lesson as I have +described is in progress, the divorce between perception and +expression is complete. And as each of these master faculties is the +very life and soul of the other, their complete divorce from one +another involves the complete eclipse of each. The child who copies +a flat copy does not perceive anything except some other person's +reproduction of a scene or object; and even this he does not +necessarily grasp as a whole, his business being to reproduce it with +flawless accuracy, line by line. Indeed, it may well happen that he +does not even know what the picture or diagram before him is intended +to represent. Nor is he expressing anything, for he has not made his +model in any sense or degree his own. Thus, during the whole of a +lesson in which the perceptive and expressive faculties are supposed +to be receiving a special training, they are lying dormant and inert. +Each of them is, for the time being, as good as dead. And each of +them will assuredly die if this kind of teaching goes on for very +long, die for lack of exercise, die wasted and atrophied by disuse. +The extent to which the copying of copies can injure a child's power +of observation exceeds belief. I have seen a bowl placed high above +the line of sight of a class of fifty senior boys, each one of whom +(his memory being haunted, I suppose, by some diagram which he had +once copied) drew it as if he were looking into it from above. Not +one of those boys could see the bowl as it really was, or rather +as it really was to be seen. A child who had never drawn a stroke +in his life, but whose perceptive faculties had not been deadened +by education, would have sketched the bowl more correctly than +any of those quasi-experts. And with the wasting of the power of +observation, the executive power is gradually lost; for perception +is ever interpenetrating, reinforcing, and stimulating expression; +and when the eye is blind, the hand, however skilful its mere +manipulation may be, necessarily falters and loses its cunning. + +Four or five years ago, had one entered an elementary school while +drawing was being taught, such a lesson as I have just described +would have been in progress in ninety-nine cases out of every +hundred. Since then a systematic warfare has been waged by the Board +against the "flat copy"; and though it is still very far from +extinct, there is now perhaps an actual majority of schools in which +its use has been discontinued. But the number of schools in which +drawing from the object is effectively taught, though increasing +steadily, is still small. In those schools, indeed, the results are +surprisingly good,--so good as to justify, not only the new gospel of +drawing from the object, but also the whole gospel of education +through self-reliance and self-expression. But elsewhere there has +been but little improvement, except so far as it may be better to +draw from an object without guidance, or with quite ineffective +guidance, than to draw from a flat copy. In some schools the formula +or "tip" is beginning to take the place of the flat copy. There is a +formula for the tulip, a formula for the snowdrop, a formula for the +daffodil, and so on; and the children draw from these formulć while +the actual flowers are before them and they are making believe to +reproduce them. In other schools an object is placed before the +class, and the teacher draws this for them on the blackboard, +explaining to them in detail how it ought to be drawn; and when he +has finished, the children pretend to draw the object, but really +copy his blackboard copy of it. In this, as in other matters, the +teacher who has become a victim of routine will give a facile but +mainly "notional" assent to the suggestions that are placed before +him, will promise to try them, and will make an unintelligent and +half-hearted attempt to do so, but will as often as not slide back +into practices which do not materially differ from those which he +professes to have abandoned. The pressure of the whole system of +Western education--not to speak of Western civilisation--will be too +strong for him. The flat copy, with its demand for mechanical work +and servile obedience, fits into that system. Drawing from the +object, with its demand for initiative and self-reliance, does not. +Hence the attractive force of the former,--a secret attractive force +which will neutralise the efforts that the teacher consciously makes +to free himself from its influence, and will arm him, as with +a hidden shirt of mail, against the missionary zeal of his +inspector.[13] Even the zeal of the inspector will be affected by his +possible inability to harmonise his gospel of self-expression in +drawing with any general system of self-education. It is because the +educational reformer is fighting, in his sporadic attempts at reform, +against his own deepest conviction, that he achieves so little even +in the particular directions in which he sees clearly that reform is +needed. + +But how, it will be asked, is such a school as I have described to be +kept going? The whole _régime_ must be eminently distasteful to the +healthy child, and it can scarcely be attractive to his teacher. By +what motive force, then, is the school to be kept in motion,--in +motion, if not along the path of progress, at any rate along the +well-worn track of routine? By the only motive force which +the religion and the civilisation of the West recognise as +effective,--the hope of external reward, with its complement, the +fear of external punishment. From highest to lowest, from the head +teacher of the school to the youngest child in the bottom class, all +the teachers and all the children are subjected to the pressure of +this quasi-physical force. The teachers hope for advancement and +increase of salary, and fear degradation and loss of salary, or at +any rate loss of the hoped-for increment.[14] The children hope for +medals, books, high places in their respective classes, and other +rewards and distinctions, and fear corporal and other kinds of +punishment. The thoroughly efficient school is one in which this +motive force is duly transmitted to every part of the school +by means of a well-planned and carefully-elaborated machinery, +analogous to that by which water and gas are laid on at every +tap in every house in a well-governed town. Only those who are +intimately acquainted with the inside of the elementary school can +realise to what an extent the machinery of education has in recent +years encroached upon the vital interests of the school and the time +and thought of the teacher. In schools which are administered by +business-like and up-to-date Local Authorities, this encroachment is +becoming as serious as that of drifting sands on a fertile soil. +Time-tables, schemes of work, syllabuses, record books, progress +books, examination result books, and the rest,--hours and hours are +spent by the teachers on the clerical work which these mechanical +contrivances demand. And the hours so spent are too often wholly +wasted. The worst of this machinery is that, so long as it works +smoothly, all who are interested in the school are satisfied. But +it may all work with perfect smoothness, and yet achieve nothing +that really counts. I know of hundreds of schools which are to all +appearance thoroughly efficient,--schools in which the machinery of +education is as well contrived as it is well oiled and cleaned,--and +yet in which there is no vital movement, no growth, no life. From +highest to lowest, all the inmates of those schools are cheating +themselves with forms, figures, marks, and other such empty symbols. + +The application of the conventional motive force to the school +children goes by the name of _Discipline_. If the pressure at each +tap is steady, constant, and otherwise effective, the discipline is +good. If it is variable, intermittent, and otherwise ineffective, +the discipline is bad. The life of the routine-ridden school is so +irksome to the child, that if he is healthy and vigorous he will long +to find a congenial outlet for his vital energies, which are as a +rule either pent back (as when he sits still listening to a lecture), +or forced into uninteresting and unprofitable channels. When this +desire masters him during school hours, it goes by the name of +"naughtiness," and is regarded as a proof of the inborn sinfulness +of his "fallen" nature. To repress the desire, to keep the child in +a state either of absolute inaction or of mechanically regulated +activity, is the function of school discipline. Whatever in the +child's life is free, natural, spontaneous, wells up from an evil +source. If educational progress is to be made, that source must be +carefully sealed. As an educator, the teacher must do his best +to reduce the child to the level of a wire-pulled puppet. As a +disciplinarian, he must overcome the child's instinctive repugnance +to being subjected to such unworthy treatment. The better the +"discipline" of the school, the easier it will be for the mechanical +education given in it to achieve its deadly work. + +In making this sketch of what is still a common type of elementary +school, my object has been to provide myself with materials for +answering the question: Does elementary education, as at present +conducted in this country, tend to foster the growth of the child's +faculties? If my sketch is even approximately faithful to its +original, the answer to the question, so far at least as thousands of +schools are concerned, must be an emphatic No. For in the school, as +I have sketched it, the one end and aim of the teacher is to prevent +the child from doing anything whatever for himself; and where +independent effort is prohibited, the growth of faculty must needs be +arrested, the growth of every faculty, as of every limb and organ, +being dependent in large measure on its being duly and suitably +exercised by its owner. If this statement is true of faculty as such, +and of effort as such, still more is it true of the particular +faculties which school life is supposed to train, the faculties which +we speak of loosely as perceptive,--and of the particular effort by +which alone the growth of the perceptive faculties is effected, the +many-sided effort which we speak of loosely as self-expression. Far +perception and expression are, as I have endeavoured to prove, the +face and obverse of the same vital process; and the educational +policy which makes self-expression, or, in other words, sincere +expression, impossible, is therefore fatal to the outgrowth of the +whole range of the perceptive faculties. + +The education given in thousands of our elementary schools is, then, +in the highest degree anti-educational. The end which education +ought to aim at achieving is the very end which the teacher labours +unceasingly to defeat. The teacher may, indeed, contend that his +business is not to evoke faculty but to impart knowledge. The answer +to this argument is that the type of education which impedes the +outgrowth of faculty is necessarily fatal to the acquisition of +knowledge. For the teacher can no more impart knowledge to his pupils +than a nurse can impart flesh and blood to her charges. What the +teacher imparts is information, just as what the nurse imparts is +food; and until information has been converted into knowledge the +child is as far from being educated as the infant, whose food +remains unassimilated, is from being nourished. The teacher may pump +information into the child in a never-ending stream; but so long as +he compels the child to adopt an attitude of passive receptivity, and +forbids him to react, through the medium of self-expression, on the +food that he is receiving, so long will the food remain unassimilated +and even undigested, and the soul and mind of the child remain +uneducated and unfed. + +Whether, then, we concern ourselves, as educationalists, with the +growth of the child's whole nature, or with the growth of his master +faculties, or again with the growth of those special "senses" +which evolve themselves in response to the stimulus of special +environments, we see that in each case the effect of the teacher's +policy of distrust and repression is to arrest growth. When the +stern supernaturalist reminds us that the child's nature is +intrinsically evil, and that therefore in arresting its growth +education renders him a priceless service, we answer that, in +arresting the growth of the child's nature as a whole, education +arrests the growth of all the master faculties of his being, and +that there are some at least among these which, even in the judgment +of the supernaturalist, imperatively need to be trained. When the +strait-laced, result-hunting teacher reminds us that his sole +business is to teach certain subjects, and that therefore he cannot +concern himself with growth, we answer that, in neglecting to foster +growth, he makes it impossible for the child to put forth a special +"sense," a special faculty of direct perception, in response to each +new environment, and so (for reasons which have already been given) +incapacitates him for mastering any subject. There is always one +point of view, if no more, from which my primary assumption--that +the function of education is to foster growth--is seen to be a +truism. And from that point of view, if from no other, the failure +of the routine-ridden school to fulfil its destiny is seen to be +final and complete. + +Yet to say that elementary education, as it is given in such a +school, tends to arrest growth, is to under-estimate its capacity for +mischief. In the act of arresting growth it must needs distort +growth, and in doing this it must needs deaden and even destroy the +life which is ever struggling to evolve itself. It is well that from +time to time we should ask ourselves what compulsory education has +done for the people of England. How much it has done to civilise +and humanise the masses is beginning to be known to all who are +interested in social progress, and I for one am ready to second any +vote of thanks that may be proposed to it for this invaluable +service.[15] But when we ask ourselves what it has done to _vitalise_ +the nation, we may well hesitate for an answer. Twenty years ago, in +the days of "schedules" and "percentages," elementary education was, +on balance, an actively devitalising agency. The policy of the +Education Department made that inevitable. But things have changed +since then; and it is probable that the balance is now in favour of +the elementary school. But the balance, though growing from year to +year, is as yet very small compared with what it will be when the +teacher, relieved from the pressure of the still prevailing demand +for "results," is free to take thought for the vital interests of the +child. + +Whom shall we blame for the shortcomings of our elementary schools? +The Board of Education? Their Inspectors? The Teachers? The Training +Colleges? The Local Authorities? We will blame none of these. We will +blame the spirit of Western civilisation, with its false philosophy +of life and its false standard of reality. + +Shall we blame the Board because, in the days when they called +themselves the Department, they made the teachers of England the +serfs of their soul-destroying Code? For my own part I prefer to +honour the Board, not only because on a certain day they liberated +their serfs by a departmental edict, but also and more especially +because, in defiance of the protests and criticisms of Members of +Parliament, employers of labour, Chairmen of Education Committees, +and others, in defiance of the ubiquitous pressure of Western +externalism and materialism, in defiance of the trend of contemporary +opinion, in defiance of their own practice,--for they themselves are +an examining body whose nets are widely spread,--they refuse to +revoke the gift of freedom, which they gave, perhaps over-hastily, to +the teachers of England, and continue to exempt them, so far as their +own action is concerned, from the pressure of a formal examination on +a uniform scheme of work. + +Shall we blame the teachers as a body because too many of them are +machine-made creatures of routine? For my own part I honour the +teachers as a body, if only because here and there one of them has +dared, with splendid courage, to defy the despotism of custom, of +tradition, of officialdom, of the thousand deadening influences that +are brought to bear upon him, and to follow for himself the path of +inwardness and life. To blame the average teacher for being unable to +resist the pressure to which he is unceasingly exposed would be +almost as unfair as to blame a pebble on the seashore for being +unable to resist the grinding action of the waves, and would ill +become one who has special reason to remember how the Department, in +its misguided zeal for efficiency, strove for thirty years or more +to grind the teachers of England to one pattern in the mill of +"payment by results." It is to a certificated teacher that, as an +educationalist (if I may give myself so formidable a title), "I owe +my soul." And there are many other teachers to whom my debts, though +less weighty than this, are by no means light. Most of the failings +of the elementary teachers are wounds and strains which adverse Fate +has inflicted on them. Most of their virtues are their own. + +Shall we blame the Training Colleges because, with an unhappy past +behind them, they have yet many things to unlearn? + +Shall we blame the local Education Authorities because, with an +unknown future before them, they have yet many things to learn? + +No, I repeat, we will blame none of these. We will lay the blame on +broader shoulders. We will blame our materialistic philosophy of +life, which we complacently regard--orthodox and heretics alike--as +"_The_ truth"; and we will blame our materialised civilisation, which +we complacently regard--cultured and uncultured alike--as +civilisation, pure and simple, whatever lies beyond its confines +being lightly dismissed as "barbarism." These are the forces against +which every teacher, every manager, every inspector, who strives for +emancipation and enlightenment, has to fight unceasingly. If the +fight is an unequal one; if there are many would-be reformers who +have shrunk from it; if there are others who retired from it early in +the day; if there are others, again, who have been crushed in +it;--we will blame the forces of darkness for these disasters; we +will not blame their victims. On the contrary, we will honour all who +have fought and fallen; for when the cause is large and worthy of +devotion, failure in the service of it is only less triumphant than +success. But if there is honour for failure what shall be the guerdon +of success? What tribute shall we pay to those who have fought and +won? + +For there are some who have fought and won. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] It must be clearly understood that throughout this +chapter the school that I have in mind is one for "older children" +only. Whatever may be the defects of the elementary infant schools, +an excessive regard for outward and visible results is not one of +them. Exemption from the pressure of a formal external examination +has meant much more to them than to the schools for older children; +and the atmosphere of the good infant schools is, in consequence, +freer, happier, more recreative, and more truly educative than that +of the upper schools of equivalent merit. And when we compare grade +with grade, we find that the superiority of the elementary infant +schools is still more pronounced. The "Great Public Schools," and the +costly preparatory schools that lead up to them, may or may not be +worthy of their high reputation; but as regards facilities for the +education (in school) of their "infants," the "classes" are +unquestionably much less fortunate than the "masses." + +[7] Not long ago I happened to enter the Boys' Department of +an urban Church School at about 9.15 a.m. The Headmaster was sitting +at his desk, drawing up schemes of "secular" work. All the boys above +"Standard III"--94 in number--were grouped together, listening, or +pretending to listen, to a "chalk-and-talk" lecture on "Prayer" [of +which there are apparently five varieties, viz., (1) Invocation, (2) +Deprecation, (3) Obsecration, (4) Intercession, (5) Supplication]. +The Headmaster explained to me that "of course it was only during the +Scripture lesson" that this overgrouping went on. The lecture on +Prayer was given by a young Assistant-master, whose naive delight in +the long words that he rolled out _ore rotundo_ and then chalked up +on the blackboard, had blinded him to the obvious fact that he was +making no impression whatever on his audience. The boys, one and all, +reminded me forcibly of the "white-headed boy" in Dickens' village +school, who displayed "in the expression of his face a remarkable +capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which +his eyes were fixed." + +[8] There are many elementary schools which the Diocesan +Inspector does not enter. In the "Provided" or "Council" Schools +"undenominational Bible teaching" takes the place of the "definite +dogmatic instruction in religious knowledge" which is tested by +Diocesan Inspection. But even when undogmatic Bible teaching is +given, the shadow of an impending examination, external or internal +as the case may be, too often sterilises the efforts of the teacher. +Not that the efforts of the teacher would in any case be productive +so long as the attitude of popular thought towards the Bible remained +unchanged. To go into this burning question would involve me in an +unjustifiable digression; but I must be allowed to express my +conviction that the teaching of the Bible in our elementary schools +will never be anything but misguided and mischievous until those who +are responsible for it have realised that the Old Testament is the +inspired literature of a particular people, and have ceased to regard +it as the authentic biography of the Eternal God. It is to the +current misconception of the meaning and value of the Bible, and the +consequent misconception of the relation of God to Nature and to Man, +that the externalism of the West, which is the source of all the +graver defects of modern education, is (as I contend) largely due; +and it is useless to try to remedy those defects so long as we allow +our philosophy of life to be perennially poisoned at its highest +springs. + +[9] In far too many cases the teacher received a certain +proportion of the Grant; and in any case his value in the market +tended to vary directly with his ability to secure a large Grant for +his school by his success in the yearly examination. + +[10] _The Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ_, by Dr. +Emil Schürer. + +[11] Here is another example of the mental blindness which +rule-worship in Arithmetic is apt to induce. The boys in a large +"Standard II," who had been spending the whole year in adding, +subtracting, multiplying, and dividing tens of thousands, were given +the following sum: A farmer had 126 sheep. He bought nine. How many +had he then? Out of 50 boys, one only worked the sum correctly. Of +the remaining 49, about a third _multiplied_ 126 by 9, another third +_divided_ 126 by 9, while the remaining third _subtracted_ 9 from +126. + +[12] Reinforced in many cases by suggestive words. I +recently found myself in an urban school while the "Fourth Standard" +boys were doing "Composition." The subject--Trees--had already been +dealt with in a preparatory "talk." In front of the class was a +blackboard, on which were written the following words: + + "fruit, flowers, + I. _Roots_ tough, strong, stretch, extend. + II. _Trunk_ thick, branches, bark. + III. _Branches_ strong, tough, leaves. + IV. _Leaves_ green, shapes, sizes, beautiful, clothe, autumn, brown." + +I am told that sometimes as many as twelve headings are given, each +with its own list of suggestive words. + +[13] I was recently present at a large gathering of teachers +who had assembled to discuss the teaching of Drawing and other +kindred topics. The district is one in which the gospel of self-help +in Drawing has been preached with diligence and with much apparent +success. One of the teachers, who was expected to support the Board +in their crusade against the "flat copy," played the part of Balaam +by reading out letters from certain distinguished R.A.'s, in which +the use of the flat copy in elementary schools was openly advocated. +It was evident that those distinguished R.A.'s knew as much about +elementary education as the man in the street knows about naval +tactics, for the arguments by which they supported their paradoxical +opinions were worth exactly nothing. But the salvos of applause, +renewed again and again, which greeted the extracts from their +letters showed clearly in which direction the current of subconscious +conviction was running in that evangelised and apparently converted +district. + +[14] There are few teachers who do not also work from higher +motives than these; but there are very few who are exempt from the +pressure of these. + +[15] It is pleasant to read that at Southend on Easter +Monday (1910) there were 65,000 excursionists and only two cases of +drunkenness. It is also pleasant to hear from an officer who has +served for many years in India that the modern English private +soldier in India is an infinitely superior being to his predecessors, +and that India could not now be held by the old type of British +soldier. We must not, however, forget that the "old type" conquered +India. + + + + +PART II + +WHAT MIGHT BE + +OR + +THE PATH OF SELF-REALISATION + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A SCHOOL IN UTOPIA + + +Having painted in gloomy colours some of the actualities of +elementary education, I will now try to set forth its possibilities. +In opposing the actual to the possible, I am perhaps running the risk +of being misunderstood. The possible, as I conceive it, is no mere +"fabric of a dream." What are possibilities for the elementary +school, as such, are already actualities in certain schools. Were it +not so, I should not speak of them as possibilities. I do not pretend +to be a prophet, in the vulgar sense of the word. The ends which I am +about to set before managers and teachers are ends which have been +achieved, and are being achieved, _under entirely normal conditions_, +in various parts of the country, and which are therefore not +impracticable. There are many elementary schools in England in which +bold and successful departures have been made from the beaten track; +and in each of these cases what is at present a mere possibility for +most schools has been actually realised. And there is one elementary +school at least in which the beaten track has been entirely +abandoned, with the result that possibilities (as I may now call +them) which I might perhaps have dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as +too fantastic for serious consideration, have become part of the +everyday life of the scholars. + + That school shall now become the theme of my book; for I feel that I +cannot serve the cause of education better than by trying to describe +and interpret the work that is being done in it. The school belongs +to a village which I will call Utopia. It is not an imaginary +village--a village of Nowhere--but a very real village, which can be +reached, as all other villages can, by rail and road. It nestles at +the foot of a long range of hills; and if you will climb the slope +that rises at the back of the village, and look over the level +country that you have left behind, you will see in the distance the +gleaming waters of one of the many seas that wash our shores. The +village is fairly large, as villages go in these days of rural +depopulation; and the school is attended by about 120 children. The +head teacher, whose genius has revolutionised the life, not of the +school only, but of the whole village, is a woman. I will call her +Egeria. She has certainly been my Egeria, in the sense that whatever +modicum of wisdom in matters educational I may happen to possess, I +owe in large measure to her. I have paid her school many visits, and +it has taken me many months of thought to get to what I believe to be +the bed-rock of her philosophy of education,--a philosophy which I +will now attempt to expound. + +Two things will strike the stranger who pays his first visit to this +school. One is the ceaseless activity of the children. The other is +the bright and happy look on every face. In too many elementary +schools the children are engaged either in laboriously doing +nothing,--in listening, for example, with ill-concealed yawns, to +_lectures_ on history, geography, nature-study, and the rest; or +in doing what is only one degree removed from nothing,--working +mechanical sums, transcribing lists of spellings or pieces of +composition, drawing diagrams which have no meaning for them, and +so forth. But in this school every child is, as a rule, actively +employed. And bearing in mind that "unimpeded energy" is a recognised +source of happiness, the visitor will probably conjecture that there +is a close connection between the activity of the children and the +brightness of their faces. + +That the latter feature of the school will arrest his attention is +almost certain. Utopia belongs to a county which is proverbial for +the dullness of its rustics, but there is no sign of dullness on the +face of any Utopian child. On the contrary, so radiantly bright are +the faces of the children that something akin to sunshine seems +always to fill the school. When he gets to know the school, the +visitor will realise that the brightness of the children is of two +kinds,--the brightness of energy and intelligence, and the brightness +of goodness and joy. And when he gets to know the school as well as I +do, he will realise that these two kinds of brightness are in their +essence one. + +Let me say something about each of them. + +The Utopian child is alive, alert, active, full of latent energy, +ready to act, to do things, to turn his mind to things, to turn his +hand to things, to turn his desire to things, to turn his whole being +to things. There is no trace in this school of the mental lethargy +which, in spite of the ceaseless activity of the teachers, pervades +the atmosphere of so many elementary schools; no trace of the fatal +inertness on the part of the child, which is the outcome of five or +six years of systematic repression and compulsory inaction. The air +of the school is electrical with energy. We are obviously in the +presence of an active and vigorous life. + +And the activity of the Utopian child is his own activity. It is +a fountain which springs up in himself. Unlike the ordinary +school-child, he can do things on his own account. He does not wait, +in the helplessness of passive obedience, for his teacher to tell him +what he is to do and how he is to do it. He does not even wait, in +the bewilderment of self-distrust, for his teacher to give him a +lead. If a new situation arises, he deals with it with promptitude +and decision. His solution of the problem which it involves may be +incorrect, but at any rate it will be a solution. He will have faced +a difficulty and grappled with it, instead of having waited inertly +for something to turn up. His initiative has evidently been developed +_pari passu_ with his intelligence; and the result of this is that he +can think things out for himself, that he can devise ways and means, +that he can purpose, that he can plan. + +In all these matters the Utopian child differs widely and deeply from +the less fortunate child who has to attend a more ordinary type of +elementary school. But when we turn to the other aspect of the +Utopian brightness, when we consider it as the reflected light of +goodness and joy, we find that the difference between the two +children is wider and deeper still. There are many schools outside +Utopia that pride themselves on the excellence of their discipline; +but I am inclined to think that in some at least of these the +self-satisfaction of the teacher is equivalent to a confession of +failure. There was a time when every elementary school received a +large grant for instruction and a small grant for discipline; and +inspectors were supposed to report separately on each of these +aspects of the school's life. A strange misconception of the meaning +and purpose of education underlay this artificial distinction; but on +that we need not dwell. Were an inspector called upon to report on +the discipline of the Utopian school, his report would be brief. +There is no discipline in the school. There is no need for any. The +function of the strict disciplinarian is to shut down, and, if +necessary, sit upon, the safety-valve of misconduct. But in Utopia, +where all the energies of the children are fully and happily +employed, that safety-valve has never to be used. Each child in turn +is so happy in his school life that the idea of being naughty never +enters his head. One cannot remain long in the school without +realising that in its atmosphere + + Love is an unerring light, + And joy its own security. + +It recently happened that on a certain day one of the +assistant-teachers had to go to a hospital, that another had to take +her there, that the third was ill in bed, and that Egeria--the only +available member of the staff--was detained by one of the managers +for half-an-hour on her way to school. The school was thus left +without a teacher. On entering it, Egeria found all the children in +their places and at work. They had looked at the time-table, had +chosen some of the older scholars to take the lower classes, and had +settled down happily and in perfect order. This incident proves to +demonstration that the _morale_ of the school has somehow or other +been carried far beyond the limits of what is usually understood by +discipline. I have seen historical scenes acted with much vigour by +some of the children in the first class, and applauded with equal +vigour by their class-mates, while all the time the children in the +second class, who were drawing flowers in the same room, never lifted +their eyes from their desks. Yet no children can laugh more merrily +or more unrestrainedly than these, or make a greater uproar when it +is fitting that they should do so. + +And if there is no need for punishment, or any other form of +repression, in this school, it is equally true that there is no need +for rewards. To one who has been taught to regard competition in +school as a sacred duty, and the winning of prizes as a laudable +object of the scholar's ambition, this may seem strange. But so it +is. No child has the slightest desire to outstrip his fellows or rise +to the top of his class. Joy in their work, pride in their school, +devotion to their teacher, are sufficient incentives to industry. +Were the stimulus of competition added to these, neither the zeal nor +the interest of the children would be quickened one whit, but a +discordant element would be introduced into their school life. Happy +as he obviously is in his own school life, it would add nothing to +the happiness of the Utopian to feel that he had outstripped his +class-mates and won a prize for his achievement. So far, indeed, are +these children from wishing to shine at the expense of others, that +if they think Egeria has done less than justice to the work of some +one child, the rest of the class will go out of their way to call her +attention to it. If some children are brighter, cleverer, and more +advanced than others, the reward of their progress is that they are +allowed to help on those who lag behind. This is especially +noticeable in Drawing, in which the pre-eminence of one or two +children has again and again had the effect of lifting the work of +the whole class to a higher level. But the laggards are as far from +being discouraged by their failure as are the more advanced scholars +from being puffed up by their success. From the highest to the +lowest, all are doing their best and all are happy together. + +From morals to manners the transition is obvious and direct. Be the +explanation what it may, the whole atmosphere of this school is +evidently fatal to selfishness and self-assertion; and in such an +atmosphere good manners will spring up spontaneously among the +children, and will scarcely need to be inculcated, for the essence of +courtesy is forgetfulness of self and consideration of others in the +smaller affairs of social life. The general bearing of the Utopian +children hits the happy mean between aggressive familiarity and +uncouth shyness,--each a form of self-conscious egoism,--just as +their bearing in school hits the happy mean between laxity and undue +constraint. They welcome the stranger as a friend, take his goodwill +for granted, take him into their confidence, and show him, tactfully +and unostentatiously, many pretty courtesies. And they do all this, +not because they have been drilled into doing it, but because it is +their nature to do it, because their overflowing sympathy and +goodwill must needs express themselves in and through the channels of +courtesy and kindness. There is no trace of sullen self-repression in +this school. Accustomed (as we shall presently see) to express +themselves in various ways, the children cannot entertain kindly +feelings without seeking some vent for them. But whether their kindly +feelings lead them to dance in a ring round their own inspector, +singing "For he's a jolly good fellow," or to escort another +visitor, on his departure, through the playground with their +arms in his, their tact,--which is the outcome, partly of their +self-forgetfulness, partly of the training which their perceptive +faculties are always receiving,--is unfailing, and they never allow +friendliness to degenerate into undue familiarity. + +There is one other feature of the school life which I cannot pass +over. I have never been in a school in which the love of what is +beautiful in Nature is so strong or so sincere as in this. The +ćsthetic sense of the Utopian child has not been deliberately +trained, but it has been allowed, and even encouraged, to unfold +itself; and the appeal that beauty makes to the heart meets in +consequence with a ready response. Of the truth of this statement +I could, if necessary, give many proofs. One must suffice. The +children, who are adepts at drawing with brush and pencil, wander in +field and lane with sketch-books in their hands; and one of them at +least was so moved by the beauty of a winter sunrise, as seen from +his cottage window, that, in his own words, he felt he _must_ try to +paint it, the result being a water-colour sketch which I have shown +to a competent artist, who tells me that the _feeling_ in the sky is +quite wonderful. + +In this brief preliminary sketch of the more salient features of the +Utopian school, I have, I hope, said enough to show that its scholars +differ _toto coelo_ from those who attend that familiar type of +school which I have recently described. Yet the Utopian children are +made of the same clay as the children of other villages. If anything, +indeed, the clay is heavier and more stubborn in Utopia than +elsewhere. Some ten or twelve years ago, when Egeria took charge of +the school, the children were dull, lifeless, listless, resourceless. +Now they are bright, intelligent, happy, responsive, overflowing with +life, interested in many things, full of ability and resource. How +has this change been wrought? Not by veneering or even inoculating +the children with good qualities, but simply by allowing their better +and higher nature to evolve itself freely, naturally, and under +favourable conditions. + +That the child's better and higher nature is his real nature, is the +assumption--let me rather say, the profound conviction--on which +Egeria's whole system of education has been based. In basing it on +this assumption, she has made a bold departure from the highway which +has been blindly followed for many centuries. We have seen that the +basis of education in this country, as in Christendom generally, is +the doctrine of original sin. It is taken for granted by those who +train the child that his nature, if allowed to develop itself freely, +will grow in the wrong direction, and will therefore lead him astray; +and that it is the function of education to counteract this +tendency, to do violence to the child's nature, to compel it by main +force to grow (or make a pretence of growing) in the right direction, +to subject it to perpetual repression and constraint. The wild whoops +to which children so often give vent, when released from school, show +that a period of unnatural tension has come to an end; and in these, +and in the further conduct of the released child--in the roughness, +rudeness, and bad language, of which the passer-by (especially in +towns) not infrequently has to complain--we see a rebound from this +state of tension, an instinctive protest against the constraint to +which he has been subjected for so many hours. The result of all this +is that the child leads two lives, a life of unnatural repression and +constraint in school, and a life--also unnatural, though it is +supposed to be the expression of his nature--of reaction and protest +out of school. Such a dislocation of the child's daily life is not +likely to conduce to his well-being; while the teacher's assumption +that his _rôle_ in school is essentially active, and that of the +child essentially passive, will lead at last to his turning his back +on the root-idea of growth, to his forgetting that the child is a +living and therefore a growing organism, to his regarding the child +as clay in his hands, to be "remoulded" by him "to his heart's +desire," or even as a _tabula rasa_, on which he is to inscribe words +and other symbols at his will. + +In Utopia the training which the child receives may be said to be +based on the doctrine of original goodness. It is taken for granted +by Egeria that the child is neither a lump of clay nor a _tabula +rasa_, but a "living soul"; that growth is of the very essence of +his being; and that the normal child, if allowed to make natural +growth under reasonably favourable conditions, will grow happily and +well. It is taken for granted that the potencies of his nature are +well worth realising; that the end of his being--the ideal type +towards which the natural course of his development tends to take +him--is intrinsically good; in fine, that he is _by nature_ a "child +of God" rather than a "child of wrath." It is therefore taken for +granted that growth is in itself a good thing, a move in the right +direction; and that to foster growth, to make its conditions as +favourable as possible, to give it the food, the guidance, and the +stimulus that it needs, is the best thing that education can do for +the child. + +It is further taken for granted that the many-sided effort to grow +which is of the essence of the child's nature is the mainspring of, +and expresses itself in, certain typical instincts which no one who +studies the child with any degree of care can fail to observe; and +that by duly cultivating these instincts,--_expansive_ instincts, as +one may perhaps call them, since each of them tends to take the child +away from his petty self,--the teacher will make the best possible +provision for the growth of the child's nature as a whole. + +Above all, it is taken for granted that the growth which the child +makes must come from within himself; that no living thing can grow +vicariously; that the rings of soul-growth, like the rings of +tree-growth, must be evolved from an inner life; that the teacher +must therefore content himself with giving the child's expansive +instincts fair play and free play; and that, for the rest, he must as +far as possible efface himself, bearing in mind that not he, but the +child, is the real actor in the drama of school life. + +But though so much is left to the child in Utopia, and so much +demanded of him, it is not feared that the effort to grow will be +repugnant to him. On the contrary, it is taken for granted that in +growing, in developing his expansive instincts, the child will be +following the lines and obeying the laws of his own nature; that he +will be fulfilling the latent desires of his heart; that he will be +seeking his own pleasure; in fine, that he will be leading a happy +life. + +All this is taken for granted in Utopia, and the child's life is +therefore one of unimpeded, though duly guided and stimulated, +activity. Every instinct that makes for the expansion and elevation +(for growth is always upward as well as outward) of the child's +nature is given the freest possible play, and the whole organisation +of the school is subordinated to this central end. + +In order to find out what are the instincts which make for the +expansion and elevation of the child's nature, and which education +ought therefore to foster, we must do what Egeria has always done, we +must observe young children, and study their ways and works. Now +every healthy child wants to eat and drink, and to run about. Here +are two instincts--the instinctive desire for physical nourishment, +and the instinctive desire for physical exercise--through which +Nature provides for the growth of the body. How does she provide for +the growth of what we have agreed to call the soul? We need not +be very careful observers of young children in order to satisfy +ourselves that, apart from physical nourishment and exercise, there +are six things which the child instinctively desires, namely: + + (1) to talk and listen: + (2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word): + (3) to draw, paint, and model: + (4) to dance and sing: + (5) to know the why of things: + (6) to construct things. + +Let us consider each of these instincts, and try to determine its +meaning and purpose. + +(1) The child instinctively desires to enter into communion with +other persons,--his parents, his brothers and sisters, his nurse, his +governess, his little friends. He wants to talk to them, to tell them +what he has done, seen, felt, thought; and he wants to hear what they +have to tell him,--not only of what they themselves have done, but +also of what other persons and other living things have done, in +other times, in other countries, in other worlds. Later on, the +desire to talk and listen will develop into the desire to write and +read; but the desire will still be one for communion, for intercourse +with other lives. + +We will call this the _communicative instinct_. + +(2) The child desires, not only to enter into communion with other +persons and other living things, but also, in some sort, to identify +his life with theirs. Watch him when he is playing with other +children, or even when he is alone, except for the companionship of +his dolls and toys. He is pretty sure to be _acting_, playing at +make-believe, pretending to be something that he is not, some +grown-up person of his acquaintance, some hero of history or +romance, some traveller or other adventurer, some giant, dwarf, or +fairy, some animal, wild or tame. He plays the part of one or other +of these, and his playmates play other parts, and so a little drama +is enacted. If he has no playmates, his dolls have to play their +parts, or his toy animals have to be endowed with life, so that they +may become fellow-actors with him on the stage that he has selected. +No instinct is more inevitable, more sure to energise, than this. + +We will call it the _dramatic instinct_. + +In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, through the medium of sympathy +and imagination--twin aspects of the same vital tendency--into the +lives of other living beings. We will therefore call these the +_Sympathetic Instincts_, and place them in a class by themselves. + +(3) From his very babyhood the child delights in colour, and at a +very early age he learns to love and understand pictures. Then comes +the desire to make these for himself. Give him pencil and paper, give +him chalk, charcoal, a paint-box, and other suitable materials, and +he will set to work of his own accord to depict what he sees or has +seen, either with his outward or his inward eye. Give him a lump of +clay, and he will try to mould it into the likeness of something +that has either attracted his attention, or presented itself to his +imagination. In all these attempts he is trying, unknown to himself, +to express his perception of, and delight in, the visible beauty of +Nature. This instinct will expand, in the fullness of time, into a +strong and subtle feeling for visible beauty, and into a restless +desire to give expression to that feeling. + +We will call this the _artistic instinct_, the word _artistic_ being +used, for lack of a more suitable term, in its narrow and +conventional sense. + +(4) While the child is still a baby in arms, his mother will sing to +him, and dance him on her knee. This is her first attempt to initiate +him into the mystery of music; and the response that he makes to her +proves that she is a wise teacher, and is appealing to a genuinely +natural faculty. It will not be long before he begins to dance and +sing for himself. Watch the children in a London court or alley when +a barrel-organ appears on the scene. Without having any one to direct +or teach them, they will come together and dance in couples, often +with abundant grace and charm. Nature is their tutor. Her own rhythm, +of which the musician must have caught an echo, is passing through +their ears into their hearts and into their limbs. No instinct is +so spontaneous as this. A child will whistle or sing while his mind +is engaged on other things. If he is happy he will dance about as +naturally, and almost as inevitably, as the leaves dance when the +breeze passes through them. + +We will call this the _musical instinct_. So elemental is it that man +shares it, in some degree, with other living things. The birds are +accomplished musicians, and their movements, and those of many other +creatures, are full of rhythm and grace. + +In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, in response to the attractive +force of beauty, into that larger life which is at the heart of +Nature, but which is not ours until we have made it our own. We will +therefore call these the _Ćsthetic Instincts_, and place them in a +class by themselves. + +(5) From a very early age the child desires to know the why and +wherefore of things, to understand how effects are produced, to +discover new facts, and pass on, if possible, to their causes. In +response to the pressure of this instinct, the child breaks his toys +in order that he may find out how they work, and asks innumerable +questions which make him the terror and despair of his parents and +the other "Olympians." No instinct is more insistent in the early +days of the child's life. No instinct is more ruthlessly repressed by +those to whom the education of the child is entrusted. No instinct +dies out so completely (except so far as it is kept alive by purely +utilitarian considerations) when education of the conventional type +has done its deadly work. It has been said that children go to school +ignorant but curious, and leave school ignorant and incurious. This +gibe is the plain statement of a patent truth. + +We will call this the _inquisitive instinct_. + +(6) After analysis comes synthesis. The child pulls his toys to +pieces in order that he may, if possible, reconstruct them, and so be +the better able to control the working of them. The ends that he sets +before himself are those which Comte set before the human +race,--"savoir pour prévoir, afin de pouvoir: induire pour déduire, +afin de construire." The desire to make things, to build things up, +to control ways and means, to master the resources of Nature, to put +his knowledge of her laws and facts to a practical use, is strong in +his soul. Give him a box of bricks, and he will spend hours in +building and rebuilding houses, churches, towers, and the like. Set +him on a sandy shore, with a spade and a pail, and he will spend +hours in constructing fortified castles with deep, encircling moats +into which the sea may be duly admitted. Or he will make harness and +whips of plaited rushes, armour of tea-paper, swords of tin-plate, +boxes and other articles of cardboard, waggons, engines, and other +implements of wood. + +We will call this the _constructive instinct_. + +In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, through the correlated channels +of theory and practice, into what I may call the machinery of +Nature's life,--an aspect of that life which reveals its mysteries to +reason rather than to emotion, or (to use the language of Eastern +philosophy) to the faculties that try to find order in the Many, +rather than to those which try to hold intercourse with the One.[16] +Whichever channel he may use,--and indeed they are not so much two +channels as one, for each in turn is for ever leading into and then +passing out of the other,--his concern is always for "facts," for the +actualities of things, for "objective truth." We will therefore call +these the _Scientific Instincts_, and place them in a class by +themselves. + +There are six instincts, then,--six formative and expansive +instincts--which Nature has implanted in every normal child, and +which education, so far as it aims at being loyal to Nature, should +take account of and try to foster. Two of these are _sympathetic_; +two are _ćsthetic_; two are _scientific_. In and through the +sympathetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of _love_. In +and through the ćsthetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of +_beauty_. In and through the scientific instincts the soul grows in +the direction of _truth_. It is towards this triune goal that Nature +herself is ever directing the growth of the growing child. The +significance of this conclusion will unfold itself as we proceed. + +These instincts manifest themselves in various ways, but chiefly in +the direction that they give to that very serious occupation of young +children which we call play. It is clear, then, that if these +instincts are to be duly cultivated, the work of the school must be +modelled, as far as possible, on the lines which children, when at +play, spontaneously follow. This Egeria, with her inspired sagacity, +has clearly seen; and she has taken her measures accordingly. In +Utopia the school life of the child is all play,--play taken very +seriously, play systematised, organised, provided with ample +materials and ample opportunities, encouraged and stimulated in +every possible way. Each of the fundamental instincts that manifest +themselves in the child's play, and in doing so give a clear +indication of Nature's aims in the child's life, and of the +directions in which she wishes him to grow, is duly ministered to in +this school, the current that wells up in and through it being +skilfully guided into a suitable channel, and every obstacle to its +free development being carefully removed. But the guidance which +Egeria gives tends, as we shall see, to foster rather than fetter the +freedom of the child. When the current has been led into a suitable +channel, it is expected to shape its own further course, and even to +impose on itself the limits--the containing walls--which are needed +if its depth and strength are to be maintained. + +Let us now consider each of the six instincts in turn, and see what +special steps Egeria takes to foster its growth. + + +(1) _The Communicative Instinct_. + +Through this instinct the child goes out of himself into the lives of +other persons and other living things. The desire is in its essence +one for intercourse, for communion, for the interchange of thoughts, +of feelings, of experiences. The normal child is, as we all know, an +inveterate chatterbox; but he is also a rapt listener. If he desires, +as he certainly does, to tell others about himself, he desires, in no +less a degree, to hear about others, either from themselves, or from +those who are best able to tell him about them. The balance between +the two desires is well maintained by Nature; and it should be +carefully maintained by those who train the young, if the +communicative instinct as a whole is to make healthy growth. + +In too many elementary schools the instinct is systematically +starved, the scholars being strictly forbidden to talk among +themselves, while their conversational intercourse with their teacher +is limited to receiving a certain amount of dry information, and +giving this back, collectively or individually, when they are +expressly directed to do so. The child's instinctive desire to +converse, being deprived by education of its natural outlets, must +needs force for itself the subterranean and illicit outlet of +whispering in class, either under the teacher's nose, if he happens +to be unobservant or indolent, or behind his back, if he happens to +be vigilant and strict. And as the child is forbidden to talk about +things which are wholesome and interesting, it is but natural that in +his surreptitious conversations he should talk about things which +are less edifying, things which are trivial and vulgar, or even +unwholesome and unclean. Children are naturally obedient and +truthful; but in their attempts to find outlets for healthy +activities which are wantonly repressed, they will go far down the +inclined plane of disobedience and deceit. + +In Utopia free conversation is systematically encouraged. No +elementary school is supposed to open before 9 a.m.; but Egeria is in +the habit of coming to school at 8.45 or earlier, so that the +children who wish to do so may come and talk to her freely about the +things that interest them,--what they have observed on their walks to +or from school, what they have heard or read at home, what they think +about things in general, and so on. The school has a good library of +books which are worth reading, both in prose and verse. These the +children read in school and out of school, and are thus brought into +communication with other minds, with other times, with other lands. +They are also accustomed to talk freely to one another about the +books that they are reading. Whatever lesson may be going on, they +are encouraged to ask questions about the matter in hand, and even to +express their own views about it. They go out into the playground in +groups and make up games and plays, discussing things freely among +themselves. When they are preparing to act an historical scene or a +passage from some dramatic author, they hold a sort of informal +parliament, in which the actors are selected and various important +questions are provisionally settled. They write letters in school to +real people. The older girls take the little ones in hand, and talk +to them and draw them out. When an interesting phenomenon is noticed, +_e.g._ in a Nature ramble, the children are accustomed to discuss it +in groups, and to try to think out among themselves its cause and +its meaning. Gossip is of course discouraged; but it is scarcely +necessary for Egeria to proscribe it; for idle talk has no attraction +for children who are allowed to talk freely and frankly, at all times +and in all places, about things that are really worth discussing. +Life is full of interest for children who are allowed, as these are, +to take an active interest in it; and subjects of conversation are +therefore ever presenting themselves, in school and out of school, +to the happy children of Utopia. This means that the life of each +individual child is overflowing through many channels, an overflow +which will carry the out-welling life into the lives of other living +beings--human and infra-human, actual and imaginary--and even beyond +these, when it has been met and reinforced by other surging currents, +into the impersonal life of Humanity and of Nature. + + +(2) _The Dramatic Instinct_. + +Whatever else young children may be, they are all born actors; and in +a school which bases its scheme of education on the actualities of +child life, it is but natural that the dramatic instinct should be +fostered in every possible way. "Work while you work, and play +while you play," is one of those trite maxims which have been +unintelligently repeated till they have lost whatever value they may +once have possessed. "Work while you play, and play while you work," +seems to be Egeria's substitute for it; and she would, I think, do +well to write those words over the porch of her school. + +In the ordinary elementary school a fair amount of acting goes on +in the infant department, and an occasional attempt is made, in +one of the higher classes of the upper department, to act a scene +from Shakespeare or an episode in English history. But during +the five years or so of school life which intervene between the +infant department and "Standard VI," the dramatic instinct is +as a rule entirely neglected; and the consequent outgrowth of +self-consciousness in the children is too often a fatal obstacle to +the success of the spasmodic attempts at dramatisation which are +made in the higher classes. + +In Utopia "acting" is a vital part of the school life of every class, +and every subject that admits of dramatic treatment is systematically +dramatised. In History, for example, when the course of their study +brings them to a suitable episode, the children set to work to +dramatise it. With this end in view, they consult some advanced +text-book or historical novel or other book of reference, and +having studied with care the particular chapter in which they are +interested, and having decided among themselves who are to play what +parts, they proceed to make up their own dialogues, and their own +costumes and other accessories. They then act the scene, putting +their own interpretation on the various parts, and receiving +the stimulus and guidance of Egeria's sympathetic and moeutic +criticism. Their class-mates and the rest of the children in the main +room look on, with their history books open in front of them, and +applaud; and, by gradually familiarising themselves with the various +parts, qualify themselves half-unconsciously to act as under-studies +in the particular scene, and in due course to play their own parts as +interpreters of some other historical episode. I know of no treatment +of history which is so effective as this for young children. The +actual knowledge of the facts of history which a child carries away +with him from an elementary school cannot well be large, and is, in +many cases, a negligible quantity. But the child who has once acted +history will always be interested in it, and being interested in it +will be able, without making a formal study of it, to absorb its +spirit, its atmosphere, and the more significant of its facts. Nor +do the advantages of the dramatic treatment of history end with the +subject itself. The actors in these historical scenes are, as I have +said, expressing their own interpretation of the various parts, and +their own perception of the meaning of each episode as a whole. This +means that they are training their imaginative sympathy,--a +sovereign faculty which of all faculties is perhaps the most +emancipative and expansive,--and training it, as I can testify, with +striking success; for the dramatic power which they display is +remarkable, and can have been generated by nothing less than +sympathetic insight into the feelings of the various historical +personages and the possibilities of the various situations. + +It is probable that History lends itself more readily to dramatic +treatment than any other subject, but it is by no means the only +subject that is dramatised in Utopia. An interest in Geography is +awakened by scenes in foreign lands and episodes from books of travel +being acted by the children. An interest in Arithmetic, by a shop +being opened, which is well equipped with weights, measures, and +cardboard money, and in which a salesman stands behind the counter +and sells goods to a succession of customers. An interest in +Literature by the acting, with improvised costumes, of passages from +Shakespeare's plays, or scenes from Scott's and Dickens' novels. +Simple plays to illustrate Nature-study are acted by the younger +children; while the Folk Songs, which, as we shall see, play a +prominent part in the musical life of the children, are acted as +well as sung. + +However rude and simple the histrionic efforts of the children may +be, they are doing two things for the actors. They are giving them a +living interest in the various subjects that are dramatised; and, by +teaching them to identify themselves, if only for a moment, with +other human beings, they are leading them into the path of tolerance, +of compassion, of charity, of sympathy,--the ever-widening path +which makes at last for Nirvânic oneness with the One Life.[17] + + +(3) _The Artistic Instinct_. + +The desire to reproduce with pencil, paint, or clay the form and +colour of the outward world will, if duly cultivated, gradually +transform itself into the desire to feel, to understand, to +interpret, to express, not the form and colour only of the outward +world, but also that less palpable but more spiritual quality which +we call beauty. But in order that this transformation may take place, +the child must always endeavour to reproduce with due fidelity the +more palpable qualities of colour and form. In this endeavour he +must bring many faculties into play. He must observe closely and +attentively. He must reflect on what he observes. He must reflect on +what he himself is doing. He must compare his work with the original, +and try to discover how far he has succeeded, and where he has gone +astray. The more faithfully he tries to reproduce what he has seen, +the clearer and surer will be his insight into the less palpable +properties of things,--into those details, those aspects, those +qualities, which do not reveal themselves to the first careless +glance, but which will gradually reveal themselves to those who will +take the trouble to discover them. When he is asked to reproduce +things which are intrinsically beautiful--flowers, branches, buds, +shells, butterflies, and the like--he begins to realise that if his +work is to be successful, he must do justice to many impalpable, +though not imperceptible, details which go to the making up of +beauty. So the sense of beauty, the feeling for it, the desire to +bring it into his work, grows up in his heart; and a new kind of +fidelity--fidelity to _feeling_ rather than to _fact_ (if I may speak +for the moment in the delusive language of dualism)--begins to weave +itself into his artistic consciousness. + +If there is any school in England in which fidelity to feeling has +evolved itself out of fidelity to fact, that school is in the village +of Utopia. Some ten or twelve years ago a decree went out from +Whitehall that Drawing was to be taught in all the elementary schools +in England. Egeria at once took the children into her confidence, and +said to them: "You have now got to learn to draw: you don't know how +to draw, and I don't know how to draw, but we must all set to work +and see what we can do." A few years later the school was visited by +the inspector to whose zeal as a prophet, and skill as an expositor +and teacher, the transformation in the teaching of drawing which is +gradually taking effect in all parts of the country, has been largely +due. Here is the report[18] that he wrote after his visit-- + +"In this school the teaching of Drawing reaches the highest +educational level I have hitherto met with in our elementary schools, +and the results are the genuine expression of the children's own +thoughts. Flat copies are not used, and the scholars evolve their +own technique, for the Head Teacher is not strong herself in this +respect. The development of thought carries with it the development +of skill, and this is clearly seen in the children's drawings, which +show good form and proportion, some knowledge of light and shade, a +delicate and refined perception of colour, and a wonderful power of +dealing with the difficulties of foreshortening. The central law is +self-effort,--confidence and self-reliance follow. The spontaneous +activities of the children are duly recognised, and the latter decide +what to draw, how to draw it, and the materials to be used. One +cannot remain long in the school without observing the absence of +that timidity, that haunting fear of making a mistake, which +paralyses the minds and bodies of so many of our children. Under the +influence of the Head Teacher the children become acute critics. +Her methods coincide so exactly with those which I have long been +advocating, that I give them in her own words-- + +"'I gave each child an ivy-leaf and said, "Now look well at it." We +talked about its peculiarities, looking at it all the time, and then +I told them to draw one, still looking back to the leaf from time to +time. Then I examined their drawings. A good many were, of course, +faulty. In those cases I did not say, "No, you are wrong; this is the +way," and go to the blackboard. I said, "In such and such a part is +yours the same as the leaf? What is different? How can you alter +it?" etc., etc. I make _them tell me_ their faults. There was no +blackboard demonstration.' + +"From a careful examination of their work it is clear that the +children have not only been taught to draw, but that they love and +enjoy their drawing. Form and colour are not only seen, but +understood and felt. The children are impelled by an irresistible +desire to reach and express the truth, and are thus carried along +an ever-moving path of educative action." + +I have already spoken of the love of visible beauty which is a +characteristic feature of the life of this school. It is in the +drawing lesson that this love of beauty has in the main evolved +itself. Other influences have no doubt been at work. Nature-study and +literature, for example, have, as taught in this school, done much to +foster the children's latent love of beauty; but had drawing never +been taught, the influence of those subjects would have been much +less effective than it has been. It is in the struggle to express +what he perceives that the Utopian child has gradually strengthened +and deepened his perceptive powers, till his sight has transformed +itself into insight, and form and colour have come to be interpreted +by him through the medium of the beauty which is behind them,--his +feeling of beauty having, little by little, been awakened and evolved +by his unceasing efforts to interpret the _vraie vérité_ of form and +colour, which, as he now begins to learn, are beauty's outward self. + + +(4) _The Musical Instinct_. + +In the development of the artistic sense the path of imitation is +followed until it leads at last to heights which it cannot scale. The +development of the musical sense takes from the first a widely +different path. Nature has a beautiful music of her own, but the +child seldom attempts to imitate this. Music belongs to the soul even +more than to the outward world. So at least one feels disposed to +think. But perhaps it is more correct to say that in the presence +of music the provisional distinction between inward and outward, +between the soul and the surrounding world, becomes wholly effaced. +Expression is always the counterpart of perception; and we may rest +assured that the deep, subtle, and elusive feelings to which music +gives utterance have reality for their counterpart. The musician does +not often reproduce in his compositions the audible sounds of the +outward world,--the voices of animals, the songs of birds, the rustle +of leaves, the murmur of the sea, the sighing of the breeze, the +thunder of the storm. What he does reproduce is the music that awakes +in his soul when the emotions which these sounds kindle begin to +struggle for expression,--the music that is behind all the audible +sounds, and perhaps also behind all the inaudible vibrations of +Nature,--the music that is in his heart because it is also at the +heart of Nature,--_the rhythm of the Universe_, as one may perhaps +call it for lack of a fitter phrase. It is the sense of this rhythm +which inspires the great Composer when he builds up his masterpieces. +It is the sense of this rhythm which inspires the child when, in the +joy of his heart, he breaks spontaneously into dance and song. To +bring the rhythm of the Universe into the daily life of the child, +to give free play to his instinctive sense of its all-pervading +presence, is one of the highest functions of the teacher. And the +more carefully the sense of rhythm is cultivated, the more does it +tend to spiritualise itself, and the more profound and more vital is +the life which it struggles to interpret and evolve. There is no +instinct which is so deeply seated as the musical. It is possible for +a child, it is possible for a whole class of children, to sing out of +the depths of the soul; and when this happens we may be sure that a +fountain of spiritual joy has been unsealed, and that a great and +sacred mystery has been unveiled. There is a school in one of the +poorest slums of a large town, in which, some two or three years ago, +the children were taught to sing, and the teachers to teach singing, +by an inspired "master" who believes that to lift the sluices of +spiritual feeling is to quicken into ever-increasing activity its +hidden springs; and neither the teachers nor the children have yet +forgotten their lesson. The children are poor, pale, thin, unkempt, +ill-clad, unlovely; but I am told that when they sing their faces are +transfigured, and they all become beautiful. + +Egeria is an accomplished musician, and though Utopia belongs to one +of the unmusical counties of England, she has found it easy to awaken +the musical instinct in the hearts of its children. A few years ago +she introduced the old English Folk Songs and Morris Dances into the +school. The children took to them at once as ducklings take to the +water; and within a year they were able to give an admirably +successful performance of some two dozen songs and dances in the +village hall. Some of these had been rehearsed only once; but the +children, thanks to their having been systematically trained to +educate themselves, are so versatile and resourceful that every item +on their programme was a complete success. The Folk Songs and Morris +Dances are still the delight of the children. They are ever adding to +their repertory of songs; and when they go into the playground for +recreation, they at once form into small groups for Morris Dancing, +the older children taking the little ones in hand, and initiating +them into the pleasures of rhythmical movement. + +There is another way in which Egeria brings music into the lives of +the children. In her own words, she "sets many of their lessons to +music." For example, when they are doing needlework or drawing or any +other quiet lesson, she plays high-class music to them, which forms a +background to their efforts and their thoughts, and which gradually +weaves itself, on the one hand into the outward and visible work that +they are doing, and on the other hand into the mysterious tissue of +their inward life. + + +(5) _The Inquisitive Instinct_. + +As the inquisitive instinct makes the child an intolerable nuisance +to his ignorant and indolent elders, it is but natural that in the +unenlightened school, as in the unenlightened home, it should be +forcibly exterminated. It is through the agency of the formula "Don't +speak till you are spoken to," that its destruction is usually +effected. But under Egeria's ćgis conversation in school hours is, +as we have seen, freely encouraged, and the child's right to ask +questions fully recognised; and one may therefore conjecture that +this proscribed and outlawed instinct will find a safe asylum in her +school. Whatever lesson may be in progress, the Utopian children are +allowed, and even expected, to seek for illumination whenever they +find themselves in the dark, to pause inquiringly at every obstacle +to their understanding what they have seen or heard or read. + +The encouragement which is given in Utopia to the child who seeks to +gratify his desire for knowledge, is positive as well as negative. +When the obstacles which education usually places in his path have +been removed, it is found that the whole atmosphere of the school is +favourable to the growth of his inquisitive instinct. At every turn +he is called upon to plan and contrive, and is thus made to realise +his own limitations, and to try to escape from them. Whatever he may +have in hand,--be it the preparation for acting a new scene, or the +interpretation of a new Folk Song or Morris Dance, or the invention +of a new school game, or the thinking out some new way of treating a +"subject,"--he is sure to find that knowledge is needed if he is +to achieve success; and his desire for knowledge is therefore +continually stimulated by the demands that his own initiative and +activity are ever making upon him. + +But it is in the "Nature lesson" that the inquisitive instinct finds +in Utopia its freest scope and its fullest opportunity. To one who +had persuaded himself of the innate stupidity of the average English +child, a Nature lesson in Utopia would come as a revelation. He would +learn for the first time that, far from being innately stupid, the +average English child has it in him to reach a very high level of +keenness, acuteness, and intellectual activity. Whenever a lesson is +given on a natural object, _e.g._ a flower or a leaf, every child has +a specimen and a lens. The object is then closely and carefully +observed, in the hope of discovering features in it which might +escape the unobservant. Whenever such features are discovered the +children try to account for them. In these attempts they display much +ingenuity and intelligence, and are led on by Egeria in the direction +of the true explanation of each phenomenon, and the relation of this +to what they know of the object as a whole, and of its meaning and +function. The eagerness of the children to volunteer explanations of +the facts that they observe is only equalled by the intelligence with +which they grasp the general bearing of the problems that confront +them, and the resourcefulness and quickness of wit with which they +make repeated attempts to solve them. + +And these are not the only qualities to which the Nature lesson gives +free play. It is interesting to note that as on the one hand the +inquisitive instinct is obviously near of kin to the communicative, +so on the other hand it is ever tending to link itself to the +artistic. The closeness of observation which is the basis of success +in Nature-study, and by means of which the inquisitive instinct is +fed and strengthened, is also the basis of success in drawing; and +in each case it leads beyond itself into a region in which it has to +be supplemented by, and even transfigured into, imagination, the +faculty by means of which we observe what is at once impalpable and +real.[19] And in that region the distinction between truth and beauty +is ever tending to efface itself. The master sculptor is always an +accomplished anatomist; and the genuine naturalist is a lover and +admirer, as well as a student, of Nature. It has been well said that +"to see things in their beauty is to see them in their truth"; and it +is perhaps equally, though more remotely, true that to see things in +their truth is to see them in their beauty. That being so, we need +not wonder that among the Utopian children the love of what is +beautiful in Nature has grown continuously with the growth of their +interest in Nature-study, and that the inquisitive instinct is ever +Reinforcing and being reinforced by the artistic. + + +(6) _The Constructive Instinct_. + +Active, intelligent, resourceful, self-helpful, the Utopian child +takes to handwork of various kinds as readily and almost as +spontaneously as the birds in spring-time take to the work of +nest-building. It must indeed be admitted that the systematic +instruction in Gardening, Cookery, and Woodwork which warrants the +payment of special grants for these "subjects" is not given. But +informal gardening, informal cookery, and informal woodwork are +vital features of the school life. Nor are the children's essays in +handwork limited to these subjects. Whatever implement, instrument, +or other contrivance may be needed in order to illustrate or +otherwise help forward the general work of the school will be made by +the children, so far as their technical ability and the resources of +the school permit. For example, they will make fences, seats, frames, +and sheds for their gardens, and "properties" and dresses for their +dramatic performances. They will illustrate their games and lessons +by means of simple modelling and paper-cutting. The older girls will +dress dolls for the little ones to their own fancy, using their own +discretion as regards material, style of dress, and method of +dress-making. And so on. + +But ready as the Utopian children are to use their hands, and clever +as they are at using them, it is not through manual activity only +that the development of their constructive instinct is carried on. +One of the characteristic features of the school is the largeness +of the scale on which the constructive powers of the children are +encouraged to energise, and the frequency and variety of the demands +that are made upon them. The Utopian child is expected to educate +himself, not merely in the sense of doing by and for himself whatever +task may be set him, but also in the sense of devising new tasks for +himself, in thinking out new ways of treating the different subjects +that appear on the school time-table, in taking thought for the whole +scheme of his education. As the years go by, Egeria makes more and +greater demands on the initiative and the intelligence of the +children, her aim being apparently to transform the school by slow +degrees into a self-governing community which, under her presidency, +shall order its own life and work out its own salvation. This means, +as I have lately pointed out, that at every turn the Utopian child is +being called upon to plan and contrive; and this, again, means that +his constructive instinct, with his inquisitive instinct as its other +self, is being continually exercised on the widest possible field +and under the most stimulating of all influences. The result of +this is that reciprocal action is ever going on in his mind between +the faculties that acquire knowledge and the faculties that apply +it,--action which makes for the rapid and healthy growth of both sets +of faculties, and which is therefore ever tending to strengthen the +child's capacity for thinking and to raise the plane of its activity. + +What is the culture of the child's expansive instincts likely to do +for him? + +I will weave into my answer to this question my knowledge of what has +been done and is being done in Utopia. + +It is through the medium of his own exertions that the evolution of +the child's instincts is carried on by Egeria. It may be possible to +lay veneers of information on the surface of a child's mind, but +it is not possible to lay on veneers of growth; and growth, not +information, is the end at which Egeria has always aimed. If a child +is to grow, he must exercise his own limbs, his own organs, his own +faculties. No one else can do this for him; and unless he does it +himself, it will never be done. The school life in Utopia is +therefore one of constant activity. The habit of doing things, of +doing things for himself, of doing things by himself, is gradually +built up in each child. There is no forced inertness in Utopia, +no slackness, no boredom, no yawning. And the activity which is +characteristic of the school is always the child's own activity. The +child himself is behind everything that he does. The child himself +is expressing himself in his every action. Mechanical activity, the +doing of things, not merely at the bidding of another, but also under +his minutely detailed direction, is as foreign to the genius of +the school as is the passivity of the helpless victims of the +unenlightened teacher's "chalk and talk." + +The first consequence, then, of the training of the expansive +instincts which is given in Utopia is the building up in each scholar +of what I may call the habit of rational activity. In many schools +the energies of the child are systematically dammed back, till at +last the springs of his activity, finding that no demand is made upon +them, cease to flow. In Utopia the sluices, though always regulated, +are permanently lifted, and the energies of the child are ever +moving, with a strong and steady current, in whatever channel they +may have chanced to enter. So strong, indeed, and so steady is the +current that it maintains its movement long after the child has left +school. The employers of labour in the neighbourhood of Utopia will +tell you that there are no slackers or loafers in the yearly output +of the school. Egeria recently received a visit from one of her +ex-pupils, a girl of fourteen who is at home keeping house for her +father, and who said to her in the course of their conversation: "I +do just love washing days; I get up before six and start. Then, when +all the washing is done, I scrub everything bright in the copper +while I have the hot soapsuds." Accustomed as he (or she) is from his +(or her) earliest days to sincere and fearless self-expression, the +Utopian child is entirely incapable of indulging in cant; and the +genuineness of the sentiment which dictated those words is therefore +above suspicion. To work vigorously, to do well whatever he (or she) +has to do, is a real pleasure to the Utopian child. Indeed his whole +being is a living response to the familiar precept: "Whatsoever thy +hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." + +And what he does with his might is always well worth doing. His +constant effort to express himself has, as its necessary counterpart, +a constant effort to find out what is worth expressing, to get to the +truth of things, to see things as they are. The consequent growth +of his perceptive powers may be looked at from two points of view. +On the one hand his growing capacity for getting on terms with +things--for feeling his way among them, for "getting, the hang" of +them, for making himself at home with them, for learning their ins +and outs, for understanding their ways and works--will give him the +power of putting forth an appropriate _sense_ in response to the +demands of each new environment, and, through the medium of this +sense, of converting information into knowledge. For this reason new +"subjects" have no terror for Egeria and her pupils. Though she has +never thought in subjects, she is ready to extend her curriculum in +any direction in which she thinks that her children are likely to +find interest or profit. The versatility, the mental agility, of the +children is as remarkable as their activity. The current of their +energy is ready to adapt itself to every modifying influence, to +every change of geological formation, that it may encounter in its +course, and to shape its channel or channels accordingly. + +On the other hand, as healthy vigorous growth is always upward (and +downward) as well as outward, the lateral extension of the child's +perceptive powers must needs be balanced in Utopia by the gradual +elevation of his standpoint, with a corresponding widening of his +outlook, and the proportionate deepening of his insight. When the +school life of the child is one of continuous self-expression, +opportunities for "putting his soul" into what he says and does will +often present themselves to him; and if only a few of these are made +use of, his outlook on life will widen, and his imaginative sympathy +with life will deepen, to an extent which to one who had never +visited Utopia might well seem incredible. I have spoken of the +Utopian child's love of the beautiful. This is one aspect of the +spiritual growth that he is always making. Other aspects of it are +his strong sympathy with life in all its forms, and a certain large +and free way of looking at things, which, as far as my experience of +school children goes, is all his own. + +There is yet another aspect of his spiritual growth which is perhaps +the most vital and the most typical of all. When we say that the +child is growing both laterally and vertically (like a shapely tree), +we mean that he is growing as a whole, as a living soul. Now the +growth of the soul as such must needs take the form of outgrowth, of +escape from "self." Growth is, in its essence, an emancipative +process; and though it sometimes intensifies selfishness and widens +the sphere of its activity, that is invariably due to its being +one-sided and therefore inharmonious and unhealthy. When the child +or the man is growing as a living whole, with a happy, harmonious, +many-sided growth, his growth is of necessity outgrowth, and he must +needs be escaping from the thraldom of his lower and lesser self. +This conclusion is no mere inference from accepted or postulated +premises. What I have seen in Utopia has forced it upon me. The +unselfishness, the natural, easy, spontaneous self-forgetfulness, of +the Utopian child, is the central feature of his moral life,--so +marked and withal so unique a feature that its presence proves to +demonstration, first, that growth of the right sort is necessarily +emancipative, and, next, that the growth made in Utopia is growth +of the right sort. I have already commented on the singular charm +of manner which distinguishes the children of Utopia. Their +self-forgetfulness, their entire lack of self-consciousness, is +one source of this charm. The tactfulness which their life of +self-expression, and therefore of trained perception, tends to +engender, is another. But the moral aspect of Utopianism is one of +such surpassing interest, and also of such profound significance +from the point of view of my fundamental "truism," that I must limit +myself for the moment to this passing reference to it, and reserve +it for fuller treatment in the remaining chapters. + +I could easily make a long list of Utopian virtues and graces, but I +must content myself with touching on one more typical product of +Egeria's philosophy of education,--the joy which the children wear in +their faces and bear in their hearts. The sense of well-being which +must needs accompany healthy and harmonious growth is realised by him +who experiences it as joy. The Utopian children are by many degrees +the happiest that I have met with in an elementary school, and I +must therefore conclude that all is well with them, that their +well-being--the true end of all education--has been, and is being, +achieved. If you look at any of them with more than a mere passing +glance, you will be sure to win from him the quick response of a +sunny smile,--a smile which is half gladness, half goodwill. And the +joy of their hearts goes with them when their schooldays are over and +they begin to work for their bread. Last year one of the boys, on +leaving school, found employment in a large field on the lower slopes +of the hills, where he had to collect flints and pile them in heaps, +his wage for this dull and tiresome work being no more than fivepence +a day. But he found the work neither dull nor tiresome; for as he +marched up and down the field, collecting and piling the flints with +cheery goodwill, he sang his Folk Songs with all the spontaneous +happiness of a soaring lark. + +Activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a wide and free outlook, +self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy of heart,--these are +qualities which might be expected to unfold themselves under the +influence of the Utopian training, and which do, in point of fact, +flourish vigorously in the soil and atmosphere of Utopia. They are +the outcome of a type of education which differs radically from that +which has hitherto been accepted as orthodox,--differing from it with +the unfathomable difference between vital and mechanical obedience, +between life and machinery. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] The child is struggling to do this, and more than this. +The search for order resolves itself into the search for cause; and +the search for cause will resolve itself, in the last resort, into +the greatest of all adventures,--the search for that pure essence of +things on which all the deeper desires of the soul converge, which +imagination dreams of as absolute beauty, and reason as a beacon-lamp +of all-illuminating light, flashing forth alternately as absolute +reality and absolute truth. + +[17] I shall perhaps be told that my extravagant idealism is +out of place in a book on elementary education. To this possible +reproach I can but answer, in Mrs. Browning's words, that-- + + It takes the ideal to blow a hair's breadth off + The dust of the actual. + +My experience of Utopia has convinced me that in taking thought for +the education of the young it is impossible to be too idealistic, and +that the more "commonsensical" and "utilitarian" one's philosophy of +education, the shallower and falser it will prove to be. + +[18] An informal report to me, not a formal report to the +Board of Education. + +[19] Real, in the sense that the beauty of form and colour +is more real than either form or colour, and that a law of Nature is +more real than an isolated fact. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +EDUCATION THROUGH SELF-REALISATION + + +Activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a large and free +outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy of heart,--are +there many schools in England in which the soil and atmosphere are +favourable to the vigorous growth of all these qualities? I doubt it. +In the secondary schools, of all grades and types, the education +given is so one-sided, thanks to the inexorable pressure of the +scholarship system, that the harmonious development of the child's +nature is not to be looked for. In the elementary schools, from which +the chilling shadow cast by thirty years of "payment by results" is +passing slowly--very slowly--away, the instinct of the teacher is to +distrust the child and do everything, or nearly everything, for him, +the result being that the whole _régime_ is still unfavourable to the +spontaneous outgrowth of the child's higher qualities. There are of +course schools, both secondary and elementary, in which one or more +of the Utopian qualities flourish with considerable vigour. There are +elementary schools, for example, in which the children, being allowed +by enterprising teachers to walk in new paths without leading +strings, have become unexpectedly active and versatile. And there are +others--mostly in the slum regions of great towns--in which the +devotion, the sympathetic kindness, and the gracious bearing of the +teachers have won from the children the response of unselfish +affection, attractive manners, and happy faces.[20] Yet even in these +exceptional cases it may be doubted if the development of the +particular quality or qualities for which the school is distinguished +reaches the high-water mark which is reached in each and all of the +seven qualities in Utopia. As for the elementary schools which remain +faithful, as so many still do, to the traditions of the old +régime,--if in these any of the seven qualities manage to resist the +adverse influences to which they are all exposed, they have at best +but a starved and stunted life. + +I have spoken much and with unsparing frankness of the shortcomings +of our elementary schools. The time has come for me to say with +emphasis that however grave and however numerous may be the defects +of elementary education in England, they are defects which it shares +with all other branches of education, and which England shares with +all other Western lands. The plain truth is that education as such is +a failure in the West, a failure in the sense that the very qualities +which it ought to foster--the cardinal virtues, mental, moral, and +spiritual, which are present in embryo in every child, waiting to be +realised--are not merely neglected by it, in its insane ardour for +"results," but are also exposed, in most of its schools, to strongly +adverse influences. And the reason why education as such is a failure +in the West is that from its earliest days it has been a house +divided against itself, those who were and are responsible for +it having been under the influence of two mutually destructive +assumptions, which they have vainly tried to reconcile with one +another. + +The first of these assumptions is my initial "truism,"--that the +function of education is to foster growth. This is admitted, +implicitly if not directly, by all who think and speak about +education, and even, in their unguarded moments, by most of those +who teach. It is generally admitted, for example, that such mental +qualities as attention, memory, judgment, intelligence, reason, +such moral qualities as loyalty, courage, truthfulness, kindness, +unselfishness, such semi-moral qualities as cleanliness, orderliness, +carefulness, alertness, industry, punctuality, are capable of being +developed by education. It is further admitted that such special +qualities as literary or artistic taste, the mathematical or the +historical sense, an aptitude for business or finance, are ready +to evolve themselves, in response to the fostering influence of +practical experience directed by skilful teaching. It is admitted, +in other words, that there is much in human nature, apart from what +is purely or mainly physical, which is both capable and worthy of +cultivation, and which education ought therefore to try to cultivate. + +So far, so good. These admissions, with the fundamental admission +which underlies them all, might form the basis of a sound philosophy +of education, if they were not liable to be stultified and even +nullified by the counter assumption that human nature is innately +evil and corrupt. For from the latter assumption has followed, both +logically and naturally, a theory of education which is not merely +unfavourable but fatal to growth. If human nature is innately evil, +if it has no inborn capacity for goodness or truth, what is there in +it that is worth training? So far as the "great matters" of life are +concerned, the child must be educated by being told in minute detail +what to do, and by being alternately bribed and bullied into doing +it. As he can neither think, nor believe, nor desire, nor do what +is right, he must be told what to think, what to believe, what to +desire, what to do; and as it is assumed that the tasks set him by +his teacher will not be intrinsically attractive, he must be induced +to perform them by the threat of external punishments and the promise +of external rewards. In other words, in the spheres of religion and +morals, so far as these can be walled off from the rest of human +life, he must be educated, not by being helped to grow, but by being +compelled to obey; and as the spheres of religion and morals cannot +possibly be walled off from the rest of human life, the idea of +educating the child through the medium of passive and mechanical +obedience will gradually extend its influence over all the other +departments and aspects of his home and school life, his innate +sinfulness finding its equivalent, in secular matters, in his innate +helplessness and stupidity, while in the place of the creeds, codes, +and catechisms by which his spiritual welfare is provided for, he +will be fed during the hours of secular instruction on rations of +information, formulated rules, and minute directions of various +kinds. Under this _régime_ of wire-pulling on the part of the teacher +and puppet-like dancing on the part of the child, the growth of +the child's faculties,--of the whole range of his faculties, for +they will all come under the blighting influence of the current +misconception of the bent of his nature and the consequent +under-estimate of his powers,--far from being fostered, will be +systematically thwarted and starved. This is the fate which might be +expected to befall the child if the doctrine of his innate sinfulness +were allowed to dominate his education; and this is the fate which +has befallen and is befalling him in all grades of society and in all +the countries of the West. + +It is the doctrine of original sin, of the congenital depravity of +man's nature, which blocks the way to the reform of education,--blocks +the way to it by compelling education to become the destroying angel +instead of the foster-nurse of the child's expanding life. In +criticising the defects of our educational system, we have too long +mistaken symptoms for causes, and believed that we were removing the +latter when we were only palliating or at best excising the former. +To pinch off a withered bud, to lop off a withered limb, of the +diseased tree of education, to train in this or that direction a +branch which is as yet unaffected, is but lost labour so long as +the tree is being slowly poisoned at its roots by a fundamental +misconception of the character and capacity of the child. It is time +that we should reconsider our whole attitude towards human nature. +The widespread belief that sundry faculties, physical, mental, and +moral, admit of being cultivated and ought to be cultivated in the +schoolroom--a belief which is ever affirming itself against the +educational systems and practices that are ever giving it the +lie--may surely be construed into an admission that my primary truism +is at least a truth. If this is so, if the business of the teacher +is, as I contend, to help the child to grow, healthily, vigorously, +and symmetrically, on all the planes of his being, the inference is +irresistible that education will achieve nothing but failure until +its foundations have been entirely relaid. For faith in the inherent +soundness, in the natural goodness, of the seed or sapling, or +whatever else he may undertake to rear, is the first condition of +success on the part of the grower. And to ask education to bring to +sane and healthy maturity the plant which we call human nature, and +in the same breath to tell it that human nature is intrinsically +corrupt and evil, is to set it an obviously impracticable task. One +might as well supply a farmer with the seeds of wild grasses and +poisonous weeds, and ask him to grow a crop of wheat. Growth can and +does transform potential into actual good, but no process of growth +can transform what is innately evil into what is finally good. A +poisonous seed will ripen of inner necessity into a poisonous plant; +and the more carefully it is fed and tended, the larger and stronger +will the poisonous plant become. + +The time has come, then, for us to throw to the winds the +time-honoured, but otherwise dishonoured and discredited, belief that +the child is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity, and that +therefore his nature, if allowed to obey its own laws and follow its +own tendencies, will ripen into death, instead of into a larger +and richer life. I shall perhaps be told that if this belief is +abandoned, other religious beliefs will go with it. Let them go. They +have kept bad company, and if they cannot dissociate themselves from +it, they had better share its fate. What is real and vital in our +religious beliefs will gain incalculably by being disengaged from +what may once have had a life and a meaning of its own but is now +nothing better than a morbid growth. To tell a man that, apart from a +miracle, he is predestined to perdition, is the surest way to send +him there; and it is probable that the doctrine of his own innate +depravity is the deadliest instrument for achieving his ruin, that +Man, in his groping endeavours to explain to himself the dominant +facts of his existence, has ever devised. + +Nor is the practical failure of the doctrine--its failure to achieve +any lasting result but the strangulation of Man's expanding life--the +only proof that it is inherently unsound. There is positive proof +that the counter doctrine, the doctrine of Man's potential goodness, +is inherently true. We have seen that the great arterial instincts +which manifest themselves in the undirected play of young children, +are making for three supreme ends,--the sympathetic instincts for the +goal of _Love_, the artistic instincts for the goal of _Beauty_, the +scientific instincts for the goal of _Truth_. We have seen, in other +words, that the push of Nature's forces in the inner life of the +young child is ever tending to take him out of himself in the +direction of a triune goal which I may surely be allowed to call +_Divine_. If we follow towards "infinity" the lines of love, of +beauty, and of truth, we shall begin at last to dream of an ideal +point--the meeting-point of all and the vanishing-point of each--for +which no name will suffice less pregnant with meaning or less +suggestive of reality than that of God. It is towards God, then, not +towards the Devil, that the ripening, expansive forces of Nature +which are at work in the child, are directing the process of his +growth. We are taught that Man is by nature a "child of wrath." The +more closely we study his ways and works when, as a young child, he +is left (more or less) to his own devices, the stronger does our +conviction become that he is by nature a "child of God." Those who +are in a position to speak tell us that the normal child is born +physically healthy. If the men of science would study the other sides +of his being as carefully as they have studied his physique, they +would, I feel sure, be able to tell us that he is also born mentally, +morally, and spiritually healthy, and that on these sides, as well as +on the physical side, his growth might be and ought to be a natural +movement towards perfection. For some of my readers such arguments as +these are perhaps too much in the air to be convincing. Well, then, +let us appeal to experience. Let us see what the systematic +cultivation of his natural faculties has done for the child in +Utopia. I have already pointed out that the unselfishness of the +children--the complete absence of self-seeking and self-assertion--is +one of the most noticeable features of the life of their school. Now +there is no place for moral teaching on the time-table of the +school: and I can say without hesitation that the direct inculcation +of morality is wholly foreign to Egeria's conception of education. +How, then, has the emancipation of the child from the first enemy of +Man's well-being--from all those narrowing, hardening, and +demoralising influences which we speak of collectively as egoistic or +selfish--been effected in Utopia? By no other means than that of +allowing the child's nature to unfold itself, on many sides of its +being and under thoroughly favourable conditions. The twofold desire +which we all experience,--to accept and rest in the ordinary +undeveloped self, and at the same time to exalt and magnify it,--is +the surest and most fruitful source of moral evil. Indeed, it may be +doubted if there is any source of moral evil, apart from those which +are purely sensual, which has not at least an underground connection +with this. If we are to "cap" this deadly fountain, and so prevent it +from desolating human life, we must realise, once and for all, that +the two desires which master us cannot be simultaneously gratified; +that we cannot both rest in the ordinary self and magnify it; that we +can magnify it only by _making it great_, by helping it to grow. When +we have realised this, we shall be ready to receive the further +lesson that in proportion as the self magnifies itself by the natural +process of growth, so does its desire to magnify itself gradually die +away,--die away with the dawning consciousness that in and through +the process of its growth it is outgrowing itself, forgetting itself, +escaping from itself, that the thing which so ardently desired to be +magnified is in fact ceasing to be. This vital truth,--which my +visits to Utopia have borne in upon me,--that healthy and harmonious +growth is in its very essence _out_growth or escape from self, has +depths of meaning which are waiting to be fathomed. For one thing, it +means, if it has any meaning, that what is central in human nature +is, not its inborn wickedness but its infinite capacity for good, not +its rebellious instincts and backsliding tendencies but its +many-sided effort to achieve perfection. + +We must now make our choice between two alternatives. We must decide, +once and for all, whether the function of education is to foster +growth or to exact mechanical obedience. If we choose the latter +alternative, we shall enter a path which leads in the direction of +spiritual death. If we choose the former, we must cease to halt +between two opinions, and must henceforth base our system of +education, boldly and confidently, on the conviction that growth is +in its essence a movement towards perfection, and therefore that +self-realisation is the first and last duty of Man. + +It is by answering possible objections to Utopianism that I shall +best be able to unfold Egeria's philosophy of education. I shall +perhaps be told that in my advocacy of that philosophy _I am +preaching dangerous doctrines; that the only alternative for +obedience is the lawlessness of unbridled licence; and that anarchy, +social, moral, and spiritual, is the ultimate goal of the path which +I am urging the teacher to enter._ Let me point out, in answer to +this protest, that it is mechanical obedience which I condemn, not +obedience as such. If I condemn mechanical obedience, I do so +because it is unworthy of the name of obedience, because the higher +faculties of Man's being, the faculties which are distinctively +human--reason, imagination, aspiration, spiritual intuition, and the +like--take no part in it, because it is the obedience of an +automaton, not of a living soul. What I wish to oppose to it is +_vital obedience_, obedience to the master laws of Man's being, +obedience to the laws which assert themselves as central and supreme, +obedience more particularly to those larger and obscurer laws which +obedience itself helps us to discover, obedience in fine to that +hierarchy of laws--(the superior law always claiming the fuller +measure and the higher kind of obedience)--which, if we are to use +the Divine Name, we must needs identify with the will of God. +Obedience, in this sense of the word, is a sustained and soul-deep +effort in which all the higher faculties of Man's being take part, +an effort which is in some sort a voyage of discovery, the doing of +the more obvious duty being always rewarded by the deepening of the +doer's insight and the widening of his outlook, and by the consequent +unveiling to him of the way in which he is to walk and the goal at +which he is to aim. That the path of soul-growth is the path of vital +obedience can scarcely be doubted. The effort to grow is always +successful just so far as it implies knowledge of the laws of the +nature that is unfolding itself, and readiness to obey those laws; +and so far as it is successful, it carries with it the outgrowth of +the very faculties by which knowledge--the higher knowledge which +makes further growth possible--is to be gained. Here, as +elsewhere, there is an unceasing interaction between perception and +expression, between knowledge of law and obedience to law, what is +given as obedience being received back as enlightenment, and what is +received as enlightenment being given back as larger, fuller, and +more significant obedience. + +And, be it carefully observed, it is obedience to the laws of human +nature, not obedience to the idiosyncrasies of the individual nature, +which the process of soul-growth at once implies and makes possible. +Growth is, in its essence, a movement towards that perfect type which +is the real self of each individual in turn, and the approach to +which involves the gradual surrender of individuality, and the +gradual escape from the ordinary self. A man is to cling to and +affirm his individuality, not in order that he may rest in it and +make much of it, but in order that he may outgrow it and pass far +beyond it in that one way--the best way for him--which it, and it +alone, is able to mark out for him. In other words, he is to assert +his individual self in order that he may universalise himself in his +own way, and not in obedience to the ruling of custom and authority, +in order that he may escape from himself through the real outlet of +sincere self-expression, and not through the sham outlet of hypocrisy +and cant. + +What I may call the Utopian scheme of education, far from making for +antinomianism and anarchy, is the sworn enemy of individualism and +therefore, _a fortiori_, of everything that savours of licence. It is +the conventional type of education, with its demands for mechanical +obedience to external authority, which leads through despotism to +social and political chaos. The whole _régime_ of mechanical +obedience is favourable, in the long run, to the development of +anarchy. Let us take the case of a church or an autocracy which +demands implicit obedience from its subjects, and is prepared to +exact such obedience by the application of physical force or its +moral equivalent. What will happen to it when its subjects begin to +ask it for its credentials? The fact that it has always demanded from +them literal rather than spiritual obedience, and that, in its +application of motive force, it has appealed to their baser desires +and baser fears, makes it impossible for it to justify itself to +their higher faculties, rational or emotional, and makes it necessary +for it to meet their incipient criticism with renewed threats of +punishment and renewed promises of reward. But the very fact that it +is being asked for its credentials means that the force on which it +has hitherto relied is weakening, that its power to punish and +reward, which has always been resolvable into the power to make +people believe that it can punish and reward, is being called in +question and is therefore crumbling away. And behind that power there +is nothing but chaos. For the _régime_ of mechanical obedience, by +arresting the spontaneous growth of Man's higher nature, and by +making its chief appeal to his baser desires and baser fears, becomes +of necessity the foster-mother of egoism; and when egoism, which +makes each man a law to himself and the potential enemy of his kind, +is unrestrained by authority, the door is thrown wide open to +anarchy, and through anarchy to chaos. This is what is happening in +the West, in our self-conscious and critical age. In every field of +human action, in religion, in politics, in social life, in art, in +letters, authority is being asked for its credentials; and as this +demand, besides being a disintegrating influence, is a sign that the +force on which authority relies is weakening, it is not to be +wondered at that there is a steady drift in many Western countries in +the direction of anarchy,--religious, political, social, artistic, +literary,--or that this _régime_ of incipient anarchy is taking the +form of an ignoble scramble for wealth, for power, for position, for +fame, for notoriety, for anything in fine which may serve to exalt a +man above his fellows, and so minister to the aggrandizement of his +lower self. + +In this drift towards anarchy the school is playing its part. I do +not wish to suggest that the boys and girls of this or any other +Western country are beginning to ask their teachers for their +credentials, or are likely to rise in rebellion against them. The +preparation for anarchy that is going on in the school is not only +quite compatible with what is known as "strict discipline," but is +also, in part at least, the effect of it. What is happening is that +in an acutely critical age the _régime_ of mechanical obedience to +external authority which has been in force in the West for nearly +2000 years, and which is now taking its victims straight towards +anarchy, is being carefully rehearsed in our schools of all types and +grades. During the years when human nature is most pliable (owing to +its richness in sap), most easily trained, and most amenable to +influence, good or evil, the child's spontaneous effort to outgrow +himself and so escape from his lower self,--an end which is not to be +reached except by the path of free self-expression,--is persistently +thwarted till at last it dies away; blind and literal obedience to +external authority, for which the consent of his higher faculties +is not asked, and in the giving of which they are not allowed to +take part, is persistently exacted from him till at last his +higher faculties cease to energise, and his lower nature begins to +monopolise the rising sap of his life; in order to enforce the blind +obedience that is asked for, an appeal is made, by an elaborate +system of external rewards and external punishments, to his selfish +desires and ignoble fears; while the examination system, with +its inevitable accompaniments of prizes and class-lists, makes a +special appeal to his competitive instincts,--instincts which are +anti-social, and may even, in extreme cases, become anti-human in +their tendency. And when authority has thus been presented to him, in +a form which he has never been expected to welcome, and when, by the +same process, the growth of his higher self has been arrested, and +his anarchical instincts--his selfishness and self-assertion--have +been systematically cultivated, the critical spirit and temper will +be deliberately aroused in him, especially if he happens to attend +one of those secondary schools which are regarded as highly efficient +because their lists of University distinctions and other "successes" +are inordinately long; for the education given to him in such a +school by his scholarship-hunting teachers is of necessity so bookish +and so one-sided that his intellectual, dialectically critical +faculties are apt to become hypertrophied, while other faculties +which might have kept these in check are neglected and starved. The +product of such a system of education,--benumbed or paralysed on many +sides of his being by the repressive _régime_ to which he has so long +been subjected, but vigorously alive on the sides of egoism and +intellectual criticism,--will be an anarchist _in posse_ (unless, +indeed, his vitality has been depressed by his school-life below the +point at which reaction becomes possible);--an anarchist _in posse_, +even though, in his terror of anarchism in others, he should become a +pillar of the Established Church of his country, a J.P. of his town +or county, and an active member of the nearest Conservative +Association. + +In Utopia, on the other hand, where selfishness is outgrown and +forgotten, and where the spirit of comradeship and brotherhood +pervades the school, there can be no preparation for anarchy, if only +for the reason that there is no authority--no despotic authority, +forcibly imposing its will on the school _ab extra_--to be +potentially dethroned. For all her scholars, Egeria is the very +symbol and embodiment of love, the centre whence all happy, +harmonious, life-giving, peace-diffusing influences radiate, and to +which, when they have vitalised the souls of the children and +transformed themselves into sentiments of loyalty and devotion, they +all return. I am not exaggerating a whit when I say that the Utopian +school is an ideal community, a community whose social system, +instead of being inspired by that spirit of "competitive selfishness" +which makes "each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost" its +motto, seems to have realised the Socialistic dream of "Each for all, +and all for each." + +I shall perhaps be asked _what provision is made in Utopia for +enabling the children to go through the drudgery of school-life, to +master the "3 R's," to "get up" the various subjects which the Code +prescribes, and so forth_. To this question there is but one answer: +the best possible provision. "Qui veut la fin veut les moyens." In +the life of organised play which the children lead, attractive ends +are ever being set before them. If they are to achieve these ends, +they must take the appropriate means. What children in other schools +might regard as drudgery, the Utopian takes in his stride. Reading, +writing, and arithmetic are means to ends beyond themselves, ends +which are constantly presenting themselves to the Utopian. If he is +to gratify his communicative instinct, he must learn to read and +write. If he is to gratify his dramatic instinct, he must, _inter +alia_, read with intelligence books of reference which would be +considered too advanced for the ordinary school-child. If he is to +gratify his inquisitive and constructive instincts, he must learn +to count, measure, and calculate. For whatever means may have to +be taken, must be taken by him. Egeria, as he knows well, will +do nothing for him which he can reasonably be expected to do for +himself. There are subjects, such as drawing, dancing, and singing, +which are, or at any rate ought to be, intrinsically delightful, +as being natural channels of self-expression. There are other +subjects, such as history, geography, and English, which can be made +delightful by being treated dramatically. The word "drudgery" has no +meaning for the Utopian child. A group of children in the highest +class recently committed to memory the whole "Trial Scene" of the +_Merchant of Venice_--some 300 lines or so of blank verse--in order +that they might give themselves the pleasure of acting it. They +accomplished this feat in a little more than a month. In the ordinary +elementary school the child who has committed 150 lines to memory +in the course of a year has done all that is required of him. The +getting up of a subject is drudgery only when the child can see no +meaning in what he is doing, only when the getting up of the subject +is regarded as an end in itself. In Utopia no subject, apart from +those which I have spoken of as intrinsically delightful, is taught +for its own sake. Subjects are taught there either as the means to +desired ends, or because they afford opportunities for the training +of the expansive instincts, the gratification of which is a pure +pleasure to every healthy child. + +But not only does the Utopian child, with his eyes always fixed on +desirable ends, find a pleasure in doing things which other children +are wont to regard as drudgery, but he has the further advantage of +being able to master with comparative facility what other children +find difficult as well as distasteful. From first to last, the +training given in Utopia makes, as we have seen, for the development +of faculty. In my last chapter I set forth in detail some of the ways +and means by which Egeria tries to cultivate the expansive instincts +of her pupils. Behind all these ways and means stands the master +method--or shall I say the master principle?--of self-expression. +Recognising, as she does, that each of the expansive instincts is a +definite expression of the soul's spontaneous effort to grow, and a +clear indication of a particular direction in which Nature wishes the +soul to grow,--and recognising, as she also does, that the business +of growing must be done by the growing organism and cannot be +delegated to any one else,--Egeria entrusts the work of +self-realisation to the child himself, and makes no attempt to +relieve him of an obligation which no one but himself can discharge. + +Now self-realisation is a twofold process. In the absence of a fitter +and more adequate word, I have applied the term _perceptive_ to those +faculties by means of which we lay hold upon the world that surrounds +us, and draw it into ourselves and make it our own. And I have +contended that this group of faculties has, as its counterpart +and correlate, another group of faculties which I have called +_expressive_,--the faculties by means of which we go out of ourselves +into the world that surrounds us, and give ourselves to it and try to +identify ourselves with it,--and that the relation between these two +groups is so vital and so intimate that each in turn may be regarded +as the very life and soul of the other. In words which I have already +used, the perceptive faculties, at any rate in childhood, grow +through the interpretation which expression gives them, and in no +other way, and the expressive faculties grow by interpreting +perception, and in no other way. That these two groups of faculties +are, as it were, the reciprocating engines by means of which the +vital movement which we call self-realisation is effected, is the +conviction on which Egeria's whole scheme of education may be said to +be pivoted. In Utopia self-expression is the medium through which the +expansive instincts are encouraged to unfold themselves. And this +life of self-expression has as its necessary counterpart the +continuous development of the perceptive faculties along the whole +range of the child's nature. + +Hence the all-round capacity of the Utopian child. The development of +his perceptive faculties which his life of self-expression tends to +produce, takes many forms. One of these, and one which in some sort +underlies and interpenetrates all the rest, is the outgrowth of what +I may call the _intuitional_ faculty,--a general capacity for getting +into touch with any new environment in which the child may find +himself, of subconsciously apprehending its laws and properties, of +feeling his way through its unexplored land. It is by means of this +capacity for putting forth a new _sense_ in response to the stimulus +of each new environment, that the Utopian child is able to master +with comparative ease the various subjects which he is expected to +learn. And not with ease only, but with effect. It is, as we have +seen, through the action of an appropriate sense, and in no other +way, that the information which is supplied to the scholar, when he +is learning this or that subject, is converted into _knowledge_, and +is so made available both for the further understanding of the given +subject and for the nutrition of the scholar's own inner life. + +From every point of view, then, the Utopian scholar has a marked +advantage, in respect of the things with which education is supposed +to be mainly concerned--the mastery of subjects and the acquisition +of knowledge--over the product of the conventional type of school. +Whatever the Utopian may have to learn, is a pleasure to him either +for its own sake or as a means to some desirable end. Whatever he may +have to learn, he learns with comparative ease, because his +perceptive faculties have been systematically trained, and he is +therefore at home, in greater or lesser degree, in any new +environment. And whatever he may have to learn, he learns with +effect, because he is able to digest the information that he +receives, and convert it into knowledge, and so retain it in the form +in which it will best conduce both to his further progress in that +particular branch of study and to the general building up of his +mind. + +In the ordinary result-hunting school the scholar fares very +differently from this. As a rule, he takes but little pleasure in his +work, for subjects which have their chief value as means to desirable +ends are presented to him as ends in themselves, and as such are +rightly regarded by him as meaningless and therefore as intolerably +dull; while subjects which are either intrinsically attractive, as +being natural channels of self-expression, or potentially attractive +as providing opportunities for self-expression, have no attraction +for him, as in neither case is self-expression on his part permitted. +Again, he finds great difficulty in mastering the subjects on his +time-table, or even in making the first step towards mastering them, +for, owing to his perceptive faculties as a whole having been +starved by the repressive _régime_ which denied them the outlet +of expression, he has not evolved the power of putting forth an +appropriate sense in response to the stimulus of a new environment, +and is therefore helpless in the presence of what is unfamiliar or +unexpected. One of his faculties, his memory, has indeed been +hypertrophied by being unduly exercised, and his capacity for +receiving information is in consequence unhealthily great; but +because he lacks, in this case or in that, the _sense_ which might +enable him to digest the information received and convert it into +knowledge, the food with which he has been crammed speedily passes +through him, undigested and unassimilated, and the hours which he has +spent in acquiring information will have done as little for his +progress in the given subject as for the general growth of his mind. + +The difference between the two schemes of education--that which +exacts mechanical obedience, and that which seeks to foster +growth--may be looked at from another point of view. Under the +former, interference with what I may call the subconscious processes +of Nature is at its maximum. Under the latter, at its minimum. In +order to realise what this means let us suppose that such +interference were possible where fortunately it is and must ever be +impossible,--in the first and second years of the child's life. +Fortunately for the child, it is impossible for us to educate him, +in any formal sense of the word, until he has mastered his mother +tongue. Were it otherwise, his mother tongue would never be mastered. +Before he reaches the age of two the child accomplishes the +marvellous feat of acquiring an entirely new language. While he is +learning it Nature is his only teacher, and under her tuition he +masters the new language without the least strain and with complete +success. But let us suppose that it was possible for a teacher of the +conventional type to give minute directions to a child by some other +medium of expression than that of language. And let us suppose that +such a teacher made up her mind that she, and not Nature, was to +teach the child his mother tongue. One can readily imagine what would +happen. The teacher would probably have a theory that no child should +begin to talk till he was two or even two and a half years old; and +if so, the child would be kept in a state of enforced dumbness till +he reached that age. In any case, he would be strictly forbidden +to speak till his teacher gave him formal permission to do so. +Half-an-hour in the morning, and half-an-hour in the afternoon would +probably be set aside for the language lesson. For so many weeks or +months the child would be strictly limited to words of two or three +letters. For so many more weeks or months, to words of four or five +letters. Things which had names of more than the prescribed number +of letters would be kept away from the child; or, if that was +impossible, he would not be allowed to talk about them. For half a +year perhaps he would be limited to the use of nouns and verbs. +Prepositions might then be introduced into his vocabulary; and, +later, adjectives and adverbs. And so on; and so on. And the outcome +of all this elaborate training would be that the child would never +learn to talk his mother tongue. + +It is by methods analogous in all respects to this that many of the +subjects on the time-table are taught in thousands of our schools. +The teacher seems to imagine that he knows, fully and precisely, how +each subject ought to be taught; and instead of standing aside, and +trying to learn how Nature wishes this or that subject to be taught +(if Nature can be said to take any interest in "subjects"), and then +trying to co-operate with her subconscious tendencies, he makes out +his elaborate scheme of instruction, sets before the child as the +goal of his efforts the production of certain formal results, and +drives him towards these with whip and bridle, satisfied that if he +succeeds in producing them, the subject will have been duly mastered. +And all the time he will not have given a thought to what is +happening to the child's inner life. Yet it is more than probable +that the teacher's disregard of, and therefore incessant interference +with, the subconscious processes of Nature has quite as disastrous +results in the teaching of composition, let us say, or drawing, as it +would certainly have in the hypothetical case of the teaching of the +child's mother tongue. + +But in truth the Utopian conception of what constitutes efficiency +differs so radically from the current conception, that little is to +be gained by comparing them. If I am asked by those who value outward +and visible results for their own sake, whether the training given in +Utopia is "efficient," I can but answer: "Yes, but efficient in a +sense which you cannot even begin to understand,--efficient in the +sense of developing faculty and fostering life, whereas the price +paid for your boasted efficiency is the starvation of faculty and the +destruction of life." + + * * * * * + +"_But how_," it will be asked, "_are the Utopian children, one and +all, induced to exert themselves? The standard of activity in the +school is, on your own showing, exceptionally high. Much is expected +of the children. Yet there are no rewards for them to hope for, and +no punishments for them to fear. How, then, are those who are by +nature less energetic or less persevering than the rest to be induced +to rise to the level of the teacher's expectation?_" By implication +this question has been answered again and again. But it deserves a +direct answer, and I will try to give it one. + +To begin with, it is incorrect to say that there are no rewards or +punishments in Utopia. Outward rewards and outward punishments are +entirely unknown there; but there are inward rewards to be had for +the seeking, and there are inward punishments to be feared, though it +must be admitted that the fear of them seldom overshadows, even for +a passing moment, the sunlit life of the Utopian child. What induces +the Utopian child to work is, in brief, delight in his work. He is +allowed and even encouraged to energise along the lines which his +nature seems to have marked out for him, and in response to the +stress of forces which seem to be welling up from the depths of his +inner life. Exertion of this kind is in itself a delight. Nature has +taken care to make all the exercises by which growth is fostered, at +any rate in the days of childhood when growth is most rapid and +vigorous, intrinsically attractive. Had she done otherwise she would +have failed to make due provision for the growth of Man's being +during the years which precede the outgrowth of self-consciousness, +and the possibility of self-discipline, of the narrower and sterner +kind. + +And not only are the exercises by which healthy and harmonious growth +is secured intrinsically attractive, but also the sense of well-being +which accompanies such growth is an unfailing source of happiness. In +Utopia the end for which the children are working is not an external +reward or prize to be conferred on them if they achieve certain +prescribed results, but rather the actual goal to which the path that +they have entered is taking them,--a goal which is ever lighting the +path with its foreglow, and which is therefore at once an infinitely +distant lodestar and an ever present delight. For the consummation of +any process of growth is always the perfection, the final well-being, +of the thing that grows; and therefore in each successive stage of +the process there is a truer prefigurement of the perfection which +is being gradually achieved, and a fuller sense of that well-being +which, at its highest level, is perfection's other self. + +For the Utopian, then, to walk in the path of self-realisation is its +own reward; and to wander from that path is its own punishment. But +as the forces of Nature are all co-operating to keep the child in +the path of self-realisation, and as Egeria has allied herself with +those forces and is working with them in every possible way, the +rewards which the Utopian wins for himself are very many, while the +punishments which he inflicts on himself are very few. In other +words, the pressure on him to exert himself is so strong, his +opportunities for exerting himself (under Egeria's sympathetic rule) +are so many, and the pleasure of exerting himself is found to be so +great, that the temptation to be idle or rebellious can scarcely be +said to exist. + +It is indeed in respect of the motives to exertion which they +respectively supply, that the superiority of the Utopian to the +conventional type of education is perhaps most pronounced. I have +said that Egeria allies herself with the expansive forces of Nature. +The teacher of the conventional type has to fight against those +forces. Let us assume that the two teachers are on a level in respect +of their capacity for influencing and stimulating their pupils, +and let us indicate that level by the algebraical symbol _x_. Then +the difference between the motive force which Egeria exerts, and +the motive force which her rival exerts, is the difference between +_x_ + _y_, and _x_ - _y_, _y_ being used to symbolise the aggregate +motive force of the expansive tendencies of the child's inner nature. +Such a difference is incalculable. The scheme of education which is +based on distrust of the child's nature and belief in its intrinsic +sinfulness and stupidity, necessarily arrays against itself the +hidden forces of that maligned and despised nature, and must needs +overcome their resistance before it can hope to achieve its proposed +end. While Egeria is helping Nature to provide suitable channels for +the various expansive tendencies that are at work in the child, and +to guide them all into the central channel of self-realisation, her +rival is engaged in digging a canal (to be filled, when finished, +with dead, stagnant water) which is so designed that not only will no +use be made by it of the life stream of the child's latent energies, +but also costly culverts and other works will have to be constructed +for it in order to divert and send to waste that troublesome +current. + +The waste of motive force which goes on under any scheme of education +through mechanical obedience, is indeed enormous. And what is most +lamentable is that the energies of the teacher are being largely +wasted in the effort to neutralise the latent energies of the child. +No wonder that, in order to produce his meagre and illusory, +"results," the teacher should have to resort to motive forces which, +by appealing to the lower side of the child's nature, will enable +him to bear down the resistance, and, in doing so, to impede the +outgrowth of the higher,--to the hope of external rewards and the +threat of external punishments. And no wonder that, owing to the +teacher having to work unceasingly against the grain of the +child's nature, of these two demoralising forces, the fear of +punishment--which, if not the more demoralising, is certainly the +more wasteful of energy--should bulk the more largely in the eyes +of the child. + +In fine, then, whereas the conventional type of education is so +wasteful of motive force that it dissipates the greater part of the +teachers' and the scholars' energies in needless friction,--in +Utopia, on the other hand, there is such an economy of motive force +that the very joy which, under its scheme of education, always +accompanies the child's expenditure of energy, and which might be +regarded as merely a waste by-product, becomes in its turn a powerful +incentive to further exertion. + + * * * * * + +"_But is there not too much joy in Utopia? Is not the sky too +cloudless? Is not the atmosphere too clear? Does the Utopian never +act from a sense of duty? Has he never to do anything that is +distasteful to him?_" This objection raises an interesting question. +Is the function of the sense of duty to enable us to do distasteful +things? And if so, are we to regard it as the highest of motives to +moral action? In the days when Kant's idea of the "moral imperative" +was in the ascendant, the belief got abroad that the essence of +virtue was to do what you hated doing. Looking back to my Oxford +days, I recall some doggerel lines, of German origin, in which this +belief finds apt expression. A disciple who is in trouble about his +soul says to his master: + + "Willing serve I my friends, but do it, alas! with affection, + And so gnaws me my heart, that I'm not virtuous yet." + +To this the master replies: + + "Help except this there is none: you must strive with + might to contemn them, + And with horror perform then what the law may enjoin." + +If this conception of morality is correct, if it is true that the +atmosphere of the virtuous life should be one of horror and even of +hatred, then it must be admitted that the Utopian children are +receiving a seriously defective education. But the "if" is a large +one; and for my part I incline to the belief that love, as a motive +to action, is better than hatred, joy than horror, sunshine than +gloom. + +The day will indeed come when the Utopian--a child no longer--will +have to do things, either for his own sake or in order to discharge +obligations to others, which will be, or will seem to be, against the +grain even of his happy nature; and the sense of duty will then have +to come to his aid. But there is no reason why he, or his teachers, +should anticipate that day. To compel him, while still a child, to +work against the grain of his nature, when there was no real need for +this, would not be the best preparation for the trials that await +him. To compel him to spend the greater part of his school-life in +doing what was distasteful to him, would be the worst possible +preparation for them. + +For, to begin with, the sense of duty is not the highest motive to +action. A far higher motive is love. If the sense of duty to God, for +example, had not devotion to God and love of God behind it, the +object of one's worship would be a malignant rather than a beneficent +deity, a devil rather than a God. Or let us take the case of a child +who is dangerously ill, and who needs to be carefully and even +devotedly nursed. By whom will he be the more effectively nursed,--by +his mother who loves him passionately, or by a hired nurse who cannot +be expected to love him but who has a strong sense of duty to her +employers? (I am assuming that as regards professional skill, and +the sense of duty to God, the two women are on a level.) Surely the +mother, sustained by love in the endurance of sleeplessness and +fatigue, and in the exercise of that unceasing vigilance which lets +no symptom escape it, will be the better nurse. Love, as a motive to +moral action, has the immense advantage over the sense of duty of +being able to rob the hour of trial of its gloom, by strengthening +the lover to make light of labour and difficulty till at last the +sense of effort is lost in the sense of joy. But if love is the +highest of all motives, is it not well that the child's life should +as far as possible, and for as long as possible, be kept under its +influence, to the exclusion of other motives. We have seen that the +Utopian child takes many things in his stride which other children +would regard as distasteful. If they are not distasteful to him, the +reason is that he does them, not from a sense of duty, but under the +inspiration of love,--love of life, love of Egeria, love of his +schoolmates, love of his school. And the longer he can remain on the +high plane of love, the better it will be for his after life. + +And when the time comes for him to yield himself to the "saving arms" +of duty, he will have had the best of all preparations for that hour +of trial, for he will have been braced and strengthened for it by the +most moralising of all disciplines, that of growth. What is the sense +of duty? We too seldom ask ourselves this question. Is it not a +feeling of obligation, of being in debt, to some person, or persons, +or institution, or society, or even to some invisible Power;--to +a friend, for example, a relative, a dependent, an employer, a +"contracting party," a commanding officer,--or, again, to one's trade +or profession, to one's political party, to one's church, to one's +country,--or, in the last resort, to God? And is not this feeling +accompanied by the secret conviction that until the debt has been +liquidated, to the best of the debtor's ability, justice will not +have been done? The sense of duty is, I think, a derivative sense, +an offshoot from the more primitive sense of justice,--a sense so +primitive that it may almost be said to have made possible our social +life. If this is so, if the sense of duty is resolvable into the +sense of justice, then the training which is given in Utopia--a +training which makes for healthy and harmonious growth, and therefore +(as we have seen) for outgrowth or escape from self--is the best +preparation for a life of duty, that can possibly be given. For under +its influence the sense of justice, which is essentially a social +instinct, knowing no distinction between oneself and one's neighbour, +will be relieved of the hostile pressure of its arch-enemy, the +anti-social instinct of selfishness,[21] and will therefore make +rapid and vigorous growth. The sense of justice is, as might be +expected, strongly developed in the selfless atmosphere of Utopia, +where indeed it has helped, in no small degree, to evolve the +wonderful social life of the school; and, that being so, there is no +fear but what the Utopian will be sustained by the sense of duty when +the time comes for him to work against the grain of his nature. But +however strong may be his sense of duty, he will always have the +great advantage of being seldom called upon to do what he dislikes, +and therefore of being able to keep the fibre of his sense of duty +from being either unduly relaxed or unduly hardened by overwork; for +he has been accustomed from his earliest days to make light of, and +even find a pleasure in, what is usually accounted drudgery, and he +has been accustomed to work, in school and out of school, under the +inspiration of joy and love. + +_But is the education given in Utopia useful?_ I wish I knew who was +asking this question, for I cannot hope to answer it to his +satisfaction until I know what is his standard of values. What end +does he set before the teachers of our elementary schools? If he +would tell me this, I might be able to say Yes or No to his question. + +At present there seems to be no agreement among educationalists, +professional or amateur, as to what constitutes usefulness in +education. Those who belong to the "upper classes" are apt to assume +that the "lower orders" will have been adequately educated when they +have been taught reading, writing, arithmetic, needlework, and +"religion," subjected to a certain amount of repressive discipline, +and compelled to go to church or chapel. If, after having passed +through this mill, the children of the "lower orders" do not develop +into good men and women and useful citizens, it is not their +education which is to blame, but the inborn sinfulness of their +corrupt and fallen natures. Such an education is regarded by those +who advocate it as pre-eminently _useful_. There is no nonsense about +it, no cant of idealism, no taint of socialism. It keeps the "lower +orders" in their places, and forbids them to dream of rising above +"that state of life unto which it" has pleased "God to call them." As +it is a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the conventional type of education, +my objection to it is that it makes the best possible provision for +securing the end which the conventional type seems to have set +before itself,--in other words, for depressing the vitality of the +child, for starving his faculties, for arresting his growth. As +such, it has not even the merit of being sordidly useful; for +unless stupidity is a better thing than intelligence, slowness than +alertness, helplessness than initiative, lifelessness than vital +activity, the child who has passed through that dreary mill will be +far less effective, even as a day-labourer, than the child whose +school-life has been one of continuous and many-sided growth. It is +strange that the reactionary members of the "upper classes" should be +too short-sighted to discern this obvious truth. But perhaps they +have a secret conviction that by so educating the "lower orders" as +to make them slow and stupid, helpless and lifeless, they will be the +better able to keep them in a state of subservience to and dependence +on themselves.[22] If this is so, there is method in the madness of +the "upper classes"; and their conception of the course that +education ought to take has the merit of being entirely true to their +basely selfish conception of the end that education ought to serve. + +I have alluded to this pseudo-utilitarian theory, not because it is +intrinsically worthy of serious attention, but because there is +undoubtedly a strong and influential current of opinion which sets in +its direction. There are other advocates of a "useful" education who +seem to regard the elementary school, not as a training ground for +good men and women, but as a kind of technical institute in which the +children are to be trained for the various callings by which, when +they grow up, they will have to earn their daily bread. This theory +need not be seriously considered, for its inherent absurdity has +caused it to be tacitly abandoned by all whose opinion carries +weight; and the more reasonable theory that the education given in +the elementary school should be as far as possible adapted to the +environment of the school--that it should be given a rural bias, for +example, or a marine bias, or even an urban bias--has begun to take +its place. That it should ever have found advocates is interesting as +showing how easy it is for unenlightened public opinion to +misinterpret the word "useful."[23] + +There is a third class of critics, composed for the most part of +members of Local Education Committees, who seem to think that ability +to pass a "leaving" examination is the only valid proof of the +usefulness of elementary education. If these influential critics, who +are showing in various ways that they care more for machinery than +for life, could have their will, they would probably revert to the +"good old days" of cut-and-dried syllabuses, formal examinations of +individual scholars, percentages of passes, and the like. As I have +already taken pains to explain what the _régime_ of the "good old +days" really meant, I need not waste my time in exposing the +fallacies which underlie this conception of "usefulness." + +Here, then, are three distinct standards of usefulness in elementary +education. According to the first, education is useful in proportion +as it tends, by repressing the activities and atrophying the +faculties of the scholars, to keep the "lower orders" in their +places, and in so doing to provide the "upper classes" with a +sufficiency of labourers and servants. According to the second, it is +useful in proportion as it is able to prepare the scholars for their +various callings in after life.[24] According to the third, in +proportion as it enables the scholars to pass with credit certain +"leaving" and other examinations of a formal type. + +I will now assume that the end of education is to produce, or at any +rate contribute to the production of, good men and women; and that +the education given in elementary schools is useful in exact +proportion as it serves this end. I am not using the word "good" in +its Sunday School sense. Nor does the word suggest to my mind that +blend of stupidity, patience, and submissiveness which sometimes +passes for "goodness" when the "upper classes" are taking thought for +the welfare of the "lower orders." The good man, as I understand the +phrase, is a good son, a good brother, a good husband, a good father, +a good citizen, a good townsman, a good workman, a good servant, a +good master. In fine, he is a good specimen of his kind, well +grown and well developed, efficient on all the planes of his +being,--physical, mental, moral, spiritual. This conception of what +constitutes useful education differs radically from those which I +have just been considering; but I believe that when it has been +adequately expounded, and submitted to the judgment of those whose +opinion is worth having, it will not be seriously gainsaid. + +If education is useful in proportion as it tends to produce good men +and women, the education given in Utopia is useful to the highest +degree. For a child cannot become a good man (or woman) except by +_growing_ good; and if he is to grow good, his nature must be allowed +to develop itself freely and harmoniously (for just so far as it is +normal and healthy it is necessarily making for its own perfection), +and the one end and aim of the teacher must be to stimulate and +direct this process of spontaneous growth. This, as we have seen, is +the one end and aim of Egeria; and it is therefore clear that she +is taking effective steps--the most effective that can possibly +be taken--to produce good men and women. We have but to name the +qualities which are characteristic, as we have already seen, of her +pupils and ex-pupils,--activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, +a large and free outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy +of heart,--in order to convince ourselves that those who have passed +through the Utopian school are on the high road which leads to +"goodness." So obvious is all this, that in defining the word +"useful" I may be said to have decided the question in favour of +Utopia; and what is now in dispute is not whether Utopianism is +"useful," in any sense of the word, but whether my sense of the word +is the right one. + +I cannot go much further into this question without exceeding the +limits of the theme which I am handling in this chapter. For in +considering the after life of the Utopian child, I am entering a +region in which the idea of _education_ begins to merge itself in the +larger idea of _salvation_; and though education, as begun in Utopia, +is in its essence a life-long process, I must pay some heed to the +limits which tradition and custom have imposed on the meaning of the +word. + +But before I close this chapter I must be allowed to give one +illustration in support of my contention that the education given in +Utopia is useful. Of the many complaints that are brought against the +output of our elementary schools, one of the most serious is that the +boys and girls who have recently left school are voracious readers of +a vicious and demoralising literature which seems to be provided for +their special benefit. The reason why they take so readily to this +garbage is that they have lost their appetite for wholesome food. +They are not interested in healthy literature, in Nature-study, in +music, in art, in handicraft,--in any pursuit which might take them +out of themselves into a larger and freer life; and so they fall +victims to the allurements of a literature which appeals to their +baser, more sensual, and more selfish instincts,--the very instincts +which growth (in the true sense of the word) spontaneously relegates +to a subordinate position and places under effective control. It is +the inertness, the apathy, the low vitality of the average child of +fourteen, which is the cause of his undoing. His taste for false and +meretricious excitement--a taste which may lead him far along the +downward path--is the outcome of his very instinct to live, an +instinct which, though repressed by the influences that have choked +its natural channels, cannot resign itself to extinction, and at +last, in its despairing effort to energise, forces for itself the +artificial outlet of an imaginative interest in vice and crime. + +The "young person" who, on leaving school, becomes a voracious +devourer of unwholesome literature, cannot be said to have received +a "useful" education. That vice and crime--whether practised or +imagined--are in the first instance artificial outlets, outlets which +the soul would not use if its expansive instincts were duly fostered, +is proved by the absence of "naughtiness" in the Utopian school, +and the absence of any taste for morbid excitement amongst Utopian +ex-scholars. The unwholesome literature which gives so much concern +to those who are interested in the welfare of the young, is unknown +in Utopia. And in this, as in other matter, the "goodness" of the +children and "young persons" is due, not to any lack of life and +spirit, but to the very abundance of their vitality. Apart from the +fact that vigorous growth, whether in plant or animal or human soul, +is in itself a sure prophylactic against the various evils to which +growing life is exposed, the Utopians are guarded against the danger +of demoralising books and demoralising amusements by their many-sided +interest in life. Their instinct to live, finding natural and +adequate outlets in many directions, has no need to force for itself +the artificial outlet of morbid excitement,--an outlet for imprisoned +energies, which has too often proved an opening to a life of vice and +crime. There is a Shakespeare in every cottage in Utopia; but the +advocates of a repressive and restrictive education for the "lower +orders" need not be alarmed at this, for the Utopians, who have found +the secret of true happiness, are freer than most villagers from +social discontent. Nor are Egeria's ex-pupils less efficient as +labourers or domestic servants because they are interested in good +literature, in Nature-study, in acting, or because they can still +dance the Morris Dances and sing the Folk Songs which they learned in +school. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] I am thinking more particularly of some of the Roman +Catholic schools in the Irish quarter of Liverpool, where the +singularly kind and gracious bearing of the teaching "sisters" +towards their poor, ill-fed, and ill-clad pupils is an educative +influence of incalculable value. + +[21] The sense of justice, which would give to each his due, +and therefore not more than his due to oneself, seems to hold the +balance between selfishness and love, being as it were, equidistant +from the greed and self-indulgence of the former and the lavishness +and self-devotion of the latter. If this is so, and if the sense of +duty is, as I have suggested, an offshoot from the sense of justice, +one can understand why, on the one hand, the sense of duty should be +needed to hold the self-seeking instincts in check, and why, on the +other hand, it should be an altogether lower and weaker motive than +love, by which indeed, _in its own interest_, it should always be +ready to be superseded. + +[22] I was once present when the Utopian children were going +through a programme of Folk Songs and Morris Dances in the village +hall. A lady who was looking on remarked to me: "This is all very +fine; but if this sort of thing goes on, where are we going to find +our servants?" The selfishness of this remark is obvious. What is +less obvious, but more significant, is its purblindness. In point of +fact the Utopian girls make excellent domestic servants, and are well +content to "go into service." + +[23] Some two or three years ago it was seriously proposed +that _marine navigation_ should be taught in all the elementary +schools of a certain maritime county! + +[24] The parent who wrote to a schoolmaster, "Please do not +teach my boy any more poetry, as he is going to be a grocer," must +have been under the influence of this conception of usefulness. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SALVATION THROUGH SELF-REALISATION + + +In Utopia the transition from _education_ to _salvation_, both in +theory and practice, is obvious and direct. The difference between +education and salvation is, indeed, purely nominal: in their essence +the two processes are one. As the education given in Utopia is, in +the main, self-education, there is no reason why it should not be +continued indefinitely after the child has left school; and as its +function is to foster the growth of the child's many-sided nature +(with its vast potentialities), there is every reason why it should +be continued as long as he lives. In other words, the path of +salvation is the path of self-realisation, the most important part of +which is traversed in childhood; and to attain to salvation (which is +in a sense unattainable) is to remain faithful to that path till it +passes beyond our thought. + +Outside Utopia there is a widely different conception of the meaning +and purpose of education, and a correspondingly different conception +of the nature of salvation and the means by which it is to be +achieved. The idea of salvation, with the complementary idea of +perdition, may be regarded as the crown and completion of that scheme +of external rewards and punishments which plays so prominent a +part in Western education. Salvation, which is the highest of all +external rewards, just as perdition is the severest of all external +punishments, is not a path to be followed, but a state of happiness +to be won and enjoyed. It follows that the relation between education +and salvation is, in the main, one of analogy, rather than of +identity (as in Utopia), or even of vital connection. Or shall we say +that education is not so much the first act in the drama of salvation +as the first rehearsal of the play? + +There are, of course, two conceptions of salvation in the West, just +as there are two worlds to be lived in,--the Supernatural world and +the world of Nature. + +In what are called religious circles, to be saved is to have gained +admission to Heaven, and, in doing so, to have escaped the torment +and misery of Hell. There was a time when Hell was taken very +seriously; but the idea of never-ending torment and misery is found, +when steadily faced, to be so intolerable that popular thought, even +in religious circles, is now turning away from it; and so loosely do +men sit, in these "degenerate days," to the old doctrine of eternal +punishment, that "to die" and "to go to heaven" are becoming +interchangeable terms. But if all men are to be admitted to Heaven +(or to its ante-room, Purgatory) at the end of this, their one +earth-life, it is clear that there can be no causal connection +between conduct and salvation. For though there may be degrees of +happiness in Heaven to reward the varying degrees of virtue on +earth, all these are dwarfed to nothing by the unimaginable abyss +of difference which yawns between Heaven and Hell; and the +practical upshot of the current eschatology is that all men--the +self-sacrificing equally with the self-indulgent, the kind and +compassionate equally with the hard-hearted, the spiritually-minded +equally with the worldly, the aspiring equally with the +indifferent--are to reap the same reward. If a man is a notoriously +evil liver, those who have suffered at his hands or been violently +scandalised by his conduct may perhaps find a sombre pleasure in +consigning him to Hell, which, indeed, might otherwise have to put +up its shutters. But though the doors of Heaven may be closed against +a few exceptional scoundrels, they are nowadays thrown open to all +the rest of Mankind; and the maxim, "Live anyhow, and you will be +saved somehow," seems to sum up with tolerable accuracy the popular +attitude towards the twofold problem of duty and destiny. + +I do not for a moment suggest that this happy-go-lucky eschatology is +formally countenanced by the Churches and Sects. They would doubtless +repudiate it with indignation; but the fact remains that their +own teaching is largely responsible for it. For not only is the +idea of _natural_ retribution wholly foreign to the genius of +supernaturalism, but also, in the two great schools of Western +theology, there is, and always has been, a strong tendency to +undervalue conduct (in the broad, human sense of the word), and to +make the means of salvation mechanical rather than vital. At any rate +the sacramental teaching of the Catholic Church, and the Calvinistic +doctrine of salvation through faith in the finished work of Christ, +readily lend themselves to such an interpretation. + +So ineffective is the current eschatology, in its bearing on +conduct, that the latent energy of Man's nature--his latent desire to +have a central purpose in life--is compelling him to work out for +himself another and a more mundane conception of salvation, to set +before himself as the end of life the winning of certain temporal +prizes, and to keep this end steadily in view from day to day and +from year to year. Such a conception of salvation has always had a +strong attraction for him, though in his more orthodox days he found +it desirable to subordinate it to, or if possible harmonise it with, +the conception which his religion dictated to him; and of late its +attractiveness has been increased by the fact that he is beginning to +throw his eschatology (even in its present emasculated form) to the +winds. + +So far, I have had in my mind those quarters of Western thought in +which the belief in the reality of the soul and the kindred belief +in immortality still survive. But in point of fact both beliefs +are dying before our eyes,--dying as a dumb protest against the +inadequacy of the popular philosophy, against the intrinsic +incredibility of its premises, against its fundamental misconception +of the meaning of life and the nature and conditions of salvation, +above all against the way in which the beliefs themselves have been +persistently misinterpreted and travestied. And where the beliefs are +dying, the latent externalism and materialism of Western thought and +Western life are able to assert themselves without let or hindrance. +"To be saved," as the phrase is now widely understood, means to get +on in life, to succeed in business or in a profession, to make money, +to rise in the social scale (if necessary, on the shoulders of +others), to force one's way to the front (if necessary, by trampling +down others), to be talked about in the daily papers, to make a +"splash" in some circle or coterie,--in these and in other ways to +achieve some measure of what is called "success." + +And in proportion as this mundane conception of salvation tends to +establish itself, so does the drift towards social and political +anarchy, which is now beginning to alarm all the lovers of order and +"progress," tend to widen its range and accelerate its movement. For +though the current idea of achieving salvation through "success" is a +comfortable doctrine for the successful few, it is the reverse of +comfortable for the unsuccessful many, among whom the idea is gaining +ground that as salvation is the reward, not of virtue, but of a +judicious blend of cleverness, unscrupulousness, selfishness, and +greed, there is no reason, in the moral order of things, why it +should not be wrested from those who are enjoying it, either by +organised social warfare or by open violence and crime. And even if +an anarchical outbreak should result in perdition all round instead +of salvation all round, it would at least be some consolation to the +"lost" to feel that they had dragged the "saved" down into their own +bottomless pit. This would not be a lofty sentiment; yet I do not +see who is in a position to condemn it,--not the supporter of the +existing social order, which legalises a general scramble, first for +the "prizes" of life and then for the bare means of subsistence, and +is well content that in that scramble the weak, the ignorant, and +the unfortunate should go to the wall,--not the exponent of the +conventional theology, which has taught men to dream of a Heaven in +which the happiness of the "elect" will be unruffled by the knowledge +that an eternity of misery is the doom of perhaps a majority of their +fellow-men. + +In the West, then, there are two conceptions of salvation,--a +selfish, worldly conception which is daily becoming more effective, +and a selfish other-worldly conception which is daily becoming more +ineffective, and is therefore less and less able to compete with or +control its rival. Out of the attempts that are made to realise +both these conceptions and to keep them on friendly terms with one +another, there is emerging a state of chaos--political, social, +moral, spiritual,--a weltering chaos of new and old ideals, new and +old theories of life, new and old standards of values, new and old +centres of authority, new and old ambitions and dreams. And in this +chaos there are only two principles of order, the first (which is +also the ultimate cause of all our disorder) being the pathetic fact +that nearly all the actors in the bewildering drama are still seeking +for happiness outside themselves, the second being the fundamental +goodness of man's heart. + +I will now go back to Utopia. There a new conception of salvation is +implicit in the new theory of education which has revolutionised the +life of the school. Humble as is the sphere and small as is the scale +of Egeria's labours, her work is, I firmly believe, of world-wide +importance and lasting value, for she has provided an experimental +basis for the idea that salvation is to be achieved by growth, and +growth alone. + +I will now try to interpret that idea. + +The education of the child in school begins when he is four or five +years old, and lasts till he is thirteen or fourteen. But he enters +the path of salvation the day he is born. He comes into the world a +weak, helpless baby; but, like every other seedling, he has in him +all the potencies of perfection,--the perfection of his kind. +To realise those potencies, so far as they can be realised within +the limits of one earth-life, is to achieve salvation. Are those +potencies worth realising? To this question I can but answer: "Such +as they are, they are our all." We might ask the same question with +regard to an acorn or a grain of wheat; and in each case the answer +would be the same. There are, indeed, plants and animals which are +noxious _from our point of view_. But that is not the view which they +take of themselves. Each of them regards his own potencies in the +light of a sacred trust, and strives with untiring energy to realise +them. If the potencies of our nature are not worth realising we had +better give up the business of living. If they are, we had better +fall into line with other living things. + +An unceasing pressure is being put upon us to do so. The perfect +manhood which is present in embryo in the new-born infant, just as +the oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn, will struggle +unceasingly to evolve itself. With the dawn of self-consciousness, we +shall gradually acquire the power of either co-operating with, or +thwarting, the spontaneous energies that are welling up in us and +making for our growth. In this respect we stand, in some sort, apart +from the rest of living things. But the power to co-operate with +our own spontaneous energies is to the full as natural as are the +energies themselves. To fathom the mystery of self-consciousness is +beyond my power and beside my present purpose; but we may perhaps +regard our power of interfering, for good or ill, with the +spontaneous energies of our nature, as the outcome of a successful +effort which our nature has made both to widen the sphere of its own +life and to accelerate the process of its own growth. But just +because we possess that power, it is essential that we, above all +other living things, should believe in ourselves, should believe in +the intrinsic value of our natural potencies, with a whole-hearted +faith. For if we do not, we shall hinder instead of helping the +forces that are at work in us, and we shall retard instead of +accelerating the process of our growth. + +We have seen that education in the West has hitherto been a failure +because, owing to the ascendency of the doctrine of original sin, it +has been based on distrust of human nature; and we have seen that in +Utopia, where Egeria's faith in human nature is so profound that she +has allowed the children to go far towards educating themselves, the +results achieved have gone beyond my wildest dream of what was +practicable, at any rate within the limits of the school life of +village children. What is true of education is true _a fortiori_ of +salvation. If it is impossible to construct a satisfactory scheme of +education on the basis of distrust of human nature, it is even more +impossible (if there are degrees in impossibility) to construct on +the same basis a satisfactory scheme of salvation. I have already +contended that if education is to be reformed, the doctrine of +original sin must go; and I now contend that if our philosophy of +life is to be reformed, we must abandon, not that doctrine only, but +the whole dualistic philosophy which centres in the opposition of +Nature to the Supernatural. For trust in human nature--the +microcosm--is impossible, so long as Nature--the macrocosm--is liable +to be disparaged and discredited (in our minds) by the visionary +splendours of the Supernatural world; and to devise a harmonious +scheme of life is impossible so long as an inharmonious conception +of the Universe dominates our thought,--a conception so inharmonious +that it divides the Universe, the All of Being, into two hostile +camps, and in doing so introduces the "war of the worlds" into each +individual life. + +When a fruit-grower plants a fruit-tree, he does three things for it. +By choosing an appropriate soil and aspect, he brings adequate +supplies of _nourishment_ within reach of it. By manuring it at the +right season, he both adds to its store of nourishment and gives +it the _stimulus_ which will help it to absorb and assimilate the +nourishment that is immediately available for its use. And, by +pruning and training it judiciously, he gives it the _guidance_ which +will enable it to develop itself to the best advantage from the +fruit-bearing point of view (fruit-bearing being the end which he +sets it). He does these three things for it, but he does no more than +these. He realises that in all these operations he is only taking +advantage of the innate powers and tendencies of the tree, and +enabling these to deploy themselves under as favourable conditions +as possible; and he is therefore well content to leave the rest to +the tree itself, feeling sure that its own spontaneous effort to +achieve perfection will do all that is needed. His trust in the +ability and willingness of the tree to work out its salvation is +complete. + +These are the lines on which the farmer and the fruit-grower conduct +their business,--lines, the neglect of which would involve them in +early disaster and in ultimate ruin. And these are the lines on which +human nature ought to be trained, in school and out of school, from +the day of birth to the day of death. But they are lines on which it +will never be trained so long as the doctrine of the depravity of +Nature in general and human nature in particular controls our +philosophy of life. + +The doctrine of natural depravity, or original sin, is the outcome of +Man's attempt to explain to himself the glaring fact of his own +imperfection. The doctrine grew up in an age when men were ignorant +of the fundamental laws of Nature, and among a people who, though +otherwise richly gifted, had no turn for sustained thought. So long +as men were ignorant of Nature's master law of evolution, it was but +natural that they should account for their own imperfection by +looking back to a Golden Age,--a state of innocence and bliss from +which they had somehow fallen, and to which they could not, by any +effort or process of their corrupted nature, hope to return. While +this idea--half myth and half doctrine--was growing up in the mind +of Israel, the counter idea of the evolution or growth of the soul, +of its ascent from "weak beginnings" towards a state of spiritual +perfection, was growing up among the thinkers of India, and the +derivative doctrine of salvation through the natural process of +soul-growth was being gradually elaborated. But though the philosophy +of India produced some impression on the conscious thought, and a +far deeper impression on the subconscious thought, of the West, its +master idea of spiritual evolution--_through a long sequence of +lives_--was wholly foreign to the genius of Christendom, which had +borrowed its _ideas_ from the commonplace philosophy of Israel; and +it was not till the nineteenth century of our era that the idea of +evolution began to make its way, from the quarter of physical +science, into Western thought. + +The doctrine of original sin must once have had a meaning and a +purpose. For one thing, it must have been generated by a sudden rise +in Man's moral standard; and as such it must have had a salutary +influence on his conduct and inward life. But it is now outstaying +its welcome. The Biblical story of the Fall, in virtue of which it +was once authoritatively taught, is ceasing to be regarded as serious +history; and the doctrine must therefore either justify itself to +critical thought or resign itself to rejection as inadequate and +unsound. But there is only one line of defence which its supporters +can take. As the doctrine was the outcome of Man's premature attempt +to explain the fact of his own imperfection, if it is to survive in +the world of ideas it must be able to show, first and foremost, that +the fact in question cannot be accounted for on other grounds. Will +it be able to do this, at a time when the idea of evolution is +beginning to impregnate our mental atmosphere, and in doing so is +making us realise that we are near of kin to all other living things, +and that our lives, like theirs, are dominated by the master-law of +_growth_? + +That there is much moral evil in the world is undeniable. Are we +therefore to predicate original depravity of man's heart and soul? +But there is also much physical evil in the world,--pain, weakness, +disease, decay, and death. Are we therefore to predicate original +depravity of man's body? And this physical evil, this liability to +disease, is not confined to man, but also affects all other living +things. Are we therefore to predicate original depravity of a +new-born lamb, of a new-laid egg, of an acorn, of a grain of wheat? + +Let us consider certain typical forms of moral evil, and see if we +can account for them, without having recourse to the hypothesis of +original sin. The vicious propensities which manifest themselves in +children and "young persons" may be divided into two main classes, +_apparent_ and _actual_.[25] Of the former class the chief cause is, +in a word, _immaturity_. Of the latter, _environment_. + +Analogies drawn from plant life may help us to understand how these +causes operate. + +_Immaturity._ If an Englishman who had never before tasted an apple +were to eat one in July, he would probably come to the conclusion +that it was a hard, sour, indigestible fruit, "conceived in sin and +shapen in iniquity," and fit only to be consigned to perdition (on a +dustheap, or elsewhere). But if the same man were to wait till +October and then eat an apple from the same tree, he would form a +wholly different conception of its value. He would find that the +sourness had ripened into wholesome and refreshing acidity; the +hardness into that firmness of fibre which, besides being pleasant to +the palate, makes the apple "keep" better than any other fruit; the +indigestibility into certain valuable dietetic qualities; and so on. +It is the same with the growing child. _Most of his vices are virtues +in the making_. During the first year or so of his life he is a +monster of selfishness; and selfishness is the most comprehensive and +far-reaching of all vicious tendencies. Does this mean that he has +been conceived in sin? Not in the least. It means that he is making a +whole-hearted effort to guard and unfold the potencies of life--in +the first instance, of physical life--which have been entrusted to +him. It means that he has entered the path of self-realisation, and +that if he will be as faithful to that path during the rest of his +life as he has been during those early months of uncompromising +selfishness, he will be able at last to scale the loftiest heights of +self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice. + +_Environment._ The influences which environment exerts seem to fall +under three heads-- + +(1) General influences of a more or less permanent character, such as +home, neighbourhood, social grade, etc. + +(2) General influences of a more or less variable character, such as +education, employment, friendship, etc. + + (3) Particular influences, such as companionship (good or bad), +literature (wholesome or pernicious), places of amusement (elevating +or debasing), special opportunities for self-sacrifice or +self-indulgence, etc. + +Corresponding to these in plant-life we have-- + + (1) Soil, situation, and climate: + (2) Cultivation and weather: + (3) The various insects and micro-organisms which are ready to + assail or protect growing life. + +(1) If two acorns from the same tree were sown, the one in a deep +clay soil and a favourable situation, the other in a light sandy soil +and an unfavourable situation, the former would in time develop into +a large and shapely, the latter into a puny and misshapen oak-tree. +It would be the same, _mutatis mutandis_, with two human beings who +were exposed from their earliest days to widely different permanent +influences. + +(2) If wheat of a certain strain were sown on the same day in two +adjoining fields, one of which was well farmed and the other badly +farmed, the resulting crops would differ widely in yield and value. +It would be the same with two human beings, one of whom (to take a +pertinent example) attended a school of Utopian tendencies, and the +other a school of a more conventional type. Of all moralising (or +demoralising) influences education is by far the most important, +owing to the fact that it can do more, and is in a position to do +more, than any other influence either to foster or to hinder growth. + +The influence of weather on plant-life is, of course, enormous. In +one year the fruit-crop in a given neighbourhood is a failure: in +another year it gluts the market. One explanation of this fact, +which has its exact analogies in human life, will be given in the +next paragraph. + +(3) All forms of life are exposed to the attacks of enemies of +various kinds. Whether they shall beat off those attacks or succumb +to them depends in large measure on the nature of the growth that +they are making; and this again depends, largely if not wholly, on +the nature of the general influences to which they have been exposed. +For many years I lived in a district in which hops were grown on a +large scale; and I naturally took an interest in the staple industry +of my adopted county. I noticed that whenever (during the summer +months) there came a spell of cold winds from the north-east--winds +which tend to arrest plant-growth--the hop-bines were at once +assailed by blight and other pests, and the safety of the growing +crop was imperilled. And I noticed further that when the wind got +round to the south-west, and warm showers began to stimulate the +growth of the flagging plants, the pests that had assailed them +disappeared as if by magic, and the anxieties of the growers were +relieved. As it is with plants, so it is with human beings. They too +have their enemies,--temptations of various kinds and other evil +influences that "war against the soul." And they too will be able to +beat off their assailants just so far as their own growth is vigorous +and healthy; and will succumb to their attacks, to their own serious +detriment, just so far as their own growth is feeble and sickly. + +The bearing of this fact on the problem of the origin of moral evil +is obvious. That the evils which assail the organism, be it a plant +or a human being, are not inherent in its nature, is proved by the +fact that when the growth of the organism is normal and unimpeded, +the assailants are always beaten off. As it is the growth of the +organism--the development of its own nature--which enables it to +resist the evils that threaten it, we must assume that its nature is +good. Indeed the evils that threaten it are called evils for no other +reason than that they imperil its well-being; and it follows that in +calling them evils we imply that the organism is intrinsically good. + +When we have eliminated from human nature the vicious tendencies +which are due either to immaturity or to the numberless influences +that come under the general head of environment, we shall find that a +very small percentage remain to be accounted for. We need not have +recourse to the doctrine of original sin in order to account for +these. So far I have said nothing about heredity, partly because its +influence on the moral development of the individual is, I think, +very small compared with that of environment, and partly because it +is impossible to consider the extent and character of its influence, +without going deeply into certain large and complicated problems. For +example, it would be impossible for me to say much about the current, +though gradually waning, belief in the force of heredity, without +saying something about its Far Eastern equivalent, the belief in +re-incarnation,--in other words, without asking whether a man +inherits from his parents and other ancestors, or from his former +selves. That different persona are born with widely different moral +tendencies and propensities, is as certain as that some strains of +wheat are hardier and more productive than others. And it is +possible, and even probable, that there are exceptional cases of +moral evil which point to congenital depravity, and cannot otherwise +be accounted for. But in these admissions I am making no concession +to the believer in original sin; for he regards human nature as such +as congenitally depraved, and therefore can take no cognisance of +exceptional cases of congenital depravity, cases which by breaking +the rule that the new-born child is morally and spiritually healthy, +may be said to prove it. + +In fine, then, all moral evil can be accounted for on grounds which +are quite compatible with the assumption that the normal child is +healthy, on all the planes of his being, at the moment of his birth. +That he carries with him into the world the capacity for being +affected by adverse influences of various kinds, is undeniable; but +so does every other living thing; and if congenital depravity is to +be predicated of him for that reason, it must also be predicated of +every new-born animal and plant. + +But the final proof that Man is by nature a child of God, is one +which has already been hinted at, and will presently be further +developed,--namely, that growth--the healthy, vigorous growth of the +whole human being, the harmonious development of his whole nature--is +in its essence a movement towards moral and spiritual perfection. And +the final proof that the doctrine of Man's congenital depravity is +false is the practical one that the doctrine is ever tending to +fulfil its own gloomy predictions, and to justify its own low +estimate of human nature,--in other words, that by making education +repressive and devitalising, by introducing externalism, with its +endless train of attendant evils, into Man's daily life, and by +making him disbelieve in and even despair of himself, it has done +more perhaps than all other influences added together to deprave his +heart and to wreck his life. + +To one who has convinced himself that human nature is fundamentally +good, in the sense that the new-born child is as a rule sound and +healthy on all the planes of his being, it must be clear that the +path of soul-growth or self-realisation is the only way of salvation. +What salvation means, what the path of self-realisation will do for +him who enters it, is a theme to which I could not hope to do justice +within the limits of this work. I will therefore content myself +with indicating certain typical aspects of the process which I +have called self-realisation, and saying something about each of +these. Four aspects suggest themselves to me as worthy of special +consideration,--the _mental_, the _moral_, the _social_, and the +_religious_.[26] + + +_The Mental Aspect of Self-realisation._ + +There are two features of the process of self-realisation, on the +importance of which I cannot insist too often or too strongly. The +first is that the growth which the life of self-realisation fosters +is, in its essence, harmonious and many-sided. The second is that +the life of self-realisation is, from first to last, a life of +self-expression, and that self-expression and perception are the face +and obverse of the same mental effort. + +If the life of self-realisation did not provide for the growth of the +self in its totality, the self as a living whole, it would not be +worthy of its name. One-sided growth, inharmonious growth, growth in +which some faculties are hypertrophied and others atrophied, is not +self-realisation. When trees are planted close together, as in the +beech-forests of the Continent, they climb to great heights in their +struggle for air and light, but they make no lateral growth. When +trees are pollarded, they make abundant lateral growth, but they +cease to climb upward. When trees are exposed to the prevailing winds +of an open sea-coast, they are blown over away from the sea, and make +all their growth, such as it is, on the landward side. When trees +are on the border of a thick plantation, they make all their growth +towards the open air, and are bare and leafless on the opposite side. +In each of these cases the growth made is inharmonious and one-sided: +the balance between the two intersecting planes of growth, or between +the two opposite sides, has been lost. But when a tree is planted in +the open, and when all the other conditions of growth are favourable, +it grows harmoniously in all directions,--upward, outward, and all +around. In other words, it is growing as a whole, growing, as it +ought to grow, through every fibre of its being, and yet maintaining +a perfect symmetry of form and the harmony of true proportion among +its various parts. + +This is the kind of growth which the soul makes in the life of +self-realisation; and if it falls appreciably short of this standard, +if it develops itself on this side or that, to the neglect of all +other sides, then we must say of it that, though it is realising this +or that faculty or group of faculties, it is not realising itself. I +have spoken of the six great expansive instincts which indicate the +main lines of the child's natural growth, and I have shown that in +Utopia the cultivation of all those instincts is duly provided for. +In the life of self-realisation the soul would continue to grow on +the lines which those instincts had marked out for it. I do not mean +that when the child goes out into the work-a-day world, he must give +to all six instincts the systematic training which they received, or +ought to have received, in school. The exigencies of the daily round +of life are such as to make that impossible, in all but the most +exceptional cases. But that is all the more reason why the expansive +instincts should be carefully and skilfully trained in school. For +where they are so trained, an impetus is given to each of them which +will keep it alive and active long after the direct influence of +the school has ceased, and will enable it to absorb and assimilate +whatever nutriment may come in its way. If the Utopian training +cannot be followed up, in its entirety, in the child's after-life, it +can at least initiate a movement which need never be arrested,--a +movement in the direction of the triune goal of Man's being, the goal +towards which his expansive instincts are ever tending to take him, +the goal of Love, Beauty, and Truth. + +The life of many-sided growth is also a life of self-expression. This +means that the self-expression, like the growth which it fosters, is +many-sided; and this again means that the perceptive faculties, which +unfold themselves through the medium of self-expression, are not so +much separate faculties as a general capacity for getting on terms +with one's environment and gaining an insight into its laws and +properties. In a school which lays itself out to teach one or two +subjects thoroughly, to the neglect of others, a sense, or special +perceptive faculty, will gradually be evolved by the study of each +subject, provided, of course, that the path of self-expression is +followed,--a literary sense, a historical sense, a mathematical +sense, and so on. But while these special senses are being developed, +the remaining perceptive faculties are being starved, and no attempt +is being made to cultivate that general capacity of which I have just +spoken. The consequent loss to the child, both in his school-life and +in his after-life, is very great. For not only is his mental growth +one-sided and inharmonious, but even in the subjects in which he +specialises he will lose appreciably, owing to his special perceptive +faculties not having as their background any general capacity for +seeing things as they are. + +I will try to explain what I mean. In what is known as "Society" +there is a valuable quality called "tact," in virtue of which the +man or woman who is endowed with it always says and does "the right +thing." This quality is compounded partly of sympathetic insight +into the feelings, actual and possible, of others, and partly of +a keen and subtle sense for all the _nuances_ of social propriety. +Like every other perceptive faculty, it is the outcome of +self-expression,--of years of self-expression on the plane of social +intercourse. That general perceptive faculty, or perceptive capacity, +which is the outcome of years of self-expression on many sides of +one's being, has so much in common with the _tact_ of the man of +society, that the epithet _tactful_ may perhaps be applied to it. The +larger, like the lesser, faculty is compounded, partly of sympathetic +insight into latent possibilities, and partly of a delicate sense for +_nuances_ of all kinds. But even this formula does less than justice +to its complex nature. Generated as it is by a life of many-sided +self-expression, it reflects its origin in its internal constitution. +Many elements of thought and feeling have woven themselves into it; +and it is ready to take a colour from each new environment or even +from each new situation. It can become emotional, for example, when +the matter in hand appeals, in any sort or degree, to the emotions; +and there are occasions when its latent sense of humour becomes an +invaluable antidote to that over-seriousness which so often leads men +astray. Above all, it is in its essence, imaginative, for it is ever +learning to picture things to itself as they are or as they might be; +and the higher the level and the wider the sphere of its activity, +the more boldly imaginative it becomes. A faculty so subtle and so +sympathetic must needs play a vitally important _rôle_, not only when +its possessor is studying "subjects" or handling concrete problems, +but also, and more especially, when he is dealing with the "affairs +of life"; and we can understand that when it is wholly or largely +lacking, each of the special faculties which specialising is supposed +to foster will suffer from not being tempered and yet vitalised by +its all-penetrating influence. + +That we may the better understand this, and the better understand +what the path of self-realisation does for the mental development +of him who walks in it, let us ask ourselves what type of mind the +conventional type of education is likely to produce. And let us study +the conventional type of education on what is supposed to be its +highest level. Let us consider the education given to the sons of +the "upper classes." And let us take this highest level at its own +highest level. Let us take the case of those who go through that +tri-partite course of education which begins in a high-class +"Preparatory School," is continued in one of the "Great Public +Schools," and is completed at Oxford or Cambridge. A boy enters +a Preparatory School at the age of eight or nine, and is there +prepared, in general for entrance into one of the Great Public +Schools, and in particular for one of the competitive examinations on +the results of which the entrance scholarships of the Great Public +Schools are awarded. He enters one of the Great Public Schools at +the age of thirteen or fourteen, and is there prepared, in general +for admission to Oxford or Cambridge, and in particular for the +scholarship examinations of the various Oxford and Cambridge +Colleges. He enters Oxford or Cambridge at the age of eighteen +or nineteen, and is there prepared, directly for his degree +examination--"Pass" or "Honours" as the case may be--and indirectly +for the public examination which admits to the Indian and Colonial, +and the higher grades of the Home, Civil Service. This course of +education lasts about fourteen years, and costs from Ł1,500 to +Ł4,500. + +What will it do for the boy who goes through it? The education given +in the Preparatory School is completely dominated by the scholarship +and entrance examinations at the Great Public Schools. The lines on +which those examinations are conducted are the lines on which the +Preparatory Schoolmaster must educate his pupils. He has no choice in +the matter. The title "Preparatory" seals his doom. His business is, +not to give his pupils the education that is best suited to their +capacities and their years, but to prepare them for admission to a +more advanced school. The more scholarships he can win at Eton, +Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, and the rest, the higher will be the +repute of his school; and as the competition between school and +school is fierce and unintermittent, he cannot afford to throw away a +single chance. In other words, he cannot afford to make a single +serious experiment. The education given in the Great Public Schools +is similarly dominated by the scholarship and entrance examinations +held by the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The lines on which those +examinations are conducted are in the main the lines on which the +boys must be educated. It is possible that the Great Public Schools +are freer to go their own ways than are the Preparatory Schools; but +if they are, they make but little use of their freedom. + +So far as the rank and file of the boys are concerned, it may be +doubted if the word "educative" is applicable, in any sense or +degree, to the daily round of their work. Of the six great expansive +instincts which are struggling to evolve themselves in every healthy +child, not one can be said to find a congenial soil or a stimulating +atmosphere in the ordinary classroom either of the Preparatory or of +the Public School. Four of the six--the _dramatic_, the _artistic_, +the _musical_, and the _constructive_--are entirely or almost +entirely neglected. Music and Handwork[27] are "extras" (a fatally +significant word); the teaching of Drawing is, as a rule, quite +perfunctory; and Acting is not a recognised part of the school +curriculum. The truth is that marks are not given for these +"subjects"--for in the eyes of the schoolmaster they are all +"subjects"--in any entrance or scholarship examination, and that +therefore it does not _pay_ to teach them. There remain two +instincts,--the _communicative_ and the _inquisitive_. The study of +the "Humanities"--History and Literature, ancient and modern--ought +to train the former; and the study of Science ought to train the +latter. But in the case of the average boy, the study of the +Humanities resolves itself, in the main, into a prolonged and +unsuccessful tussle with the difficulties of the Greek and Latin +languages, the mastering of which is regarded as an end in itself +instead of as the gateway to the wonder-worlds of ancient life and +thought; and the study of Science is, as a rule, a pure farce.[28] +Not one, then, of the expansive instincts of the average boy receives +any training during the nine or ten years of his school life; and as, +in his struggle for the "Pass" degree of his University, he will +follow the lines on which he has been accustomed to work in both his +schools, he will go out into the world at the age of twenty-two or +twenty-three, the victim of a course of education which has lasted +for fourteen years and cost thousands of pounds, and which has done +nothing whatever to foster his mental or spiritual growth. It is true +that in all the Public Schools a certain amount of informal education +is done through the medium of Musical Societies, Natural History +Societies, Debating Societies, School Magazines, and the like; that +the discipline of a Public School, with its system of School and +House prefects, has considerable educational value; that the playing +fields do something towards the formation of character; that the +boys, by exchanging experiences and discussing things freely among +themselves, help to educate one another; and that during the four +months of each year which the schoolboy spends away from school, he +is, or may be, exposed to educative influences of various kinds.[29] +But the broad fact remains that the _studies_ of the youthful +graduate, whether in school classroom or college lecture-room, have +been wholly unformative and therefore wholly uneducative. + +But let us consider the education given in our Public Schools and +Universities, at what is presumably the highest of all its levels. +Let us see what is done for the boys who have sufficient ability to +win Scholarships and read for Honours at Oxford and Cambridge. It is +to the supposed interests of these brighter boys that the vital +interests of their duller schoolfellows are perforce sacrificed. Are +the results worth the sacrifice? The brighter boys fall into two main +groups,--those who have a turn for the "Humanities," and those who +have a turn for Mathematics and Science. Where the "Humanities" are +effectively taught,--where, for example, the scholar is allowed to +pass through the portals of Latin and Greek grammar and composition +into the wonder-world that lies beyond them,--the _communicative_ +instinct receives a valuable training. It is, unfortunately, quite +possible for a boy, or even for a man, to be what is called a "good +scholar," and yet to take no interest whatever in the history or +literature of Greece and Rome; and the examination system undoubtedly +tends to foster this bastard type of humanism. But when, as a result +of his school and University training, a scholar has passed the +linguistic portals and found pleasure in the worlds beyond, we may +say of him that his education has fostered the growth of one of his +expansive instincts,--perhaps the most important of all, but still +only one. When Science is effectively taught, the growth of the +_inquisitive_ instinct is similarly fostered; but the inquisitive +instinct, though of great value, when trained in conjunction with +other instincts, has but little value as a "formative" when trained +by itself. From this point of view it compares unfavourably with the +communicative instinct, being as much less formative than the latter, +as the mysteries of the material world are less significant and less +able to inspire and vitalise their interpreter than the mysteries of +human life; and a purely (or mainly) scientific training is therefore +worth far less as an instrument of education than a purely (or +mainly) humanistic training. + +But why should the boys at our Great Public Schools and the young +men at our Universities have to choose between a scientific and a +humanistic training? Why should these ancient and famous institutions +be content to train one only of the six expansive instincts instead +of at least _two_? Here, as elsewhere, the scholarship system blocks +the way. Some scholarships are given for Classics, others for +History, others for Mathematics, others for Natural Science. Not +a single scholarship is given, at either University, for general +capacity, as measured by the results of a many-sided examination. +Why should this be? The answer is that under any system of formal +examination many-sidedness in education necessarily means +_smattering_; and that against smattering the Universities have, very +properly, set their faces. But, after all, there is no necessary +connection between many-sidedness and smattering. In Utopia, where +the concentric rings of growth are formed by the gradual evolution of +an inner life, whatever feeds that inner life is a contribution, +however humble, to the growth of the whole tree; and many-sidedness, +far from being a defect, is one of the first conditions of success +in education. But in the Great Public Schools, where veneers of +information are being assiduously laid on the surface of the boy's +mind with a view to his passing some impending examination, the +greater the number and variety of such veneers, the more certain they +all are to split and waste and perish. Indeed the real reason why +specialising has to be resorted to in the case of the brighter boys, +is that in no other way can provision be made for the fatal process +of veneering being dispensed with, and for faculty being evolved by +growth from within. + +But a heavy price has to be paid for the growth of these specialised +faculties. If Science is to be seriously studied the student must +give the whole of his time to it. This means that he must give up the +idea of educating himself. It is only by turning his back on history, +on literature, on philosophy, on music, on art, that he can hope to +meet the exacting and ever-growing demands which Science makes on +those who desire to be initiated into its mysteries. To say that when +he has "taken his degree" he is only half-educated, is greatly to +over-estimate the formative influence of his highly specialised +training. A sense has undoubtedly been developed in him, an instinct +has been awakened, one or two of his mental faculties have been +vigorously cultivated; but his training has been the reverse of +humanising; and as his studies and his consequent attitude towards +Nature have been essentially _analytical_, he may, in the absence of +those correctives which his compulsory specialising has withheld from +him, have learned to regard the dead side of things as the real +side,--a conception which, if it mastered him, would materialise his +whole outlook on life. + +The case of the "humanist" is different. The subjects which he +studies appeal to many sides of his being; and if he could respond +to their appeal, they might do much for his mental and spiritual +development. That he should be able to respond to their appeal is of +vital importance. When he has become a decent "scholar," a chance +is given to him, which if he neglects he will probably lose for +ever,--the chance of making good, in part at least, the deficiencies +of his early education. Had he lived in Utopia, his life of +many-sided self-expression would have given a general training to his +perceptive faculties, in which the twin faculties of imagination and +sympathy would have had their share. But neither in his Preparatory +School nor in the lower classes of his Public School has any serious +attempt been made during school hours to ripen either of those mighty +faculties, whereas much has been done in both schools to retard their +growth. He is doomed, then, to begin his study of the history and +literature of the Ancient World with a considerable knowledge of +the Latin and Greek languages, but (in too many cases) with an +unimaginative mind and an unsympathetic heart. There is, however, +much in that history and that literature,--not to speak of +the history and the literature of his own and other modern +countries,--which, if it could but have its way, would appeal +strongly to his imagination and his sympathy, dormant and undeveloped +as these faculties are,--appeal to them so strongly as to awaken them +at last from their slumber and quicken them into active life. But +alas! the shadow of an impending examination is always falling on his +humanistic studies, nullifying the appeal that they make to him, and +compelling him to look at them from a sordidly utilitarian point of +view. For to give marks for the response that he might make to their +appeal, or even to set questions which would afford free scope for +the play of his imagination or the flow of his sympathy, is beyond +the power of any examiner. There are two things, and two only, which +"pay" on the examination day,--the possession of information and the +power to make use of it; and the humanist who would win prizes at his +school or gain high honours at his University, must therefore regard +the memorable doings and the imperishable sayings of his fellow-men, +not as things to be imagined and felt, admired and loved, wondered at +and pondered over, but as things to be pigeon-holed in his memory, to +be taken out and arranged under headings, to be dissected and +commented on and criticised.[30] + +Of the part that memory plays in the education of our humanist, I +need not speak. An undue burden is probably laid upon it; but that is +a matter of minor importance. What is of supreme importance is that +in cultivating his critical faculty with an almost intensive culture, +while they starve, or at any rate leave untended, his more vital and +more emancipative faculties of imagination and sympathy, our Great +Public Schools and Universities are doing him a serious and lasting +injury. Let us take the case of a young man of energy and ability who +has just left Oxford or Cambridge, having won high honours in one of +the humanistic "schools." Let us assume that, like so many of his +kind, he has a keenly critical mind, but is deficient in imagination +and sympathy; and let us then try to forecast his future. That the +faith of his childhood, undermined by his criticism, has already +fallen to pieces or will shortly do so, is more than probable. That +he will be too unimaginative to attempt to construct a new faith out +of the ruins of the old, is practically certain. His lack of faith, +in the broader sense of the word, will incapacitate him for high +seriousness (which he will regard as "bad form"), and _a fortiori_ +for enthusiasm (which he will shun like the plague), and will +therefore predispose him to frivolity. Being fully persuaded, owing +to his lack of imaginative sympathy, that his own outlook on life is +alone compatible with mental sanity, and yet being too clear-sighted +to accept that outlook as satisfactory, he will mingle with his +frivolity a strain of bitterness and discontent,--the bitterness of +self-corroding scepticism, and the discontent which grows apace +through its very effort to ignore its own existence. In a word, his +attitude towards life will be one of _cynicism_,--that blend of +hardness and bitterness with frivolity which exactly inverts the +ideal of the modern poet, when he dreams of an age in the far-off +future, + + Which without hardness will be sage, + And gay without frivolity.[31] + +And the bitterness of his cynicism will be made bitterer still by +the fact that, owing to his being (in all probability) unmusical, +inartistic, and unable to amuse himself with any form of handwork, he +will have no taste or hobby to distract him from himself. For a time, +indeed, the "genial sense of youth" will keep his sinister tendencies +in check; and in the middle period of life, his struggle to achieve +"success"--for of course he will be an externalist to the core--will +tend to keep them in the background. But in his later years, when he +will have either failed to achieve "success" or discovered--too +late--that it was not worth achieving, his cynicism will assert +itself without let or hindrance, and, with his growing incapacity for +frivolity, will become harder and bitterer, till at last the dark +shadow of incurable pessimism will fall on him and involve his +declining years in ever deepening gloom. I do not say that many of +our University humanists will conform to this type; but I do say that +the type is easily recognisable and is becoming increasingly +familiar. + +Even the intellectual development of our humanist, who is nothing if +not intellectual, will be adversely affected by the one-sidedness of +his education. Well-informed and acutely critical he will probably +be; but he will lack the saving grace of that "tactful" faculty which +years of many-sided self-expression can alone evolve,--a faculty +which (as we have seen) is subtly adaptive when it deals with small +matters, boldly imaginative when it deals with great matters, and +delicately sympathetic along the whole range of its activity. +This sinuous and penetrative sense is to the more logically +critical faculty what equity is to law; and in its absence the +intellectuality of our young "intellectual" will be as incomplete as +would be the legal system of a country which knew nothing of equity +and tried to bring all legal problems under the direct control of +positive law. For it will be his business, as he goes through life, +to deal in and with words and phrases; and as words and phrases are +ever tending to change their force, and even their meaning, under our +hands, and as his use and treatment of them will be logical and +"legal" rather than tactful and "equitable," he will again and again +misinterpret and misuse them, and will so do badly the very thing +which he is expected to do well. The man who, though endowed with an +acute and vigorous intellect, can neither think imaginatively nor +reason tactfully, has grave intellectual defects; and the blinder he +is to the existence of these defects the more pronounced will they +become. + +The pity of it is that when these unimaginative "intellectuals" go +out into the world, they will fill posts in which they will have +unrivalled opportunities for establishing and disseminating their +unwholesome influence. A section of them will go into the teaching +profession, the higher grades of which are almost entirely recruited +from Oxford and Cambridge. Another section will go into the legal +profession, and through it will enter Parliament in considerable +numbers, where, being trained advocates, they will exercise an +influence out of all proportion to their numerical strength. And a +third section will man the higher grades of the Home, Colonial, and +Indian Civil Services. Teachers, legislators, administrators,--if +there are any walks in life in which cynicism and a capacity for +merely destructive criticism are out of place, and in which +imagination and sympathy are imperatively demanded, they are these +three; and it is nothing short of a national calamity that these +great and commanding professions should be manned, in part at least, +by men whose mission in life is to paralyse rather than to vitalise, +to fetter rather than to set free. + +The further pity of it is that the training of these "intellectuals" +might easily have taken an entirely different course. Much of the +specialising which goes on in our Great Public Schools and +Universities, and which is so destructive of mental and spiritual +vitality, is wholly unnecessary. The course of education which the +sons of the "upper classes" go through has this in common with +elementary education, that in neither case need "utilitarian" +considerations weigh with the teachers. The parents of a large +proportion of our Public School boys can afford to give their sons a +_liberal_ education (in the truest and fullest sense of the word) up +to the age of twenty-two or twenty-three; and in the case of these +boys, at any rate, the excessive specialisation which makes their +education so illiberal is done, not in response to the demands +of professions (such as the medical or the engineering) which +necessitate early specialising, but solely in response to the demands +of an examination system which we adopted before we had begun to ask +ourselves what education meant, and which, partly from the force of +habit and partly because it is in keeping with our general attitude +towards life, we still bow down before with a devotion as ardent and +as irrational as that which inspired the cry of "Great is Diana of +the Ephesians."[32] + +At its best, then, the education given by the Great Public Schools +and Universities fosters the growth of one of the expansive +instincts,--the _communicative_, a mighty instinct which opens up to +imagination and sympathy the whole wide world of human life; but +because it leaves all the other expansive instincts untended, it +gives that one instinct an inadequate and unsymmetrical training, a +training which checks the growth of the very faculties--imagination +and sympathy--of which the instinct is largely compounded and for the +sake of which it may almost be said to exist. At its second best, +this costly education fosters the growth of the _inquisitive_ +instinct,--a grandly expansive instinct when trained in conjunction +with the others, but one which is constrictive rather than expansive +when trained by itself and for its own sake. At its ordinary level, +it trains no instinct whatever, and is therefore unworthy of the name +of education. Why should this be so? Why should a course of education +which lasts so long and costs so much do so little for its victims, +and do that little so badly or, at any rate, so inadequately? Because +from first to last it has looked outward instead of inward; because +it has laboured unceasingly to produce "results," and has never given +a thought to growth.[33] + + Let us now go to the other end of the social scale. What the path of +self-realisation might do for the children of the "upper classes" if +they were allowed to follow it, we may roughly calculate, partly by +measuring what the alternative scheme of education has failed to do +for them, partly by reminding ourselves of what the path has done for +the village children of Utopia. The children of the "upper classes" +have such an advantage over the children of Utopia in the matter of +environment,--to say nothing of inherited capacity,--that one would +expect the path to do much more for their mental development than +it has done for the mental development of the Utopians, especially +as they could afford to remain much longer in the first and most +important of its stages, the stage of self-education (in the more +limited sense of the word). The gain to the whole nation if the +mental development of the highest social stratum could be raised as +much above its normal level as the mental development of youthful +Utopia has been raised above the normal level of an English rural +village, would be incalculably great. But greater still--incalculably +greater--would be the gain to the nation if the rank and file of its +children could be led into the path of self-realisation, and therein +rise to the high level of brightness, intelligence, and +resourcefulness which has been reached in Utopia. + +Nor is this dream so wildly impracticable as some might imagine. So +far as the natural capacity of the average child is concerned, there +is no bar to its realisation. Egeria has taught me that the mental +capacity of the average child, even in a rustic village belonging to +a county which is proverbial for the slow wits of its rustics, is +very great. It is sometimes said that of the children who have been +trained in our elementary schools, not one in twenty is fit to profit +by the education given in a secondary school: and if by this is +meant that in nineteen cases out of twenty the elementary scholar, +_educated as he has probably been_, is unlikely to profit by the +education given in a secondary school, _conducted as those schools +usually are_, I am not prepared to say offhand that the statement +is untrue. But if it means that the average mental capacity of the +children of our "lower orders" is hopelessly inferior to that of +the children of our middle and upper classes, I can say without +hesitation that it is a slander and a lie. Whether there is any +difference, in respect of innate mental capacity, between level +and level of our social scale, may be doubted; but the Utopian +experiment has proved to demonstration that in the lowest level of +all the innate mental capacity is so great that we cannot well expect +to find any considerable advance on it even in the highest level of +all. + +But where, it will be asked, are we to find Egerias to man our +elementary schools? For the moment this problem does not admit of a +practical solution. But that need not discourage us. I admit that in +far too many of our schools the teachers, through no fault of their +own, are what I may call machine-made, and that they are engaged in +turning out machine-made scholars, some of whom in the fullness of +time will develop into machine-made teachers. But there is a way of +escape from this vicious circle,--the path of self-realisation. +That path has transformed the children of a rustic village in a +slow-witted county into Utopians. Why should it not transform some +at least among the boys and girls who are thinking of entering the +teaching profession into Egerias, or at any rate into teachers +of Egeria's type? Even as it is, replicas of Egeria,--not exact +replicas, for she is too original to be easily replicated, +but teachers who, like her, preach and practise the gospel of +self-education,--are beginning to spring up in various parts of the +country; and each of their schools, besides being a centre of light, +may well become a nursery for teachers who will follow in the +footsteps of those who have trained them, and will in their turn do +pioneer work in other schools. The thin end of the wedge is even now +being driven into the close-grained mass of tradition and routine; +and each successive blow that is struck by a teacher of intelligence +and initiative will widen the incipient cleft. + +The dream, then, of leading the children of England--the children of +the "masses" as well as of the "classes"--into the path of +self-realisation, is not so widely impracticable as to convict the +dreamer of insanity. And if we could realise the dream, if we could +go but a little way towards realising it, how immense would be the +gain to our country! If the average level of mental development in +England were as high as it is in Utopia, to what height would not the +men and women of exceptional ability be able to rise? The mountain +peaks that spring from an upland plateau soar higher towards the sky +than the peaks, of the same apparent height, that spring from a +low-lying plain. And "the great mountains lift the lowlands on to +their sides." + +But this is not the only reason why the gospel of self-realisation +should be preached in all parts of the land. There is another reason +which is becoming more and more urgent. If the Utopian scheme of +education were widely adopted, an antidote would be found to a grave +and growing evil which is beginning to imperil the mental health of +every civilised community, and of this more than any other. The more +civilised (in the Western sense of the word) a country becomes, the +less educative does life--the rough-and-tumble life of the work-a-day +world--tend to become. In a thoroughly "civilised" country, where the +material conditions of life are highly organised, and where industry +is highly specialised, so much is done for the individual by those +who organise his life and labour, that it ceases to be necessary for +him, except within narrow limits, to shift for himself. In a less +civilised community men have to use their wits as well as their hands +at every turn; and resourcefulness and versatility are therefore in +constant demand. The industrial life of a Russian peasant, who is of +necessity a Jack-of-many-trades, is incomparably more educative than +that of the Lancashire cotton operative, most of whose thinking and +much of whose operating may be said to be done for him by the +complicated machinery which he controls; who does, indeed, learn to +do one thing surpassingly well, but in doing that one thing becomes, +as he progresses, more and more automatic, so that the highest praise +we can give him is to say that he does his work with the sureness and +accuracy of a machine. It follows that the more civilised a country +becomes, the more important is the part that the elementary school +plays in the life of the nation,--and that not merely because the +ability to read, write, and cipher is, in the conditions which modern +civilisation imposes, almost as much a "necessary of life" as the +ability to walk or talk, but also and more especially because it +devolves upon the school to do for the citizen in his childhood what +life will not do for him in his manhood, or will do for him but in +scant measure, to stimulate his vital powers into healthful activity, +to foster the growth of his soul. And the more the people in a +civilised country are withdrawn from the soil and herded into mines +and mills and offices, the more imperative is it that the school +should quicken rather than deaden the child's innate faculties, +should bring sunshine rather than frost into his adolescent life. In +such a country as ours the responsibilities of the teacher are only +equalled by his opportunities; for the child is in his hands during +the most impressionable years of life; and those years will have been +wasted, and worse than wasted, unless they have fitted the child to +face the world with resourcefulness, intelligence, and vital energy, +ready to wrest from his environment, by enlarging and otherwise +transforming it, those educative influences which are still to be had +for the seeking, but are no longer automatically supplied. + + +_The Moral Aspect of Self-Realisation._ + +If Man, if each man in turn, is born _good_, the process of growth, +or self-realisation, which is presumably taking him towards the +perfection of which his nature admits, must needs make him +continuously _better_. In other words, growth, provided that it is +healthy, harmonious, and many-sided, provided that it is growth of +the whole being, is in itself and of inner necessity the most +moralising of all processes. Nay, it is the only moralising process, +for in no other way can what is naturally good be transformed into +what is ideally best. + +This argument, apart from its being open to the possible objection +that it plays on the meaning of the word "good," is perhaps too +conclusive to be really convincing. I will therefore try to make my +way to its conclusion by another line of thought. + +The desire to grow, to advance towards maturity, to realise his true +self--the self that is his in embryo from the very beginning--is +strong in every living thing, and is therefore strong in every child +of man. But the desire, which necessarily takes its share in the +general process of growth, must needs pass through many stages on its +way to its own highest form. In infancy, it is a desire for physical +life, for the preservation and expansion of the physical self; and in +this stage it is, as I have already pointed out, uncompromisingly +selfish. The new-born baby is the incarnation of selfishness; and it +is quite right that he should be so. It is his way of trying to +realise himself. As the child grows older, the desire to grow becomes +a desire for self-aggrandisement,--a desire to shine in various ways, +to surpass others, to be admired, to be praised; and though in this +stage it may give rise to much vanity and selfishness, still, so long +as it has vigorous growth behind it and is in its essence a desire +for further growth, it is in the main a healthy tendency, and to call +it sinful or vicious would be a misuse of words. + +But when, in the course of time, the average, ordinary, surface +self--the self with which we are all only too familiar--has been +fully evolved and firmly established, the day may come when, owing to +various adverse conditions, the growth of the soul will be arrested, +and the ordinary self will come to be regarded as the true self, as +the self which the man may henceforth accept and rest in, as the +self in virtue of which he is what he is. Should the desire for +self-aggrandisement survive that day, the door would be thrown open +to selfishness of a malignant type and to general demoralisation. And +this is what would assuredly come to pass. In the first place, the +desire for self-aggrandisement, which always has the push of Nature's +expansive forces behind it, would certainly survive that ill-omened +day. Indeed, it were well that it should do so; for "while there is +life, there is hope," and when the soul is ceasing to grow, it is +through the desire for self-aggrandisement that Nature makes her last +effort to keep it alive, by compelling it to energise on one or two +at least of the many sides of its being. In the second place, the +desire would gradually cease to be resolvable into the desire for +continued growth, and would gradually transform itself into the +desire to glorify and make much of the ordinary self, to minister to +its selfish demands, to give it possessions, riches, honour, power, +social rank, and whatever else might serve to feed its self-esteem, +and make it think well of itself because it was well thought of by +"the world." And in the third place, in its effort to glorify and +make much of the ordinary self, the desire would, without a moment's +compunction, see other persons pushed to the wall, trampled under +foot, slighted and humiliated, robbed of what they valued most, +outraged and wounded in their tenderest feelings. It is my firm +conviction that at the present day three-fourths of the moral evil in +the world, or at any rate in the Western world, are the direct or +indirect outcome of egoism,--egoism which, as a rule, is mean, petty, +and small-minded, but is often cruel and ruthless, and can on +occasion become heroic and even titanic in its capacity for evil and +in the havoc that it works,--egoism which in ninety-nine cases out of +a hundred is generated by the desire for self-aggrandisement having +outlived its better self, the desire to grow. + +If arrested growth is the chief source of malignant egoism, there is +an obvious remedy for the deadly malady. The egoist must re-enter the +path of self-realisation. His great enemy is his lower self;[34] and +the surest way to conquer this enemy is to outgrow it, to leave it +far behind. When the path of self-realisation has been re-entered, +when the soul has resumed the interrupted process of its growth, the +desire for self-aggrandisement will spontaneously transform itself, +first into the desire for further growth, and then into the desire +for outgrowth or escape from self, and will cease to minister to the +selfish demands of the lower self; and as the lower self is all the +while being gradually left behind by the growing soul, and is +therefore ceasing to assert itself, and ceasing to clamour, like a +spoilt child, for this thing and for that,--it will not be long +before the antidote to the poison of egoism will have taken due +effect, and the health of the soul will have been restored. + +But let me say again--for I can scarcely say it too often--that the +growth which emancipates from self is many-sided growth, the growth, +not of any one faculty, or group of faculties, but of the soul as +such. Were it not so, the life of self-realisation might easily +become a life of glorified and therefore intensified selfishness. It +is quite possible, as we know from experience, for a high degree of +"culture" to co-exist with a high degree of egoism. It is possible, +for example, for the ćsthetic instincts, when not kept aglow by the +sympathetic, or hardened with an alloy of the scientific, to evolve +a peculiar form of selfishness which leads at last to looseness +of life and general demoralisation. And it is possible for the +scientific instincts, when developed at the expense of the ćsthetic +and the sympathetic, to evolve a hard, unemotional type of character +which is self-centred and selfish owing to its positiveness and lack +of imagination. But these are instances of inharmonious growth. When +growth is harmonious and many-sided, it leads of necessity to +out-growth, to escape from self. For the expansive instincts are so +many ways of escape from self which Nature opens up to the soul;--the +sympathetic instincts, a way of escape into the boundless ćther of +love; the ćsthetic instincts, a way of escape into the wonder-world +of beauty; the scientific instincts, a way of escape into the world +of mysteries which is lighted by the "high white star of truth." It +is only when one of the expansive instincts is allowed to aggrandise +itself at the expense of the others, that the consequent outgrowth of +selfishness in what I may call the internal economy of one's nature +begins to reflect itself in a general selfishness of character. An +instinct may readily become egoistic in its effort to affirm or +over-affirm itself, to grasp at its share or more than its share of +the child's rising life: and if it does, it may gradually suck down +into the vortex of its egoism the whole character of the child as he +ripens into the man. But growth, as such, is anti-egoistic just +because it is growth, because it is a movement towards a larger, +fuller, and freer life: and it is restricted, even more than +one-sided growth,--it is the apathy, the helplessness, the deadness +of soul that overtakes, first the child and then the man, when his +expansive instincts are systematically starved and thwarted,--which +is the chief cause of his incarceration in his petty self. + +If three-fourths of the moral evil in the world are due to +malignant egoism, the source of the remaining fourth is, in a word, +_sensuality_. By sensuality I mean the undue or perverted development +of the desires and passions of the animal self,--the desire for +food and drink, the sexual desires, the desire for physical or +semi-physical excitement, the animal passion of anger, and the rest. +As an enemy of the soul, sensuality is less dangerous, because more +open and less insidious, than egoism. The egoist, who mistakes his +ordinary for his real self, may well lead a life of systematic +selfishness without in the least realising that he is living amiss. +But the animal self is never mistaken for the real self; and the +sensualist always has an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that, +in indulging his animal desires and passions to excess, he is doing +wrong. This feeling may, indeed, die out when he "grows hard" in his +"viciousness"; but in the earlier stages of the sensual life it is +sure to "give pause"; and there are, I think, few persons who do not +feel that the sensual desires and passions are so remote from the +headquarters of human life, that in yielding to them beyond due +measure they are acting unworthily of their higher selves. At any +rate we may regard the temptations to sensual indulgence that lie in +our path as evil influences which are assailing us from without +rather than from within; and we may therefore liken them to the +blight, rust, mites, mildew, and other pests that assail hops, +fruit, wheat, and other growing plants. + +And, like the pests that assail growing plants, the sensual pests +that war against the soul must be beaten off by vigorous and +continuous growth. No other prophylactic is so sure or so effective +as this. When I was asked whether the Utopian education was useful +or not, I adduced, as an instance of its usefulness, its power of +protecting the young from the allurements of a pernicious literature, +to which the victims of the conventional type of education, with +their lowered vitality and their lack of interest in life, too +readily succumb. This is a typical example of the way in which the +rising sap of life strengthens the soul to resist the temptations to +undue sensual indulgence by which it is always liable to be assailed. +The victim of a repressive, growth-arresting type of education, +having few if any interests in life, not infrequently takes to the +meretricious excitements of sensuality in order to relieve the +intolerable monotony of his days. But the training which makes for +many-sided growth, by filling the life of the "adolescent" with many +and various interests, removes temptations of this particular type +from his path. And it does more for him than this. It generates in +him a state of health and well-being, in which the very vigour and +elasticity of his spiritual fibre automatically shields him from +temptation by refusing to allow the germs of moral disease to effect +a lodgment in his soul. It would be well if our moralists could +realise that the chief causes of weakness in the presence of sensual +temptation are, on the one hand, boredom and _ennui_, and on the other +hand flabbiness and degeneracy of spiritual fibre, and that the +remedy for both these defects is to give the young the type of +education which will foster rather than hinder growth. + +We are now in a position to estimate the respective values, as +moralising influences, of the path of self-realisation and the path +that leads to "results." Whatever tends to arrest growth tends also +and in an equal degree to demoralise Man's life; for, on the one +hand, by transforming the healthy desire for continued growth into +the unhealthy desire for mere self-aggrandisement, it generates +malignant egoism, with its endless train of attendant evils; and, on +the other hand, by depressing the vitality of the soul and so +weakening its powers of resistance, it exposes it to the attacks of +those powers and desires which we speak of in the aggregate as +sensuality. If this is so, the inference is irresistible that the +externalism of "civilised" life, with the repressive and devitalising +system of education which it necessitates, is responsible for the +greater part of the immorality--I am using the word in its widest +sense--of the present age. Contrariwise, whatever tends to foster +growth tends also, and in an equal degree, to moralise Man's +life; for, on the one hand, by transforming the desire for +self-aggrandisement into the desire, first for continued growth +and then for out-growth, it gives the soul strength to eliminate +the poison of egoism from its system; and, on the other hand, by +vitalising the soul and so strengthening its powers of resistance, it +enables it to beat off the attacks of those enemies of its well-being +which serve under the banner of sensuality. If this is so, the +inference is irresistible that self-realisation is the only effective +remedy for the immorality of the present age. + +The comparison between the two schemes of life may be carried a stage +further. If egoism and sensuality are the two primary vices, the +secondary vices will be the various ways and means by which egoism +and sensuality try to compass their respective ends. Let us select +for consideration one group of these vices,--the important group +which fall under the general head of _untruthfulness_. Insincerity, +disingenuousness, shiftiness, trickery, duplicity, chicanery, +evasion, intrigue, _suppressio veri_, _suggestio falsi_, fraud, +mendacity, treachery, hypocrisy, cant,--their name is Legion. That +externalism, whether in school or out of school, is the foster-mother +of the whole brood, is almost too obvious to need demonstration. +In school the child lives in an atmosphere of unreality and +make-believe. The demand for mechanical obedience which is always +pressing upon him is a demand that he shall be untrue to himself. +Sincerity of expression, which is the fountain-head of all +truthfulness, is not merely slighted by his teacher, but is +systematically proscribed. He is always (under compulsion) pretending +to be what he is not,--to know what he does not know, to see what he +does not see, to think what he does not think, to believe what he +does not believe. And he lives, from hour to hour, under the dark +shadow of severity and distrust,--severity which is too often +answered by servility, and distrust which is too often answered by +deceit. When he goes out into the world, he finds that though there +are many sins for which there is forgiveness, there is one for which +there is no forgiveness,--the sin of being found out; and he orders +his life accordingly. He finds that he must give account of himself +to public opinion, which necessarily judges according to the +appearance of things, and is only too ready to be hoodwinked and +gulled. He finds that to "succeed" is to achieve certain outward and +visible results,--results which are out of relation to the _vraie +vérité_ of things, which are in no way symbolical of merit, and for +the winning of which any means may be resorted to provided that +scandals are avoided and the letter of the law is obeyed. He finds +that the system of advertising which plays so large a part in modern +life, and without which it is so hard to "succeed," is in the main a +system of organised mendacity. Finally, and above all, he finds that +the examination system, with its implicit demands for trickery and +shiftiness, and its almost open invitation to cram and cheat, is not +confined to the school but has its equivalent in "the world," and is +in fact the basis of civilisation as well as of education in the +West. + +This is the provision that externalism makes for the practical +inculcation of truthfulness,--a virtue which its religion and +its ethics profess to honour above all others. The life of +self-realisation, on the other hand, is a life of genuine +self-expression; and a life of genuine self-expression is obviously +a life of fearless sincerity. In such a life there is no place for +untruthfulness or any member of its impish brood. The one concern of +the child, as of the man, is to be loyal to intrinsic reality, to be +true to his true self. His standard is always inward, not outward. +He knows that he is what he is, not what he is reputed to be. +_Quantum unusquisque est in oculis Tuis, tantum est et non amplius._ + +Here, then, as elsewhere, we see that the difference between the +morality of externalism and the morality of self-realisation is a +difference, not of degree but of direct antagonism,--the difference +between a poison and its antidote, between the cause of a malady and +the cure. + +While the path of self-realisation is emancipating us from egoism and +sensuality, in what general direction is it leading us? Is its +ethical ideal positive or merely negative? And if it is positive, +what is its character, and how is it to be realised? The answer to +this question will be given in the remaining sections. + + +_The Social Aspect of Self-realisation._ + +He must either be richly endowed with "the good things of life" or be +of an exceptionally optimistic disposition, who can view the existing +social order with complete satisfaction. Even among those who are +richly endowed with "the good things of life" there must be many who +realise that the "Have-nots" have some cause for complaint. And even +among those who are of an exceptionally optimistic disposition there +must be some who realise that the grounds of their optimism are +personal to themselves, and that they cannot expect many others to +share their satisfaction with things as they are. + +The phrase "the good things of life" is significant, and explains +much. It means that an outward standard of reality has fully +established itself in the community, that money and the possessions +of various kinds which money can buy are regarded as the good things +of life,--things which are intrinsically good, and therefore +legitimate ends of Man's ambition and endeavour, things to pursue +which is to fulfil one's destiny and to win which is to achieve +salvation. It means, in other words, that the life of the community +is a scramble for material possessions and outward and visible +"results"--a scramble which on its lowest level becomes a struggle +for bare existence, and on the next level a struggle for the +"necessaries of life"--and that this legalised scramble is the basis +of the whole social order. In such a scramble the great prizes are +necessarily few, and the number of complete failures is always +considerable; for the wealthier a country, the higher is its standard +of comfort, so that the _proportion_ of failures--the percentage of +men who are submerged and outcast, who are in want and misery--is at +least as great in the wealthiest as in the poorest community, while +the extremes of wealth and poverty are as a rule greatest where the +pursuit of riches is carried on with the keenest vigour and the most +complete success. + +There are many persons, rich as well as poor, who, viewing the +legalised scramble from an entirely impersonal standpoint, are filled +with disgust and dismay, and who dream of making an end of it, by +substituting what they call _collectivism_ for the individualism +which they regard as the source of all our troubles. These persons +are known as _Socialists_. Their ruling idea is that the "State" +should become the sole owner of property, and that this radical +change should be effected by a series of legislative measures. With +their social ideal, regarded as an ideal, one has of course the +deepest sympathy. Their motto is, I believe, "Each for all, and all +for each"; and if this ideal could be realised, the social millennium +would indeed have begun. But in trying to compass their ends by +legislation, _before the standard of reality has been changed_, they +are making a disastrous mistake. For, to go no further, our schools +are hotbeds of individualism, the spirit of "competitive selfishness" +being actively and systematically fostered in all of them, with a few +exceptions; and so long as this is so, so long as our highly +individualised society is recruited, year by year, by a large +contingent of individualists of all ranks, drawn from schools of +all grades, for so long will the Socialistic ideal remain an +impracticable dream. An impracticable and a mischievous dream; for +in the attempt to realise it, the community will almost inevitably +be brought to the verge of civil war. When the seeds of socialistic +legislation, or even of socialistic agitation, are sown in a soil +which is highly charged with the poison of individualism, the +resulting crop will be class hatred and social strife. + +No, we must change our standard of reality before we can hope to +reform society. Where the outward standard prevails, where material +possessions are regarded as "the good things of life," the basis of +society must needs be competitive rather than communal, for there +will never be enough of those "good things" to satisfy the desires of +_all_ the members of any community. And even if the socialistic +dream of state-ownership could be universally realised, the +change--so long as the outward standard of reality prevailed--would +not necessarily be for the better, and might well be for the worse. +Competition for "the good things of life" would probably go on as +fiercely as ever; but it would be a scramble among nations rather +than individuals, and it might conceivably take the form of open +warfare waged on a titanic scale.[35] Even now there are indications +that such a struggle, or series of struggles, if not actually +approaching, is at any rate not beyond the bounds of possibility. And +on the way to the realisation of the collectivist ideal, we should +probably have in each community a similar struggle for wealth and +power among political parties,--a struggle which would generate many +social evils, of which civil war might not be the most malignant. + +But if we are to change our standard of reality we must change it, +first and foremost, in the school. The way to do this is quite +simple. We need not give lessons on altruism. We need not teach or +preach a new philosophy of life. All that we need do is to foster the +growth of the child's soul. When the growth of the soul is healthy +and harmonious, the cultivation of all the expansive instincts having +been fully provided for, the _communal_ instinct will evolve itself +in its own season; and when the communal instinct has been fully +evolved, the social order will begin to reform itself. This is what +has happened in Utopia. There, where competition is unknown, where +prizes are undreamed of, where the growth of the child's natural +faculties, and the consequent well-being of his soul, is "its own +exceeding great reward," the communal instinct has grown with the +growth of the child's whole nature, and has generated an ideal social +life. + +At the end of the last section I asked myself what was the ethical +ideal of the life of self-realisation,--the positive ideal as +distinguished from the more negative ideal of emancipating from +egoism and sensuality. I will now try to answer this question. +Emancipation from egoism and sensuality is effected by the outgrowth +of a larger and truer self. This larger and truer self, as it unfolds +itself, directs our eyes towards the ideal self--the goal of the +whole process of growth--which is to the ordinary self what the +full-grown tree, embodying in itself the perfection of oakhood, is to +the sapling oak, or what the ripe peach, embodying in itself the +perfection of peachhood, is to the green unripened fruit. The ideal +self is, in brief, perfect Manhood. What perfect Manhood may be, we +need not pause to inquire. Whatever it may be, it is the true self of +each of us. It follows that the nearer each of us gets to it, the +nearer he is to the true self of each of his fellow-men; that the +more closely he is able to identify himself with it, the more closely +he is able to identify himself with each of his fellow-men; that in +realising it, he is realising, he is entering into, he is becoming +one with, the real life of each of his fellow-men. And not of each +of his fellow-men only. He is also entering into the life of the +whole community of men--(for it is the presence of the ideal self in +each of us which makes communal life possible)--and, through this, of +each of the lesser communities to which he may happen to belong. In +other words, he is losing himself in the lives of others, and is +finding his well-being, and therefore his happiness, in doing so. +But self-loss, with joy in the loss of self, is, in a word, love. + +The path of self-realisation is, then, in its higher stages, a life +of love. He who walks in that path must needs lead a life of love. +He will love and serve his fellow-men, both as individuals and as +members of this or that community, not because he is consciously +trying to live up to a high ideal, but because he has reached a stage +in his development beyond which he cannot develop himself except by +leading a life of love, because the path of self-realisation has led +him into the sunshine of love, and if he will not henceforth walk in +that sunshine he will cease to follow his path. He has indeed long +walked in the foreglow of the sunshine of love. The dawn of the orb +of love is heralded by a gradual twilight, which lights the path of +self-realisation, even in its earlier stages. In Utopia the joy on +the faces of the children is the joy of goodwill not less than of +well-being. Or rather it is the joy of goodwill because it is the joy +of well-being, because well-being would not be well-being if it did +not ceaselessly generate goodwill. + +That love is "the fulfilling of the law," and therefore the keystone +of every sound system of ethics, is a truth on which I need scarcely +insist. The final proof that the ethics of self-realisation are +sound to the core lies in the fact that the path of self-realisation, +besides emancipating from egoism and sensuality, leads all who walk +in it, first into the foreglow and then into the sunshine of love. +But it is with the social rather than the ethical aspect of +self-realisation that I am now concerned. And the social aspect of +the fact which has just been stated is obviously of vital importance. +Love, which is commensurate with life, has innumerable phases. One of +these is what I have called the communal instinct,--the sense of +belonging to a community, of being a vital part of it, of sharing +in its life, of being what one is (in part at least) because one +shares in its life. If Socialism is to realise its noble dream, this +instinct, strongly developed and directed towards the well-being of +the whole social order, must become part of the normal equipment of +every citizen. And if this is to come to pass, self-realisation must +be made the basis of education in all our schools. What it has done +for the children of Utopia, in the way of developing their communal +instinct and making their school an ideal community, it is capable of +doing for every school in England,--I might almost say for every +school on the face of the earth. + +There are faddists who advocate the teaching of _patriotism_ in our +elementary schools. There are Local Education Committees which insist +on _citizenship_ being taught in the schools under their control. By +teaching patriotism, and citizenship is meant treating them as +"subjects," finding places for them on the "time-table," and giving +formal lessons on them. Where this is done, the time of the +teachers and the children is wasted. The teaching of patriotism +and citizenship, if it is to produce any effect, must be entirely +informal and indirect. Let the child be so educated that he will +develop himself freely on all the sides of his being, and his +communal instinct will, as I have said, evolve itself in its own +season. Until it has evolved itself, patriotism and citizenship will +be mere names to him, and what he is taught about them will make no +impression on him. When it has evolved itself, he will be a patriot +and a good citizen in _posse_, and will be ready on occasion to prove +his patriotism and his good citizenship by his deeds, or, better +still, by his life.[36] + +While the communal instinct is evolving itself, first in the school +and then in the community at large, the standard of reality will, by +a parallel or perhaps identical process, be transforming itself in +all the grades of society. The inward will be taking the place of the +outward standard; and men will be learning to form a different +conception of "the good things of life" from that which now dominates +our social life. The Socialist will then have his opportunity. +That any member of the community should be in physical want or +irremediable misery, will begin to be felt, partly as a personal +grief, partly as a reflection on himself, by each member of the +community in turn; and steps will begin to be taken--what steps I +cannot pretend to forecast--to make physical want and irremediable +misery impossible. Meanwhile, with the gradual substitution of the +inward for the outward standard of reality, the mad scramble for +wealth and possessions and distinctions will gradually cease, the +conception of what constitutes "comfort" and of what are the real +"necessaries of life" will be correspondingly changed, and men will +begin to realise that of the genuine "good things of life"--the good +things which the children of Utopia carry with them into the world, +and which make them exceedingly rich in spite of their apparent +poverty--there are enough and more than enough "to go round." + + +_The Religious Aspect of Self-realisation._ + +The oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn. What is it that is +present in embryo in the new-born child? To achieve salvation is to +realise one's true self. But what is one's true self? The "perfection +of manhood" is an obvious answer to this question; but it explains so +little that we cannot accept it as final. We may, however, accept it +as a resting-place in our search for the final answer. + +It is on the religious aspect of self-realisation that I now propose +to dwell. The function of Religion is to bring a central aim into +man's life, to direct his eyes towards the true end of his being +and to help him to reach it. The true end of Man's being is the +perfection of his nature; and the way to this end is the process +which we call growth. When I speak of Man's nature I am thinking of +his universal nature, of the nature which is common to all men, the +nature of Man as Man. Each of us has his own particular nature, his +individuality, as it is sometimes called. The nature of Man as Man is +no mere common measure of these particular natures, but is rather +what I may call their organised totality, the many-sided nature which +includes, explains, and even justifies them all. + +What perfection may mean when we predicate the term of our common +nature, we cannot even imagine. The potentialities of our nature seem +to be infinite, and our knowledge of them is limited and shallow. +When we compare an untutored savage or a brutal, ignorant European +with a Christ or a Buddha, or again with a Shakespeare or a Goethe, +we realise how vast is the range--the lineal even more than the +lateral range--of Man's nature, and we find it easy to believe that +in any ordinary man there are whole tracts, whole aspects of human +nature, in which his consciousness has not yet been awakened, and +which therefore seem to be nonexistent in him, though in reality they +are only dormant or inert. These, however, are matters with which we +need not at present concern ourselves. Let the potentialities of our +common nature be what they may. Our business is to realise them as, +little by little, they present themselves to us for realisation. Let +the end of the process of growth be what it may. Our business is to +grow. + +In the effort to grow we are not left without guidance. The stimulus +to grow, the forces and the tendencies that make for growth, all come +from within ourselves. Yet it is only to a limited extent that they +come under our direct control. So, too, the goal of growth, the +ideal perfection of our nature, is our own; and yet on the way to it +we must needs outgrow ourselves. What part do we play in this mighty +drama? The mystery of selfhood is unfathomable. The word _self_ +changes its meaning the moment we begin to think about it. So does +the word _nature_. The range of meaning is in each case unlimited. +Yet there are limits beyond which we cannot use either word without +some risk of being misunderstood. When we are meditating on our +origin and our destiny, some other word seems to be needed to enable +us to complete the span of our thoughts. + +Is not that word _God_? The source of our life, the ideal end of our +being,--how shall we think about these if we may not speak of them as +_divine_? And in using the word "divine," do we not set ourselves +free to stretch the respective meanings of the words "self" and +"nature" beyond what would otherwise have been the breaking point of +each? The true self is worthier of the name of "self" than the +apparent self. The true nature is worthier of the name of "nature" +than the lower nature. But the true self is the Divine Self; and the +highest nature is the Nature of God. If this is so, we serve God best +and obey God best by trying to perfect our nature in response to a +stimulus, a pressure, and a guidance which is at once natural and +divine. + +In other words, we serve God best by following the path of +self-realisation. And the better we serve God, the more truly and +fully do we learn to know him. If to know him, and to live up to our +knowledge of him, is to be truly religious, then the life of +self-realisation is, in the truest and deepest sense of the word, a +_religious_ life. Or rather it is the only religious life, for in no +other way can knowledge of God be won. + +Let me try to make good this statement. Knowledge of God is the +outcome, not of definite dogmatic instruction in theology, but of +spiritual growth. Knowledge, whatever may be its object, is always +the outcome of growth. Even knowledge of _number_ is the outcome, not +of definite dogmatic instruction in the arithmetical rules and +tables, but of the growth of the arithmetical sense. It is the same +with literature, the same with history, the same with chemistry, the +same with "business," the same with navigation, the same with the +driving of vehicles in crowded streets, the same with every art, +craft, sport, game, and pursuit. In evolving a special sense, the +soul is growing in one particular direction, a direction which is +marked out for it by the environment in which it finds it needful or +desirable to energise. The soul has, as we have seen, a general power +of adapting itself to its environment, of permeating it, of feeling +its way through it, of getting to understand it, of dealing with it +at last with skill and success. As is the particular environment, so +is the subtle, tactful, adaptive, directly perceptive, subconsciously +cognitive faculty,--the "sense," as I have called it--by means of +which the soul acquires the particular knowledge that it needs. The +more highly specialised (whether by subdivision or by abstraction) +the environment, the more highly specialised the sense. The larger +and more comprehensive the environment, the larger and more "massive" +the sense. The acquired aptitude which enables an omnibus driver to +steer his bulky vehicle through the traffic of London is a highly +specialised sense. At the other end of the scale we have the +"massive" spiritual faculties which deal with whole aspects of life +or Nature, such as the sense of beauty or of moral worth. + +But there is a sense which is larger and more "massive" even than +these. When the environment is all-embracing, when it covers the +whole circle of which the soul is or can be the centre, the growth +made in response to it is the growth of the soul as such, and the +knowledge which rewards that growth is the knowledge of supreme +reality, or, in the language of religion, the knowledge of God. The +highest of all senses is the religious sense, the sense which gives +us knowledge of God. But the religious sense is not, as we are apt +to imagine, one of many senses. No one individual sense, however +"massive" or subtle it might be, could enable its possessor to get +on terms, so to speak, with the totality of things, with the +all-vitalising Life, with the all-embracing Whole. _The religious +sense is the well-being of the soul._ For the soul as such grows in +and through the growth of its various senses,--its own growth being +reinforced by the growth of each of these when Nature's balance is +kept, and retarded by the growth of one or more of them when Nature's +balance is lost,--and in proportion as its own vital, central growth +is vigorous and healthy, its power of apprehending reality unfolds +itself little by little. That power is of its inmost essence. When +reality, in the full sense of the word, is its object, it sees with +the whole of its being; it is itself, when it is at the centre of +its universe, its own supreme perceptive faculty, its own religious +sense. + +If this is so, if the soul in its totality, the soul acting through +its whole "apperceptive mass," is its own religious sense, it is +abundantly clear that the path of self-realisation is the only path +which leads to knowledge of God, and through knowledge of God to +salvation. For self-realisation is the only scheme of life which +provides for the growth of the soul in its totality, for the +harmonious, many-sided development of the soul as such. I have often +dwelt on this point. If we have never before realised its importance +we must surely do so now. A one-sided training, even when its +one-sidedness takes the form of specialising in theology, is a +non-religious, and may well become an irreligious training, for it +does not lead to, and may well lead away from, knowledge of God. + +And if we have never before realised how great are the opportunities +and responsibilities of the teacher, we must surely do so now. For a +certain number of years--the number varies with the social standing +of the child, and the financial resources of his parents--the teacher +can afford to disregard utilitarian considerations and think only of +what is best for the child. What use will he make of those years? +Will he lead the child into the path of self-realisation, and so give +a lifelong impetus to the growth of his soul? Or will he, in his +thirst for "results," lead him into the path of mechanical obedience, +or, at best, of one-sided development, and so blight his budding +faculties and arrest the growth of his soul? On the practical answer +that he gives to this question will depend the fate of the child. +For to the child the difference between the two paths will be the +difference between fulfilling and missing his destiny, between +knowledge and ignorance of God. + +If any of my readers have imagined that I am an advocate of what is +called "secular education," they will, I hope, now realise that they +have misread this book. Far from wishing to secularise education, I +hold that it cannot be too religious. And, far from wishing to limit +its religious activities to the first forty minutes of the morning +sessions, I hold that it should be actively religious through every +minute of every school session, that whatever it does it should do to +the glory of God. + +But how does knowledge of God show itself? Knowledge, so far as it is +real, always shows itself in right bearing, and (if action is called +for) in right action. Knowledge of arithmetic and of other more or +less abstract subjects, shows itself in the successful working of the +corresponding problems, theoretical or practical as the case may be. +Knowledge of the laws of physical nature shows itself in practical +mastery of the forces and resources of physical nature. Knowledge of +history and geography, in a right attitude towards the problems and +sub-problems of these complex and comprehensive subjects, an attitude +which may on occasion translate itself into right action. And so on. +Knowledge of God, being a state or attitude of the soul as such, must +show itself in the right bearing and the right action of the soul as +such, in other words, of Man as Man,--not as mathematician, not as +financier, not as sculptor, not as cricketer, but simply as Man. Now +Man as Man has to bear himself aright towards the world in which he +finds himself, and in particular towards the world which touches him +most closely and envelops him most completely,--the world of human +life. Therefore knowledge of God will show itself, principally and +chiefly, though by no means wholly, in dealing aright with one's +fellow-men, in being rightly disposed towards them, and in doing the +right things to them. I have found it convenient to disconnect the +moral from the religious aspect of self-realisation. We can now see +that in the last resort the two aspects are one. + +From every point of view, then, and above all from that of Religion, +the path of self-realisation is seen to be the path of salvation. +For it is the only scheme of life which enables him who follows it +to attain to knowledge of God; and knowledge of God has, as its +necessary counterpart, a right attitude, in general towards the world +which surrounds him, and in particular towards his fellow-men. + +But is it possible, within the limits of one earth-life, to follow +the path of self-realisation to its appointed goal? And if not, will +the path be continued beyond that abrupt turn in it which we call +death? The respective attitudes of the two great schools of popular +thought towards the problem of the grave, are in brief as follows. +The Materialists (or Naturalists, as they miscall themselves) believe +that death is the end of life. The Supernaturalists believe that one +earth-life (or even a few years or months) of mechanical obedience to +supernatural direction will be rewarded by an eternity of happiness +in "Heaven." But those who walk in the path of self-realisation, and +whose unswerving loyalty to Nature is rewarded by some measure of +insight into her deeper laws, know that the goal of the path is +infinitely far away, and in their heart of hearts they laugh both the +current eschatologies to scorn. And the higher they ascend, as they +follow the path, the more vividly do they realise how unimaginably +high above them is the summit of the mountain which the path is +ascending in spiral coils. + +The Utopian experiment, humble as it is, can, I think, throw some +light on these mighty problems. The relations between the type and +the various sub-types, between the type and the individual, between +the sub-type and the individual--whether in plant or beast or +man--are matters which could not be handled within the limits of this +book, and which I have therefore as far as possible ignored. Nor have +I attempted to deal with the difficult problems that are presented by +the existence of races, such as the Negro, which seem to be far below +the normal level of human development. There is, however, in the vast +region of thought which these and kindred problems open out to us, +one by-way which I must be allowed to follow for a while. + +The wild _bullace_ is, I believe, the ancestor of many of our yellow +_plums_. In other words, bullacehood can develop into plumhood, and +even into the perfection of plumhood. Similarly human nature can +develop into something so high above the normal level of human nature +that it might almost seem to belong to another _genus_. But there is +a difference between the two cases. The bullace ideal is in the +individual bullace tree. So, in a sense, is the plum ideal. But the +latter cannot be realised, or even approached, by the individual +bullace tree. It cannot be realised, or even approached, by the +bullace species except through a long course of culture and breeding. +Is it the same with Man? Let us take English rusticity as a +particular type of human nature,--the equivalent of bullacehood for +the purpose of argument. This is a distinct type, and may be said +to have its own ideal.[37] Emerging from this, and gradually +transforming it, is the ideal of human nature, the ideal for Man as +Man. As the bullace ideal is to the plum ideal, so is the ideal of +English rusticity to the ideal of human nature. But whereas the plum +ideal cannot be realised in any appreciable degree by the individual +bullace, the human ideal can be realised in a quite appreciable +degree by the individual English rustic. There have always been and +will always be isolated cases to prove that this is so,--cases of men +of quite humble origin who have attained to high degrees of mental +and spiritual development. These have hitherto been regarded as +exceptional cases. But Egeria has convinced me that under favourable +conditions the _average_ child can become the rare exception, and +attain to what is usually regarded as a remarkably high degree of +mental and spiritual development. Innocent joy, self-forgetfulness, +communal devotion, heartfelt goodwill, gracious manners--to speak of +spiritual development only--are characteristics of _every_ Utopian +child. What are we to infer from this? The bullace ideal is +realisable (under favourable conditions) by each individual bullace +tree,--but the plum ideal is not. The English rustic ideal is +realisable by each individual rustic child. _But so is the human +ideal in Utopia._ + +But what of the children who do not belong to Utopia? What would have +happened to the Utopian children if there had been no Egeria to lead +them into the path of self-realisation? They would have lived and +died ordinary English rustics,--healthy bullaces, but in no respect +or degree plums. Egeria has convinced me that the average child, +besides being born mentally and spiritually healthy, has immense +capacity on every side of his being. The plum ideal is the true +nature of the plum, but is not the true nature of the bullace. But +Egeria has convinced me that the human ideal--the divine self--is the +true nature of each of us, even of the average rustic child; and she +has also convinced me that each of us can go a long way towards +realising that ideal. Had there been no Egeria in Utopia, the +Utopians would have lived and died undeveloped, having arrived at a +maturity of a kind, the maturity of the bullace as distinguished from +that of the plum, but having failed to realise in any appreciable +degree what the Utopian experiment has proved to be their true +nature. What then? Is this the end of the average man? Will Nature +admit final defeat? The curve of a man's life, as it sweeps round +from birth to death, passes through the point of apparent maturity; +but the real nature of the man has never ripened, and when he +descends into the grave he is still the embryo of his true self. +Will the true self never be realised? Never, if death is indeed the +end of life. But in that case the man will have failed to fulfil the +central purpose of Nature, and, alone among her children, will have +escaped from the control of her all-pervading law of growth. + +It is in their desire to keep Man in line with the rest of Nature's +children that so many thinkers and scientists in the West forbid him +to look beyond the horizon of the grave. But in truth it is only by +being allowed to look beyond that horizon that Man can be kept in +line with the rest of Nature's children; for if death means +extinction to him, as it means (or seems to mean) to the beetle or +the fly, he will have lived to no purpose, having failed to realise +in any appreciable degree what every other living thing realises +within its appointed limits,--the central tendencies of his being. +That a living thing, an average specimen of its kind, should within +the limits of a normal life fail completely to realise those +potentialities which are distinctive of its real nature,--fail so +completely that the very existence of those potentialities might, but +for an occasional and quite exceptional revelation, have remained +unsuspected,--is entirely at variance with what we know of the ways +and works of Nature. Yet failure to realise his true manhood is, +outside the confines of Utopia, the apparent lot of nine men out of +ten. An entire range of qualities, spiritual and mental, which +blossom freely in the stimulating atmosphere of Utopia, and which +must therefore exist in embryo in every normal child, fail to +germinate (or at best only just begin to germinate) within the +lifetime of the average non-Utopian.[38] The inference to be drawn +from these significant facts is that the apparent limits of Man's +life are not the real limits; that the one earth-life of which each +of us is conscious, far from being the whole of one's life, is but a +tiny fragment of it,--one term of its ascending "series," one day in +its cycle of years. In other words, the spiritual fertility of the +average Utopian child, taken in conjunction with the spiritual +sterility of the average non-Utopian child (and man), points to the +conclusion which the thinkers of the Far East reached thousands of +years ago,--that for the full development of human nature a plurality +of lives is needed, which will do for the individual soul what +generations of scientific breeding and culture will do for the +bullace that is to be transformed into a plum. + +This is one lesson which Utopia has taught me. There is another which +had also been anticipated by the thinkers of the Far East. If under +exceptionally favourable conditions certain spiritual and mental +qualities are able to blossom freely in the space of a few years, +which under normal conditions would remain undeveloped during a +lifetime of seventy or eighty years, may we not infer that there is a +directer path to spiritual maturity than that which is ordinarily +followed? May we not infer that there are ways of living, ways into +which parents and teachers can lead the young, which, if faithfully +followed, will allow the potencies of Man's higher nature to evolve +themselves with what we, with our limited experience, must regard as +abnormal celerity, and which will therefore shorten appreciably Man's +journey to his goal?[39] And if there is a directer path to spiritual +maturity than that which is ordinarily followed, is not the name for +it _Self-realisation_? + +I will not pursue these speculations further. But, speaking for +myself, I will say that the vista which the idea of self-realisation +opens up to me goes far beyond the limits of any one earth-life or +sequence of earth-lives, and far, immeasurably far, beyond the limits +of the sham eternity of the conventional Heaven and Hell. + +But even if there is the fullest provision in Nature (whether by a +spiral ascent through a long chain of lives, or by some directer +path) for the final development in each individual man of the +potencies of perfect manhood, for the final realisation of the divine +or true self,--what then? What does it all mean? Why are we to follow +the path of self-realisation? What is the purpose of the cycle of +existence? There is an answer to this obstinate question,--an answer +which explains nothing, and yet is final, in that it leaves nothing +to be explained. The expansive energies and desires, to yield to +which is our wisdom and our happiness, are ever transforming +themselves, as we yield to them, into the might and the ardour of +Love. And for love there is no final resting-place but the sea of +Divine Love from which it came. "_Amor ex Deo natus est, nec potest +nisi in Deo requiescere._" + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] There is of course an intermediate class of vicious +tendencies, which may be described as apparent rather than actual, +and which are caused partly by immaturity, partly by environment. +Many of the "naughtinesses" of school children belong to this class. + +[26] The _physical_ aspect is, of course, of incalculable +importance. My only reason for ignoring it is that I am not competent +to deal with it. The _ćsthetic_ aspect is also of incalculable +importance; but I know so little about music or art, that I must +limit my treatment of this aspect to pointing out that until the +musical and artistic instincts of the masses are systematically +trained in our elementary schools, through the medium of free +self-expression on the part of the children, we shall have neither a +national music nor a national art. + +[27] Workshops, for the use of the engineering classes, are, +I believe, attached to the "Modern Side" of some of our Great Public +Schools; but I doubt if there is one among the Great Public Schools, +or even among the Preparatory Schools which lead up to them, in which +"hand-work" is part of the _normal_ curriculum. + +[28] I know a youth who recently attended Science lectures +for two years at one of the most famous of our Great Public Schools, +and at the end of that time had not the faintest idea what branch of +Science he had been studying. Science is, I believe, seriously taught +in the Great Public Schools to those who wish to take it seriously; +but, if taught at all, it is certainly not taught seriously to the +rank and file of the boys who belong to the "Classical side" of their +respective schools. + +[29] See also footnote 2 to page 270. + +[30] When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, there was one at +least of my friends who took a genuine delight in the literary +masterpieces of Greece and Rome,--the delight, not of a fastidious +scholar but of a born lover of good literature. He got a "Third" in +Classical "Mods," and was "gulfed" in "Greats." "Serve him right," +his "dons" must have said, for I am afraid he cut their lectures. +[Greek: hôs apoloito kai allos hotis toiauta ge rhezoi.] + +[31] _Stanzas on the Grande Chartreuse_, by Matthew Arnold. + +[32] When I apply the epithet "irrational" to the outcry at +Ephesus, I am thinking of the mob, not of the silversmiths. The +latter knew what they were about. + +[33] Having said so much in disparagement of the mental +training given in the great Public Schools and the older +Universities, let me now try to make my peace with my old school and +my University by expressing my conviction that those who are studying +the "Humanities," whether at school or college, _and finding pleasure +in their studies_, are receiving the best education that is at +present procurable in England. An old Oxonian may perhaps be allowed +to make public profession of his faith in the special efficacy of +that course of study which is known familiarly as "Greats," the +examination in which is, of all examinations, the most difficult to +cram for and the most profitable to read for. + +It is scarcely necessary for me to add that in the older +Universities, as in the great Public Schools, many valuable educative +influences are at work outside the lecture-room. For one thing, the +undergraduates, who come from all parts of the world, are always +educating one another. For another thing, the "atmosphere" of Oxford +and Cambridge does much for the mental and spiritual development of +those who are able to respond to its stimulus. Even the _genius loci_ +is educative, in its own quiet, subtle way. But it would be an +impertinence on my part to labour this point. It is because Oxford +and Cambridge educate their _alumni_ in a thousand ways, the worth of +which no formal examination can test or measure, that they stand +apart from all other Universities. + +[34] I mean by the "lower self," not the animal base of +one's existence, but the ordinary self _claiming to be the true +self_, and so rising in rebellion against its lawful lord. + +[35] In other words, it might conceivably take the form of +_clan_ warfare, highly organised and waged on a world-wide field; and +we learn from the history of the Highlands of Scotland and of Old +Japan that of all forms of warfare the most cruel and relentless, +with the exception of that which is waged in the name of religion, is +the warfare between clan and clan. + +[36] There is such a thing as communal egoism, when a man +regards the community or society to which he belongs as a kind of +"possession," to be paraded and bragged about, just as in personal +love there is such a thing as egoism _ŕ deux_. But the communal +instinct which is generated by self-realisation readily purges itself +of every egoistic taint. + +[37] I mean by the "ideal" the true nature of the given +species and the true self of each individual specimen. + +[38] When I compare the average Utopian with the average +non-Utopian, I am of course thinking of the "masses," not of the +"classes." If the comparison is to have any value, the conditions in +the two cases must be fairly equal. Mentally, the "classes" are, on +the whole, more highly developed (thanks to their more favourable +environment) than the "masses." Spiritually and morally, they are +perhaps on a par with them. + +[39] This was the idea which inspired the Founder of +Buddhism, and led him to formulate a scheme of life, in virtue +of which he takes rank (as it seems to me) as the greatest +educationalist, as well as the greatest moralist, that the world +has ever known. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE *** + +***** This file should be named 20555-8.txt or 20555-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/5/5/20555/ + +Produced by R. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What Is and What Might Be + A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular + +Author: Edmond Holmes + +Release Date: February 10, 2007 [EBook #20555] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE *** + + + + +Produced by R. Cedron, Andrew Sly and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div id="titlepage"> +<h1>WHAT IS AND WHAT<br /> +MIGHT BE</h1> + +<h2>A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN GENERAL AND<br /> +ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN PARTICULAR</h2> + +<p>BY<br /> + +EDMOND HOLMES</p> + +<p>AUTHOR OF<br /> +"THE CREED OF CHRIST," "THE CREED OF BUDDHA," "THE SILENCE<br /> +OF LOVE," "THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE," ETC.</p> + +<p>LONDON<br /> +CONSTABLE & COMPANY<br /> +1912</p> +</div> + +<p style="font-size:90%;text-align:center;">First published, May 1911.<br /> +Second impression, July 1911.<br /> +Third impression, September 1911.<br /> +Fourth impression, November 1911.<br /> +Fifth impression, January 1912.<br /> +Sixth impression, October 1912.</p> + +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_v" id="P_v">[v]</a></div> + +<div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. + </div> + +<h3 style="text-align:center;margin-top:4em;">PREFACE</h3> + +<p>My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the <i>externalism</i> of +the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undue regard to outward and +visible "results" and to neglect what is inward and vital, is the +source of most of the defects that vitiate Education in this country, +and therefore that the only remedy for those defects is the drastic +one of changing our standard of reality and our conception of the +meaning and value of life. My reason for making a special study of +that branch of education which is known as "Elementary," is that I +happen to have a more intimate knowledge of it than of any other +branch, the inside of an elementary school being so familiar to me +that I can in some degree bring the eye of experience to bear upon +the problems that confront its teachers. I do not for a moment +imagine that the elementary school teacher is more deeply tainted +than his fellows with the virus of "Occidentalism." Nor do I think +that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other +educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because, +though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so +deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to +eradicate. Also there is at least a breath of healthy<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_vi" id="P_vi">[vi]</a></span> discontent +stirring in the field of elementary education, a breath which +sometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams of sunshine, +whereas over the higher levels of the educational world there hangs +the heavy stupor of profound self-satisfaction.<a name="FNa1" id="FNa1"></a><a href="#Footnote1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> I am not +exaggerating when I say that at this moment there are elementary +schools in England in which the life of the children is emancipative +and educative to an extent which is unsurpassed, and perhaps +unequalled, in any other type or grade of school.</p> + +<p>I am careful to say all this because I foresee that, without a +"foreword" of explanation, my adverse criticism of what I have called +"a familiar type of school" may be construed into an attack on the +elementary teachers as a body. I should be very sorry if such a +construction were put upon it. No one knows better than I do that the +elementary teachers of this country are the victims of a vicious +conception of education which has behind it twenty centuries of +tradition and prescription, and the malign influence of which was +intensified in their case by thirty years or more<a name="FNa2" id="FNa2"></a><a href="#Footnote2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> of Code +despotism and "payment by results." Handicapped as they have been by +this and other adverse conditions, they have yet produced a noble +band of pioneers, to whom I, for one, owe what little I know about +the inner meaning of education; and if I take an<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_vii" id="P_vii">[vii]</a></span> unduly high +standard in judging of their work, the reason is that they +themselves, by the brilliance of their isolated achievements, have +compelled me to take it. I will therefore ask them to bear with me, +while I expose with almost brutal candour the shortcomings of many of +their schools. They will understand that all the time I am thinking +of education in general even more than of elementary education, +and using my knowledge of the latter to illustrate statements and +arguments which are really intended to tell against the former. They +will also understand that at the back of my mind I am laying the +blame of their failures, not on them but on the hostile forces which +have been too strong for many of them,—on the false assumptions of +Western philosophy, on the false standards and false ideals of +Western civilisation, on various "old, unhappy, far-off things," the +effects of which are still with us, foremost among these being that +deadly system of "payment by results" which seems to have been +devised for the express purpose of arresting growth and strangling +life, which bound us all, myself included, with links of iron, and +which had many zealous agents, of whom I, alas! was one.</p> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_1" id="P_1">[1]</a></div> + +<h2><a name="p1" id="p1">PART I</a></h2> + +<h2>WHAT IS<br /> +OR<br /> +THE PATH OF MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE</h2> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_3" id="P_3">[3]</a></div> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h3>SALVATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE</h3> +</div> + +<p>The function of education is to foster growth. By some of my readers +this statement will be regarded as a truism; by others as a +challenge; by others, again, when they have realised its inner +meaning, as a "wicked heresy." I will begin by assuming that it is +a truism, and will then try to prove that it is true.</p> + +<p>The function of education is to foster growth. The end which +the teacher should set before himself is the development of +the latent powers of his pupils, the unfolding of their latent +life. If growth is to be fostered, two things must be liberally +provided,—nourishment and exercise. On the need for nourishment I +need not insist. The need for exercise is perhaps less obvious, but +is certainly not less urgent. We make our limbs, our organs, our +senses, our faculties grow by exercising them. When they have reached +their maximum of development we maintain them at that level by +exercising them. When their capacity for growth is unlimited, as in +the case of our mental and spiritual faculties, the need for exercise +is still more urgent. To neglect to exercise a given limb, or organ, +or sense, or faculty, would result in its becoming weak, flabby, and +in the last resort<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_4" id="P_4">[4]</a></span> useless. In childhood, when the stress of +Nature's expansive forces is strongest, the neglect of exercise will, +for obvious reasons, have most serious consequences. If a healthy +child were kept in bed during the second and third years of his life, +the damage done to his whole body would be incalculable.</p> + +<p>These are glaring truisms. Let me perpetrate one more,—one which is +perhaps the most glaring of all. The process of growing must be done +by the growing organism, by the child, let us say, and by no one +else. The child himself must take in and assimilate the nourishment +that is provided for him. The child himself must exercise his organs +and faculties. The one thing which no one may ever delegate to +another is the business of growing. To watch another person eating +will not nourish one's own body. To watch another person using his +limbs will not strengthen one's own. The forces that make for the +child's growth come from within himself; and it is for him, and him +alone, to feed them, use them, evolve them.</p> + +<p>All this is—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"As true as truth's simplicity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And simpler than the infancy of truth."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>But it sometimes happens that what is most palpable is least +perceptible; and perhaps it is because the truth of what I say is +self-evident and indisputable, that in many Elementary Schools in +this country the education given seems to be based on the assumption +that my "truisms" are absolutely false. In such schools the one end +and aim of the teacher is to do everything for the child;—to feed<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_5" id="P_5">[5]</a></span> +him with semi-digested food; to hold him by the hand, or rather by +both shoulders, when he tries to walk or run; to keep him under close +and constant supervision; to tell him in precise detail what he is to +think, to feel, to say, to wish, to do; to show him in precise detail +how he is to do whatever may have to be done; to lay thin veneers of +information on the surface of his mind; never to allow him a minute +for independent study; never to trust him with a handbook, a +note-book, or a sketch-book; in fine, to do all that lies in his +power to prevent the child from doing anything whatever for himself. +The result is that the various vital faculties which education might +be supposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in the +over-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes for him +to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously cared for, he +is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless, +resourceless, without a single interest, without a single purpose in +life.</p> + +<p>The contrast between elementary education as it too often is, and as +it ought to be if the truth of my "truisms" were widely accepted, is +so startling that in my desire to account for it I have had recourse +to a paradox. "Trop de vérité," says Pascal, "nous étonne: les +premiers principes ont trop d'évidence pour nous." I have suggested +that the inability of so many teachers to live up to the spirit, or +even to the letter, of my primary "truism," may be due to its having +too much evidence for them, to their being blinded by the naked light +of its truth.</p> + +<p>But there may be another explanation of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_6" id="P_6">[6]</a></span> singular fact that a +theory of education to which the teacher would assent without +hesitation if it were submitted to his consciousness, counts for +nothing in the daily routine of his work. Failure to carry an +accepted principle into practice is sometimes due to the fact that +the principle has not really been accepted; that its inner meaning +has not been apprehended; that assent has been given to a formula +rather than a truth. The cause of the failure may indeed lie deeper +than this. It may be that the nominal adherents of the principle are +in secret revolt against the vital truth that is at the heart of it; +that they repudiate it in practice because they have already +repudiated it in the inner recesses of their thought. "This people +draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their +lips; but their heart is far from me." Tell the teacher that the +function of education is to foster growth; that therefore it is his +business to develop the latent faculties of his pupils; and that +therefore (since growth presupposes exercise) he must allow his +pupils to do as much as possible by and for themselves,—place these +propositions before him, and the chances are that he will say "Amen" +to them. But that lip assent will count for nothing. One's life is +governed by instinct rather than logic. To give a lip assent to the +logical inferences from an accepted principle is one thing. To give a +<i>real</i> assent to the essential truth that underlies and animates the +principle is another. The way in which the teacher too often conducts +his school leads one to infer that the intuitive, instinctive side of +him—the side that is nearest to practice—has somehow or other held<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_7" id="P_7">[7]</a></span> +intercourse with the inner meaning of that "truism" which he repeats +so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional +assumptions on which he bases his life. Or perhaps this work of +subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being done for +him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by the +genius of the land in which he lives.</p> + +<p>Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything) +for the children whom he professes to educate? One obvious answer to +this question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the +"Education Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him. +For a third of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to +examine every child in every elementary school in England on a +syllabus which was binding on all schools alike. In doing this, they +put a bit into the mouth of the teacher and drove him, at their +pleasure, in this direction and that. And what they did to him they +compelled him to do to the child.</p> + +<p>So far as the action of the "Education Department" was concerned, +this policy was abandoned—in large measure, if not wholly—in 1895; +but its consequences are with us still. What conception of the +meaning and purpose of education could have induced "My Lords" to +adopt such a policy, and, having adopted it, to adhere to it for more +than thirty years? Had one asked "My Lords" at any time during those +thirty years what they regarded as the true function of education, +and had one suggested to them (as they had probably never turned +their minds to the question) that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_8" id="P_8">[8]</a></span> function of education was to +foster the growth of the child, they might possibly have given an +indolent assent to that proposition. But their educational policy +must have been dictated by some widely different conception. They +must have believed that the mental progress of the child—the only +aspect of progress which concerned educationalists in those +days—would best be tested by a formal examination on a prescribed +syllabus, and would best be secured by preparation for such a test; +and they must have accepted, perhaps without the consent of their +consciousness, whatever theory of education may be implicit in that +belief.</p> + +<p>In acting as they did, "My Lords" fell into line with the +Universities, the Public Schools, the Preparatory Schools, the Civil +Service Commissioners, the Professional Societies, and (to make a +general statement) with all the "Boards" and "Bodies" that +controlled, directly or indirectly, the education of the youth of +England. We must, therefore, widen the scope of our inquiry, and +carry our search for cause a step farther back. How did the belief +that a formal examination is a worthy end for teacher and child to +aim at, and an adequate test of success in teaching and in learning, +come to establish itself in this country? And not in this country +only, but in the whole Western world? In every Western country that +is progressive and "up to date," and in every Western country in +exact proportion as it is progressive and "up to date," the +examination system controls education, and in doing so arrests the +self-development of the child, and therefore strangles his inward +growth.</p> + +<p>What is the explanation of this significant fact?<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_9" id="P_9">[9]</a></span> In my attempt to +account for the failure of elementary education in England to foster +the growth of the educated child, I have travelled far. But I +must travel farther yet. The Western belief in the efficacy +of examinations is a symptom of a widespread and deep-seated +tendency,—the tendency to judge according to the appearance of +things, to attach supreme importance to visible "results," to measure +inward worth by outward standards, to estimate progress in terms of +what the "world" reveres as "success." It is the Western standard of +values, the Western way of looking at things, which is in question, +and which I must now attempt to determine.</p> + +<p>That I should have to undertake this task is a proof of the +complexity of education, of the bewildering tanglement of its +root-system, of the depths to which some of its roots descend into +the subsoil of human-life. The defect in our system of education +which I am trying to diagnose is one which the "business man," who +may have had reason to complain of the output of our elementary +schools, will probably account for in one sentence and propound a +remedy for in another. But I, who know enough about education to +realise how little is or can be known about it, find that if I am to +understand why so many schools turn out helpless and resourceless +children, I must go back to the first principles of modern +civilisation, or in other words to the cardinal axioms of the +philosophy of the West.</p> + +<p>This does not mean that I must make a systematic study of Western +metaphysics. Professional<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_10" id="P_10">[10]</a></span> thinkers abound in the West; but the rank +and file of the people pay little heed to them. It is true that they +take themselves very seriously; but so does every clique of experts +and connoisseurs. The indirect influence of their theories has at +times been considerable; but their direct influence on human thought +is, and has always been, very slight. For the plain average man, who +cannot rid himself of the suspicion that the professional thinker is +a professional word-juggler, has a philosophy of his own which was +formulated for him by an unphilosophical people, and which, though it +is now beginning to fail him, was once sufficient for all his needs.</p> + +<p>At the present moment there are two schools of popular thought in the +West. For many centuries there was only one. For many centuries men +were content to believe that the outward and visible world—the world +of their normal experience—was the all of Nature. But they were not +content to believe that it was the "all of Being." The latter +conception would have said "No" to certain desires of the heart which +refuse to be negatived,—desires which are as large and lofty as they +are pure and deep: and in order to provide a refuge for these, +men added to their belief in a natural world which was bounded +by the horizon of experience (as they understood the word), the +complementary belief in a world which transcended the limits of +experience, and in which the dreams and hopes for which Nature could +make no provision might somehow or other be realised and fulfilled. +With the development of physical science, the conception of the +Supernatural has become discredited, and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_11" id="P_11">[11]</a></span> materialistic monism has +begun to dispute the supremacy of that dualistic philosophy which had +reigned without a rival for many hundreds of years. But antagonistic +as these philosophies are to one another, they have one conception in +common. The popular belief that the world of man's normal experience +is the Alpha and Omega of <i>Nature</i>, is the very platform on which +their controversies are carried on. Were any one to suggest to them +that this belief was without foundation, that there was room and to +spare in Nature for the "supernatural" as well as for the normal, +that the supernatural world (as it had long been miscalled) was +nothing more nor less than "la continuation occulte de la Nature +infinie,"—they would at once unite their forces against him, and +assail him with an even bitterer hatred than that which animates them +in their own intestine strife.</p> + +<p>The dualistic philosophy which satisfied the needs of the West for +some fifteen centuries was systematised and formulated for it, in the +language of myth and poetry, by an Eastern people. The acceptance of +official Christianity by the Graeco-Roman world was the result of +many causes, two of which stand out as central and supreme. The first +of these was the personal magnetism of Christ, in and through which +men came in contact with, and responded to, the attractive forces of +those moral and spiritual ideas which Christ set before his +followers. The second was the readiness of the Western mind to accept +the philosophy of Israel,—a philosophy with the master principles of +which it had long been subconsciously familiar, and for the clear and +convincing presentation of which it<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_12" id="P_12">[12]</a></span> had long been waiting. Of the +personal magnetism of Christ and the part that it has played in the +life of Christendom, I need not now speak. My present concern is to +show how the philosophy of Israel—accepted nominally for Christ's +sake, but really for its own—has influenced the educational policy +of the West.</p> + +<p>In the Old Testament the Western mind found itself face to face with +the philosophical theories—theories about the world and its origin, +about Man and his destiny, about conduct and its consequences—to +which its own mythologies had given inadequate expression, but which +the poetical genius of a practical people was able to formulate to +the satisfaction of a practical world. In the philosophy of Israel +"Nature" was conceived of, not as animated by an indwelling life or +soul, but as the handiwork of an omnipotent God. In six days—so runs +the story—"God created the heavens and the earth." Whether by the +word which we translate as "days" were meant terrestrial days or +cosmic ages matters nothing, for in either case the broad fact +remains that according to the Biblical narrative the work of creation +occupied a definite period of time, and that on a certain day in the +remote past the Creator rested from his labours, surveyed his +handiwork, and pronounced it to be very good.</p> + +<p>His next step was to stand aside from the world that he had made, +leave it to its own devices and see how it would behave itself in the +person of its lord and his viceroy,—Man. That the Creator should +place Creation on its trial and that it should speedily misbehave +itself, may be said to have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_13" id="P_13">[13]</a></span> preordained. The idea of a Creator +postulates the further idea of a Fall. The finished work of an +omnipotent Creator is presumably good,—good in this sense, if in +no other, that its actualities must needs determine the creature's +ideals and standards of good. But the world, as Man knows it, seems +to be deeply tainted with evil. How is this anomaly to be accounted +for? The story of the Fall is the answer to this question. Whether +modern theology regards the story of the Fall as literally or only as +symbolically true, I cannot say for certain. The question is of minor +importance. What is of supreme importance is that Christian theology +accepts and has always accepted the consequences of the <i>idea</i> of the +Fall, and that in formulating those consequences it has provided the +popular thought of the West with conceptions by which its whole +outlook on life has been, and is still, determined and controlled.</p> + +<p>The idea of the Fall, as dramatised by Israel and interpreted by the +"Doctors" of the West, gives adequate expression—on the highest +level of his thinking—to the crude dualism which constitutes the +philosophy of the average man. Hence the immense attractiveness of +the idea to the practical races of the West,—to peoples whose chief +idea is to get their mental problems solved for them as speedily, as +authoritatively, and as intelligibly as possible, that they may thus +be free to devote themselves to "business," to the tangible affairs +of life.</p> + +<p>Let us follow the philosophy of the Fall into some of its more +obvious consequences. The Universe (to use the most comprehensive +of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_14" id="P_14">[14]</a></span> terms) is conceived of as divided into two dissevered +worlds,—the world of Nature, which is fallen, ruined, and accursed, +and the Supernatural world, which shares in the perfection and +centres in the glory of God. Between these two worlds intercourse is, +<i>in the nature of things</i>, impossible. But Man is not content that +his state of godless isolation should endure for ever. As a thinker, +he has exiled God from Nature and therefore from his own daily life. +But, as a "living soul," he craves for reunion with God; and so long +as the gulf between the two worlds remains impassable, his philosophy +will be felt to be incomplete. A supplementary theory of things must +therefore be devised. Corrupt and fallen as he is, Man cannot hope +to climb to Heaven; but God, with whom nothing is impossible, can at +his own good pleasure come down to earth. And come he will, whenever +that sense of all-pervading imperfection which exiled him, in its +premature attempt to explain itself, to his supernatural Heaven, is +realised in man's heart as a desire for better things. But what will +be the signs of his advent? The philosophy of the Fall is at no loss +for an answer to this question. There was a time when Nature was +the mirror of God's face. But it is so no longer. The mirror was +shattered when Adam fell. Henceforth it is only by troubling the +waters of Nature, by suspending the operation of its laws, by turning +its order into confusion, by producing <i>supernatural</i> phenomena, or +"miracles" as they are vulgarly called, that God can announce his +presence to Man.</p> + +<p>The question of the miraculous is one into which we need not enter. +Let us assume that God can<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_15" id="P_15">[15]</a></span> somehow or other come to Man, and that +Man can somehow or other recognise God's presence and interpret his +speech. We have now to ask ourselves one vital question. With what +purpose does God visit the world which has forfeited his favour, and +what does he propose to do for ruined Nature and fallen Man? For +Nature, nothing. For Man, to provide a way of escape from Nature. +The dualism of popular thought must needs control the very efforts +that men make to deliver themselves from its consequences. The +irremediable corruption of Man's <i>nature</i> is the assumption on which +the whole scheme of salvation is to be hinged. His deliverance from +sin and death will be effected, not by the development of any natural +capacity for good, but by his being induced to quit the path (or +paths) of Nature, and to walk, under Divine direction, in some new +and narrow path.</p> + +<p>But how will this end be achieved? That Man cannot discover the path +of salvation for himself will, of course, be taken for granted. The +catastrophe of the Fall has corrupted his whole nature, and has +therefore blinded him to the light of truth. "The way of man is not +in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." The +promptings of his own nature, which he would follow if left to +himself, can do nothing but lead him astray. It will also be taken +for granted that the path of salvation is a path of action. When the +whole inward disposition is hopelessly corrupt, the idea of achieving +salvation by growing, by bringing one's hidden life to the perfection +of maturity, must perforce be abandoned. It is only by <i>doing</i> God's +will that Man can hope to regain<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_16" id="P_16">[16]</a></span> his favour. One thing, then, is +clear. Man must be told in exact detail what he is to do and also +(should this be necessary) how he is to do it. In other words, an +elaborate Code of Law, covering the whole range of human life and +regulating all the details of conduct, must be delivered by God to +Man. If Man will obey this Law he will be saved. If he will not obey +it, he will be lost.</p> + +<p>There is another aspect of the idea of a supernatural revelation on +which it is necessary to touch. As intercourse between Nature and the +Supernatural world takes place, not in the natural order of things +but at the good pleasure of the Supernatural God, revelation must +needs be conceived of as a highly-specialised process. A revelation +which was addressed to the whole human race, and to which the whole +human race was able to respond, could scarcely be regarded as of +supernatural origin. The distinction between the supernaturalness of +the appeal and the naturalness of the response would gradually tend +to efface itself: for "what is universal is natural," and the voice +which every man was able to recognise would come at last to be +regarded as a voice from within oneself. If the supernatural +character of an alleged revelation is to be established, its +uniqueness must be duly emphasised. A particular people must be +chosen for the purpose of the divine experiment. A particular +law-giver must be commissioned to declare to the chosen people the +will of the Supernatural God. And from time to time a particular +prophet must be sent to rebuke the chosen people for its +backslidings, to show it where it has gone astray, and to exhort +it to turn again to its God.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_17" id="P_17">[17]</a></span> For if it is far from Man to discern good, it is still farther from +him to desire it. How, then, shall he be induced to walk in the path +which the Law has prescribed for him? To this question there can be +but one answer: By the promise of external reward, and the threat of +external punishment. To set before Man an ideal of life—an ideal +which would be to him an unfailing fountain of magnetic force and +guiding light—is not in the power of legalism. For if an ideal is +to appeal to one, it must be the consummation of one's own natural +tendencies; but the current of Man's natural tendencies is ever +setting towards perdition, and the vanishing point of his heart's +desires is death. Were an ideal revealed to the Law-giver and by him +presented to his fellow-men, and were the heart of Man to respond +to the appeal that it made to him, the basic assumption of +legalism—that of the corruption of Man's nature—would be +undermined; for Man would have proved that it belonged to his nature +to turn towards the light,—in other words, that he had a natural +capacity for good. The plain truth is that legalism is precluded, by +its own first principles from appealing to any motive higher than +that instinctive desire for pleasure which has as its counterpart a +quasi-physical fear of pain. It is impossible for the lawgiver to +appeal to Man's better nature, to say to him: "Cannot you see for +yourself that this course of action is better than that,—that love +is better than hatred, mercy than cruelty, loyalty than treachery, +continence than self-indulgence?" What he can and must say to him is +this, and this only; "If you obey the Law you will be rewarded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_18" id="P_18">[18]</a></span> If +you disobey it you will be punished." And this he must say to him +again and again.</p> + +<p>It is true that among the many commandments which the Law sets before +its votaries, there are some—the moral commandments, properly so +called—which do in point of fact, and in defiance of the +philosophical assumption of legalism, appeal to the better nature +of Man. But these are at best an insignificant minority; and their +relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development +into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism. For +legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident, +will try to cover the whole of human life. The religion that is +content to do less than this, the religion that acquiesces in the +distinction between what is religious and what is secular, is, as we +shall presently see, a religion in decay. Religion may perhaps be +defined as Man's instinctive effort to bring a central aim into his +life and so provide himself with an authoritative standard of values. +In its highest and purest form, Religion controls Man's life, both as +a whole and in all its essential details, through the central aim or +spiritual ideal which it sets before him and the consequent standard +of values with which it equips him. But legalism is debarred by its +distrust of human nature from trying to control the details of life +through any central aim or ideal; and its assumption that all the +commandments of the Law are of divine origin, and therefore equally +binding upon Man, is obviously incompatible with the conception of +a standard of moral worth. Its attempt to cover the whole of life +must therefore resolve itself into an attempt to control the details +of conduct <i>in all<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_19" id="P_19">[19]</a></span> their detail</i>; to deal with them, one by one, +bringing each in turn under the operation of an appropriate +commandment, and if necessary deducing from the commandment a special +rule to meet the special case. In other words, besides being told +what he is not to do (in the more strictly moral sphere of conduct), +and what he is to do (in the more strictly ceremonial sphere), Man +must be told, in the fullest detail, how he is to do whatever may +have to be done in the daily round of his life. Such at least is the +aim of legalism. The nets of the Law are woven fine, and flung far +and wide. If there are any acts in a man's life which escape through +their clinging meshes, the force of Nature is to be blamed for this +partial failure, not the zeal of the Doctors of the Law.</p> + +<p>It is towards this inverted ideal that the doctrine of salvation +through obedience will lead its votaries, when its master +principle—that of distrust of human nature—has been followed out +into all its natural consequences,—followed out, as it was by +Pharisaism, with a fearless logic and a fixed tenacity of purpose. +An immense and ever-growing host of formulated rules, not one in a +hundred of which makes any appeal to the heart of Man or has any +meaning for his higher reason, will crush his life down, slowly and +inexorably, beneath their deadly burden. "At every step, at the work +of his calling, at prayer, at meals, at home and abroad, from early +morning till late in the evening, from youth to old age, the dead, +the deadening formula"<a name="FNa3" id="FNa3"></a><a href="#Footnote3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> will await him. The path of obedience +for the sake of obedience speedily<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_20" id="P_20">[20]</a></span> degenerates into the path of +mechanical obedience; and the end of that path is the triumph of +machinery over life.</p> + +<p>For it is to the letter of the Law, rather than to the spirit, that +the strict legalist is bound to conform. The letter of the Law is +divine; and obedience to it is within the power of every man who will +take the trouble to learn its commandments. What the spirit of the +Law may be, is beyond the power of fallen Man to determine; and were +an attempt made to interpret it, the result would be a state of +widespread moral chaos, for there would be as many interpretations of +it as there were minds that had the courage and the initiative to +undertake so audacious a task. As it is with the Law as such, so it +is with each of its numerous commandments. The man who professes to +obey the spirit of a commandment is in secret revolt against its +divine authority. For he is presuming to criticise it in the light +of his own conscience and insight, and to limit his obedience to it +to that particular aspect of it which he judges to be worthy of his +devotion. From such a criticism of the Fourth Commandment as "the +Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath" to open violation +of the letter of the commandment (on this occasion or on that) there +is but a single step. The whole structure of legalism would collapse +if men were allowed to absolve themselves from obedience to the +letter of the Law, out of regard for what they conceived to be its +spirit. To interpret a commandment, in the sense of providing for its +application to the fresh cases that may arise for treatment, is the +work, not of poets and prophets<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_21" id="P_21">[21]</a></span> but of Doctors and Scribes. The path +of literal, and therefore of mechanical, obedience is the only path +of safety; and the more punctiliously the letter is obeyed, the more +perfect will be the machinery of salvation, and the nearer will +legalism get to the appointed goal of its labours,—the extinction +of spiritual life.</p> + +<p>As is the life that legalism expects us to lead, so is the scheme of +rewards and punishments by which (as we have already seen) it +constrains us to lead it. The materialisation of life that takes +place under the sway of the Law is accurately matched and measured by +the materialisation of the doctrine of moral retribution. The general +idea that virtue is rewarded and vice punished is profoundly true. +But the idea is easily misinterpreted; and it necessarily shares in +the degradation of one's general conception of life. Virtue rewards +the virtuous by making them more virtuous. Vice punishes the vicious +by making them more vicious. So long as the rewards for which we hope +and the punishments which we dread are conceived of as inward and +spiritual, we are on safe ground. But such a scheme of rewards and +punishments is wholly foreign to the genius of supernaturalism. It +is not by becoming more virtuous that we are saved. It is not by +becoming more vicious that we are lost. We are saved by obedience, +we are lost by disobedience, to the formulated rules of a +divinely-delivered law. To appeal to Man's higher self, when there is +no higher self to appeal to,—to set before him as the supreme reward +of virtue the development of his better nature, when his nature is +intrinsically evil,—would<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_22" id="P_22">[22]</a></span> be an obvious waste of labour. And as, +apart from the presumed repugnance of the "natural man" to the +presumed delights of the Law, the intrinsic attractiveness of the +life that legalism prescribes must needs diminish in exact proportion +as the authority of the Law becomes oppressive and vexatious, and the +letter of it tends to establish itself at the expense of the +spirit,—it is clear that a scheme of rewards and punishments will +become, in effect as well as in theory, the only weapon in the +armoury of the legalist. It is also clear that there will be much +work for that one weapon to do. The central tendencies of Man's +nature, besides being <i>ex hypothesi</i> evil, are antagonistic <i>de +facto</i> to the galling despotism and the irrational requirements of +the Law; and the lawgiver, far from being able to enlist those +tendencies under his banner by appealing to the highest of them—the +natural leaders of the rest,—must be prepared to overcome their +collective resistance by winning to his side the lowest of them, by +terrifying Man's weaker self with threats, by corrupting his baser +self with bribes. The ruin of Man's nature, whether hypothetical or +actual,<a name="FNa4" id="FNa4"></a><a href="#Footnote4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> has left intact (or relatively intact) only the animal +base of it. It is to his animal instincts, then, that legalism must +appeal in its endeavour to influence his conduct. In other words, the +punishments and the rewards to which Man is to look forward must be +of the same <i>genus</i>, if not of the same <i>species</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_23" id="P_23">[23]</a></span> as the lash of +the whip that punishes the lagging race-horse, or the lump of sugar +that rewards his exertions. And with the inevitable growth of egoism +and individualism in the demoralising atmosphere with which legalism +(and its lineal successors) must needs invest human life, Man's +conception of the rewards and punishments that await him will +deteriorate rather than improve. The Jewish desire for national +prosperity was an immeasurably nobler motive to action than is the +Christian's fear of the quasi-material fires of Hell. Indeed it is +nothing but our familiarity with the latter motive that has blinded +us to its inherent baseness. It is no exaggeration to say that there +have been epochs in the history of Christendom (as there are still +quarters of Christian thought and phases of Christian faith) in which +the trumpet-call that was meant to rouse the soldiers of God to +renewed exertion has rung in their ears as an ignominious "<i>sauve qui +peut</i>."</p> + +<p>The tendency of legalism to externalise life has another aspect. In +the eyes of the strict legalist there is no such thing as an inward +state of human worth. The doctrine of the corruption of Man's nature +is incompatible with the idea of "goodness" being measurable +(potentially if not actually) in terms of the health and happiness +of the "inward man." Goodness, as the legalist conceives it, is +measurable in terms of correctness of outward conduct, and of that +only. And when life is regulated by an elaborate Law, the rules of +which are familiar to all men, there is no reason why a man's outward +conduct should not be appraised, with some approach to accuracy, by +his neighbours and friends. Hence it is that in the atmosphere of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_24" id="P_24">[24]</a></span> +legalism an excessive deference is wont to be paid to public, and +even to parochial, opinion. The life of the votary of the Law is +lived under strict and constant <i>surveillance</i>; and a man learns +at last to value himself as his conduct is valued by a critical +onlooker, and to make it the business of his life to produce +"results" which can be weighed and measured by conventional +standards, rather than to grow in grace,—with silent, subtle, +unobtrusive growth.</p> + +<p>Were I to try to prove that the <i>régime</i> of the Law was necessarily +fatal to the development of Man's higher faculties—conscience, +freedom, reason, imagination, intuition, aspiration, and the rest—I +should waste my time. Legalism, as a scheme of life, is based on the +assumption that development along the lines of Man's nature is a +movement towards perdition; and to reproach the legalist for having +arrested the growth of the human spirit by the pressure of the Law +were to provoke the rejoinder that he had done what he intended +to do. The two schemes of Salvation—the mechanical and the +evolutional—have so little in common that neither can pass judgment +on the other without begging the question that is in dispute. When I +come to consider the effect of legalism—or rather of the philosophy +that underlies legalism—on education, I may perhaps be able to find +some court of law in which the case between the two schemes can be +tried with the tacit consent of both. Meanwhile I can but note +that in the atmosphere of the Law growth is as a matter of fact +arrested,—arrested so effectually that the counter process of +degeneration begins to take its place. The proof of this statement, +if<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_25" id="P_25">[25]</a></span> proof be needed, is that legalism, when its master principle has +been fully grasped and fearlessly applied, takes the form of +Pharisaism, and that it is possible for the Pharisee to "count +himself to have apprehended," to congratulate himself on his +spiritual achievement, to believe, in all seriousness, that he has +closed his account with God.</p> + +<p>Pharisaism is at once the logical consummation and the <i>reductio ad +absurdum</i> of legalism. It is to the genius of Israel that we owe that +practical interpretation of the fundamental principle of +supernaturalism, which was embodied in the doctrine of salvation +through obedience to the letter of a Law. And it is to the genius +of Israel that we owe that rigorously logical interpretation of +the <i>axiomata media</i> of legalism, which issued in due season in +Pharisaism. The world owes much to the courage and sincerity +of Israel,—to his unique force of character, to his fanatical +earnestness, to his relentless tenacity of purpose. In particular, +it owes a debt which it can never liquidate to what was at once the +cause and the result of his over-seriousness,—to his lack of any +sense of humour,—a negative quality which allowed his practical +logic to run its course without let or hindrance, and prevented +the "brakes" of common-sense from acting when he found himself, in +his very zeal for the Law, descending an inclined plane into an +unfathomable abyss of turpitude and folly. The man (or people) who is +able, of his own experience, to tell the rest of mankind what a given +scheme of life really means and is really worth, owing to his having +offered himself as the <i>corpus vile</i> for the required experiment, is +one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. Had Israel been<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_26" id="P_26">[26]</a></span> +less sincere or less courageous, we might never have known what +deadly fallacies lurk in the seemingly harmless dualism of popular +thought.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>But the West, it will be said, is Christian, not Jewish. Is it +Christian? If the word "Christian" connotes acceptance of the +teaching as well as devotion to the person of Christ, it is scarcely +applicable either to the official or to the popular religion of +the West. For Christ, the stern denouncer of the Pharisees, was +the whole-hearted enemy of legalism; and the legal conception of +salvation through mechanical obedience still dominates the religion +and life of Christendom.</p> + +<p>The Jewish Law tried to cover, and tended more and more to cover, the +whole of human life. It is true that it controlled the details rather +than the totality of life; but the reason why it dealt with life, +detail by detail, was that its exponents, owing to their spiritual +purblindness, were unable to see the wood for the trees. In +Christendom, while the doctrine of salvation through mechanical +obedience was retained, the authority of a Church was substituted +for that of a Code of Law. The growth of the idea of Humanity, as +opposed to that of mere nationality, made this necessary. As the +former idea began to compete with the latter, the need for a +divinely-commissioned society which should declare the will and +communicate the grace of God, not to one nation only but to all men +who were willing to hearken and obey,—and whose action, as a channel +of intercourse between God and Man, should be continuous rather +than spasmodic,—began to make itself felt. A Code of Law<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_27" id="P_27">[27]</a></span> might +conceivably suffice to regulate the life of one small nation; +but when we consider under what varying conditions of climate, +occupation, custom, tradition, and so forth, the general life of +Humanity is carried on, we see clearly that no one Code can even +begin to suffice for the needs of the whole human race. Hence, and +for other reasons which we need not now consider, the West, in +accepting the philosophy of Israel, translated its master idea of +salvation through mechanical obedience into the notation of +ecclesiastical, as distinguished from legal, control.</p> + +<p>That obedience to a supernaturally-commissioned Church, or rather to +the One supernaturally-commissioned Church, is the first and last +duty of Man, is the fundamental assumption on which the stately +fabric of Catholic Christianity has been reared. In various ways the +Church has striven to exact implicit obedience from her children. +Through the medium of the Confessional she has secured some measure +of control over their morals. By regulating the worship of God—both +public and private—she has been able to rule off a sphere of human +conduct in which her own authority is necessarily paramount. By +supplying the faithful with rations of "theological information" (to +quote the apt phrase of a pillar of orthodoxy), and requiring them to +accept these on her authority as indisputably true, she has succeeded +in imposing her yoke on thought as well as on conduct. By claiming +to control the outflow of Divine grace, through the channels of +the Sacraments, she has been able to threaten the rebellious with +the dread penalty of being cut off from intercourse with God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_28" id="P_28">[28]</a></span> +And by telling men, with stern insistence, that the choice between +obedience and disobedience to herself is the choice between eternal +happiness and eternal misery, she has sought to extend her dominion +beyond the limits of time and to raise to an infinite power her +supremacy over the souls of men.</p> + +<p>But just because the life of collective Humanity is large, complex, +and full of change and variety, the Church which aspires to be +universal, however strong may be her desire to superintend all the +details of human thought and conduct, and however ready she may be +to adapt herself to local and temporal variations, must needs allow +whole aspects and whole spheres of human life to escape from her +control. The history of Christendom is the history of the gradual +emancipation of the Western world from the despotism of the Church. +The various activities of the human spirit—art, science, literature, +law, statecraft, and the rest—have, one and all, freed themselves by +slow degrees from ecclesiastical control, till little or nothing has +been left for the Church to regulate but her own rites and +ceremonies, the morals (in a narrow and ever-narrowing sense of the +word), and the faith (in the theological sense of the word), of the +faithful.</p> + +<p>With the emancipation of Man's higher activities from ecclesiastical +control, the distinction between the <i>religious</i> and the <i>secular</i> +life has gradually established itself. That this should happen was +inevitable. Mechanical obedience being of the essence of supernatural +religion, the secularising of human life became absolutely necessary +if any vital progress was to be made. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_29" id="P_29">[29]</a></span> Church patronised art, +music, and the drama so far as they served her purposes. When they +outgrew those purposes, in response to the expansive forces of human +nature, she treated them as secular and let them go their several +ways. In the interests of theology she tried to keep physical science +in leading-strings; but when, after a bitter struggle, science broke +loose from her control, she treated it too as secular and let it go +its way.</p> + +<p>Let us see what this distinction involves. As salvation is to be +achieved by obedience to the Church and in no other way, it follows +that in all those spheres of life which are outside the jurisdiction +of the Church (except, of course, so far as questions of "morals" may +arise in connection with them), Man's conduct and general demeanour +are supposed to have no bearing on his eternal destiny. This is the +view of the secular life which is taken by the Church. And not by the +Church alone. As, little by little, the Institution—be it Church, or +Sect, or Code, or Scripture—which claims to be the sole accredited +agent of the Eternal God, relaxes its hold upon the ever-expanding +life of Humanity, all those developments of human nature which cease +to be amenable to its control come to be regarded as mundane, as +unspiritual, as carnal, as matters with which God has no concern.</p> + +<p>Were this view of the secular life confined to those who call +themselves religious, no great harm would be done. Unfortunately, the +secular life, which is under the influence of the current conception +of God as one who holds no intercourse with Man except through +certain accredited agents, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_30" id="P_30">[30]</a></span> ready to acquiesce in the current +estimate of itself as godless, and to accept as valid the distinction +between the religious life and its own. Hence comes a general +lowering of Man's aims. As the secular life is content to regard +itself as godless, and so deprives itself of any central and unifying +aim, it is but natural that success in each of its many branches +should come to be regarded as an end in itself. It is but natural, to +take examples at random, that the artist should follow art for art's +sake, that the man of science should deify positive knowledge, that +the statesman should regard political power as intrinsically +desirable, that the merchant and the manufacturer should live to make +money, and that the highest motive which appeals to all men alike +should be the desire to bulk large in the eyes of their fellow-men. +Even the ardent reformer, whose enthusiasm makes him unselfish, +pursues the ideal to which he devotes himself, as an end in itself, +and makes no attempt to define or interpret it in terms of its +relation to that supreme and central ideal which he ought to regard +as the final end of human endeavour. When we remind ourselves, +further, that secularism, equally with supernaturalism, tends to +identify "Nature" with lower nature—in other words, with the +material side of the Universe and the carnal side of Man's being,—we +shall realise how easy it is for the secular life, once it has lost, +through its divorce from religion, the tonic stimulus of a central +aim, to sink, without directly intending to do so, into the mire of +materialism,—a materialism of conduct as well as of thought.</p> + +<p>But if the loss to the secular life, from its compulsory<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_31" id="P_31">[31]</a></span> +despiritualisation, is great, the loss to religion, from the +secularisation of so much of Man's rational activity, is greater +still. The very distinction between the secular and the religious +life is profoundly irreligious, in that it rests on the tacit +assumption that there is no unity, no central aim, in human life; +and the fact that official religion is ready to acquiesce in the +distinction, is ready, in other words, to make a compromise with its +enemy "the world," is a proof that it is secretly conscious of its +own failing power, and is even beginning to despair of itself. As it +resigns itself to this feeling (as yet perhaps but dimly realised), +its reasons for entertaining it must needs grow stronger. The +progressive enlargement of the sphere of Man's secular activities is +accompanied, step for step, by the devitalisation of the idea of the +Divine. What kind of intercourse can God be supposed to hold with Man +if the latter is to be left to his own devices in what he must needs +regard as among the more important aspects of his life,—in his +commercial and industrial enterprises, in his art, in his literature, +in his study of Nature's laws, in his mastery of Nature's forces, +in his pursuit of positive truth and practical good? As in these +matters Man frees himself, little by little, from the yoke of +supernaturalism, which he has been accustomed to identify with +religion, his formal conception of his relation to God and of the +part that God plays in his life—the conception that is defined and +elucidated for him by religious "orthodoxy"—becomes of necessity +more irrational, more mechanical, more unreal, more repugnant to his +better nature and to the higher<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_32" id="P_32">[32]</a></span> developments of his "common-sense." +The tendency to exalt the letter of what is spoken or written, at the +expense of the spirit, is as much of the essence of ecclesiasticism +as of legalism. "<i>Si dans les rčgles du salut le fond l'emporterait +sur la forme, ce serait la ruine du sacerdoce</i>." And, as a matter of +experience, the hair-splitting puerilities of Pharisaism under the +Old Dispensation have been matched, and more than matched, in the +spheres of ritual, of dogmatic theology, and of casuistical morality, +under the New. As Man gradually shifts the centre of gravity of his +being from the religious to the secular side of his life, this +puerile element in religion—the element of ultra-formalism, of +irrationality, of unreality—tends, like a morbid growth, to draw to +itself the vital energies of what was once a healthy organism but +is now degenerating into a "body of death." If, in these days of +absorbing secular activity, Man continues to tolerate the theories +and practices of the religious experts, the reason is—apart from the +influence of custom and tradition and of his respect for venerable +and "established" institutions—that they are things which he has +neither time nor inclination to investigate, and which he can +therefore afford to tolerate as being far removed from what is vital +and central in his life. I am told that the Catholic Church holds, in +the case of a dying man, "that the eternal fate of the soul, for good +or for evil, may depend upon the reception or the non-reception of +absolution, and even of extreme unction." That the truly appalling +conception of God which is implicit in this sentence should still +survive, that it should not yet have been swept out of existence<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_33" id="P_33">[33]</a></span> by +the outraged common-sense and good feeling of Humanity, is a proof of +the immense indifference with which the Western world, absorbed as it +is in secular pursuits, regards religion.</p> + +<p>It may indeed be doubted if men have ever been so non-religious as +are at the present day the inhabitants of our highly-civilised and +thoroughly-Christianised West. At any rate the absence of a central +aim in human life has never been so complete as it is now. Most men +are content to drift through life, toiling for the daily bread which +will enable them to go on living, yet neither knowing nor caring to +know why they are alive. There is a minority of stronger and more +resolute men who devote life with unwavering energy to the pursuit of +what I may call private and personal ends. Thus the man of business +lives for the acquisition of riches; the scholar and the scientist, +of knowledge; the statesman, of power; the speculator, of excitement; +the libertine, of pleasure; and so forth. Few are they who ever +dream of devoting life as a whole to the pursuit of an end which is +potentially attainable by all men, and which is therefore worthy of +Man as Man. The idea of there being such an end has indeed been +almost wholly lost sight of. Those among us who are of larger +discourse than the rest and less absorbed by personal aims, ask +themselves mournfully: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? +Is life worth living? and other such questions; and being unable to +answer them to their satisfaction, or get them answered, resign +themselves to a state of quasi-stoical endurance. That religion +cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_34" id="P_34">[34]</a></span> be expected to answer these questions—the very questions +which it is its right and its duty to answer—seems to be taken for +granted by all who ask them. Religion, as it is now conceived of, +is a thing for priests and ministers, for churches and chapels, for +Sundays and Saints'-days, for the private devotions of women and +children, for educational debates in Parliament, for the first lesson +on the time-table (9.5 to 9.45 a.m.) of a Public Elementary School. +The "unbeliever" is eager to run a tilt against religion. The +"non-believer" is content to ignore it. The "believer" is careful to +exclude it from nine-tenths of his life. It is to this pass that the +gospel of salvation by machinery has brought the most "progressive" +part of the human race.</p> + +<p>The phase of non-religiousness through which the West is passing has, +we may rest assured, a meaning and a purpose. At the meetings of the +Catholic Truth Society it is customary for the speakers to deplore +the steady relapse of Christendom into paganism, which is going on +before their eyes. As the Church had things her own way for ten +centuries or more, these complaints on the part of her champions are +equivalent to a confession on her part of disastrous failure. Why is +the Church, after having evangelised the West and ruled it for a +thousand years, allowing it to slide back into paganism? The answer +to this question is that she herself is unwittingly paganising it. +I mean by this that, without intending to do so, she is compelling +it to choose between secularised life and arrested growth. Were a +growing tree encircled with an iron band, the day would surely<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_35" id="P_35">[35]</a></span> come +when the tree, by the force of its own natural expansion, would +either shatter the band or allow it to cut deep into its own stem. +The growing consciousness of Humanity has long been encircled by a +rigid and inadequate conception of God. The gradual secularisation of +the West means that the soul of man is straining that particular +conception of God to breaking-point: and it is infinitely better that +it should be broken to pieces than that its iron should be allowed to +sink deep into the soul.</p> + +<p>The secularisation of contemporary life means this, and more than +this. It means the gradual handing back of Man's life to the control +of Nature,—of Nature which is as yet unequal to the task that is +being set it, owing to its having been through all these centuries +identified with its lower self, taught to distrust itself, and +otherwise misinterpreted and mismanaged, but which, in obedience to +the primary instinct of self-preservation, will gradually rise to +the level of the responsibility that is being laid upon it. With the +further secularisation of Man's life, the need for religion to make +effective the control of Nature, by pointing out to it its own ideal +and so co-ordinating and organising all its forces, will gradually +make itself felt, and the regeneration of religion will at last have +begun.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>For many centuries the current of religious belief in the West was +almost entirely confined to the one channel of Catholic Christianity. +There the mighty river pursued his course, "brimming and bright and +large," till the time came when, with the gradual loss of his +pristine energy—</p> + +<div class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_36" id="P_36">[36]</a></span><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">"Sands began<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hem his wintry march, and dam his streams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And split his currents";</span> +</div></div> + +<p>Side channels were formed, and grew in number; and though Catholicism +is still the central channel for the moving waters, the river has now +fallen on evil days, and "strains along," "shorn and parcelled," like +the river of the Asian desert—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"forgetting the bright speed he bore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In his high mountain cradle."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>Of the many side streams into which Western Christianity has split, +the majority may be spoken of collectively as Protestant. +Protestantism claims to have liberated a large part of Christendom +from the yoke of Rome; and it is therefore right that we should ask +ourselves in what sense and to what extent it has brought freedom +to the human spirit. The answer to this question is, I think, that +though Protestantism has fought a good fight for the <i>principle</i> of +freedom, it has failed—for many reasons, the chief of which is that +it began its work before men were ripe for freedom—to lead its +votaries into the path of spiritual life and growth. Confronted by +the uncompromising dogmatism of Rome, it had to devise a counter +dogmatism of its own in order to rally round it the faint-hearted +who, though eager to absolve themselves from obedience to the +despotism of the Church, yet feared to walk by their own "inward +light." In making this move, which was not the less false because +it was in a sense inevitable, Protestantism may be said to have +renounced its mission. That it has done much, in various ways, for +human<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_37" id="P_37">[37]</a></span> progress is undeniable; but the fact remains that it has +failed to revitalise Christianity. Its master-stroke in its struggle +with priestcraft—the substitution of "faith" for "works" as the +basis of salvation—has done little or nothing to relieve the West +from the deadly pressure of Israel's philosophy. For faith, as +Protestantism understands the word, is the movement of the soul, +not towards the ideal end of its being but towards an alleged +supernatural transaction,—the redemption of the world by the +death of Christ on the Cross. Gratitude to Christ for his love and +self-sacrifice may indeed be an effective motive to action, but faith +in the efficacy of Christ's atoning sacrifice is no guide to conduct. +The inability of Protestantism to deduce a scheme of life from its +own master-principle of salvation by "faith" has compelled it, in +its desire to avoid the pitfalls of antinomianism, to revive in a +modified form the practical legalism of the Old Testament. The +Protestant desires to show his gratitude to Christ by leading a +correct life; but his distrust of his own higher nature compels him +to go to some external authority for ethical guidance; and as he has +repudiated the authority of the supernaturally-inspired Church, he +is compelled to have recourse to the supernaturally-inspired Bible. +Hence the traditional alliance between Protestantism and the Old +Testament, in which the path of duty is far more clearly and +consistently defined than in the New. And hence the singular fact +that Calvinism, which is the backbone of Protestantism, and which in +theory, and even (at times) in practice, regards "works" as "filthy +rags," finds its other self in Puritanism,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_38" id="P_38">[38]</a></span> which is in the main a +recrudescence of Jewish legalism in the more strictly <i>moral</i> sphere +of conduct.</p> + +<p>It is owing to its alliance with the legalism of Israel, that +Protestantism has been in some respects an even greater enemy of +human freedom than Catholicism, and has on the whole done more than +the latter to narrow and maim human life. The strict legalist tries, +as we have seen, to bring the whole of human life under the direct +control of the Law; and when he finds, as the Puritan did in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that whole aspects of life have +in point of fact escaped from the control of religion and won from +the latter a tacit acceptance of themselves as secular, he not +unnaturally tends to regard these non-religious aspects of life as +"carnal," and therefore as unacceptable to God. Hence the antipathy +of the Protestant, in his seasons of Puritanical fanaticism, to +art, music, the drama, and other noble fruits of the human spirit. +Catholicism has found itself compelled to tolerate the secular +activities of the layman; Protestantism, while tolerating those +activities by which man earns his daily bread and which may be spoken +of collectively as "business," has from time to time waged war +against all the developments of human nature which are neither +spiritual (in the narrow and rigid sense of the word) nor obviously +useful, and has sought to extirpate the corresponding desires from +the heart of Man. On the more artistic side of human life, it has +done as much to impede the growth of the soul as Catholicism has +done on the more intellectual side; and through its influence on +character<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_39" id="P_39">[39]</a></span> it has done as much to harden the fibre of the soul as +Catholicism has done to relax it, the tendency of both religions +being to destroy that elasticity of fibre which mediates between +hardness and flabbiness, and which has its counterpart in vigorous +health and strength.</p> + +<p>The truth is—but it is a truth which Protestantism is apt +to misinterpret, and which Catholicism finds it expedient to +ignore—that religion is not a branch or department of human life, +but a way of looking at life as a whole. Indeed, it is of the essence +of religion (as has been already suggested) that it should look +at life as a whole, and so be able to look at each of its details +in the light of that supreme synthesis which we call Divine. And +the religion which sanctions, and by its own action necessitates, +the division of life into two branches—the secular and the +religious—has obviously missed its destiny and betrayed its trust.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A brief summary of the contents of this chapter will prepare the way +for the next. The movements of higher thought in the West have been +dominated, nominally by the professional thinker, really by the +average man. As a thinker, the average man is incurably dualistic. +Enslaved as he is to the requirements of his instrument, language, he +instinctively opposes mind to body, spirit to matter, good to evil, +the Creator to the Creation, God to Man; and in each case he fixes a +great gulf between the "mighty opposites" that constitute the given +antithesis. Confronted by the mystery of existence, he has explained +it by the story of Creation. Confronted by the twin<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_40" id="P_40">[40]</a></span> mysteries of sin +and sorrow, he has explained them by the story of the Fall. From the +story of the Fall he has passed on to the doctrine of original sin, +to the belief that Nature in general, and human nature in particular, +is corrupt and ruined, and therefore intrinsically evil. Shrinking +from the hopeless prospect which this belief opens up to him, he +has found refuge in the conception of another world,—of a world +above and beyond Nature, a world of Divine perfection from which +information and guidance can at God's good pleasure be doled out +to Man. For a "supernatural revelation" (as theologians call this +sending of help from God to Man) special instruments are obviously +needed,—a special People, a special Scripture, a special Lawgiver, +a special Prophet, a special Church. Hence has arisen the idea that +certain persons, certain castes, certain institutions have a monopoly +of Divine truth and grace, and are therefore in a position to dictate +to their fellow-men how they are to bear themselves if they wish to +be "saved," what they are to believe, what they are to do. From this +the transition has been easy to the further idea that salvation is +to be achieved by blind and mechanical obedience,—by renouncing +the right to follow one's own higher nature, to obey one's own +conscience, to use one's own reason, to map out one's own life. In +order to induce men to yield the obedience which is required of them, +their lower instincts have had to be appealed to (for the higher, +ruined by the Fall, have presumably ceased to operate),—their desire +for pleasure by the promise of Heaven, their fear of pain by the +threat of Hell. And in order that<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_41" id="P_41">[41]</a></span> their lives may be kept under +close supervision and their merits accurately appraised, an +ever-increasing stress has had to be laid on what is outward, +visible, and measurable in human life, as distinguished from what +is inward and occult,—on correctness in the details of prescribed +conduct, or again in the details of formulated belief. As the idea of +salvation through mechanical obedience develops into a systematised +scheme of life, the higher and more spiritual faculties of Man's +nature become gradually atrophied by disuse. In other words, the +channel of soul growth—the only channel that leads to spiritual +health, and therefore to "salvation"—becomes gradually obstructed, +with the result that the vital energies of the soul tend either to +dissipate themselves and run to waste, or to make new channels for +themselves,—channels of degenerative tendency, the end of which is +spiritual death.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote1" id="Footnote1" href="#FNa1" class="label">[1]</a> By "self-satisfaction" I mean satisfaction with the +existing system <i>as a system</i>. That strenuous efforts are being made +to improve the system, within its own limits, I can well believe. But +the system itself, with the defects and limitations which are of its +essence, seems to be regarded as adequate, and even as final, by +nearly all who work under it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote2" id="Footnote2" href="#FNa2" class="label">[2]</a> 1862 to 1895 A.D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote3" id="Footnote3" href="#FNa3" class="label">[3]</a> The <i>Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ</i>, by Dr. +Emil Schürer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote4" id="Footnote4" href="#FNa4" class="label">[4]</a> In its extreme form legalism tends to bring about that +ruin of human nature which it starts by postulating; for, by +forbidding Man's higher faculties to energise, it necessarily arrests +their development, and so makes it possible for the lower faculties +to draw to themselves an undue share of the rising sap of Man's +life.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_42" id="P_42">[42]</a></div> + +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h3>EDUCATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE</h3> +</div> + +<p>The God of popular theology has been engaged for more than thirty +centuries in educating his child, Man. His system of education has +been based on complete distrust of Man's nature. In the schools which +Man has been required to attend—the Legal School under the Old +Dispensation, the Ecclesiastical School under the New—it has +been taken for granted that he can neither discern what is true, +nor desire what is good. The truth of things has therefore been +formulated for him, and he has been required to learn it by rote and +profess his belief in it, clause by clause. His duty has also been +formulated for him, and he has been required to perform it, detail by +detail, in obedience to the commandments of an all-embracing Code, or +to the direction of an all-controlling Church.</p> + +<p>It has further been taken for granted that Man's instincts and +impulses are wholly evil, and that "Right Faith" and "Right Conduct" +are entirely repugnant to his nature. In order to overcome the +resistance which his corrupt heart and perverse will might therefore +be expected to offer to the authority and influence of his teachers, +a scheme of rewards and punishments has had to be devised for his +benefit. As there is no better nature for the scheme to appeal to, +an appeal has had to be made to fears<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_43" id="P_43">[43]</a></span> and hopes which are avowedly +base. The refractory child has had to be threatened with corporal +punishment in the form of an eternity of torment in Hell. And he has +had to be bribed by the offer of prizes, the chief of which is an +eternity of selfish enjoyment in Heaven,—enjoyment so selfish that +it will consist with, and even (it is said) be heightened by, the +knowledge that in the Final Examination the failures have been many +and the prize-winners few.</p> + +<p>And as, under this system of education, obedience is the first and +last of virtues, so self-will—in the sense of daring to think and +act for oneself—is the first and last of offences. It is for the +sin of spiritual initiative—the sin of trying to work out one's +own salvation by the exercise of reason, conscience, imagination, +aspiration, and other spiritual faculties—that the direst penalties +are reserved. The path of salvation is the path of blind, passive, +mechanical obedience. To deviate even a little from that path is to +incur the penalty of eternal death.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>As Man is educated by his father, God, so must the child be educated +by his father, the adult man. If the nature of Man is intrinsically +evil, the child must needs have been conceived in sin and shapen in +iniquity. If Man, even in his maturity, cannot be trusted to think +or desire or do what is right, still less can he be so trusted when +he is that relatively immature and helpless being, the child. If +the adult man has to be told in the fullest detail (whether by a +formulated Law or by a living Church) how he is to conduct himself, +still greater<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_44" id="P_44">[44]</a></span> is the need for such or similar direction to be given +to the child. If the adult is to be "saved" by strict and mechanical +obedience, and by no other method, still greater is the need for +such obedience on the part of the child. If a system of external +and quasi-material rewards and punishments is indispensable in the +education of the adult, still less can it be dispensed with in the +education of the child. These <i>a fortiori</i> arguments are strong; but +there is a stronger. The child will develop into the adult, and he +cannot too soon be initiated into the life which, as the adult, he +will have to lead. The process of educating the child is not merely +analogous to the process of "saving" the man. It is a vital part +of it. For childhood is the time when human nature is most easily +moulded; and the bent that is given to it then is, in nine cases out +of ten, decisive of its ultimate destiny.</p> + +<p>It is clear, then, that if Man is to be "saved" by a <i>régime</i> of +mechanical obedience, his education in his childhood must be based on +the same general conception of life and duty. This means, in the +first place, that the child must be brought up in an atmosphere of +severity. The God of the Old Testament—the Deity whose <i>nimbus</i> +overshadows the life of the West—combines in his own person the +functions of law-giver, governor, prosecutor, judge, and executioner. +His subjects are a race of vile offenders, whose every impulse is +bad, and whose nature turns towards evil as inevitably as a plant +turns towards the light. As he cannot trust them to know good from +evil, he has had to provide them with an elaborate code of law; and +he has had to take for granted that, left to themselves, they will<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_45" id="P_45">[45]</a></span> +break his commandments, and find pleasure in doing so. From the very +outset, then, his attitude towards them has been one of suspicion and +rising anger. He is always on the look-out for disobedience, and he +is ready to chastise the offender almost before he has had time to +commit the offence. His pupils, brought up in an atmosphere of +suspicion, and taught from their earliest days to disbelieve in and +condemn themselves, can scarcely be blamed for living <i>down</i> to the +evil reputation which they have unfortunately gained. To persuade a +man that he is a miserable sinner is to go some way towards leading +him into the path of sin. Systematic distrust paralyses and +demoralises those who live under it, and so tends to justify the +cruelty into which it too readily develops. The penalties which God +has attached to the sins which he may almost be said to have provoked +Man to commit, are so terrible and unjust that if the fear of them +has not robbed life of all its sunshine, the reason is that their +very horror has numbed Man's imagination, and made it impossible for +him even to begin to picture to himself their lurid gloom.</p> + +<p>In the West men have loyally striven to reproduce towards their +children the supposed attitude of their God of Wrath towards +themselves. From very tender years the child has been brought up in +an atmosphere of displeasure and mistrust. His spontaneous activities +have been repressed as evil. His every act has been looked upon with +suspicion. He has been ever on the defensive, like a prisoner in the +dock. He has been ever on the alert for a sentence of doom. He has +been cuffed, kicked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_46" id="P_46">[46]</a></span> caned, flogged, shut up in the dark, fed on +bread and water, sent hungry to bed, subjected to a variety of +cruel and humiliating punishments, terrified with idle—but to him +appalling—threats. In his misery he has shed a whole ocean of +tears,—the salt and bitter tears of hopeless grief and helpless +anger, not the soul-refreshing tears which are sometimes distilled +from sorrow by the sunshine of love. But of all the cruelties to +which he has been subjected, the most devilish has been that of +making him believe in his own criminality, in the corruption of his +innocent heart. In the deadly shade of that chilling cloud, the +flower of his opening life has too often withered before it has had +time to expand. For what is most cruel in cruelty is its tendency to +demoralise its victims, especially those who are of tender years—to +harden them, to brutalise them, to make them stubborn and secretive, +to make them shifty and deceitful, to throw them back upon +themselves, to shut them up within themselves, to quench the joy of +their hearts, to numb their sympathies, to cramp their expansive +energies, to narrow and darken their whole outlook on life. All this +the cruelty of his seniors would do to the child, even if he had not +been taught to believe in his own inborn wickedness. But that belief, +with which he has been indoctrinated from his earliest days, +necessarily weakens his power of resisting evil, and so predisposes +him to fall a victim to the malignant germs that cruelty sows in his +heart. We tell the child that he is a criminal, and treat him as +such, and then expect him to be perfect; and when our misguided +education has begun to deprave him, we shake our heads over<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_47" id="P_47">[47]</a></span> his +congenital depravity, and thank God that we believe in "original +sin."<a name="FNa5" id="FNa5"></a><a href="#Footnote5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>In the next place, if Man is to be faithful to his model, he must +bring up the child in an atmosphere of vexatious interference and +unnatural restraint. That Man himself has been brought up in such an +atmosphere in both his schools—the Legal and the Ecclesiastical—I +need not take pains to prove. What he has suffered at the hands of +his Schoolmaster—the God of Israel (and of Christendom)—he has +taken good care to inflict on his pupil, the child. Such phrases as: +"Don't talk," "Don't fidget," "Don't worry," "Don't ask questions," +"Don't make a noise," "Don't make a mess," "Don't do this thing," +"Don't do that thing," are ever falling from his lips. And they are +supplemented with such positive instructions as: "Sit still," "Stand +on the form," "Hold yourself up," "Fold arms," "Hands behind backs," +"Hands on heads," "Eyes on the blackboard." At every turn—from<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_48" id="P_48">[48]</a></span> +infancy till adolescence, "from early morning till late in the +evening"—these "dead and deadening formulas" await the unhappy +child. The aim of his teachers is to leave nothing to his nature, +nothing to his spontaneous life, nothing to his free activity; to +repress all his natural impulses; to drill his energies into complete +quiescence; to keep his whole being in a state of sustained and +painful tension. And in order that we may see a meaning and a +rational purpose in this <i>régime</i> of oppressive interference, we must +assume that its ultimate aim is to turn the child into an animated +puppet, who, having lost his capacity for vital activity, will be +ready to dance, or rather go through a series of jerky movements, in +response to the strings which his teacher pulls. It is the inevitable +reaction from this state of tension which is responsible for much of +the "naughtiness" of children. The spontaneous energies of the child, +when education has blocked all their lawful outlets, must needs force +new outlets for themselves,—lawless outlets, if no others are +available. The child's instinct to live will see to that. It +sometimes happens that, when the channel of a river has been blocked +by winter's ice, the river, on its awakening in Spring, will suddenly +change its course and carve out a new channel for itself, reckless of +the destruction that it may cause, so long as an outlet can by any +means be found for its baffled current. It is the same with the river +of the child's expanding life. The naughtiest and most mischievous +boy not infrequently develops into a hero, or a leader of men. The +explanation of this is that through his very naughtiness the current +of soul-growth, which ran stronger in him<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_49" id="P_49">[49]</a></span> than in his school-mates, +kept open the channel which his teachers were doing their best to +close. Even Hooliganism—to take the most serious of the periodic +outbursts of juvenile criminality—resolves itself, when thoughtfully +considered, into a sudden and violent change in the channel of a +boy's life, a change which is due to the normal channel (or channels) +of his expansive energies having been blocked by years of educational +repression. His wild, ruffianly outrages are perhaps the last +despairing effort that his vital principle makes to assert itself, +before it finally gives up the struggle for active existence.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>When severity and constraint have done their work, when the spirit of +the child has been broken, when his vitality has been lowered to its +barest minimum, when he has been reduced to a state of mental and +moral serfdom, the time has come for the system of education through +mechanical obedience to be applied to him in all its rigour. In other +words, the time has come for Man to do to the child, what the God +whom he worships is supposed to have done to him,—to tell him in the +fullest and minutest detail what he is to do to be "saved," and to +stand over him with a scourge in his hand and see that he does it. In +the two great schools which God is supposed to have opened for Man's +benefit, freedom and initiative have ever been regarded (and with +good reason) as the gravest of offences. Literal obedience has +been exacted by the Law; blind obedience by the Church; passive +obedience—the obedience of a puppet, or at best of an automaton—by +both. The need for this<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_50" id="P_50">[50]</a></span> insistence on the part of Law and Church is +obvious. If any lingering desire to think things out for himself, if +any intelligent interest in what he was taught, survived in the +disciple, the whole system of salvation by machinery would be in +danger of being thrown out of gear.</p> + +<p>As it has been, and still is, in the schools which God has opened +for Man, so it has been, and still is, in the schools which Man +has opened for the child. Blind, passive, literal, unintelligent +obedience is the basis on which the whole system of Western education +has been reared. The child must distrust himself absolutely, must +realise that he is as helpless as he is ignorant, before he can begin +to profit by the instruction that will be given to him. His mind must +become a <i>tabula rasa</i> before his teacher can begin to write on it. +The vital part of him—call it what you will—must become as clay +before his teacher can begin to mould him to his will.</p> + +<p>The strength of the child, then, is to sit still, to listen, to say +"Amen" to, or repeat, what he has heard. The strength of the teacher +is to bustle about, to give commands, to convey information, to +exhort, to expound. The strength of the child is to efface himself in +every possible way. The strength of the teacher is to assert himself +in every possible way. The golden rule of education is that the child +is to do nothing for himself which his teacher can possibly do, or +even pretend to do, for him. Were he to try to do things by or for +himself, he would probably start by doing them badly. This is not to +be tolerated. Imperfection and incorrectness are moral defects; and +the child must<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_51" id="P_51">[51]</a></span> as far as possible be guarded from them as from the +contamination of moral guilt. He must therefore trust himself to his +teacher, and do what he is told to do in the precise way in which +he is told. His teacher must stand in front of him and give such +directions as these: "Look at me," "See what I am doing," "Watch my +hand," "Do the thing this way," "Do the thing that way," "Listen to +what I say," "Repeat it after me," "Repeat it all together," "Say it +three times." And the child, growing more and more comatose, must +obey these directions and ask no questions; and when he has done what +he has been told to do, he must sit still and wait for the next +instalment of instruction.</p> + +<p>What is all this doing for the child? The teacher seldom asks himself +this question. If he did, he would answer it by saying that the end +of education is to enable the child to produce certain outward and +visible results,—to do by himself what he has often done, either in +imitation of his teacher, or in obedience to his repeated directions; +to say by himself what he has said many times in chorus with his +class-mates; to disgorge some fragments of the information with which +he has been crammed; and so forth. What may be the value of these +outward results, what they indicate, what amount or kind of mental +(or other) growth may be behind them,—are questions which the +teacher cannot afford to consider, even if he felt inclined to +ask them. His business is to drill the child into the mechanical +production of quasi-material results; and his success in doing this +will be gauged in due course by an "examination,"—a periodic test +which is designed to measure, not the degree<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_52" id="P_52">[52]</a></span> of growth which the +child has made, but the industry of the teacher as indicated by the +receptivity of his class.</p> + +<p>The truth is that inward and spiritual growth, even if it were +thought desirable to produce it and measure it, could not possibly be +measured. The real "results" of education are in the child's heart +and mind and soul, beyond the reach of any measuring tape or weighing +machine. It follows that if the work of the teacher is to be tested, +an external test must be applied. This means that external results, +results which can be weighed and measured, must be aimed at by both +teacher and child, and that the value of these as symbols of what is +inward and intrinsic must be wholly ignored. Not that the inward +results of education would in any case be seriously considered. When +education is based on the passivity of the child, nothing matters to +him or to his teacher except the accuracy with which he can reproduce +what he has been taught,—can repeat what he has been told, or do by +himself what he has been told how to do. What connection there may be +between these achievements and his mental state matters so little +that the bare idea of there being such a connection is, as a rule, +entirely lost sight of. The externalisation of religion in the West, +as evidenced by its ceremonialism and its casuistry, has faithfully +mirrored itself in the externality of Western education. The +examination system (which I will presently consider) keeps education +in the grooves of externality, and drives those grooves so deep as +to make escape from them impossible. Yet it does but give formal +recognition to, and in so doing<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_53" id="P_53">[53]</a></span> crown and complete—as the keystone +crowns and completes the arch—the whole system of education in the +West. It is because what is outward and visible counts for everything +in the West, first in the life of the adult and then in the life of +the child, that the idea of weighing and measuring the results of +education—with its implicit assumption that the real results of +education are ponderable and measurable (a deadly fallacy which now +has the force and authority of an axiom)—has come to establish +itself in every Western land.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The tendency of the Western teacher to mistake the externals for the +essentials of education, and to measure educational progress in terms +of the "appearance of things," gives rise to many misconceptions, +one of the principal of which is the current confusion between +information and knowledge. To generate knowledge in his pupils is +a legitimate end of the teacher's ambition. In schools and other +"academies" it tends to become the chief, if not the sole, end; and, +things being what they are, the teacher may be pardoned for regarding +it as such. But what is knowledge? The vulgar confusion between +knowledge and information is the accepted answer to this question. +But the answer is usually given before the question has been +seriously considered. One who allowed himself to reflect on it, +however briefly or cursorily, would quickly realise that it is +possible to have intimate and effective knowledge of a subject +without being able to impart any information about it. Successful +action, as in arts, crafts, games, sports, and the like, must needs +have subtle and accurate<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_54" id="P_54">[54]</a></span> knowledge behind it; but the possessor of +such knowledge is seldom able to impart it with any approach to +lucidity. On the other hand, it frequently happens that one who has a +retentive memory is able to impart information glibly and correctly, +without possessing any real knowledge of the subject in question.</p> + +<p>The truth is that knowledge, which may perhaps be provisionally +defined as a correct attitude towards one's environment, has almost +as wide a range as that of human nature itself. At one end of the +scale we have the quasi-animal instinct which governs successful +physical action. At the other end we have the knowledge, of which, +and of the possession of which, its possessor is clearly, conscious. +Between these extremes there is an almost infinite series of strata, +ranging through every conceivable degree of subconsciousness. The +knowledge that is real and effective is absorbed into one or more of +the subconscious strata, from which it gradually ascends, under the +influence of attention and reflection, towards the more conscious +levels, gaining, as it ascends, in scope and outlook what it may +possibly lose in subtlety and nearness to action. When knowledge, +after passing upwards through many subconscious strata, rises to +what I may call the surface-level of consciousness, it is ready, on +occasion, to give itself off as information. This exhalation from the +surface of consciousness is genuine information, not to be confounded +with knowledge, to which it is related as the outward to the inward +state, still less to be confounded with that spurious information +which floats, as we shall presently see, like a film on the surface +of the mind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_55" id="P_55">[55]</a></span> meaning nothing and indicating nothing except that it +has been artificially deposited, and that in due season it will be +skimmed off, if the teacher's hopes are fulfilled, for the +delectation of an examiner.</p> + +<p>There are, of course, many cases in which the conscious acquisition +of information is a necessary stage in the acquisition of knowledge. +But in all such cases, if the information acquired is to have +any educative value, it must be allowed to sink down into the +subconscious strata, whence, after having been absorbed and +assimilated and so converted into knowledge, it will perhaps reascend +towards the surface of the mind, just as the leaves which fall in +autumn are dragged down into the soil below, converted into fertile +mould, and then gradually lifted towards the surface; or as the fresh +water that the rivers pour into the sea has to be slowly absorbed +into the whole mass of salt water before it (or its equivalent) can +return to the land as rain. When information which has been received +and assimilated rises to the surface of the mind, it will be ready, +when required to do so, to reappear as information, and perhaps +to return in that form to the source from which it came. But the +information which is given off will differ profoundly from that which +has been received, for between the two will have intervened many +stages of silent absorption and silent growth.</p> + +<p>It may be necessary, then, in the course of education, both to supply +and to demand information. But the information which is supplied must +be regarded as the raw material of knowledge, into which it is to be +converted by a subtle and secret process. And the information which +is demanded<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_56" id="P_56">[56]</a></span> must be regarded as an exhalation (so to speak) from the +surface of a mind which has been saturated with study and experience, +and therefore as a proof of the possession of knowledge. To assume +that knowledge and information are interchangeable terms, that to +impart information is therefore to generate knowledge, that to give +back information is therefore to give proof of the possession of +knowledge,—is one of the greatest mistakes that a teacher can make.</p> + +<p>But the mistake is almost universally made. Information being related +to knowledge, as what is outward to what is inward, it is but natural +that education in the West, which on principle concerns itself with +what is outward, and ignores what is inward, should have always +regarded, and should still regard, the supplying of information as +the main function of the teacher, and the ability of the child to +retail the information which has been supplied to him as a convincing +proof that the work of the teacher has been successfully done. In +nine schools out of ten, on nine days out of ten, in nine lessons out +of ten, the teacher is engaged in laying thin films of information on +the surface of the child's mind, and then, after a brief interval, +in skimming these off in order to satisfy himself that they had been +duly laid. He cannot afford to do otherwise. If the child, like the +man, is to be "saved" by passive obedience, his teacher must keep +his every action and operation under close and constant supervision. +Were the information which is supplied to him allowed to descend into +the subconscious strata of his being, there to be dealt with by the +secret, subtle, assimilative processes of his nature, it would<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_57" id="P_57">[57]</a></span> +escape from the teacher's supervision and therefore from his control. +In other words, the teacher would have abdicated his function. He +must therefore take great pains to keep the processes by which the +child acquires knowledge (or what passes for such) as near to the +surface of his mind as possible; in rivalry of the nurse who should +take so much interest in the well-being of her charges that she would +not allow them to digest the food which she had given them, but would +insist on their disgorging it at intervals, in order that she might +satisfy herself that it had been duly given and received. It is no +doubt right that the teacher should take steps to test the industry +of his pupils; but the information which the child has always to keep +at the call of his memory, in order that he may give it back on +demand in the form in which he has received it, is the equivalent +of food which its recipient has not been allowed to digest.</p> + +<p>The confusion between information and knowledge lies at the heart of +the religion, as well as of the education, of the West. In this, as +in other matters, the training of the child by his teacher has been +modelled on the supposed training of Man by God. It is scarcely an +exaggeration to say that the whole scheme of salvation by mechanical +obedience is pivoted on the assumed identity of information and +knowledge. In both the schools which Man has attended three things +have always been taken for granted. The first is that salvation +depends upon right knowledge of God. The second, that right knowledge +of God and correct information about God are interchangeable phrases. +The third, that correct information about God is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_58" id="P_58">[58]</a></span> procurable by, and +communicable to, Man. From these premises it has been inferred that +if Man can be duly supplied with correct information about God, and +can be induced to receive and retain it, he will be able to "save +his soul alive." The difference between the two schools is, that in +the Legal School the information supplied to Man has been largely +concerned with the <i>Will</i> of God, so far as it bears on the life +of Man, and has therefore taken the form of a Code of formulated +commandments; whereas in the Ecclesiastical School it has mainly been +concerned with the <i>Being</i> of God, as interpreted from his doings and +especially from his dealings with Man, and has therefore taken the +form of catechisms and creeds. And there is, of course, the further +difference that in the Legal School Man's acceptance of what he is +taught has taken the <i>practical</i> form of doing what he is told to do, +detail by detail; whereas in the Ecclesiastical School it has been +mainly <i>oral</i> (though also partly ceremonial), the business of the +disciple being to commit to memory the creed or catechism which has +been placed in his hands, and recite it, formula by formula, with +flawless accuracy. But the difference between the two schools is +wholly superficial, being, in fact, analogous to that between the +conventional teaching of Drawing, in which the pupil finds salvation +in doing what he is told to do, line by line, and stroke by stroke, +and the conventional teaching of History and Geography, in which the +pupil finds salvation in saying what he is told to say, name by name, +and date by date. The relation between the two great branches of +education, the education of Man by God, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_59" id="P_59">[59]</a></span> education of the +child by the man, is one, not of analogy merely, but also of cause +and effect. It is because the Jew thought to "save his soul alive" by +obeying, blindly and unintelligently, a multitude of vexatious rules, +that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils in Drawing by +telling them in the fullest detail (either in his own person or by +means of a diagram) what lines and strokes they are to make. And it +is because the Christian has thought to "save his soul alive" by +reciting with parrot-like accuracy the formulć of his creeds and +catechisms, that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils +in History and Geography by making them repeat from memory a series +of definitions, dates, events, names of persons, names of places, +articles of commerce, and the like. I do not say that the modern +teacher consciously imitates his models; but I say that he and they +have been inspired by the same conception of life, and that the +influence of that conception has been, in part at least, transmitted +by them to him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>That education in the West should ultimately be controlled by a +system of formal examination, may be said to have been predestined by +the general trend of religious thought and belief. Wherever literal +obedience is regarded as the first, if not the last, condition of +salvation, the tendency to measure worth and progress by the outward +results that are produced will inevitably spring up and assert +itself. In this tendency we have the whole examination system in +embryo. When Israel, with characteristic thoroughness, had embodied +in Pharisaism<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_60" id="P_60">[60]</a></span> the logical inferences from his religious conceptions, +a merciless examination system came into being, in which every +one was at once examiner and examinee, and in which the whole of +human life was dragged out (as far as that was possible) into the +fierce light of public criticism, and placed under vigilant and +unintermittent supervision. When Pharisaism was revived, with many +modifications but with no essential change of character, under the +name of Puritanism, the tendency to arraign human life at the bar of +public opinion reasserted itself, and gave rise, as in New England +and covenanting Scotland, to an intolerable spiritual tyranny. In +Catholic countries the believer is subjected in the Confessional to a +periodical oral examination, in which he passes in review the outward +aspect of his inward and spiritual life, detailing for the benefit of +his confessor his sins of ceremonial omission or laxity, and such +lapses from moral rectitude as admit of being formulated in words and +accurately valued in terms of expiatory penance. Even in the Anglican +Church, which has too great a regard for the Englishman's traditional +love of personal freedom to be unduly inquisitorial, the clergyman is +apt to measure the spiritual health and progress of his parishioners +by the frequency with which they attend church and "Celebration," +while the Bishop measures the spiritual health and progress of each +parish by the number of its communicants and the frequency with which +they communicate, statistics under both heads being (I am told) +regularly forwarded to him from all parts of his diocese.</p> + +<p>It was inevitable, then, the relation between<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_61" id="P_61">[61]</a></span> that sooner or later +the education of the young should come under the control of a +system of formal religion and education being what it was and is, +examination, and that it should be as much easier to apply the system +to education than to religion as it is easier to test knowledge (in +the conventional sense of the word) than conduct. It is to the vulgar +confusion between knowledge and information that we owe the formal +examination, as it is now conducted in most Western countries. In a +society which mistakes the externals for the essentials of life, it +is but natural that the teacher, with the full consent of the parents +of his pupils, should regard the imparting of knowledge as the end +and aim of his professional life, and that the parents should demand +some guarantee that knowledge has been successfully imparted to their +children. If by knowledge were meant a correct attitude of mind, the +teacher would realise that the idea of testing it in any way which +would satisfy the average parent was chimerical; and his clients, if +they continued to ask for a guarantee of successful teaching, would +require something widely different from that which has hitherto +contented them. But when information is regarded as the equivalent of +knowledge, the testing of the teacher's work becomes a simple matter, +for it is quite easy to frame an examination which will ascertain, +with some approach to accuracy, the amount of information that is +floating on the surface of the child's mind; and it is also easy to +tabulate the results of such an examination,—to find a numerical +equivalent for the work done by each examinee, and then arrange the +whole class in what is known as the "order of merit," and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_62" id="P_62">[62]</a></span> accepted +as such, without a moment's misgiving, by all concerned.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, however, it is equally easy to prepare children for an +examination of this, the normal type. As children have receptive +memories, it is easy for the teacher to lay films of information +on the surface of their minds. As they have capacious and fairly +retentive memories, it is easy for the teacher, especially if he is a +strict disciplinarian, to make his pupils retain the greater part of +what they have been taught. To skim off and give back to the teacher +(or examiner) portions of the floating films of information, is a +knack which comes with practice, and which the average child easily +acquires. The teacher will, of course, demand that his school shall +be examined on a clearly-defined syllabus; and the examiner, in his +own interest, will gladly comply with this demand. The examiner will +go further than this. If he happens to be employed by the State or by +a Local Authority, and has, therefore, many schools of the same type +to examine, he will, in order to save himself unnecessary trouble, +prescribe the syllabus on which all the schools in his area are to +be examined. This means that he will dictate to the teacher what +subjects he is to teach, how much ground he is to cover in each year +(or term), in what general order he is to treat each subject, and on +what general principles he is to teach it. Intentionally he will do +all this. Unintentionally he will do far more than this. As he wishes +his examination to be a test and not a mere formality, as he wishes +to sift the examinees and not to set the seal of approval on all of +them indiscriminately, he will<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_63" id="P_63">[63]</a></span> take care that some at least of his +questions are different from what the teacher might expect them to +be. Also, as he is himself a rational being, he will probably +endeavour to test intelligence as well as memory; and, with this end +in view, he will set questions, the precise nature of which it will +be difficult for the teacher to forecast. But the teacher will make a +practice of studying the questions set in the periodical examinations +and of preparing his pupils accordingly, equipping them (if he is an +expert at his work) with a stock of superficial intelligence as well +as of information, and putting them up to whatever knacks, tricks, +and dodges will enable them to show to advantage on the examination +day. In his desire to outwit the teacher, the examiner will turn and +double like a hare who is pursued by a greyhound. But the teacher +will turn and double with equal agility, and will never allow himself +to be outdistanced by his quarry.</p> + +<p>The more successful the teacher is in keeping up with the examiner, +the more fatal will his success be to his pupils and to himself. +In the ardour of the chase he is being lured on into a region of +treacherous quicksands; and the longer he is able to maintain the +pursuit, the more certain is it that he will lose himself at last +in depths and mazes of misconception and delusion. It is only by +stripping himself of his own freedom and responsibility that the +teacher is able to keep pace with the examiner, and each turn +or double that he makes involves a fresh surrender of those +prerogatives. In consenting to work on a prescribed syllabus he has +given up the idea of planning out his work for himself. In attempting +to adapt<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_64" id="P_64">[64]</a></span> his teaching to the questions set by the examiner, he is +allowing the latter to dictate to him, in the minutest detail, how +each subject is to be taught. In other words, in order to achieve the +semblance of success, he is delivering himself, mind and soul, into +the hands of the examiner, and compelling the latter, perhaps against +his will, to become a Providence to him and to order all his goings. +This means that his distrust of himself is as complete as his +distrust of the child, and that his faith in the efficacy of +mechanical obedience has led him to seek salvation for himself, +as well as for his pupils, by following that fatal path.</p> + +<p>It is in this way that a formal examination reacts upon and +intensifies the sinister tendencies of which it is at once a product +and a symptom. The examination system is, as I have said, the +keystone of the arch of Western education, crowning and completing +the whole structure, and at the same time holding it together, and +preventing it from falling, as it deserves to fall, into a ruinous +heap. Education, as it is now interpreted and practised in the West, +could not continue to exist without the support of the examination +system; but the price that it pays, and will continue to pay, for +this deadly preservative, is the progressive aggravation of all its +own inherent defects. The plight of an organism is indeed desperate +when the very poison which it ought, if healthy, to eliminate from +its system, has become indispensable to the prolongation of its life.</p> + +<p>It is notorious that the application of the examination principle to +religion—the attempt to estimate spiritual health and growth in +terms of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_65" id="P_65">[65]</a></span> outward action—generates hypocrisy, or the pretence of +being more virtuous (and more religious) than one really is. When +applied to the education of the young, the same principle generates +hypocrisy of another kind,—the pretence of being cleverer than one +really is, of knowing more than one really knows. So long as the +hypocrite realises that he is a hypocrite, there is hope for him. But +when hypocrisy develops into self-deception, the severance between +outward and inward, between appearance and reality, is complete. +In a school which is ridden by the examination incubus, the whole +atmosphere is charged with deceit. The teacher's attempt to outwit +the examiner is deceitful; and the immorality of his action is +aggravated by the fact that he makes his pupils partners with him in +his fraud. The child who is being crammed for an examination, and who +is being practised at the various tricks and dodges that will, it +is hoped, enable him to throw dust in the examiner's eyes, may not +consciously realise that he and his teacher are trying to perpetrate +a fraud, but will probably have an instinctive feeling that he is +being led into crooked ways. If he has not that feeling, if the +crooked ways seem straight in his eyes, we may know that his sense +of reality is being poisoned by the vitiated atmosphere which he +has been compelled to breathe. Nor, if that is his case, will +he lack companionship in his delusion. In the atmosphere of the +examination system, deceit and hypocrisy are ever changing into +self-deception; and all who become acclimatised to the influence of +the system—pupils, teachers, examiners, parents, employers of +labour, ministers of religion, members<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_66" id="P_66">[66]</a></span> of Parliament, and the +rest—fall victims, sooner or later, to the poison that infects +it, and are well content to cheat themselves with outward and +visible results, accepting "class-lists" and "orders of merit" as of +quasi-divine authority, mistaking official regulations for laws of +Nature, and the clumsy movements of over-elaborated yet ill-contrived +machinery for the subtle processes of life.</p> + +<p>Of the many evils inherent in Western education, which the +examination system tends to intensify, one of the greatest is that of +starving the child's activities, of making him helpless, apathetic, +and inert. Original sin finds its equivalent, in the sphere of mental +action, in original impotence and stupidity. It is not in the child +to direct his steps, and the teacher must therefore direct them for +him, and, if necessary, support him with both hands while he makes +them. Even if the outward results which are the goal of the teacher's +ambition were to be produced for his own satisfaction only, he would +take care to leave as little as possible to the child's independent +effort. But when the results in question have to satisfy an examiner, +and when, as may well happen, the teacher's own professional welfare +depends on the examiner's verdict, it is but natural that he should +hold himself responsible for every stroke and dot that his pupil +makes. When the education given in a school is dominated by a +periodical examination on a prescribed syllabus, suppression of +the child's natural activities becomes the central feature of the +teacher's programme. In such a school the child is not allowed to do +anything which the teacher can possibly do for him. He has to think +what his<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_67" id="P_67">[67]</a></span> teacher tells him to think, to feel what his teacher tells +him to feel, to see what his teacher tells him to see, to say what +his teacher tells him to say, to do what his teacher tells him to do. +And the directions given to him are always minute. Not the smallest +room for free action is allowed him if his teacher can possibly help +it. Indeed, it is the function of the skilful teacher to search for +such possible nooks and crannies, and fill them up. It is true that +if an examination is to be passed with credit some thinking has to be +done. But the greater part of this thinking must be done by the +teacher, the <i>rôle</i> of the pupil, even when he is an adult student, +being essentially passive and receptive. The pupil must indeed be +actively passive and industriously receptive; but for the rest, he +must as far as possible leave himself in the teacher's hands. How +to outwit the examiner is the one aim of both the teacher and the +examinee; and as the teacher is presumably older, wiser, and far +more skilful at the examination game than his pupil, the duty of +thinking—of planning, of contriving, and even (in the deeper sense +of the word) of studying—necessarily devolves on the former; and the +latter, instead of relying upon himself and learning to use his own +wits and resources, becomes more and more helpless and resourceless, +and gradually ceases to take any interest in the work that he is +doing, for its own sake, his chief, if not his sole, concern being +to outwit the examiner and pass a successful examination. (One +frequently meets with clever University students who, having read a +certain book for a certain examination and had no question set from +it, regard the time<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_68" id="P_68">[68]</a></span> given to the study of it as wasted, and have +no compunction about expressing this opinion!) If these are evils +incidental—I might almost say essential—to the examination of adult +scholars, it stands to reason that they will be greatly aggravated +when the examinees are young children. For the younger the child, the +more ignorant and helpless he is (however full he may be of latent +capacity and spontaneous activity), and therefore the more ready he +is to lean upon his teacher and to look to him for instruction and +direction.</p> + +<p>The desire to outwit, and so win approval from, an examiner, is not +the only reason why the teacher so often reduces to an absurdity the +traditional distrust of the child. His own inability to educate the +child on other lines is another and not less potent reason. The +examination <i>régime</i> to which he has been subjected himself, partly, +perhaps, under compulsion, but also and in larger measure of his +own choice, deprives him, as we have already seen, of much of his +freedom, initiative, and responsibility; and that being so, it is +inevitable that within the limited range of free action which is left +to him, he in his turn should devote his energies to depriving his +pupils of the same vital qualities, and to making them the helpless +creatures of habit and routine which he himself is tending to become. +To give free play to a child's natural faculties and so lead him +into the path of self-development and self-education, demands a high +degree of intelligence on the part of the teacher, combined with the +constant exercise of thought and initiative within a wide range of +free action. If you tell a teacher in precise detail,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_69" id="P_69">[69]</a></span> whether +directly or indirectly, that he is to do this thing, and that +thing, and the next thing, he will not be able to carry out your +instructions, except by telling his pupils, again in precise detail, +that they are to do this thing, and that thing, and the next thing. +He cannot help himself. He has no choice in the matter. He is the +victim of a quasi-physical compulsion. The pressure which is put upon +him will inevitably be transmitted by him and through him to his +pupils, and will inevitably be multiplied (the relations between +teacher and pupil being what they are) in the course of transmission.</p> + +<p>There is nothing that a healthy child hates so much as to have the +use of his natural faculties and the play of his natural energies +unduly restricted by parental or pedagogic control. We may therefore +take for granted that the child will find himself ill at ease in a +school in which every vital activity is rigidly repressed, and in +which he spends most of his time in sitting still and waiting for +orders. Nor will it add to his happiness to live habitually in an +atmosphere of constraint, of austerity, of suspicion, of gloom. But I +need not take pains to prove that education, as it is conducted in +Western countries, is profoundly repugnant to the natural instincts +of the healthy child. For that is precisely what it is intended to +be. The idea of a child enjoying his "lessons" is foreign to the +genius of the West. Dominated as he is by the inherited conviction +that Man's nature is corrupt and that his instincts are evil, the +Western teacher has set himself the task of doing violence<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_70" id="P_70">[70]</a></span> to the +child's instinctive tendencies, of thwarting his inborn desires, of +working against the grain of his nature. He has expected the child to +rebel against this <i>régime</i>, and he has welcomed his rebellion as a +proof of the corruption of Man's nature, and therefore of the +soundness of the traditional philosophy of education.</p> + +<p>But if education is hateful to the child, how is he to be induced to +submit to being educated? Some co-operation on his part will be +necessary. How is it to be secured? By precisely the same methods as +those by which Man, in the course of his education, has been induced +to co-operate with God. The child, like Man, is to be "saved"—to be +rescued from Nature and from himself—by being led into the path of +mechanical obedience. The child, like Man, is to be kept in that path +by a system of external rewards and punishments. If he will not do +what he is told to do, he will be punished by his teacher. If he +will do what he is told to do, he will escape punishment, and he may +possibly, when his merits have accumulated sufficiently, receive a +reward. In the education of Man by the God of Israel the balance +between rewards and punishments has been kept fairly even. Hell has +been balanced by Heaven, calamity by prosperity, death by life. It +has been far otherwise with the child. His punishments have been +many, and his rewards few. At the present day men are more humane +than they used to be; and corporal punishment, though still resorted +to, counts for less than it used to do in the training of the child. +But punishments of various kinds are still regarded as indispensable<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_71" id="P_71">[71]</a></span> +adjuncts to school discipline; and it is still taken for granted in +far too many schools that the fear of punishment and the hope of +reward are the only effective motives to educational effort.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to say which of the two motives is the more likely to +demoralise the child. A <i>régime</i> of punishment is not necessarily a +<i>régime</i> of cruelty; but punishment can scarcely fail to savour of +severity, and when the doctrine of original sin is in the ascendant, +and the inborn wilfulness and stubbornness of the child are +postulated by his teachers, the indefinable boundary line between +severity and cruelty is easily crossed. Of the tendency of cruelty +to demoralise its victims I have already spoken. But the effect of +punishment on the child must be considered in its relation to his +mental, as well as to his moral, development. Scholarships, prizes, +high places in class, and other such rewards are for the few, not for +the many. If the many are to be roused to exertion, the fear of +punishment (in the hypothetical absence of any other motive) must +be ever before them. What will happen to them when that motive is +withdrawn, as it will be when the child becomes the adolescent? His +education has been distasteful to the child, partly because his +teachers have assumed from the outset that it would be and must be +so, but chiefly because in their ignorance they have taken pains to +make it so, his school life having been so ordered as to combine the +maximum of strain with the maximum of <i>ennui</i>. His teachers have done +everything for him, except those mechanical and monotonous exercises +which they felt they might trust him to do by himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_72" id="P_72">[72]</a></span> Some of +his mental faculties have become stunted and atrophied through lack +of exercise. Others have been allowed to wither in the bud. If he +happens to belong to the "masses," he will have completed his school +education at the age of thirteen or fourteen. What will he do with +himself when there is no longer a teacher at his elbow to tell him +what to do and how to do it, and to stand over him (should this be +necessary) while he does it? Why should he go on with studies which +he has neither the inclination nor the ability to pursue, and +which, in point of fact, he has never really begun? And why should he +continue to exert himself when, owing to his being at last beyond the +reach of punishment, the need for him to do so—the only need which +he has been accustomed to regard as imperative—has ceased to exist?</p> + +<p>The objections to the hope of reward as a motive to educational +effort are of another kind. Prizes, as I have said, are for the few; +and it is the consciousness of being one of the elect which invests +the winning of a prize with its chief attraction. The prize system +makes a direct appeal to the vanity and egoism of the child. It +encourages him to think himself better than others, to pride himself +on having surpassed his class-mates and shone at their expense. The +clever child is to work hard, not because knowledge is worth winning +for its own sake and for his own sake, but because it will be +pleasant for him to feel that he has succeeded where others have +failed. It is a just reproach against the examination system that +while, by its demand for outward results it does its best to destroy +individuality, the essence of which is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_73" id="P_73">[73]</a></span> sincerity of expression, it +also does its best to foster individualism, by appealing, with its +offer of prizes and other "distinctions," to those instincts which +predispose each one of us to affirm and exalt that narrow, +commonplace, superficial aspect of his being which he miscalls his +<i>self</i>.</p> + +<p>Thus the hope of reward tends to demoralise the clever child by +making an appeal to basely selfish motives. At the same time it is +probably deluding him with the belief that he has more capacity than +he really has. If the examination system is, as I have suggested, the +keystone of the arch of Western education, it is by means of the +prize system that the keystone has been firmly cemented into its +place. An examination which had no rewards or distinctions to offer +to the competitors would not be an effective stimulus to exertion. +That being so, our educationalists have taken care that to every +examination some external reward or rewards shall be attached. Even +if there are no material prizes to appeal to the child's cupidity, +there is always the class-list, with its so-called "order of merit," +to appeal to his vanity. Our educationalists have also taken care +that during the periods of childhood, adolescence, and even early +maturity, every prize that is offered for competition shall be +awarded after a formal examination and on the consideration of its +tabulated results. The appointments in the Home, Colonial, and Indian +Civil Services, the promotions in the Army and Navy, the fellowships +and scholarships at the Universities, the scholarships at the Public +Schools, the medals, books, and other prizes that are offered to +school-children, are all<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_74" id="P_74">[74]</a></span> awarded to those who have distinguished +themselves in the corresponding examinations, no other qualification +than that of ability to shine in an examination being looked for in +the competitors. There are, no doubt, exceptions to these general +statements, but they are so few that they scarcely count. We have +seen that the ascendency of the examination system in our schools and +colleges is largely due to the vulgar confusion between information +and knowledge; and we have also seen that the examination system +reacts upon that fatal confusion and tends to strengthen and +perpetuate it. If, then, the effect of the prize system is to +consolidate the authority of the formal examination and intensify +its influence, we shall not go far wrong in assuming that in the +various competitions for prizes the confusion between information +and knowledge will play a vital part. And, in point of fact, the +cleverness which enables the child—I ignore for the moment the +adolescent and the adult student—to win prizes of various kinds is +found, when carefully analysed, to resolve itself, in nine cases out +of ten, into the ability to receive, retain, and retail information. +As this particular, ability is but a small part of that mental +capacity which education is supposed to train, it is clear that the +clever child who gets to the top of his class, and wins prizes in so +doing, may easily be led to over-estimate his powers, and to take +himself far more seriously than it is either right or wise of him to +do. His over-confidence may for a time prove an effective stimulus to +exertion; but the exertion will probably be misdirected; and later +on, when he finds himself confronted by the complex realities<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_75" id="P_75">[75]</a></span> of +life, and when problems have to be solved which demand the exercise +of other faculties than that of memory, his belief in himself, which +is the outcome of a false criterion of merit, may induce him to +undertake what he cannot accomplish, and may lead at last—owing to +his having lost touch with the actualities of things—to his complete +undoing.</p> + +<p>And as under the prize system the child who is high in his class is +apt to over-estimate his ability, so the child who is low in his +class is apt to accept the verdict of the class-list as final, and to +regard himself as a failure because he lacks the superficial ability +which enables a child to shine on the examination day. Again and +again it happens that the dunce of his class goes to the front in the +battle of life. But numerous and significant as these cases are, they +are unfortunately exceptions to a general rule. For one dunce who +emerges from the depths of "apparent failure," there are ten who go +under after a more or less protracted struggle, and sink contentedly +to the bottom. The explanation of this is that though every child +has capacity (apart, of course, from the congenital idiot and the +mentally "defective"), there are many kinds of capacity which a +formal examination fails to discover, and which the education that +is dominated by the prize system fails to develop. The child whose +particular kind of capacity does not count, either in the ordinary +school lesson or on the examination day, is not aware that he is +capable; and as he is always low on the class-list, and is therefore +regarded by his teachers as dull and stupid, he not unnaturally +acquiesces in the current and apparently authoritative estimate, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_76" id="P_76">[76]</a></span> +his powers, and, losing heart about himself, ends by becoming the +failure which he has been taught to believe himself to be. In brief, +while the prize system breeds ungrounded and therefore dangerous +self-esteem in the child whom it labels as bright, it breeds +ungrounded but not the less fatal self-distrust in the child whom +it labels as dull.</p> + +<p>We have seen that there comes a time in the life of every man when +the fear of punishment ceases to act as a stimulus to educational +exertion. It is the same with the hope of reward. Examinations, and +the prizes which reward success in examinations, are for the young. +What will happen to the prize-winner when there are no more prizes +for him to compete for? Will he continue to pursue knowledge for its +own sake? Alas! he has never pursued it for its own sake. He has +pursued it for the sake of the prizes and other honours which it +brought him. When he has won his last prize the chances are that +he will lose all interest in that branch of learning in which he +achieved distinction, unless, indeed, he has to earn his livelihood +by teaching it. Of the scores of young men who distinguish themselves +in "Classics" at Oxford and Cambridge, how many will continue to +study the classical writers when they have gained the "Firsts" for +which they worked so diligently? Apart from those who are going +to teach Classics in the Public Schools or Universities, a mere +handful,—one in ten perhaps, though that is probably an extravagant +estimate. And yet the poets, philosophers, and historians whom they +have studied are amongst the greatest that the world has produced. +What is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_77" id="P_77">[77]</a></span> it, then, that kills, in nine cases out of ten, the +classical student's interest in the masterpieces of antiquity? The +obvious fact that he was never interested in them for their own +sakes—that he studied them, not in order to enjoy them or profit by +them, but in order to pass an examination in them, of which he might +be able to say in after years:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I am named and known by that hour's feat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There took my station and degree."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>How many Wranglers, other than those who have or will become +schoolmasters or college tutors, continue to study mathematics? How +many of the First Classmen in Science, History, Law, and other Honour +"Schools" continue to study their respective subjects? In every case +an utterly insignificant minority.</p> + +<p>But if the prize system does this to the young man of twenty-two or +twenty-three, if it kills his interest in learning, if it makes him +register an inward vow never again to open the books which he has +crammed so successfully for his examinations, what may it be expected +to do to the child whose school education comes to an end when he +is only thirteen or fourteen years old? When, with the fear of +punishment, the complementary hope of reward is withdrawn from him, +is it reasonable to expect him to continue his education, to continue +to apply himself to subjects with which his acquaintance has been +entirely formal and superficial, and which he has never been allowed +to digest and assimilate? The utter indifference of the average +ex-elementary scholar to literature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_78" id="P_78">[78]</a></span> to history, to geography, to +science, to music, to art, is the world-wide answer to this question.</p> + +<p>For what is, above all, hateful in any scheme of rewards and +punishments, when applied to the school life of the young, is that it +wholly externalises what is really an inward and spiritual process, +the evolution of the youthful mind. Just as in the sphere of religion +it is postulated as a self-evident truth that righteousness is not +its own reward, nor iniquity its own punishment,—so in the sphere of +education it is postulated as a self-evident truth, that knowledge is +not its own reward, nor ignorance its own punishment. And just as in +the sphere of religion the appeal to Man's selfish hopes and ignoble +fears has generated a radical misconception of the meaning and +purpose of righteousness, which has caused his moral and spiritual +energies to be diverted into irreligious or anti-religious channels, +to the detriment of his inward and spiritual growth,—so in the +sphere of education the appeal to the child's selfish desires and +ignoble fears has generated a radical misconception of the meaning +and purpose of knowledge, which has caused his mental energies to be +diverted into uneducational channels, to the detriment of his mental +growth. In each case the scheme of rewards and punishments, acting +like an immense blister, when applied to a healthy body, draws to the +surface the life-blood which ought to nourish and purify the vital +organs of the soul (or mind), thereby impoverishing the vital +organs, and inflaming and disfiguring the surface. For if the surface +life, with its outward and visible "results," is to be happy and +productive, the health of the vital<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_79" id="P_79">[79]</a></span> organs must be carefully +maintained. This is the fundamental truth which those who control +education in the West have persistently ignored.</p> + +<p>The system of education which I have tried to describe is a practical +embodiment of the ideas that govern the popular philosophy of the +West. One who had studied that philosophy, and who wished to +ascertain what provision it made for the education of the young, +would in the course of his inquiry construct <i>a priori</i> the precise +system of education which is in vogue in all Western countries. +The supposed relation between God and his fallen and rebellious +offspring, Man, is obviously paralleled by the relation between the +teacher and the child; and it is therefore clear that the supposed +dealings of God with Man ought to be paralleled by the dealings of +the teacher with the child. That they are so paralleled—that +salvation by machinery has found its most exact counterpart in +education by machinery—the history of education has made abundantly +clear.</p> + +<p>Whatever else the current system of education may do to the child, +there is one thing which it cannot fail to do to him,—to blight his +mental growth. What particular form or forms this blighting influence +may take will depend in each particular case on a variety of +circumstances. Experience tells us that what happens in most cases is +that Western education strangles some faculties, arrests the growth +of others, stunts the growth of a third group, and distorts the +growth of a fourth.</p> + +<p>Is it intended that education should do all this?<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_80" id="P_80">[80]</a></span> This question is +not so paradoxical as it sounds. My primary assumption that the +function of education is to foster growth may be a truism in the +eyes of those who agree with it; but Western orthodoxy, just so +far as it is self-conscious and sincere, must needs repudiate it +as a pestilent heresy. For if what grows is intrinsically evil, +what can growth do for it but carry it towards perdition?</p> + +<p>What is it that grows? It is time that I should ask myself this +question. My answer to it is, in brief, that it is the whole human +being that grows, the whole nature of the child,—body, mind, heart +and soul. When I use these familiar words, I am far from wishing +to suggest that human nature is divisible into four provinces or +compartments. In every stage of its development human nature is a +living and indivisible whole. Each of the four words stands for a +typical aspect of Man's being, but one of the four may also be said +to stand for the totality of Man's being,—the word <i>soul</i>. For it +is the soul which manifests as <i>body</i>, which thinks as <i>mind</i>, which +feels and loves as <i>heart</i>, and which is what it is—though not +perhaps what it really or finally is—as <i>soul</i>.</p> + +<p>The function of education, then, is to foster the growth of the +child's whole nature, or, in a word, of his soul. I ought, perhaps, +to apologise for my temerity in using this now discredited word. In +the West Man does not believe in the soul. How can he? He does not +believe in God either as the eternal source or as the eternal end of +his own nature. It follows that he does not and cannot believe in +the unity of his own being. He has been taught that his nature is +corrupt, evil, godless;<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_81" id="P_81">[81]</a></span> and that the "soul," which is somehow or +other attached to his fallen nature during his "earthly pilgrimage," +was supernaturally created at the moment of his birth. He is now +beginning to reject this conception of the soul; but he cannot yet +rise to the higher conception of it as the vital essence of his +being, as the divine germ in virtue of which his nature is no mere +aggregate of parts or faculties, but a living whole. So deeply rooted +in the Western mind is disbelief in the reality of the soul that it +is difficult to use the word, when speaking to a Western audience, +without exposing oneself to the charge of insincerity,—not to speak +of the graver charge of "bad form." A savour either of <i>cant</i> or +<i>gush</i> hangs about the word, and is not easily detached from it. That +being so, it must be clearly understood that I mean by the soul the +nature of Man considered in its unity and totality,—no more than +this, and no less.</p> + +<p>In the opening paragraph of this book I said that some of my readers +would regard my fundamental assumption as a truism, others as a +challenge, and others again as a wicked heresy. Whether it shall be +regarded as a truism, a challenge, or a heresy, will depend on the +way in which it is worded. To say that the function of education is +to foster the growth of human nature, is to invite condemnation from +those who regard human nature as ruined and corrupt. To say that the +function of education is to foster the growth of the soul, is to +issue a challenge to Western civilisation, which is based on the +belief that the end of Man's being is not the growth of his soul, but +the growth of his balance at the bank of material prosperity. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_82" id="P_82">[82]</a></span> say +that the function of education is to foster the growth of certain +faculties, is to insist on what no one who had given his mind to +the matter would care to deny. For even the orthodox, who regard +Man's nature in its totality as intrinsically evil, admit without +hesitation that there are faculties in Man which can be and ought +to be trained; while the "man of the world," whom we may regard as +the most typical product of Western civilisation, is clamorous in +his demand that education shall foster the growth of certain mental +faculties which will enable the child to become an efficient clerk or +workman, and so contribute to the enrichment of his employer and the +community to which he belongs.</p> + +<p>The Western educationalist will admit, then, that the function of +education is to foster growth; and if you ask him what it is that +grows or ought to grow under education's fostering care, he will give +you a long list of faculties—mental, for the most part, but also +moral and physical—and then break off under the impression that he +has set education an adequate and a practicable task. But he has +set it an inadequate and an impracticable task. For behind all the +faculties that he enumerates dwells the living reality which he +cannot bring himself to believe in,—the soul. And because he cannot +bring himself to believe in the soul, he deprives the faculties +which he proposes to cultivate of the very qualities which make +them most worthy of cultivation,—of their interrelation, their +interdependence, their organic unity. In other words he devitalises +each of them by cutting it off from the life which is common to all +of them, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_83" id="P_83">[83]</a></span> so paralyses its capacity for growing in the very act +of taking thought for its growth. He forgets that every faculty which +is worth cultivating both draws life from, and contributes life to, +the general life of the growing child. He forgets that the child +himself—"the living soul"—is growing in and through the growth of +each of his opening faculties; and that unless, when a faculty seems +to be growing, the life of the child is at once expressing itself in +and renewing itself through the process of its growth, its semblance +of growth is a pure illusion, the results that are produced being in +reality as fraudulent as artificial flowers on a living rose-bush.</p> + +<p>But the whole question may be looked at from another point of view. +Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the function of education +is to train, or foster the growth of, certain faculties, which are +mainly though not exclusively mental, and that when those faculties +have been duly trained the teacher has done his work. What, then, +are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt +to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary +school,—the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance +at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to +us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained—those +which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those +which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science +are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. +When such subjects as Composition, Drawing or Singing are being +taught, the child's expressive faculties are being<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_84" id="P_84">[84]</a></span> trained. So at +least one might be disposed to assume.</p> + +<p>In what relation do the perceptive faculties stand to the expressive? +Is it possible to cultivate either group without regard to the other? +It must be admitted that the methods employed in the ordinary +elementary school seem to be governed by the assumption that the +perceptive and the expressive faculties are two distinct groups which +admit of being separately trained. In the ordinary Drawing lesson, +for example, the child is trying to express what he does not even +pretend to have perceived; whereas in the ordinary History or Science +lesson the process is reversed, and the child pretends to perceive +what he makes no attempt to express.</p> + +<p>But is the assumption correct? Do the two groups of faculties admit +of being separately trained? Is it possible to devote this hour or +half-hour to the training of perception, and that to the training +of expression? Surely not. Perception and expression are not two +faculties, but one. Each is the very counterpart and correlate, each +is the very life and soul, of the other. Each, when divorced from +the other, ceases to be its own true self. When perception is real, +living, informed with personal feeling, it must needs find for +itself the outlet of expression. When expression is real, living, +informed with personal feeling, perception—the child's own +perception of things—must needs be behind it. More than that. <i>The +perceptive faculties</i> (at any rate in childhood) <i>grow through the +interpretation which expression gives them, and in no other way. And +the expressive faculties grow by interpreting perception, and in no +other way</i>. The child who tries to draw what he sees is training his +power of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_85" id="P_85">[85]</a></span> observation, not less than his power of expression. As he +passes and repasses between the object of his perception and his +representation of it, there is a continuous gain both to his vision +and to his technique. The more faithfully he tries to render his +impression of the object, the more does that impression gain in truth +and strength; and in proportion as the impression becomes truer and +stronger, so does the rendering of it become more masterly and more +correct. So, again, if a man tries to set forth in writing his views +about some difficult problem—social, political, metaphysical, or +whatever it may be—the very effort that he makes to express himself +clearly and coherently will tend to bring order into the chaos and +light into the darkness of his mind, to widen his outlook on his +subject, to deepen his insight into it, to bring new aspects of it +within the reach of his conscious thought. And here, as in the case +of the child who tries to draw what he sees, there is a continuous +reciprocal action between perception and expression, in virtue of +which each in turn helps forward the evolution of the other. Even in +so abstract and impersonal a subject as mathematics, the reaction of +expression on perception is strong and salutary. The student who +wishes to master a difficult piece of bookwork should try to write +it out in his own words; in the effort to set it out concisely and +lucidly he will gradually perfect his apprehension of it. Were he to +solve a difficult problem, he would probably regard his grasp of the +solution as insecure and incomplete until he had succeeded in making +it intelligible to the mind of another. When perception is deeply +tinged with emotion, as when one sees what is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_86" id="P_86">[86]</a></span> beautiful, or admires +what is noble, the attempt to express it in language, action, or art, +seems to be dictated by some inner necessity of one's nature. The +meaning of this is that the perception itself imperatively demands +expression in order that, in and through the struggle of the artistic +consciousness to do full justice to it, it may gradually realise its +hidden potentialities, discover its inner meaning, and find its true +self.</p> + +<p>Once we realise that expression is the other self of perception, it +becomes permissible for us to say that to train the perceptive +faculties—the faculties by means of which Man lays hold upon the +world that surrounds him, and draws it into himself and makes it his +own—is the highest achievement of the teacher's art. Even from the +point of view of my primary truism, this conception of the meaning +and purpose of education holds good. For according to that truism the +business of the teacher is to foster the growth of the child's soul; +and the soul grows by the use of its perceptive faculties, which, by +enabling it to take in and assimilate an ever-widening environment, +cause a gradual enlargement of its consciousness and a proportionate +expansion of its life. But the perceptive faculties in their turn +grow by expressing themselves; and unless they are allowed to express +themselves—unless the child is allowed to express himself (for +expression, if it is genuine, is always self-expression)—their +growth will be arrested, and the mission which <i>all</i> educationalists +assign to education will not have been fulfilled.</p> + +<p>The question is, then, Does the system of education which prevails in +all Western countries provide for self-expression on the part of the +child?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote5" id="Footnote5" href="#FNa5" class="label">[5]</a> I mean by the words "original sin" what the plain, +unsophisticated, believing Christian means by them. A modern poet, +in a moment of impulsive orthodoxy, praises Christianity because it</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"taught original sin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The corruption of man's heart ..."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>This definition is sufficiently accurate. "Original sin," says the +Ninth Article of the Anglican Church, "... is the fault and +corruption of the Nature of every man ... whereby man is of his own +nature inclined to evil ... and therefore, in every person born into +the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." How far the +popular interpretation of the doctrine of original sin coincides with +the latest theological refinement of the doctrine, I cannot pretend +to say. When it finds it convenient to explain things away, theology, +like Voltaire's Minor Prophet, "est capable de tout"; and the need +for reconciling the doctrine of original sin with the teaching of +modern science has in recent years laid a heavy tax on its +ingenuity.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_87" id="P_87">[87]</a></div> + +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h3>A FAMILIAR TYPE OF SCHOOL<a name="FNa6" id="FNa6"></a><a href="#Footnote6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></h3> +</div> + +<p>In this chapter I shall have in my mind a type of school which is +familiar to all who are interested in elementary education. What +percentage of the schools of England are of that particular type +I cannot pretend to say. In the days of payment by results the +percentage was unquestionably very high. The system under which we +all worked made that inevitable. The days of payment by results are +over, but their consequences are with us still. The pioneer is abroad +in the land, but he has had, and still has, formidable difficulties +to overcome. The percentage of routine-ridden schools is considerably +lower than it used to be, and it is falling from year to year. Of +this there can<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_88" id="P_88">[88]</a></span> be no doubt. Each teacher in turn who reads this +chapter will, I hope, be able to say that the school which is in my +mind is not his. But I can assure him that there are thousands of +schools in which all or most of the evils on which I am about to +comment are still rampant; and I will add, for his consolation, that +it would be a miracle if this were not so.</p> + +<p>The first forty minutes of the morning session are given, in almost +every elementary school, to what is called <i>Religious Instruction</i>. +This goes on, morning after morning, and week after week. The child +who attends school regularly and punctually, as many children do, +will have been the victim of upwards of two thousand "Scripture +lessons" by the time he leaves school.</p> + +<p>The question of religious education in elementary schools has long +been the centre of a perfect whirlpool of controversial talk. The +greater part of this talk is, to speak plainly, blatant cant. Every +candidate for a seat in the House of Commons thinks it incumbent upon +him to say something about religious education, but not one in a +hundred of them has ever been present in an elementary school while +religious instruction was being given. The Bishops of the Established +Church wax eloquent in the House of Lords over the wickedness of a +"godless education" and the virtue of "definite dogmatic teaching," +but it may be doubted if there is a Bishop in the House who has in +recent years sat out a Scripture lesson in a Church of England +school. It would be well if all who talked publicly about religious +education could be sentenced<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_89" id="P_89">[89]</a></span> to devote a month to the personal study +of religious instruction as it is ordinarily given in elementary +schools. At the end of the month they would be wiser and sadder men, +and in future they would probably talk less about religious education +and think more.</p> + +<p>The Scripture lesson, as it is familiarly called, is supposed to make +the children of England religious, in the special sense which each +church or sect attaches to that word,—to make them good Catholics, +good Churchmen, good Wesleyans, good Bible Christians, good Jews. But +as those who are most in earnest about religion, and most sincere in +their religious convictions, unite in assuring us that England is +relapsing into paganism, it may be doubted if the religious education +of the elementary school child—a process which has been going on for +half a century or more—has been entirely successful. While the fact +that the English parent, who must himself have attended from 1,500 +to 2,000 Scripture lessons in His schooldays, is not under any +circumstances to be trusted to give religious instruction to his own +children, shows that those who control the religious education of the +youthful "masses" have but little confidence in the effect of their +system on the religious life and faith of the English people.</p> + +<p>They have good ground for their subconscious distrust of it. We have +seen that the vulgar confusion between information and knowledge is +at the root of much that is unsound in education. There is no branch +of education in which this confusion is so fallacious or so fatal as +in that which is called religious. The process of converting +information<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_90" id="P_90">[90]</a></span> into knowledge is a comparatively easy one when we are +dealing with matters of detailed fact. Information as to the dates of +the kings of England, as to the bays and capes of the British Isles, +as to the exports and imports of Liverpool, as to the weights and +measures of this or that country, is in each case readily convertible +into knowledge of the given facts. But directly we get away from mere +facts, and begin to concern ourselves with what is large, vague, +subtle, and obscure,—with forces, for example, with causes, with +laws, with principles,—the difficulty of collecting adequate and +appropriate information about our subject becomes great, and the +difficulty of converting such information into knowledge becomes +greater still. Information as to the dates and names of the English +kings, and other historical facts, is easily converted into knowledge +of those facts, but it is not easily converted into knowledge of +English history. Information as to the names and positions of capes +and bays, as to areas and populations, and other geographical facts, +is easily converted into knowledge of those facts, but it is not +easily converted into knowledge of geography. Information as to +arithmetical rules and tables, as to weights and measures, and other +arithmetical facts, is easily converted into knowledge of those +facts, but it is not easily converted into knowledge of arithmetic. +In each case a <i>sense</i> must be evolved if the information is to be +assimilated, and so converted into real knowledge; and though it is +true that the sense in question grows, in part at least, by feeding +on appropriate information, it is equally true that if, owing to +defective training, the sense remains undeveloped, the information<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_91" id="P_91">[91]</a></span> +supplied will remain unassimilated, and the tacit assumption that the +possession of information is equivalent to the possession of real +knowledge will delude both the teacher and the taught. It is +possible, as one knows from experience, for a boy to have mastered +all the arithmetical rules and tables with which his master has +supplied him, and to have all his measures and weights at his +fingers' ends, and yet to be so destitute of the arithmetical sense +as to give without a moment's misgiving an entirely nonsensical +answer to a simple arithmetical problem,—to say, for example, as I +have known half a class of boys say, that a <i>room</i> is <i>five shillings +and sixpence wide</i>. Such a boy, though his head may be stuffed with +arithmetical information, has no knowledge of arithmetic.</p> + +<p>The gulf between memorised information and real knowledge becomes +deep and wide in proportion as the subject matter is one which +demands for its effective apprehension either intellectual effort or +emotional insight. When both these variables are demanded, the gulf +widens and deepens at a ratio which is "geometrical" rather than +"arithmetical"; and when a high degree of each is demanded, the +separation between knowledge and information is complete.</p> + +<p>The Art Master who should try to train the ćsthetic sense of his +pupils by making them learn by heart a string of propositions in +which he had set out the artistic merits of sundry masterpieces of +painting and sculpture, would expose himself to well-merited +ridicule. So would the teacher who should try to train the scientific +sense of his pupils by no other method than that of making them +learn<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_92" id="P_92">[92]</a></span> scientific formulć by heart. What shall we say, then, of the +teacher who tries to train the religious sense of his pupils by +supplying them with rations of theological and theologico-historical +information? Whatever else we may mean by the word God, we mean what +is infinitely great, and therefore beyond the reach of human thought, +and we mean what is "most high," and therefore beyond the reach of +the heart's desire. It follows that for knowledge of God the maximum +of intellectual effort is needed, in conjunction with the maximum of +emotional insight; and it follows further that the gulf between +knowledge of God and information about God is unimaginably wide and +deep,—so wide and so deep that out of our very attempts to span or +fathom it the doubt at last arises whether the idea of acquiring +information about God may not, after all, be the idlest of dreams.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless the pastors and masters of our elementary schools are, +with few exceptions, engaged, <i>sanctâ simplicitate</i>, in trying to +make the children of England religious by cramming them with +theological and theologico-historical information,—information as to +the nature and attributes of God, as to the inner constitution of +his being, as to his relations to Man and the Universe, as to his +reported doings in the past. And in order that the giving, receiving, +and retaining of this unverifiable information may be regarded by +all concerned as the central feature of the Scripture lesson, to +the neglect of all the other aspects of religious education, the +spiritual "powers that be" (and also, I am told, some of the Local +Education Authorities) have decreed that the schools under their +jurisdiction<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_93" id="P_93">[93]</a></span> shall be subjected to a yearly examination in +"religious knowledge" at the hands of a "Diocesan Inspector," or some +other official.</p> + +<p>To one who has convinced himself, as I have, that a right attitude +towards the thing known is of the essence of knowledge, and that +reverence and devotion—to go no further—are of the essence of a +right attitude towards God, the idea of holding a formal examination +in religious knowledge seems scarcely less ridiculous than the idea +of holding a formal examination in unselfishness or brotherly love. +The phrase "to examine in religious knowledge" has no meaning for me. +The verb is out of all relation to its indirect object. What the +Diocesan Inspector attempts to do cannot possibly be done. The test +of religious knowledge is necessarily practical and vital, not formal +and mechanical. Even if I were to admit, for argument's sake, that +the information with which we cram the elementary school child +between 9.5 and 9.45 a.m. had been supernaturally communicated by God +to Man, my general position would remain unaffected. For experience +has amply proved that a child—or, for the matter of that, a man—may +know much theology and even be "mighty in the Scriptures," and yet +show by his conduct that his religious sense has not been awakened, +and that therefore he has no knowledge of God; just as we have seen +that a child may know by heart all arithmetical rules and tables, and +yet show, by his helplessness in the face of a simple problem, that +his arithmetical sense has not been awakened, and that therefore he +has no knowledge of arithmetic.</p> + +<p>The time given to religious instruction is, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_94" id="P_94">[94]</a></span> make a general +statement, the only part of the session in which the children are +being prepared for a formal <i>external</i> examination. That being so, it +is no matter for wonder that many of the glaring faults of method and +organisation which the examination system fostered in our elementary +schools between the years 1862 and 1895, and which are now being +abandoned, however slowly, reluctantly, and sporadically, during the +hours of "secular" instruction, still find a refuge in the Scripture +lesson. Overgrouping of classes, overcrowding of school-rooms, +collective answering, collective repetition, scribbling on slates, +and other faults with which inspectors were only too familiar in +bygone days, are still rampant while religious instruction is being +given.<a name="FNa7" id="FNa7"></a><a href="#Footnote7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The Diocesan Inspector is an examiner, pure and simple, and +is never present when the Scripture lesson is in progress. Whether he +would find anything to criticise if he were present, may be doubted. +I have frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_95" id="P_95">[95]</a></span> been told by teachers that it is his demand for a +good volume of sound, when he is catechising the children, which +keeps alive during the Scripture lesson the pestilent habit of +collective answering, in defiance of the obvious fact that what is +everybody's business is nobody's business, and that an experienced +bell-wether can easily give a lead to a whole class. An inconvenient +train service may compel H.M. Inspector to be present when religious +instruction is being given; but though he may find much to deplore +in what he sees and hears, he must abstain from criticism, and be +content to play the <i>rôle</i> of the man who looks over a hedge while a +horse is being stolen.</p> + +<p>In most elementary schools religion is taught on an elaborate +syllabus which is imposed on the teacher by an external authority, +and which therefore tends to destroy his freedom and his interest in +the work. It is not his business to take thought for the religious +training of his pupils, to consider how the religious instinct may +best be awakened in them, how their latent knowledge of God may +best be evolved. His business is to prepare them for their yearly +examination, to cram them with catechisms, hymns, texts, and +collects, and with stories of various kinds,—stories from the +folk-lore of Israel, from the history of the Jews, from the Gospel +narratives. To appeal to the reasoning powers of his pupils would be +foreign to his aim, and foreign, let me say in passing, to the whole +tradition of religious teaching in the West. The burden of preparing +for an examination, whatever the examination may be, falls mainly on +the faculty of memory. This is a rule to which there are very<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_96" id="P_96">[96]</a></span> few +exceptions. When the examination is one in "religious knowledge," the +burden of preparing for it falls wholly on the faculty of memory. +To appeal to the reasoning powers of the scholars might conceivably +provoke them to ask inconvenient questions, and might even give +rise to a spirit of rationalism in the school,—the spirit which +"orthodoxy" has always regarded as the very antipole to religious +faith.</p> + +<p>But what of the child's emotional faculties? Will not the beauty of +the Gospel stories, will not the sublimity of the Old Testament +poetry, make their own appeal to these? They might do so if they were +allowed to exert their spiritual magnetism. But what chance have +they? The chilling shadow of the impending examination falls upon +them and cancels their educative influence. It is not because the +Gospel stories are full of beauty and spiritual meaning that the +child has to learn them, but because he will be questioned on them by +the Diocesan Inspector. It is not because certain passages from the +Old Testament are poetry of a high order that the child commits them +to memory, but because he may have to repeat them to the Diocesan +Inspector. We cannot serve God and Mammon,—the God of poetry and the +inward life, the Mammon of outward results. The thing is not to be +done, and the pretence of doing it is a mockery and a fraud. The +compulsory preparation of the plays of Shakespeare and other literary +masterpieces for a formal examination, too often gives the schoolboy, +or the college student, a permanent distaste for English literature. +The study of the Ancient Classics for the Oxford "Schools"<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_97" id="P_97">[97]</a></span> or the +Cambridge "Tripos" too often gives the studious undergraduate a +permanent distaste for the literatures of Greece and Rome. Does it +not follow <i>a fortiori</i> that to cram a young child, for the purposes +of a formal examination, to cram him, year after year, with the +idyllic stories of the New Testament and the poetic beauties of the +Old, will in all probability go a long way towards blighting in the +bud the child's latent capacity for responding to the appeal, not of +the Bible alone, but of spiritual poetry as such?</p> + +<p>I do not wish to suggest that the religious instruction given in +our elementary schools is always formal and mechanical. There are +teachers who can break through the toils of any system, however +deadly, and give life to their teaching in defiance of conditions +which would paralyse the energies of lesser men. As I write, I recall +two teachers of elementary schools, who, in spite of having to +prepare their pupils for diocesan inspection, succeeded in quickening +their religious instincts into vital activity. The first was a +schoolmaster,—a "strong Churchman," and a sincerely religious man. +The second was a woman of genius, whose extraordinary sympathy with +and insight into the soul of the child, enabled her to give free play +to all his expansive instincts, and in and through the evolution of +these to foster the growth of his religious sense. I can never feel +quite sure that this teacher fully realised how deeply, and yet +healthily, religious her children were. If she did not, I can but +apply to her what Diderot said to David the painter, when the latter +confessed that he had not intended to produce some artistic effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_98" id="P_98">[98]</a></span> +which the former had discovered in one of his pictures: "Quoi! c'est +ŕ votre insu? C'est encore mieux." To make children religious without +intending to do so is a profoundly significant achievement, for +it means that the fatal distinction between religious and secular +education has been "utterly abolished and destroyed."</p> + +<p>Both these teachers fell, as it happened, under the ban of the +Diocesan Inspector's displeasure. The schoolmaster took over a +school which was not only inefficient in the eyes of the Education +Department, in respect of instruction and discipline, but was also +tainted in its upper classes with moral depravity. He speedily +restored it to efficiency, and reformed its moral tone. In +accomplishing these salutary changes, he relied mainly on an appeal +which he made, in all manly sincerity, to the religious sense of the +older boys. The faith in human nature which prompted him to make this +appeal was justified by the response which it evoked. In less than a +year the school was transformed beyond recognition. In less than two +years it was one of the best in its county; indeed in respect of +moral tone and religious atmosphere it was perhaps <i>the</i> best. +Meanwhile the work of cramming the children for the yearly diocesan +examination must have fallen into arrears; for the school, which +under my friend's incompetent predecessor had always been classed as +"Excellent," sank to the level of "Good" in the year after he left, +and in the following year to the level of "Fair." Any one who has any +acquaintance with the reports of the Diocesan Inspector knows that +the summary mark "Fair," when employed<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_99" id="P_99">[99]</a></span> by him, is equivalent to +utter damnation.</p> + +<p>The schoolmistress always had a horror of formal teaching, and a +special horror of cramming young children for formal examinations; +and I can only wonder that her downfall was so long delayed. Sooner +or later, if she was to remain true to her own first principles, her +work was bound to incur the condemnation of the Diocesan Inspector.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, having read hundreds of diocesan reports, and realised +how lavish of praise and chary of blame the Diocesan Inspector +usually is, I am inclined to suspect that the comparative failure +of the children on the examination day was not the sole or even the +chief cause of the severe censure which these two schools received. +I am inclined to think that in each case the inspector recognised in +the exceptional religious vitality of a school which was deficient, +from his point of view, in religious knowledge, an implicit challenge +to his own preconceived notions, and that, without for a moment +intending to be unfair, he responded to this challenge by giving the +school a strongly adverse report. Immorality and irreligiousness +as such are comparatively venial offences in the eyes of religious +orthodoxy. What it cannot tolerate is that men should be moral and +religious in any but the "orthodox" ways.</p> + +<p>Apart from these two exceptional cases, there are of course hundreds +and even thousands of teachers whose personal influence is a partial +antidote to the numbing poison which is being distilled but surely, +from the daily Scripture lesson. But the net result of giving formal +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_100" id="P_100">[100]</a></span> mechanical instruction on the greatest of all "great matters" is +to depress the spiritual vitality of the children of England to a +point which threatens the extinction of the spiritual life of the +nation. My schoolmaster friend, who, besides being deeply religious +(in the best sense of the word), is a man of sound judgment and wide +and varied experience, has more than once assured me that religious +instruction, as given in the normal Church of England school (his +experience has been limited to schools of that type), is paganising +the people of England,—paganising them because it presents religion +to them in a form which they instinctively reject, accepting it at +first under compulsion, but turning away from it at last with +deep-seated weariness and permanent distaste.</p> + +<p>The boy who, having attended two thousand Scripture lessons, says to +himself when he leaves school: "If this is religion, I will have no +more of it," is acting in obedience to a healthy instinct. He is to +be honoured rather than blamed for having realised at last that the +chaff on which he has so long been fed is not the life-giving grain +which, unknown to himself, his inmost soul demands.</p> + +<p>That England is relapsing into paganism is, as we have seen, the +sincere conviction of many earnest Christians. Why this should be so, +they cannot understand. In their desire to account for so distressing +a phenomenon, they will have recourse to any explanation, however +far-fetched and fantastic, rather than acknowledge that it is the +Scripture lesson in the elementary school which is paganising the +masses. If the Churches could have their way, they would doubtless +try to mend<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_101" id="P_101">[101]</a></span> matters by doubling the hours that are given to +religious instruction, by making the Diocesan Inspector's visit +a half-yearly instead of a yearly function, and by cramming the +children for it with redoubled energy. In their refusal to reckon +with human nature, they are true to the first principles of their +religion and their philosophy. But it is possible to buy consistency +at too high a price. The laws and tendencies of Nature are what they +are; and it is madness, not heroism, to ignore them. To those who +refuse to reckon with human nature, the day will surely come when +human nature, evolving itself under the stress of its own forces and +in obedience to its own laws, will cease to take account of them.<a name="FNa8" id="FNa8"></a><a href="#Footnote8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>When the hands of the clock point to a quarter to ten, the religious +education of the child is over for the day, and his secular +instruction has begun. That the religious education of the child +should be supposed to end when the Scripture lesson is over, is the +last and strongest proof of the fundamental falsity of that +conception of religion on which, as on a quicksand, his education, +religious and secular, has been based.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_102" id="P_102">[102]</a></span> After Scripture comes as a rule Arithmetic. During the former lesson +the teacher, acting under compulsion, does his best, as we have seen, +to deaden the child's spiritual faculties. During the latter, he not +infrequently does his best to deaden the child's mental faculties. In +each case he is to be pitied rather than blamed. The conditions under +which he works, and has long worked, are too strong for him. If we +are to understand why secular instruction, as given in our elementary +schools, is what it is, we must go back for half a century or so and +trace the steps by which the "Education Department" forced elementary +education in England into the grooves in which, in many schools, +it is still moving, and from which even the most enlightened and +enterprising teachers find it difficult to escape.</p> + +<p>In 1861 the Royal Commission (under the Duke of Newcastle as +Chairman), which had been appointed in 1858 in order to inquire into +"the state of popular education in England, and as to the measures +required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary instruction +to all classes of the people," issued its report, in which it +recommended <i>inter alia</i> that the Grants paid to elementary schools<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_103" id="P_103">[103]</a></span> +should be expressly apportioned on the examination of individual +children. This recommendation was carried into effect in the Lowe +Revised Code of 1862; and from that date till 1895 a considerable +part of the Grant received by each school was paid on the results of +a yearly examination held by H.M. Inspector on an elaborate syllabus, +formulated by the Department and binding on all schools alike. On the +official report which followed this examination depended the +reputation and financial prosperity of the school, and the reputation +and financial prosperity of the teacher.<a name="FNa9" id="FNa9"></a><a href="#Footnote9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The consequent pressure +on the teacher to exert himself was well-nigh irresistible; and he +had no choice but to transmit that pressure to his subordinates and +his pupils. The result was that in those days the average school was +a hive of industry.</p> + +<p>But it was also a hive of misdirected energy. The State, in +prescribing a syllabus which was to be followed, in all the subjects +of instruction, by all the schools in the country, without regard to +local or personal considerations, was guilty of one capital offence. +It did all his thinking for the teacher. It told him in precise +detail what he was to do each year in each "Standard," how he was to +handle each subject, and how far he was to go in it; what width of +ground he was to cover; what amount of knowledge, what degree of +accuracy was required for a "pass," In other words it provided him +with his ideals, his general conceptions, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_104" id="P_104">[104]</a></span> more immediate aims, +his schemes of work; and if it did not control his methods in all +their details, it gave him (by implication) hints and suggestions +with regard to these on which he was not slow to act; for it told him +that the work done in each class and each subject would be tested +at the end of each year by a careful examination of each individual +child; and it was inevitable that in his endeavour to adapt his +teaching to the type of question which his experience of the +yearly examination led him to expect, he should gradually deliver +himself, mind and soul, into the hands of the officials of the +Department,—the officials at Whitehall who framed the yearly +syllabus, and the officials in the various districts who examined +on it.</p> + +<p>What the Department did to the teacher, it compelled him to do to the +child. The teacher who is the slave of another's will cannot carry +out his instructions except by making his pupils the slaves of +his own will. The teacher who has been deprived by his superiors +of freedom, initiative, and responsibility, cannot carry out his +instructions except by depriving his pupils of the same vital +qualities. The teacher who, in response to the deadly pressure of a +cast-iron system, has become a creature of habit and routine, cannot +carry out his instructions except by making his pupils as helpless +and as puppet-like as himself.</p> + +<p>But it is not only because mechanical obedience is fatal, in the +long run, to mental and spiritual growth, that the regulation of +elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is +to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the +nature of things, a bad syllabus,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_105" id="P_105">[105]</a></span> and because the degree of its +badness varies directly with the area of the sphere of educational +activity that comes under its control. It is easy for us of the +Twentieth Century to laugh at the syllabuses which the Department +issued, without misgiving, year after year, in the latter half of the +Nineteenth. We were all groping in the dark in those days; and our +whole attitude towards education was so fundamentally wrong that the +absurdities of the yearly syllabus were merely so much by-play in +the evolution of a drama which was a grotesque blend of tragedy and +farce. But let us of the enlightened Twentieth Century try our hands +at constructing a syllabus on which all the elementary schools of +England are to be prepared for a yearly examination, and see if +we can improve appreciably on the work of our predecessors. Some +improvement there would certainly be, but it would not amount to very +much. Were the "Board" to re-institute payment by results, and were +they, with this end in view, to entrust the drafting of schemes of +work in the various subjects to a committee of the wisest and most +experienced educationalists in England, the resultant syllabus would +be a dismal failure. For in framing their schemes these wise and +experienced educationalists would find themselves compelled to take +account of the lowest rather than of the highest level of actual +educational achievement. What is exceptional and experimental cannot +possibly find a place in a syllabus which is to bind all schools and +all teachers alike, and which must therefore be so framed that the +least capable teacher, working under the least favourable conditions, +may hope, when his pupils are examined<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_106" id="P_106">[106]</a></span> on it, to achieve with decent +industry a decent modicum of success. Under the control of a uniform +syllabus, the schools which are now specialising and experimenting, +and so giving a lead to the rest, would have to abandon whatever was +interesting in their respective curricula, and fall into line with +the average school; while, with the consequent lowering of the +current <i>ideal</i> of efficiency, the level of the average school would +steadily fall. A uniform syllabus is a bad syllabus, for this if for +no other reason, that it is compelled to idealise the average; and +that, inasmuch as education, so far as it is a living system, grows +by means of its "leaders," the idealisation of the average is +necessarily fatal to educational growth and therefore to educational +life.</p> + +<p>It was preordained, then, that the syllabuses which the Department +issued, year by year, in the days of payment by results should have +few merits and many defects. Yet even if, by an unimaginable miracle, +they had all been educationally sound, the mere fact that all the +teachers in England had to work by them would have made them potent +agencies for evil. To be in bondage to a syllabus is a misfortune for +a teacher, and a misfortune for the school that he teaches. To be in +bondage to a syllabus which is binding on all schools alike, is a +graver misfortune. To be in bondage to a bad syllabus which is +binding on all schools alike, is of all misfortunes the gravest. Or +if there is a graver, it is the fate that befell the teachers of +England under the old <i>régime</i>,—the fate of being in bondage to a +syllabus which was bad both because it had to come down to the level<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_107" id="P_107">[107]</a></span> +of the least fortunate school and the least capable teacher, and also +because it was the outcome of ignorance, inexperience, and +bureaucratic self-satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Of the evils that are inherent in the examination system as such—of +its tendency to arrest growth, to deaden life, to paralyse the higher +faculties, to externalise what is inward, to materialise what is +spiritual, to involve education in an atmosphere of unreality and +self-deception—I have already spoken at some length. In the days of +payment by results various circumstances conspired to raise those +evil tendencies to the highest imaginable "power." When inspectors +ceased to examine (in the stricter sense of the word) they realised +what infinite mischief the yearly examination had done. The children, +the majority of whom were examined in reading and dictation out of +their own reading-books (two or three in number, as the case might +be), were drilled in the contents of those books until they knew +them almost by heart. In arithmetic they worked abstract sums, in +obedience to formal rules, day after day, and month after month; +and they were put up to various tricks and dodges which would, it +was hoped, enable them to know by what precise rules the various +questions on the arithmetic cards were to be answered. They learned +a few lines of poetry by heart, and committed all the "meanings and +allusions" to memory, with the probable result—so sickening must +the process have been—that they hated poetry for the rest of their +lives. In geography, history, and grammar they were the victims of +unintelligent oral cram, which they were compelled, under pains and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_108" id="P_108">[108]</a></span> +penalties, to take in and retain till the examination day was over, +their ability to disgorge it on occasion being periodically tested by +the teacher. And so with the other subjects. Not a thought was given, +except in a small minority of the schools, to the real training of +the child, to the fostering of his mental (and other) growth. To get +him through the yearly examination by hook or by crook was the one +concern of the teacher. As profound distrust of the teacher was the +basis of the policy of the Department, so profound distrust of the +child was the basis of the policy of the teacher. To leave the child +to find out anything for himself, to work out anything for himself, +to think out anything for himself, would have been regarded as a +proof of incapacity, not to say insanity, on the part of the teacher, +and would have led to results which, from the "percentage" point of +view, would probably have been disastrous.</p> + +<p>There were few inspectors who were not duly impressed from 1895 +onwards by the gravity of the evils that inspection, as distinguished +from mere examination, revealed to them; but it may be doubted +if there were many inspectors who realised then, what some among +them see clearly now, that the evils which distressed them were +significant as symptoms even more than as sources of mischief,—as +symptoms of a deep-seated and insidious malady, of the gradual +ossification of the spiritual and mental muscles of both the teacher +and the child, of the gradual substitution in the elementary school +of machinery for life.</p> + +<p>For us of the Twentieth Century who know enough about education to +be aware of the shallowness<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_109" id="P_109">[109]</a></span> of our knowledge of it, and of the +imperfection of the existing educational systems of our country, it +may be difficult to realise that in the years when things were at +their worst, at any rate in the field of elementary education, the +Nation in general and the "Department" in particular were well +content that things should remain as they were,—well content that +the elementary school should be, not a nursery of growing seedlings +and saplings, but a decently efficient mill, and that year after year +this mill should keep on grinding out its dreary and meaningless +"results." But in truth that ignorant optimism, that cheap content +with the actual, was a sure proof that things <i>were</i> at their +worst;—for</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When we in our viciousness grow hard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(O misery on't) the wise gods seal our eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In our own filth; drop our clear judgments: make us<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adore our errors";</span> +</div></div> + +<p>and the multiform discontent with education in its present stage of +development, which is characteristic of our own generation, and which +is in some ways so confusing and disconcerting, and so unfavourable +to the smooth working of our educational machinery, has the merit of +being a healthy and hopeful symptom.</p> + +<p>But bad as things were in those days, there was at least one +redeeming feature. The children were compelled to <i>work</i>, to exert +themselves, to "put their backs into it." The need for this was +obvious. The industry of the child meant so much professional +reputation and, in the last resort, so much bread and butter to his +teacher. It is true that the child was not allowed to do anything by +or for himself; but it is equally true that he had to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_110" id="P_110">[110]</a></span> pretty +strenuously whatever task was set him. He had to get up his two (or +three) "Readers" so thoroughly that he could be depended upon to pass +both the reading and the dictation test with success. He had to work +his abstract sums in arithmetic correctly. He had to take in and +remember the historical and geographical information with which he +had been crammed. And so forth. There must be no shirking, no +slacking on his part. His teachers worked hard, though "not according +to knowledge"; and he must do the same. Active, in the higher sense +of the word, he was never allowed to be; but he had to be actively +receptive, strenuously automatic, or his teacher would know the +reason why.</p> + +<p>Such was the old <i>régime</i>. Its defects were so grave and so vital +that, now that it has become discredited (in theory, if not in +practice), we can but wonder how it endured for so long. As an +ingenious instrument for arresting the mental growth of the child, +and deadening all his higher faculties, it has never had, and I +hope will never have, a rival. Far from fostering the growth of +those great expansive instincts—sympathetic, ćsthetic, and +scientific—which Nature has implanted in every child, it set itself +to extirpate them, one and all, with ruthless pertinacity. As a +partial compensation for this work of wanton destruction, it made the +child blindly obedient, mechanically industrious, and (within very +narrow limits) accurate and thorough. I have described it at some +length because I see clearly that no one who does not realise what +the elementary school used to be, in the days of its sojourn in the +Land of Bondage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_111" id="P_111">[111]</a></span> can even begin to understand why it is what it is +to-day.</p> + +<p>Having for thirty-three years deprived the teachers of almost every +vestige of freedom, the Department suddenly reversed its policy and +gave them in generous measure the boon which it had so long withheld. +Whether it was wise to give so much at so short a notice may be +doubted. What is beyond dispute is that it was unwise to expect so +great and so unexpected a gift to be used at once to full advantage. +A man who had grown accustomed to semi-darkness would be dazzled to +the verge of blindness if he were suddenly taken out into broad +daylight. This is what was done in 1895 to the teachers of England, +and it is not to be wondered at that many of them have been purblind +ever since. For thirty-three years they had been treated as machines, +and they were suddenly asked to act as intelligent beings. For +thirty-three years they had been practically compelled to do +everything for the child, and they were suddenly expected to give him +freedom and responsibility,—words which for many of them had +well-nigh lost their meaning. To comply with these unreasonable +demands was beyond their power. The grooves into which they had been +forced were far too deep for them. The routine to which they had +become accustomed had far too strong a hold on them. The one change +which they could make was to relax their own severe pressure on the +child. This they did, perhaps without intending to do it. Indeed, +now that there was no external examination to look forward to, the +pressure on the child<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_112" id="P_112">[112]</a></span> may be said to have automatically relaxed +itself. What happened—I will not say in all schools, but in far too +many—was that the teaching remained as mechanical and unintelligent +as ever, that the teacher continued to distrust the child and to do +everything for him, but that the child gradually became slacker and +less industrious. Not that his teacher wished him to "slack," but +that the stimulus of the yearly examination had been withdrawn at a +time when there was nothing to take its place. Exercise is in itself +a delightful thing when it is wholesome, natural, and rational; +but when it is unwholesome, unnatural, and irrational, it will not +be taken in sufficient measure except in response to some strong +external stimulus. Under the old examination system an adequate +stimulus had been supplied by the combined influence of competition +and fear (chiefly the latter). When the examination system was +abolished, that stimulus necessarily lost its point. Had it then been +possible for the teacher to make the exercise which his pupils were +asked to take wholesome, natural, and rational, a new stimulus—that +of interest in their work—would have been applied to the pupils, and +they would have exerted themselves as they had never done before. +But it was not possible for the average teacher to execute at a +moment's notice a complete change of front, and it was unwise of the +Department to expect him to do so. Apart from an honourable minority, +who had always been in secret revolt against the despotism of the +Code, the old teachers were helpless and hopeless. The younger ones +had been through the mill themselves, first in the Elementary School, +then in the Pupil-Teacher<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_113" id="P_113">[113]</a></span> Centre, and then in the Training College +(both the latter having been in too many cases cramming +establishments like the Elementary School); and when they went back +to work under a head teacher who was wedded to the old order of +things, they found no difficulty in falling in with his ways and +carrying out his wishes. If a young teacher, fresh from an +exceptionally enlightened Training College, became an assistant under +an old-fashioned head teacher, he soon had the "nonsense knocked out +of him," and was compelled to toe the line with the rest of the +staff.</p> + +<p>But it was not only because the teachers of England had got +accustomed to the Land of Bondage, that they shrank from entering the +Promised Land. There was, and still is, another and a stronger +reason. Wherever the teacher looks, he sees that the examination +system, with its demand for machine-made results, controls education; +and he feels that it is only by an accident that his school has +been exempted (in part at least) from its pressure. The Board of +Education still examine for labour certificates, for admission as +uncertificated assistants, for the teacher's certificate. They expect +head teachers to hold terminal examinations of all the classes in +their schools. They allow Local Authorities to examine children in +their schools as formally and as stringently as they please, and to +hold examinations for County Scholarships, for which children from +elementary schools are eligible. Admission to secondary schools of +all grades depends on success in passing entrance examinations. So +does admission to the various Colleges and Universities. In the +schools which prepare<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_114" id="P_114">[114]</a></span> little boys for the "Great Public Schools," +the whole scheme of education Is dominated by the headmaster's desire +to win as many entrance scholarships as possible. In the "Great +Public Schools" the scheme of education is similarly dominated by +the headmaster's desire to win as many scholarships as possible +at the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. In the Universities all the +undergraduates without exception are reading for examinations of +various kinds,—pass "schools," honour "schools," Civil Service +examinations, and the like. Officers in the Army and Navy have never +done with examinations; and there is not a single profession which +can be entered through any door but that of a public examination. +Wherever the teacher looks he sees that examinations are held in high +honour, and that the main business of teachers of all grades is to +produce results which an outside examiner would accept as +satisfactory; and he naturally takes for granted that the production +of such results is the true function of the teacher, whether his +success in producing them is to be tested by a formal examination or +not. The air that he breathes is charged with ideas—ideas about life +in general and education in particular—which belong to the order of +things that he is supposed to have left behind him, and are fiercely +antagonistic to those as yet unrecognised ideas which give the new +order of things its meaning, its purpose, and its value.</p> + +<p>How can we expect the teacher to look inward when all the conditions +of his existence, not as a teacher only but also as a citizen and a +man, conspire to make him look outward? But if the Fates<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_115" id="P_115">[115]</a></span> are against +his looking inward, to what purpose has he been emancipated from the +direct control of a system which had at least the merit of being in +line with all the central tendencies of Western civilisation? How +does it profit him to be free if, under the pressure of those +tendencies, the chief use that he makes of his freedom is to grind +out from his pupils results akin to those which were asked for in the +days of schedules and percentages? Freedom was given him in order +that he might be free to take thought for the vital welfare of his +pupils. Or, if freedom was not given to him for that purpose, it were +better that it had been withheld from him until those who were able +to give or withhold it had formed a juster conception of its meaning.</p> + +<p>The truth is that the exemption of the elementary school, and of it +alone among schools, from the direct pressure of the examination +system, is an isolated and audacious experiment, which is carried on +under conditions so unfavourable to its success that nothing but a +high degree of intelligence and moral courage (not to speak of +originality) on the part of the teacher can make it succeed. Can we +wonder that in many cases the experiment has proved a failure?</p> + +<p>At the end of the previous chapter I asked myself whether the +education that was given in the ordinary elementary school tended to +foster self-expression on the part of the child. We can now see what +the answer to this question is likely to be. For a third of a +century—from 1862 to 1895—self-expression on the part of the child +may be said to have been formally prohibited by all who were<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_116" id="P_116">[116]</a></span> +responsible for the elementary education of the children of England, +and also to have been prohibited <i>de facto</i> by all the unformulated +conditions under which the elementary school was conducted. In 1895 +the formal prohibition of self-expression ceased, but the <i>de facto</i> +prohibition of it in the ordinary school is scarcely less effective +to-day than it was in the darkest days of the old <i>régime</i>. For</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The evil that men do lives after them,"</span> +</div></div> + +<p>and the old <i>régime</i>, though nominally abrogated, overshadows us +still. When I say this I do not merely mean that many teachers who +were brought up under the old <i>régime</i> have been unable to emancipate +themselves from its influence. I mean that the old <i>régime</i> was +itself the outcome and expression of traditional tendencies which +are of the essence of Western civilisation, of ways of thinking +and acting to which we are all habituated from our earliest days, +and that these tendencies and these ways of thinking and acting +overshadow us still. The formal abrogation of the old <i>régime</i> counts +for little so long as the examination system, with its demand for +visible and measurable results and its implicit invitation to cram +and cheat, is allowed to cast its deadly shadow on education as +such,—and so long as the whole system on which the young of all +classes and grades are educated is favourable to self-deception on +the part of the teacher and fatal to sincerity on the part of the +child. Constrained by every influence that is brought to bear upon +him to judge according to the appearance of things, the teacher can +ill afford<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_117" id="P_117">[117]</a></span> to judge righteous judgment,—can ill afford to regard +what is outward and visible as the symbol of what is inward and +spiritual, can ill afford to think of the work done by the child +except as a thing to be weighed in an examiner's balance or measured +by an examiner's rule.</p> + +<p>Things being as they are in the various grades of education and in +the various strata of social life, it is inevitable that the +education given in many of our elementary schools should be based, +in the main, on complete distrust of the child. In such schools, +whatever else the child may be allowed to do, he must not be allowed +to do anything by or for himself. He must not express what he really +feels and sees; for if he does, the results will probably fall short +of the standard of neatness, cleanness, and correctness which +an examiner might expect the school to reach. At any rate, the +experiment is much too risky to be tried. In the lower classes +the results produced would certainly be rough, imperfect, untidy. +Therefore self-expression must not be permitted in that part of the +school. And if not there, it must not be permitted anywhere, for the +longer it is delayed the greater will be the difficulty of starting +it and the greater the attendant risk. The child must not express +what he really perceives; and as genuine perception forces for itself +the outlet of genuine expression, he must not be allowed to exercise +his perceptive faculties. Instead of seeing things for himself, he +must see what his teacher directs him to see, he must feel what his +teacher directs him to feel, he must think what his teacher directs +him to think, and so on. But to forbid a child to use his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_118" id="P_118">[118]</a></span> +perceptive faculties is to arrest the whole process of his growth.</p> + +<p>I will now go back to the <i>Arithmetic</i> lesson. During the years in +which the children in elementary schools were examined individually +in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the one virtue which was +inculcated while the arithmetic lesson was in progress was that of +obedience to the formulated rule. On the yearly examination day it +was customary to give each child four questions in arithmetic, of +which only one was a "problem." Two sums correctly worked secured +a "pass"; and it was therefore possible for the child to achieve +salvation in arithmetic by blindly obeying the various rules with +which his teacher had equipped him. He had, indeed, to decide for +himself in each case which rule was to be followed; but he did this +(in most schools), not by thinking the matter out, but by following +certain by-rules given him by his teacher, which were based on a +careful study of the wording of the questions set by the inspector, +and which held good as long as that wording remained unchanged. For +example, if a subtraction sum was to be dictated to "Standard II," +the child was taught that the number which was given out first was to +be placed in the upper line, and that the number which came next was +to be subtracted from this. He was not taught that the lesser of the +two numbers was always to be subtracted from the larger; for in order +to apply that principle he would have had to decide for himself which +was the larger of the two numbers, and the consequent mental effort +was one which his teacher could not trust him<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_119" id="P_119">[119]</a></span> to make. It is true +that in his desire to save the child from the dire necessity of +thinking, the teacher ran the risk of being discomfited by a sudden +change of procedure on the part of an inspector. The inspector, for +example, who, having been accustomed to say "From 95 take 57," chose +to say, for a change, "Take 57 from 95," would cause widespread havoc +in the first two or three schools that were the victims of his +unlooked-for experiment. But the risks which the teacher ran who +taught his pupils to rely on trickery rather than thought were worth +running; for the inspectors, like the teachers and the children, were +ever tending to become creatures of routine, and the vagaries of +those who had the reputation of being tiresomely versatile could be +provided against—largely, if not wholly—by increased ingenuity on +the part of the teacher, and increased attention to tricky by-rules +on the part of the child.</p> + +<p>The number of schools in which arithmetic is intelligently and even +practically taught is undoubtedly much larger than it was in the days +of payment by results; but there are still thousands of schools in +which obedience to the rule for its own sake is the basis of all +instruction in arithmetic. Now to live habitually by rule instead of +by thought is necessarily fatal, in every field of action, to the +development of that <i>sense</i> or perceptive faculty, on which right +action ultimately depends. Following his reputed guide blindly, +mechanically, and with whole-hearted devotion, the votary of the rule +never allows his intuition, his faculty of direct perception and +subconscious judgment, to play even for a moment round the matters<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_120" id="P_120">[120]</a></span> +on which he is engaged; and the result is that the faculty in +question is not merely prevented from growing, but is at last +actually blighted in the bud. This is but another way of saying what +I have already insisted upon,—that to forbid self-expression on the +part of the child is to starve his perceptive faculties into +non-existence.</p> + +<p>There is no folly perpetrated in the elementary school of to-day for +which there are not authoritative precedents to be found in the +conduct of one or other of the two great schools which the God of +Western theology is supposed to have opened for the education of Man. +And it is in that special development of the Legal School which +is known as Pharisaism that we shall look for a precedent for the +conventional teaching of arithmetic in our elementary schools. The +ultra-legalism of the Pharisee in the days of Christ finds its exact +counterpart in the ultra-legalism of the child who has been taught +arithmetic by the methods which the yearly examination fostered, and +which are still widely prevalent. In the one case there was, in the +other case there is, an entire inability on the part of the zealous +votary of the rule to estimate the intrinsic value of the results of +his blind and unintelligent action. The sense of humour, which is a +necessary element in every other healthy sense, and which so often +keeps us from going astray, by suddenly revealing to us the inherent +absurdity of our proposed action, is one of the first faculties to +succumb to the blighting influence of an ultra-legal conception of +life. As an example of the unwavering seriousness of the Pharisee in +the presence of what was intrinsically ridiculous, let us<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_121" id="P_121">[121]</a></span> take his +attitude towards the problem of keeping food warm for the Sabbath +day. "According to Exodus xvi. 23, it was forbidden to bake and to +boil on the Sabbath. Hence the food, which it was desired to eat hot +on the Sabbath, was to be prepared before its commencement, and kept +warm by artificial means. In doing this, however, care must be taken +that the existing heat was not increased, which would have been +'boiling.' Hence the food must be put only into such substances as +would maintain its heat, not into such as might possibly increase it. +'Food to be kept warm for the Sabbath must not be put into oil-dregs, +manure, salt, chalk, or sand, whether moist or dry, nor into straw, +grape-skins, flock, or vegetables, if these are damp, though it may +if they are dry. It may, however, be put into clothes, amidst fruits, +pigeons' feathers, and flax tow. R. Jehudah declares flax tow +unallowable and permits only coarse tow.'"<a name="FNa10" id="FNa10"></a><a href="#Footnote10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Following his rule +out, step by step, with unflinching loyalty, into these ridiculous +consequences, the Pharisee had entirely lost the power of seeing that +they were ridiculous, and was well content to believe, with Jehudah, +that the difference between keeping food warm in coarse tow and in +flax tow was the difference between life and death. This <i>reductio +ad absurdum</i> of legalism is exactly paralleled, in many of our +elementary schools, in the answers to arithmetical questions given by +the children. The "Fifth Standard" boys who told their inspector, as +an answer to an easy problem, that a given room was five shillings +and sixpence<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_122" id="P_122">[122]</a></span> wide, had followed out their rule—they had +unfortunately got hold of a wrong rule—step by step, till it led +them to a conclusion, the intrinsic absurdity of which they were one +and all unable to see.<a name="FNa11" id="FNa11"></a><a href="#Footnote11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> There are many elementary schools in +England in which a majority of the answers given to quite easy +problems would certainly be wrong, and a respectable minority of them +ludicrously wrong. Nor is this to be wondered at; for though the +types of problems that can be set in elementary schools are not +numerous, to provide his pupils with the by-rules which shall enable +them in all, or even in most cases, to determine which of the +recognised rules are appropriate to the given situation, passes the +wit of the teacher. But if the helplessness of so many elementary +scholars in the face of an arithmetical problem is lamentable, still +more lamentable is the fact that the scholar is seldom met with who, +having given an entirely wrong answer to an easy problem, is able to +see for himself that, whatever the right answer may be, the answer +given is and must be wrong. So fatal to the development of the +arithmetical sense is the current worship of the rule for its own +sake, and so deadly a narcotic is the conventional arithmetic lesson +to all who take part in it!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_123" id="P_123">[123]</a></span> It is not in the arithmetic lesson, then, that provision is +ordinarily made for the development of a sense, or perceptive +faculty, through the medium of self-expression on the part of the +child. On the contrary, the very <i>raison d'ętre</i> of the arithmetic +lesson, as it is still given in many schools, is to destroy the +arithmetical sense, and make the child an inefficient calculating +machine, which, even when working, is too often inaccurate and +clumsy, and which the slightest change of environment throws at +once and completely out of gear.</p> + +<p>After the arithmetical lesson come, as a rule, lessons in "<i>Reading</i>" +and "<i>Writing</i>"—in reading in some classes, in writing in others. +The first thing that strikes the visitor who enters an ordinary +elementary school while a reading lesson is in progress, is that the +children are not reading at all, in the accepted sense of the word. +They are not reading to themselves, not studying, not mastering the +contents of the book, not assimilating the mental and spiritual +nutriment that it may be supposed to contain. They are standing up, +one by one, even in the highest class of all, and reading aloud to +their teacher.</p> + +<p>Why are they doing this? Is it in order that their teacher may show +them how to master the more difficult words in their reading lesson? +This may be the reason, in some schools; but there are others, +perhaps a majority, in which the teacher tells his pupils the words +that puzzle them instead of helping them to make them out for +themselves. Besides, if reading were properly taught in the lower +classes, the children in the upper classes<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_124" id="P_124">[124]</a></span> would surely be able to +master unaided the difficulties that might confront them.</p> + +<p>Or is it in order that elocution may be cultivated? But elocution is +seldom, if ever, cultivated in the ordinary elementary school, the +veriest mumbling on the part of the child being accepted by his +teacher (who follows him with an open book in his hand), provided +that he can read correctly and with some attempt at "phrasing." +Indeed, the indistinct utterance of so many school children may be +attributed to the fact that they have read aloud to their teachers +for many years, and that during the whole of that time a very low +standard of distinctness has been accepted as satisfactory.</p> + +<p>Or is it in order that the teacher may help his pupils to understand +what they are reading? This may be one of his reasons for hearing +them read aloud; but so far as the higher classes are concerned it is +a bad reason, for the older the child the more imperative is it that +he should try to make out for himself the meaning of what he reads; +and the teacher who spoon-feeds his pupils during the reading lesson +is doing his best to make them incapable of digesting the contents of +books for themselves.</p> + +<p>No, there are two chief reasons why the teacher makes children of +eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen years of age read aloud to him +as if they were children of six or seven. The first reason is that +the unemancipated teacher instinctively does to-day what he did +twenty years ago, and that twenty years ago, when children were +examined in reading from their own books, the teacher heard them read +aloud, day after day in order that he might make sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_125" id="P_125">[125]</a></span> that they knew +their books well enough to pass the inspector's test. The second +reason, which is wider than the first, and may be said to include and +account for it, is that the reading-aloud lesson fits in with the +whole system of Western education, being the outcome and expression +of that complete distrust of the child which is, and always has been, +characteristic of the popular religion and philosophy of the West. If +you ask the teacher why the children, even in the highest classes, +are never allowed to work at such subjects as history and geography +by themselves, he will tell you frankly that he cannot trust them to +do so, that they do not know how to use a book. And he cannot see +that in giving this excuse he is condemning himself, and making open +confession of the worthlessness of the training that he has given to +his pupils.</p> + +<p>Whatever else the reading-aloud lesson may be, it is a dismal waste +of time. Child after child stands up, reads for a minute or so, and +then sits down, remaining idle and inert (except when an occasional +question is addressed to him) for the rest of the time occupied +by the so-called lesson. In this, as in most oral lessons, the +elementary school child passes much of his time in a state which is +neither activity nor rest,—a state of enforced inertness combined +with unnatural and unceasing strain. Activity is good for the child, +and rest, which, is the complement of activity, is good for the +child; but the combination of inertness with strain is good for +neither his body nor his mind. Indeed, it may be doubted if there is +any state of mind and body which is so uneducational as this, or so +unfavourable to healthy growth.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_126" id="P_126">[126]</a></span> But the main objection to the reading-aloud lesson is, I repeat, that +while it is going on the children are not reading at all, in the +proper sense of the word, not attacking the book, not enjoying it, +not extracting the honey from it. And the consequences of the +inability to read which is thus engendered are far-reaching and +disastrous. The power to read is a key which unlocks many doors. One +of the most important of these doors—perhaps, from the strictly +scholastic point of view, <i>the</i> most important—is the door of study. +The child who cannot read to himself cannot study a book, cannot +master its contents. It is because the elementary school child cannot +be trusted to do any independent study, that the oral lesson, or +lecture, with its futile expenditure of "chalk and talk," is so +prominent a feature in the work of the elementary school. And it is +because the oral lesson necessarily counts for so much, that the +over-grouping of classes, with all its attendant evils, is so widely +practised. The grouping together of "Standards" V, VI, and VII, with +the result that the children who go through all those Standards are +compelled to waste the last two years of their school life, is a +practice which is almost universal in elementary schools of a certain +size. And there are few schools of that size in which those Standards +could not be broken up into two, if not three, independent classes, +if the children, whose ages range as a rule between eleven and +fourteen, could be trusted to work by themselves. In many cases this +over-grouping is wholly inexcusable, the headmaster having no class +of his own to teach, and being therefore free to do what obviously +ought to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_127" id="P_127">[127]</a></span> done,—to separate the older and more advanced children +from the rest of the top class, and form them into a separate class +(a real top class) for independent study and self-education under his +direction and supervision. But so strong is the force of habit, and +so deeply rooted in the mind of the teacher is distrust of the child, +that it is rare to find the head teacher to whom the idea of breaking +up an over-grouped top class has suggested itself as practicable, or +even as intrinsically desirable.</p> + +<p>We owe it, then, to the reading-aloud fetich that in many of our +schools the children are compelled to spend the last two (or even +three) years of their school life—the most important years of all +from the point of view of their preparation for the battle of +life—in marking time, in staying where they were. It is to those +years of enforced stagnation that the reluctance of the ex-elementary +scholar to go on with his education is largely due; for no one can +keep on moving who is not already on the move, and the desire to +continue education is scarcely to be looked for in one who has been +given to understand that his education has come to an end. But there +is another and a shorter cut from the conventional reading lesson to +the early extinction of the child's educational career. The child who +leaves school without having learned how to use a book, will find +that the one door through which access is gained to most of the halls +of learning—the door of independent study—is for ever slammed in +his face. Not that he will seriously try to open it; for with the +ability to read the desire to read will have aborted. The distrust of +the child, on which Western education is based, is a bottomless gulf<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_128" id="P_128">[128]</a></span> +in which educational effort, whatever form it may take or in whatever +quarter it may originate, is for the most part swallowed up and made +as though it had not been. The child who leaves school at the age of +fourteen will have attended some 2,000 or 3,000 reading lessons in +the course of his school life. From these, in far too many cases, he +will have carried nothing away but the ability to stumble with +tolerable correctness through printed matter of moderate difficulty. +He will not have carried away from them either the power or the +desire to read.</p> + +<p>In the days of percentages, instruction in <i>"Writing"</i> below Standard +V was entirely confined to handwriting and spelling; and even in the +higher Standards the teacher thought more about handwriting and +spelling than any other aspect of this composite subject. Now +handwriting and spelling are merely means to an end,—the end of +making clear to the reader the words that have been committed to +paper by the writer. But it is the choice rather than the setting +out of words that really matters, and the name that we give to the +choosing of words is Composition. The excessive regard that has +always been paid in our elementary schools to neat handwriting and +correct spelling is characteristic of the whole Western attitude +towards education. No "results" are more easily or more accurately +appraised than these, and it follows that no "results" are more +highly esteemed by the unenlightened teacher. For wherever the +outward standard of reality has established itself at the expense of +the inward, the ease with which worth<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_129" id="P_129">[129]</a></span> (or what passes for such) can +be measured is ever tending to become in itself the chief, if not the +sole, measure of worth. And in proportion as we tend to value the +results of education for their measureableness, so we tend to +undervalue and at last to ignore those results which are too +intrinsically valuable to be measured.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Hence the neglect of Composition in so many elementary schools. I +mean by composition the sincere expression in language of the child's +genuine thoughts and feelings. The effort to "compose," whether +orally or on paper, is one of the most educational of all efforts; +for language is at once the most readily available and the most +subtle and sympathetic of all media of expression; and the effort +to express himself in it tends, in proportion as it is sincere +and strong, to give breadth, depth, and complexity to the child's +thoughts and feelings, and through the development of these to weave +his experiences into the tissue of his life. But sincerity of +expression is not easily measured, and the true value of the thoughts +and feelings that are struggling to express themselves in a child's +composition is beyond the reach of any rule or scale; whereas +neatness of handwriting and correctness of spelling are, as we have +seen, features which appeal even to the carelessly observant eye.</p> + +<p>Knowing this, the teacher takes care that the exercise-books of his +pupils shall be filled with neat and accurate composition exercises, +and that some of the neatest and most accurate of these shall be +exhibited on the walls of his school. The visitor whose eye ranges +over these exercises and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_130" id="P_130">[130]</a></span> goes no further may be excused if he forms +a highly favourable opinion of the school which can produce such +seemingly excellent work. But let him spend a morning in the school, +and see how these "results" have been produced. He will probably +change his mind as to their value. The teaching of composition in +the ordinary elementary school is too often fraudulent and futile. +Indeed, there is no lesson in which the teacher's traditional +distrust of the child goes further than in this. In the lower classes +the child is taught how to construct simple sentences (as if he +had never made one in the previous course of his life), and he is +not trusted to do more than this. He listens to a so-called object +lesson, and when it is over he is told to write a few simple +sentences about the Cow or the Horse, or whatever the subject of the +lesson may have been; and lest his memory (the only faculty which he +is allowed to exercise) should fail him, the chief landmarks of the +lesson are placed before him on the blackboard. This string of simple +sentences reproduced from memory passes muster as composition. And +yet that child began to practise oral composition at the age of +eighteen months, and at the age of three was able to use complex +sentences with freedom and skill. In the upper classes the +composition is too often as mechanical, as unreal, and as insincere +as in the lower. Sometimes a given subject is worked out by the +teacher with the class, the children, one by one, suggesting +sentences, which are shaped and corrected by the teacher and then +written up on the blackboard, until there are enough of them to fill +one page of an ordinary exercise book. Then the whole essay<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_131" id="P_131">[131]</a></span> (if one +must dignify it with that name) is copied out, very neatly and +carefully, by every child in the class; and the result is shown to +the inspector as original composition. At other times or in other +schools the class teacher does not go quite so far as this. He +contents himself with talking the subject over with the class, and +then writing a series of headings<a name="FNa12" id="FNa12"></a><a href="#Footnote12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> on the blackboard. Or, again, +trusting to the child's red-hot memory, he will allow him to write +out what he remembers of an object-lesson, or a history lesson, or +whatever it may be. Composition exercises which are the genuine +expression of genuine perception, which have behind them what the +child has experienced, what he has felt or thought, what he has read, +what he has studied, are the exception rather than the rule; for +in such exercises there would probably be faults of spelling, +faults of grammar, colloquialisms, careless writing (due to the +child's eagerness), and so forth; and the work would therefore be +unsatisfactory from the showman's point of view. The child's natural +capacity for expressing himself in language is systematically starved +in order that<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_132" id="P_132">[132]</a></span> outward and visible results, results which will win +approval from those who judge according to the appearance of things, +may be duly produced.</p> + +<p>The case of oral composition in the unemancipated elementary school +is even more hopeless than that of written composition. The latter +has a time set apart for it on the time-table, and is at any rate +supposed to be taught. The former is wholly ignored. Many teachers +seem to have entirely forgotten that the desire and the ability to +talk are part of the normal equipment of every healthy child. There +was, indeed, a time when children were taught to answer questions +in complete sentences even when one-word answers would have amply +sufficed. For example, when a child was asked how many pence there +were in a shilling, he was expected to answer, "There are twelve +pence in a shilling"; when he was asked what was the colour of snow, +he was expected to answer, "The colour of snow is white "; and so on. +And both he and his teacher flattered themselves that this waste of +words was oral composition! In point of fact the sentence in each of +these cases was worth no more, as an effort of self-expression, than +its one important word—<i>twelve, white</i>, or whatever it might be; +and the child, who was allowed to think that he had produced a real +sentence, had in effect done no more than envelop one real word in a +hollow formula. There are still many schools in which this ridiculous +practice lingers, and in which it constitutes the only attempt at +oral composition that the child is allowed to make. Where it has died +out the idea of teaching oral composition has too often died with it. +Young children are, as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_133" id="P_133">[133]</a></span> rule, voluble talkers, with a considerable +command of language. But it not infrequently happens that at the +close of his school life the once talkative child has lapsed into a +state of sullen taciturnity. In common with other vital faculties, +his power of expressing himself in speech has withered in the +repressive atmosphere to which he has so long been exposed.</p> + +<p>It is in the oral lesson that one would expect oral composition to +be taught or at any rate practised. In such subjects as <i>History, +Geography, English, Elementary Science,</i> the teaching in most +elementary schools is mainly, if not wholly, oral. In the days of +payment by results separate and variable grants were given for these +subjects; and which, if either, of two grants should be recommended +depended in each case on the result of an oral examination conducted +by H.M. Inspector, the employment of a written test in any class +being strictly forbidden by "My Lords." In this examination proof +of the possession of information was all that the inspector could +demand; and the quickest and easiest way of obtaining such proof +was to ask the class questions which could be briefly answered by +the children individually. Questions which were designed to test +intelligence might, of course, have been asked, and in some districts +were freely asked; but to have reduced the grant because the children +failed to answer these would have provoked an outcry; while, had the +inspector asked questions which demanded long answers, he would, in +the limited time at his command, have given but few children the +chance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_134" id="P_134">[134]</a></span> showing that they had been duly prepared for the +examination. The consequence was that the oral lesson on a "class +subject" usually took the form of stuffing the children with pellets +of appropriate information, some of which they would, in all +probability, have the opportunity of disgorging when they were +questioned by the inspector on the yearly "parade day."</p> + +<p>Not only, then, did the official examination in history, geography +and elementary science direct the teaching of these subjects into +channels in which the golden opportunities that they offer for the +practice of written composition were perforce thrown away, but also +the examination was so framed that even the practice of oral +composition, in preparation for it, was actively discouraged. And the +neglect of composition acted disastrously on the teaching of the +subjects in question; for wherever self-expression on the part of the +child is forbidden, the appropriate "sense," or perceptive faculty, +cannot possibly evolve itself,—perception and expression being, as +we have elsewhere seen, the very life and soul of each other; and in +the absence (to take pertinent examples) of the historical or the +geographical sense, the possession of historical or geographical +information cannot possibly be converted into knowledge of history +or geography. The prompt, accurate, and general answering which was +rewarded by the award of the higher grants for "class subjects" was, +in nine cases out of ten, the outcome of assiduous and unintelligent +cram,—a mode of preparation for which the policy of the Education +Department was mainly responsible.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_135" id="P_135">[135]</a></span> But when separate grants ceased to be paid for class subjects, were +not the teachers free to teach them by rational methods? No doubt +they were—in theory. In point of fact they were in bondage to the +strongest of all constraining influences,—the force of inveterate +habit. For twenty years they had taught the class subjects by the one +safe method of vigorous oral cram. This method had answered their +purpose, and it was but natural that they should continue to teach by +it. What happened, when separate grants ceased to be paid, was that +the need for responsiveness on the part of the scholar gradually +lessened. The pellets of information were still imparted, but it +became less and less incumbent upon the teacher to see that his +pupils were ready to disgorge them at a moment's notice. And so the +cramming lesson gradually transformed itself into a <i>lecture</i>, in +which the teacher did all or nearly all the talking, while the +children sat still and listened or pretended to listen, an occasional +yawn giving open proof of the boredom from which most of them were +suffering.</p> + +<p>That is the type of oral lesson which is most common at the present +day. "Results" in history, geography, nature study and English are +seldom asked for by the inspector; and the teacher takes but little +trouble to produce them. But his distrust of the child is as firmly +rooted as ever, and his unwillingness to allow the child to work by +or for himself is as strong as it ever was. The consequence is that +there are many schools in which the teacher now does everything +during the oral lesson, while the child does as nearly as possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_136" id="P_136">[136]</a></span> +nothing. Formerly the child was at any rate allowed (or rather +required) to be actively receptive. Now he is seldom allowed to do +anything more active than to yawn. And all the time he is secretly +longing to energise—to do something with himself—to use his mental, +if not his physical faculties—to work, if not to play. One might +have thought that in the history and geography lessons, if in no +other, "Standards VI" and "VII" (where the numbers were too small +to admit of these standards having a teacher to themselves) would +be separated from "Standard V," and allowed to work out their own +salvation by studying suitable text-books under proper supervision +and guidance. But no; the force of habit is too strong for the +machine-made teacher. Twenty years ago history and geography were +"class subjects," and as such were taught orally to whole classes of +children. And they must still be taught as "class subjects," even +if this should involve the "Sixth" and "Seventh Standards" being +brigaded with, and kept down for one or even two years to, the level +of the "Fifth,"—kept down, it would seem, for no other purpose than +that of being the passive recipients of the teacher's windy "talk," +and the helpless witnesses of his futile "chalk," and of having their +own activities paralysed and their own powers of expression starved +into inanition.</p> + +<p>I will deal with one more "secular" subject before I bring this +sketch to a close. There are still many schools in which the hours +that are set apart for <i>Drawing</i> are devoted in large measure to the +slavish reproduction of flat copies. A picture<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_137" id="P_137">[137]</a></span> of some familiar +object—outlined, shaded, or tinted as the case may be, and not +infrequently highly conventionalised—hangs in front of the class; +and the children copy it, stroke by stroke, and curve by curve, and +put in the shading and lay on washes of colour. As long practice at +work of this kind develops a certain degree of manual dexterity, and +as the free use of india-rubber is permitted and even encouraged, the +child's finished work may be so neat and accurate as to become worthy +of a place on the school wall. But what is the value, what is the +meaning of work of this kind? When such a drawing lesson as I have +described is in progress, the divorce between perception and +expression is complete. And as each of these master faculties is the +very life and soul of the other, their complete divorce from one +another involves the complete eclipse of each. The child who copies +a flat copy does not perceive anything except some other person's +reproduction of a scene or object; and even this he does not +necessarily grasp as a whole, his business being to reproduce it with +flawless accuracy, line by line. Indeed, it may well happen that he +does not even know what the picture or diagram before him is intended +to represent. Nor is he expressing anything, for he has not made his +model in any sense or degree his own. Thus, during the whole of a +lesson in which the perceptive and expressive faculties are supposed +to be receiving a special training, they are lying dormant and inert. +Each of them is, for the time being, as good as dead. And each of +them will assuredly die if this kind of teaching goes on for very +long, die for lack of exercise, die wasted and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_138" id="P_138">[138]</a></span> atrophied by disuse. +The extent to which the copying of copies can injure a child's power +of observation exceeds belief. I have seen a bowl placed high above +the line of sight of a class of fifty senior boys, each one of whom +(his memory being haunted, I suppose, by some diagram which he had +once copied) drew it as if he were looking into it from above. Not +one of those boys could see the bowl as it really was, or rather +as it really was to be seen. A child who had never drawn a stroke +in his life, but whose perceptive faculties had not been deadened +by education, would have sketched the bowl more correctly than +any of those quasi-experts. And with the wasting of the power of +observation, the executive power is gradually lost; for perception +is ever interpenetrating, reinforcing, and stimulating expression; +and when the eye is blind, the hand, however skilful its mere +manipulation may be, necessarily falters and loses its cunning.</p> + +<p>Four or five years ago, had one entered an elementary school while +drawing was being taught, such a lesson as I have just described +would have been in progress in ninety-nine cases out of every +hundred. Since then a systematic warfare has been waged by the Board +against the "flat copy"; and though it is still very far from +extinct, there is now perhaps an actual majority of schools in which +its use has been discontinued. But the number of schools in which +drawing from the object is effectively taught, though increasing +steadily, is still small. In those schools, indeed, the results are +surprisingly good,—so good as to justify, not only the new gospel of +drawing from the object, but also the whole gospel of education +through self-reliance<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_139" id="P_139">[139]</a></span> and self-expression. But elsewhere there has +been but little improvement, except so far as it may be better to +draw from an object without guidance, or with quite ineffective +guidance, than to draw from a flat copy. In some schools the formula +or "tip" is beginning to take the place of the flat copy. There is a +formula for the tulip, a formula for the snowdrop, a formula for the +daffodil, and so on; and the children draw from these formulć while +the actual flowers are before them and they are making believe to +reproduce them. In other schools an object is placed before the +class, and the teacher draws this for them on the blackboard, +explaining to them in detail how it ought to be drawn; and when he +has finished, the children pretend to draw the object, but really +copy his blackboard copy of it. In this, as in other matters, the +teacher who has become a victim of routine will give a facile but +mainly "notional" assent to the suggestions that are placed before +him, will promise to try them, and will make an unintelligent and +half-hearted attempt to do so, but will as often as not slide back +into practices which do not materially differ from those which he +professes to have abandoned. The pressure of the whole system of +Western education—not to speak of Western civilisation—will be too +strong for him. The flat copy, with its demand for mechanical work +and servile obedience, fits into that system. Drawing from the +object, with its demand for initiative and self-reliance, does not. +Hence the attractive force of the former,—a secret attractive force +which will neutralise the efforts that the teacher consciously makes +to free himself from its influence, and will arm him, as with +a hidden shirt of mail, against<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_140" id="P_140">[140]</a></span> the missionary zeal of his +inspector.<a name="FNa13" id="FNa13"></a><a href="#Footnote13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Even the zeal of the inspector will be affected by his +possible inability to harmonise his gospel of self-expression in +drawing with any general system of self-education. It is because the +educational reformer is fighting, in his sporadic attempts at reform, +against his own deepest conviction, that he achieves so little even +in the particular directions in which he sees clearly that reform is +needed.</p> + +<p>But how, it will be asked, is such a school as I have described to be +kept going? The whole <i>régime</i> must be eminently distasteful to the +healthy child, and it can scarcely be attractive to his teacher. By +what motive force, then, is the school to be kept in motion,—in +motion, if not along the path of progress, at any rate along the +well-worn track of routine? By the only motive force which +the religion and the civilisation of the West recognise as +effective,—the hope of external reward, with its complement, the +fear of external punishment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_141" id="P_141">[141]</a></span> From highest to lowest, from the head +teacher of the school to the youngest child in the bottom class, all +the teachers and all the children are subjected to the pressure of +this quasi-physical force. The teachers hope for advancement and +increase of salary, and fear degradation and loss of salary, or at +any rate loss of the hoped-for increment.<a name="FNa14" id="FNa14"></a><a href="#Footnote14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The children hope for +medals, books, high places in their respective classes, and other +rewards and distinctions, and fear corporal and other kinds of +punishment. The thoroughly efficient school is one in which this +motive force is duly transmitted to every part of the school +by means of a well-planned and carefully-elaborated machinery, +analogous to that by which water and gas are laid on at every +tap in every house in a well-governed town. Only those who are +intimately acquainted with the inside of the elementary school can +realise to what an extent the machinery of education has in recent +years encroached upon the vital interests of the school and the time +and thought of the teacher. In schools which are administered by +business-like and up-to-date Local Authorities, this encroachment is +becoming as serious as that of drifting sands on a fertile soil. +Time-tables, schemes of work, syllabuses, record books, progress +books, examination result books, and the rest,—hours and hours are +spent by the teachers on the clerical work which these mechanical +contrivances demand. And the hours so spent are too often wholly +wasted. The worst<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_142" id="P_142">[142]</a></span> of this machinery is that, so long as it works +smoothly, all who are interested in the school are satisfied. But +it may all work with perfect smoothness, and yet achieve nothing +that really counts. I know of hundreds of schools which are to all +appearance thoroughly efficient,—schools in which the machinery of +education is as well contrived as it is well oiled and cleaned,—and +yet in which there is no vital movement, no growth, no life. From +highest to lowest, all the inmates of those schools are cheating +themselves with forms, figures, marks, and other such empty symbols.</p> + +<p>The application of the conventional motive force to the school +children goes by the name of <i>Discipline</i>. If the pressure at each +tap is steady, constant, and otherwise effective, the discipline is +good. If it is variable, intermittent, and otherwise ineffective, +the discipline is bad. The life of the routine-ridden school is so +irksome to the child, that if he is healthy and vigorous he will long +to find a congenial outlet for his vital energies, which are as a +rule either pent back (as when he sits still listening to a lecture), +or forced into uninteresting and unprofitable channels. When this +desire masters him during school hours, it goes by the name of +"naughtiness," and is regarded as a proof of the inborn sinfulness +of his "fallen" nature. To repress the desire, to keep the child in +a state either of absolute inaction or of mechanically regulated +activity, is the function of school discipline. Whatever in the +child's life is free, natural, spontaneous, wells up from an evil +source. If educational progress is to be made, that source must be +carefully sealed. As an educator, the teacher must<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_143" id="P_143">[143]</a></span> do his best +to reduce the child to the level of a wire-pulled puppet. As a +disciplinarian, he must overcome the child's instinctive repugnance +to being subjected to such unworthy treatment. The better the +"discipline" of the school, the easier it will be for the mechanical +education given in it to achieve its deadly work.</p> + +<p>In making this sketch of what is still a common type of elementary +school, my object has been to provide myself with materials for +answering the question: Does elementary education, as at present +conducted in this country, tend to foster the growth of the child's +faculties? If my sketch is even approximately faithful to its +original, the answer to the question, so far at least as thousands of +schools are concerned, must be an emphatic No. For in the school, as +I have sketched it, the one end and aim of the teacher is to prevent +the child from doing anything whatever for himself; and where +independent effort is prohibited, the growth of faculty must needs be +arrested, the growth of every faculty, as of every limb and organ, +being dependent in large measure on its being duly and suitably +exercised by its owner. If this statement is true of faculty as such, +and of effort as such, still more is it true of the particular +faculties which school life is supposed to train, the faculties which +we speak of loosely as perceptive,—and of the particular effort by +which alone the growth of the perceptive faculties is effected, the +many-sided effort which we speak of loosely as self-expression. Far +perception and expression are, as I have endeavoured to prove, the +face and obverse of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_144" id="P_144">[144]</a></span> same vital process; and the educational +policy which makes self-expression, or, in other words, sincere +expression, impossible, is therefore fatal to the outgrowth of the +whole range of the perceptive faculties.</p> + +<p>The education given in thousands of our elementary schools is, then, +in the highest degree anti-educational. The end which education +ought to aim at achieving is the very end which the teacher labours +unceasingly to defeat. The teacher may, indeed, contend that his +business is not to evoke faculty but to impart knowledge. The answer +to this argument is that the type of education which impedes the +outgrowth of faculty is necessarily fatal to the acquisition of +knowledge. For the teacher can no more impart knowledge to his pupils +than a nurse can impart flesh and blood to her charges. What the +teacher imparts is information, just as what the nurse imparts is +food; and until information has been converted into knowledge the +child is as far from being educated as the infant, whose food +remains unassimilated, is from being nourished. The teacher may pump +information into the child in a never-ending stream; but so long as +he compels the child to adopt an attitude of passive receptivity, and +forbids him to react, through the medium of self-expression, on the +food that he is receiving, so long will the food remain unassimilated +and even undigested, and the soul and mind of the child remain +uneducated and unfed.</p> + +<p>Whether, then, we concern ourselves, as educationalists, with the +growth of the child's whole nature, or with the growth of his master +faculties, or again with the growth of those special "senses" +which evolve themselves in response to the stimulus<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_145" id="P_145">[145]</a></span> of special +environments, we see that in each case the effect of the teacher's +policy of distrust and repression is to arrest growth. When the +stern supernaturalist reminds us that the child's nature is +intrinsically evil, and that therefore in arresting its growth +education renders him a priceless service, we answer that, in +arresting the growth of the child's nature as a whole, education +arrests the growth of all the master faculties of his being, and +that there are some at least among these which, even in the judgment +of the supernaturalist, imperatively need to be trained. When the +strait-laced, result-hunting teacher reminds us that his sole +business is to teach certain subjects, and that therefore he cannot +concern himself with growth, we answer that, in neglecting to foster +growth, he makes it impossible for the child to put forth a special +"sense," a special faculty of direct perception, in response to each +new environment, and so (for reasons which have already been given) +incapacitates him for mastering any subject. There is always one +point of view, if no more, from which my primary assumption—that +the function of education is to foster growth—is seen to be a +truism. And from that point of view, if from no other, the failure +of the routine-ridden school to fulfil its destiny is seen to be +final and complete.</p> + +<p>Yet to say that elementary education, as it is given in such a +school, tends to arrest growth, is to under-estimate its capacity for +mischief. In the act of arresting growth it must needs distort +growth, and in doing this it must needs deaden and even destroy the +life which is ever struggling to evolve itself. It is well that from +time to time we should ask ourselves what compulsory education<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_146" id="P_146">[146]</a></span> has +done for the people of England. How much it has done to civilise +and humanise the masses is beginning to be known to all who are +interested in social progress, and I for one am ready to second any +vote of thanks that may be proposed to it for this invaluable +service.<a name="FNa15" id="FNa15"></a><a href="#Footnote15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> But when we ask ourselves what it has done to <i>vitalise</i> +the nation, we may well hesitate for an answer. Twenty years ago, in +the days of "schedules" and "percentages," elementary education was, +on balance, an actively devitalising agency. The policy of the +Education Department made that inevitable. But things have changed +since then; and it is probable that the balance is now in favour of +the elementary school. But the balance, though growing from year to +year, is as yet very small compared with what it will be when the +teacher, relieved from the pressure of the still prevailing demand +for "results," is free to take thought for the vital interests of the +child.</p> + +<p>Whom shall we blame for the shortcomings of our elementary schools? +The Board of Education? Their Inspectors? The Teachers? The Training +Colleges? The Local Authorities? We will blame none of these. We will +blame the spirit of Western civilisation, with its false philosophy +of life and its false standard of reality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_147" id="P_147">[147]</a></span> Shall we blame the Board because, in the days when they called +themselves the Department, they made the teachers of England the +serfs of their soul-destroying Code? For my own part I prefer to +honour the Board, not only because on a certain day they liberated +their serfs by a departmental edict, but also and more especially +because, in defiance of the protests and criticisms of Members of +Parliament, employers of labour, Chairmen of Education Committees, +and others, in defiance of the ubiquitous pressure of Western +externalism and materialism, in defiance of the trend of contemporary +opinion, in defiance of their own practice,—for they themselves are +an examining body whose nets are widely spread,—they refuse to +revoke the gift of freedom, which they gave, perhaps over-hastily, to +the teachers of England, and continue to exempt them, so far as their +own action is concerned, from the pressure of a formal examination on +a uniform scheme of work.</p> + +<p>Shall we blame the teachers as a body because too many of them are +machine-made creatures of routine? For my own part I honour the +teachers as a body, if only because here and there one of them has +dared, with splendid courage, to defy the despotism of custom, of +tradition, of officialdom, of the thousand deadening influences that +are brought to bear upon him, and to follow for himself the path of +inwardness and life. To blame the average teacher for being unable to +resist the pressure to which he is unceasingly exposed would be +almost as unfair as to blame a pebble on the seashore for being +unable to resist the grinding action of the waves, and would ill +become one who has<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_148" id="P_148">[148]</a></span> special reason to remember how the Department, in +its misguided zeal for efficiency, strove for thirty years or more +to grind the teachers of England to one pattern in the mill of +"payment by results." It is to a certificated teacher that, as an +educationalist (if I may give myself so formidable a title), "I owe +my soul." And there are many other teachers to whom my debts, though +less weighty than this, are by no means light. Most of the failings +of the elementary teachers are wounds and strains which adverse Fate +has inflicted on them. Most of their virtues are their own.</p> + +<p>Shall we blame the Training Colleges because, with an unhappy past +behind them, they have yet many things to unlearn?</p> + +<p>Shall we blame the local Education Authorities because, with an +unknown future before them, they have yet many things to learn?</p> + +<p>No, I repeat, we will blame none of these. We will lay the blame on +broader shoulders. We will blame our materialistic philosophy of +life, which we complacently regard—orthodox and heretics alike—as +"<i>The</i> truth"; and we will blame our materialised civilisation, which +we complacently regard—cultured and uncultured alike—as +civilisation, pure and simple, whatever lies beyond its confines +being lightly dismissed as "barbarism." These are the forces against +which every teacher, every manager, every inspector, who strives for +emancipation and enlightenment, has to fight unceasingly. If the +fight is an unequal one; if there are many would-be reformers who +have shrunk from it; if there are others who retired from it early in +the day; if there are others, again, who have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_149" id="P_149">[149]</a></span> crushed in +it;—we will blame the forces of darkness for these disasters; we +will not blame their victims. On the contrary, we will honour all who +have fought and fallen; for when the cause is large and worthy of +devotion, failure in the service of it is only less triumphant than +success. But if there is honour for failure what shall be the guerdon +of success? What tribute shall we pay to those who have fought and +won?</p> + +<p>For there are some who have fought and won.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote6" id="Footnote6" href="#FNa6" class="label">[6]</a> It must be clearly understood that throughout this +chapter the school that I have in mind is one for "older children" +only. Whatever may be the defects of the elementary infant schools, +an excessive regard for outward and visible results is not one of +them. Exemption from the pressure of a formal external examination +has meant much more to them than to the schools for older children; +and the atmosphere of the good infant schools is, in consequence, +freer, happier, more recreative, and more truly educative than that +of the upper schools of equivalent merit. And when we compare grade +with grade, we find that the superiority of the elementary infant +schools is still more pronounced. The "Great Public Schools," and the +costly preparatory schools that lead up to them, may or may not be +worthy of their high reputation; but as regards facilities for the +education (in school) of their "infants," the "classes" are +unquestionably much less fortunate than the "masses."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote7" id="Footnote7" href="#FNa7" class="label">[7]</a> Not long ago I happened to enter the Boys' Department of +an urban Church School at about 9.15 a.m. The Headmaster was sitting +at his desk, drawing up schemes of "secular" work. All the boys above +"Standard III"—94 in number—were grouped together, listening, or +pretending to listen, to a "chalk-and-talk" lecture on "Prayer" [of +which there are apparently five varieties, viz., (1) Invocation, (2) +Deprecation, (3) Obsecration, (4) Intercession, (5) Supplication]. +The Headmaster explained to me that "of course it was only during the +Scripture lesson" that this overgrouping went on. The lecture on +Prayer was given by a young Assistant-master, whose naive delight in +the long words that he rolled out <i>ore rotundo</i> and then chalked up +on the blackboard, had blinded him to the obvious fact that he was +making no impression whatever on his audience. The boys, one and all, +reminded me forcibly of the "white-headed boy" in Dickens' village +school, who displayed "in the expression of his face a remarkable +capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which +his eyes were fixed."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote8" id="Footnote8" href="#FNa8" class="label">[8]</a> There are many elementary schools which the Diocesan +Inspector does not enter. In the "Provided" or "Council" Schools +"undenominational Bible teaching" takes the place of the "definite +dogmatic instruction in religious knowledge" which is tested by +Diocesan Inspection. But even when undogmatic Bible teaching is +given, the shadow of an impending examination, external or internal +as the case may be, too often sterilises the efforts of the teacher. +Not that the efforts of the teacher would in any case be productive +so long as the attitude of popular thought towards the Bible remained +unchanged. To go into this burning question would involve me in an +unjustifiable digression; but I must be allowed to express my +conviction that the teaching of the Bible in our elementary schools +will never be anything but misguided and mischievous until those who +are responsible for it have realised that the Old Testament is the +inspired literature of a particular people, and have ceased to regard +it as the authentic biography of the Eternal God. It is to the +current misconception of the meaning and value of the Bible, and the +consequent misconception of the relation of God to Nature and to Man, +that the externalism of the West, which is the source of all the +graver defects of modern education, is (as I contend) largely due; +and it is useless to try to remedy those defects so long as we allow +our philosophy of life to be perennially poisoned at its highest +springs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote9" id="Footnote9" href="#FNa9" class="label">[9]</a> In far too many cases the teacher received a certain +proportion of the Grant; and in any case his value in the market +tended to vary directly with his ability to secure a large Grant for +his school by his success in the yearly examination.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote10" id="Footnote10" href="#FNa10" class="label">[10]</a> <i>The Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ</i>, by Dr. +Emil Schürer.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote11" id="Footnote11" href="#FNa11" class="label">[11]</a> Here is another example of the mental blindness which +rule-worship in Arithmetic is apt to induce. The boys in a large +"Standard II," who had been spending the whole year in adding, +subtracting, multiplying, and dividing tens of thousands, were given +the following sum: A farmer had 126 sheep. He bought nine. How many +had he then? Out of 50 boys, one only worked the sum correctly. Of +the remaining 49, about a third <i>multiplied</i> 126 by 9, another third +<i>divided</i> 126 by 9, while the remaining third <i>subtracted</i> 9 from +126.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote12" id="Footnote12" href="#FNa12" class="label">[12]</a> Reinforced in many cases by suggestive words. I +recently found myself in an urban school while the "Fourth Standard" +boys were doing "Composition." The subject—Trees—had already been +dealt with in a preparatory "talk." In front of the class was a +blackboard, on which were written the following words:</p> + +<table summary="word list"> +<tr> +<td></td><td class="tdr">"fruit, flowers,</td> + </tr> + <tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td><td><i>Roots</i> tough, strong, stretch, extend.</td> + </tr> + <tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td><td><i>Trunk</i> thick, branches, bark.</td> + </tr> + <tr> +<td class="tdr">III.</td><td><i>Branches</i> strong, tough, leaves.</td> + </tr> + <tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td><td><i>Leaves</i> green, shapes, sizes, beautiful, clothe, autumn, brown."</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>I am told that sometimes as many as twelve headings are given, each +with its own list of suggestive words.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote13" id="Footnote13" href="#FNa13" class="label">[13]</a> I was recently present at a large gathering of teachers +who had assembled to discuss the teaching of Drawing and other +kindred topics. The district is one in which the gospel of self-help +in Drawing has been preached with diligence and with much apparent +success. One of the teachers, who was expected to support the Board +in their crusade against the "flat copy," played the part of Balaam +by reading out letters from certain distinguished R.A.'s, in which +the use of the flat copy in elementary schools was openly advocated. +It was evident that those distinguished R.A.'s knew as much about +elementary education as the man in the street knows about naval +tactics, for the arguments by which they supported their paradoxical +opinions were worth exactly nothing. But the salvos of applause, +renewed again and again, which greeted the extracts from their +letters showed clearly in which direction the current of subconscious +conviction was running in that evangelised and apparently converted +district.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote14" id="Footnote14" href="#FNa14" class="label">[14]</a> There are few teachers who do not also work from higher +motives than these; but there are very few who are exempt from the +pressure of these.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote15" id="Footnote15" href="#FNa15" class="label">[15]</a> It is pleasant to read that at Southend on Easter +Monday (1910) there were 65,000 excursionists and only two cases of +drunkenness. It is also pleasant to hear from an officer who has +served for many years in India that the modern English private +soldier in India is an infinitely superior being to his predecessors, +and that India could not now be held by the old type of British +soldier. We must not, however, forget that the "old type" conquered +India.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_151" id="P_151">[151]</a></div> + +<h2><a name="p2" id="p2">PART II</a></h2> + +<h2>WHAT MIGHT BE<br /> +OR<br /> +THE PATH OF SELF-REALISATION</h2> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_153" id="P_153">[153]</a></div> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h3>A SCHOOL IN UTOPIA</h3> +</div> + +<p>Having painted in gloomy colours some of the actualities of +elementary education, I will now try to set forth its possibilities. +In opposing the actual to the possible, I am perhaps running the risk +of being misunderstood. The possible, as I conceive it, is no mere +"fabric of a dream." What are possibilities for the elementary +school, as such, are already actualities in certain schools. Were it +not so, I should not speak of them as possibilities. I do not pretend +to be a prophet, in the vulgar sense of the word. The ends which I am +about to set before managers and teachers are ends which have been +achieved, and are being achieved, <i>under entirely normal conditions</i>, +in various parts of the country, and which are therefore not +impracticable. There are many elementary schools in England in which +bold and successful departures have been made from the beaten track; +and in each of these cases what is at present a mere possibility for +most schools has been actually realised. And there is one elementary +school at least in which the beaten track has been entirely +abandoned, with the result that possibilities (as I may now call +them) which I might perhaps have dismissed on <i>a priori</i> grounds as +too fantastic for serious consideration, have become part of the +everyday life of the scholars.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_154" id="P_154">[154]</a></span> That school shall now become the theme of my book; for I feel that I +cannot serve the cause of education better than by trying to describe +and interpret the work that is being done in it. The school belongs +to a village which I will call Utopia. It is not an imaginary +village—a village of Nowhere—but a very real village, which can be +reached, as all other villages can, by rail and road. It nestles at +the foot of a long range of hills; and if you will climb the slope +that rises at the back of the village, and look over the level +country that you have left behind, you will see in the distance the +gleaming waters of one of the many seas that wash our shores. The +village is fairly large, as villages go in these days of rural +depopulation; and the school is attended by about 120 children. The +head teacher, whose genius has revolutionised the life, not of the +school only, but of the whole village, is a woman. I will call her +Egeria. She has certainly been my Egeria, in the sense that whatever +modicum of wisdom in matters educational I may happen to possess, I +owe in large measure to her. I have paid her school many visits, and +it has taken me many months of thought to get to what I believe to be +the bed-rock of her philosophy of education,—a philosophy which I +will now attempt to expound.</p> + +<p>Two things will strike the stranger who pays his first visit to this +school. One is the ceaseless activity of the children. The other is +the bright and happy look on every face. In too many elementary +schools the children are engaged either in laboriously doing +nothing,—in listening, for example, with ill-concealed yawns, to +<i>lectures</i> on<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_155" id="P_155">[155]</a></span> history, geography, nature-study, and the rest; or +in doing what is only one degree removed from nothing,—working +mechanical sums, transcribing lists of spellings or pieces of +composition, drawing diagrams which have no meaning for them, and +so forth. But in this school every child is, as a rule, actively +employed. And bearing in mind that "unimpeded energy" is a recognised +source of happiness, the visitor will probably conjecture that there +is a close connection between the activity of the children and the +brightness of their faces.</p> + +<p>That the latter feature of the school will arrest his attention is +almost certain. Utopia belongs to a county which is proverbial for +the dullness of its rustics, but there is no sign of dullness on the +face of any Utopian child. On the contrary, so radiantly bright are +the faces of the children that something akin to sunshine seems +always to fill the school. When he gets to know the school, the +visitor will realise that the brightness of the children is of two +kinds,—the brightness of energy and intelligence, and the brightness +of goodness and joy. And when he gets to know the school as well as I +do, he will realise that these two kinds of brightness are in their +essence one.</p> + +<p>Let me say something about each of them.</p> + +<p>The Utopian child is alive, alert, active, full of latent energy, +ready to act, to do things, to turn his mind to things, to turn his +hand to things, to turn his desire to things, to turn his whole being +to things. There is no trace in this school of the mental lethargy +which, in spite of the ceaseless activity of the teachers, pervades +the atmosphere of so many elementary schools; no trace of the fatal<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_156" id="P_156">[156]</a></span> +inertness on the part of the child, which is the outcome of five or +six years of systematic repression and compulsory inaction. The air +of the school is electrical with energy. We are obviously in the +presence of an active and vigorous life.</p> + +<p>And the activity of the Utopian child is his own activity. It is +a fountain which springs up in himself. Unlike the ordinary +school-child, he can do things on his own account. He does not wait, +in the helplessness of passive obedience, for his teacher to tell him +what he is to do and how he is to do it. He does not even wait, in +the bewilderment of self-distrust, for his teacher to give him a +lead. If a new situation arises, he deals with it with promptitude +and decision. His solution of the problem which it involves may be +incorrect, but at any rate it will be a solution. He will have faced +a difficulty and grappled with it, instead of having waited inertly +for something to turn up. His initiative has evidently been developed +<i>pari passu</i> with his intelligence; and the result of this is that he +can think things out for himself, that he can devise ways and means, +that he can purpose, that he can plan.</p> + +<p>In all these matters the Utopian child differs widely and deeply from +the less fortunate child who has to attend a more ordinary type of +elementary school. But when we turn to the other aspect of the +Utopian brightness, when we consider it as the reflected light of +goodness and joy, we find that the difference between the two +children is wider and deeper still. There are many schools outside +Utopia that pride themselves on the excellence of their discipline; +but I am inclined to think that in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_157" id="P_157">[157]</a></span> at least of these the +self-satisfaction of the teacher is equivalent to a confession of +failure. There was a time when every elementary school received a +large grant for instruction and a small grant for discipline; and +inspectors were supposed to report separately on each of these +aspects of the school's life. A strange misconception of the meaning +and purpose of education underlay this artificial distinction; but on +that we need not dwell. Were an inspector called upon to report on +the discipline of the Utopian school, his report would be brief. +There is no discipline in the school. There is no need for any. The +function of the strict disciplinarian is to shut down, and, if +necessary, sit upon, the safety-valve of misconduct. But in Utopia, +where all the energies of the children are fully and happily +employed, that safety-valve has never to be used. Each child in turn +is so happy in his school life that the idea of being naughty never +enters his head. One cannot remain long in the school without +realising that in its atmosphere</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love is an unerring light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And joy its own security.</span> +</div></div> + +<p>It recently happened that on a certain day one of the +assistant-teachers had to go to a hospital, that another had to take +her there, that the third was ill in bed, and that Egeria—the only +available member of the staff—was detained by one of the managers +for half-an-hour on her way to school. The school was thus left +without a teacher. On entering it, Egeria found all the children in +their places and at work. They had looked at the time-table, had +chosen some of the older scholars to<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_158" id="P_158">[158]</a></span> take the lower classes, and had +settled down happily and in perfect order. This incident proves to +demonstration that the <i>morale</i> of the school has somehow or other +been carried far beyond the limits of what is usually understood by +discipline. I have seen historical scenes acted with much vigour by +some of the children in the first class, and applauded with equal +vigour by their class-mates, while all the time the children in the +second class, who were drawing flowers in the same room, never lifted +their eyes from their desks. Yet no children can laugh more merrily +or more unrestrainedly than these, or make a greater uproar when it +is fitting that they should do so.</p> + +<p>And if there is no need for punishment, or any other form of +repression, in this school, it is equally true that there is no need +for rewards. To one who has been taught to regard competition in +school as a sacred duty, and the winning of prizes as a laudable +object of the scholar's ambition, this may seem strange. But so it +is. No child has the slightest desire to outstrip his fellows or rise +to the top of his class. Joy in their work, pride in their school, +devotion to their teacher, are sufficient incentives to industry. +Were the stimulus of competition added to these, neither the zeal nor +the interest of the children would be quickened one whit, but a +discordant element would be introduced into their school life. Happy +as he obviously is in his own school life, it would add nothing to +the happiness of the Utopian to feel that he had outstripped his +class-mates and won a prize for his achievement. So far, indeed, are +these children from wishing to shine at the expense of others, that +if they think<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_159" id="P_159">[159]</a></span> Egeria has done less than justice to the work of some +one child, the rest of the class will go out of their way to call her +attention to it. If some children are brighter, cleverer, and more +advanced than others, the reward of their progress is that they are +allowed to help on those who lag behind. This is especially +noticeable in Drawing, in which the pre-eminence of one or two +children has again and again had the effect of lifting the work of +the whole class to a higher level. But the laggards are as far from +being discouraged by their failure as are the more advanced scholars +from being puffed up by their success. From the highest to the +lowest, all are doing their best and all are happy together.</p> + +<p>From morals to manners the transition is obvious and direct. Be the +explanation what it may, the whole atmosphere of this school is +evidently fatal to selfishness and self-assertion; and in such an +atmosphere good manners will spring up spontaneously among the +children, and will scarcely need to be inculcated, for the essence of +courtesy is forgetfulness of self and consideration of others in the +smaller affairs of social life. The general bearing of the Utopian +children hits the happy mean between aggressive familiarity and +uncouth shyness,—each a form of self-conscious egoism,—just as +their bearing in school hits the happy mean between laxity and undue +constraint. They welcome the stranger as a friend, take his goodwill +for granted, take him into their confidence, and show him, tactfully +and unostentatiously, many pretty courtesies. And they do all this, +not because they have been drilled into doing it, but because it is +their nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_160" id="P_160">[160]</a></span> to do it, because their overflowing sympathy and +goodwill must needs express themselves in and through the channels of +courtesy and kindness. There is no trace of sullen self-repression in +this school. Accustomed (as we shall presently see) to express +themselves in various ways, the children cannot entertain kindly +feelings without seeking some vent for them. But whether their kindly +feelings lead them to dance in a ring round their own inspector, +singing "For he's a jolly good fellow," or to escort another +visitor, on his departure, through the playground with their +arms in his, their tact,—which is the outcome, partly of their +self-forgetfulness, partly of the training which their perceptive +faculties are always receiving,—is unfailing, and they never allow +friendliness to degenerate into undue familiarity.</p> + +<p>There is one other feature of the school life which I cannot pass +over. I have never been in a school in which the love of what is +beautiful in Nature is so strong or so sincere as in this. The +ćsthetic sense of the Utopian child has not been deliberately +trained, but it has been allowed, and even encouraged, to unfold +itself; and the appeal that beauty makes to the heart meets in +consequence with a ready response. Of the truth of this statement +I could, if necessary, give many proofs. One must suffice. The +children, who are adepts at drawing with brush and pencil, wander in +field and lane with sketch-books in their hands; and one of them at +least was so moved by the beauty of a winter sunrise, as seen from +his cottage window, that, in his own words, he felt he <i>must</i> try to +paint it, the result being a water-colour sketch which I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_161" id="P_161">[161]</a></span> shown +to a competent artist, who tells me that the <i>feeling</i> in the sky is +quite wonderful.</p> + +<p>In this brief preliminary sketch of the more salient features of the +Utopian school, I have, I hope, said enough to show that its scholars +differ <i>toto cœlo</i> from those who attend that familiar type of +school which I have recently described. Yet the Utopian children are +made of the same clay as the children of other villages. If anything, +indeed, the clay is heavier and more stubborn in Utopia than +elsewhere. Some ten or twelve years ago, when Egeria took charge of +the school, the children were dull, lifeless, listless, resourceless. +Now they are bright, intelligent, happy, responsive, overflowing with +life, interested in many things, full of ability and resource. How +has this change been wrought? Not by veneering or even inoculating +the children with good qualities, but simply by allowing their better +and higher nature to evolve itself freely, naturally, and under +favourable conditions.</p> + +<p>That the child's better and higher nature is his real nature, is the +assumption—let me rather say, the profound conviction—on which +Egeria's whole system of education has been based. In basing it on +this assumption, she has made a bold departure from the highway which +has been blindly followed for many centuries. We have seen that the +basis of education in this country, as in Christendom generally, is +the doctrine of original sin. It is taken for granted by those who +train the child that his nature, if allowed to develop itself freely, +will grow in the wrong direction, and will therefore lead him astray; +and that it is the function of education<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_162" id="P_162">[162]</a></span> to counteract this +tendency, to do violence to the child's nature, to compel it by main +force to grow (or make a pretence of growing) in the right direction, +to subject it to perpetual repression and constraint. The wild whoops +to which children so often give vent, when released from school, show +that a period of unnatural tension has come to an end; and in these, +and in the further conduct of the released child—in the roughness, +rudeness, and bad language, of which the passer-by (especially in +towns) not infrequently has to complain—we see a rebound from this +state of tension, an instinctive protest against the constraint to +which he has been subjected for so many hours. The result of all this +is that the child leads two lives, a life of unnatural repression and +constraint in school, and a life—also unnatural, though it is +supposed to be the expression of his nature—of reaction and protest +out of school. Such a dislocation of the child's daily life is not +likely to conduce to his well-being; while the teacher's assumption +that his <i>rôle</i> in school is essentially active, and that of the +child essentially passive, will lead at last to his turning his back +on the root-idea of growth, to his forgetting that the child is a +living and therefore a growing organism, to his regarding the child +as clay in his hands, to be "remoulded" by him "to his heart's +desire," or even as a <i>tabula rasa</i>, on which he is to inscribe words +and other symbols at his will.</p> + +<p>In Utopia the training which the child receives may be said to be +based on the doctrine of original goodness. It is taken for granted +by Egeria that the child is neither a lump of clay nor a <i>tabula +rasa</i>, but a "living soul"; that growth is of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_163" id="P_163">[163]</a></span> very essence of +his being; and that the normal child, if allowed to make natural +growth under reasonably favourable conditions, will grow happily and +well. It is taken for granted that the potencies of his nature are +well worth realising; that the end of his being—the ideal type +towards which the natural course of his development tends to take +him—is intrinsically good; in fine, that he is <i>by nature</i> a "child +of God" rather than a "child of wrath." It is therefore taken for +granted that growth is in itself a good thing, a move in the right +direction; and that to foster growth, to make its conditions as +favourable as possible, to give it the food, the guidance, and the +stimulus that it needs, is the best thing that education can do for +the child.</p> + +<p>It is further taken for granted that the many-sided effort to grow +which is of the essence of the child's nature is the mainspring of, +and expresses itself in, certain typical instincts which no one who +studies the child with any degree of care can fail to observe; and +that by duly cultivating these instincts,—<i>expansive</i> instincts, as +one may perhaps call them, since each of them tends to take the child +away from his petty self,—the teacher will make the best possible +provision for the growth of the child's nature as a whole.</p> + +<p>Above all, it is taken for granted that the growth which the child +makes must come from within himself; that no living thing can grow +vicariously; that the rings of soul-growth, like the rings of +tree-growth, must be evolved from an inner life; that the teacher +must therefore content himself with giving the child's expansive +instincts fair play and free play; and that, for the rest, he must as +far as possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_164" id="P_164">[164]</a></span> efface himself, bearing in mind that not he, but the +child, is the real actor in the drama of school life.</p> + +<p>But though so much is left to the child in Utopia, and so much +demanded of him, it is not feared that the effort to grow will be +repugnant to him. On the contrary, it is taken for granted that in +growing, in developing his expansive instincts, the child will be +following the lines and obeying the laws of his own nature; that he +will be fulfilling the latent desires of his heart; that he will be +seeking his own pleasure; in fine, that he will be leading a happy +life.</p> + +<p>All this is taken for granted in Utopia, and the child's life is +therefore one of unimpeded, though duly guided and stimulated, +activity. Every instinct that makes for the expansion and elevation +(for growth is always upward as well as outward) of the child's +nature is given the freest possible play, and the whole organisation +of the school is subordinated to this central end.</p> + +<p>In order to find out what are the instincts which make for the +expansion and elevation of the child's nature, and which education +ought therefore to foster, we must do what Egeria has always done, we +must observe young children, and study their ways and works. Now +every healthy child wants to eat and drink, and to run about. Here +are two instincts—the instinctive desire for physical nourishment, +and the instinctive desire for physical exercise—through which +Nature provides for the growth of the body. How does she provide for +the growth of what we have agreed to call the soul? We need not +be very careful observers of young children in<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_165" id="P_165">[165]</a></span> order to satisfy +ourselves that, apart from physical nourishment and exercise, there +are six things which the child instinctively desires, namely:</p> + +<ul style="list-style-type:none;"> +<li>(1) to talk and listen:</li> +<li>(2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word):</li> +<li>(3) to draw, paint, and model:</li> +<li>(4) to dance and sing:</li> +<li>(5) to know the why of things:</li> +<li>(6) to construct things.</li> +</ul> + +<p>Let us consider each of these instincts, and try to determine its +meaning and purpose.</p> + +<p>(1) The child instinctively desires to enter into communion with +other persons,—his parents, his brothers and sisters, his nurse, his +governess, his little friends. He wants to talk to them, to tell them +what he has done, seen, felt, thought; and he wants to hear what they +have to tell him,—not only of what they themselves have done, but +also of what other persons and other living things have done, in +other times, in other countries, in other worlds. Later on, the +desire to talk and listen will develop into the desire to write and +read; but the desire will still be one for communion, for intercourse +with other lives.</p> + +<p>We will call this the <i>communicative instinct</i>.</p> + +<p>(2) The child desires, not only to enter into communion with other +persons and other living things, but also, in some sort, to identify +his life with theirs. Watch him when he is playing with other +children, or even when he is alone, except for the companionship of +his dolls and toys. He is pretty sure to be <i>acting</i>, playing at +make-believe, pretending to be something that he is not, some +grown-up person of his acquaintance, some hero of history or<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_166" id="P_166">[166]</a></span> +romance, some traveller or other adventurer, some giant, dwarf, or +fairy, some animal, wild or tame. He plays the part of one or other +of these, and his playmates play other parts, and so a little drama +is enacted. If he has no playmates, his dolls have to play their +parts, or his toy animals have to be endowed with life, so that they +may become fellow-actors with him on the stage that he has selected. +No instinct is more inevitable, more sure to energise, than this.</p> + +<p>We will call it the <i>dramatic instinct</i>.</p> + +<p>In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, through the medium of sympathy +and imagination—twin aspects of the same vital tendency—into the +lives of other living beings. We will therefore call these the +<i>Sympathetic Instincts</i>, and place them in a class by themselves.</p> + +<p>(3) From his very babyhood the child delights in colour, and at a +very early age he learns to love and understand pictures. Then comes +the desire to make these for himself. Give him pencil and paper, give +him chalk, charcoal, a paint-box, and other suitable materials, and +he will set to work of his own accord to depict what he sees or has +seen, either with his outward or his inward eye. Give him a lump of +clay, and he will try to mould it into the likeness of something +that has either attracted his attention, or presented itself to his +imagination. In all these attempts he is trying, unknown to himself, +to express his perception of, and delight in, the visible beauty of +Nature. This instinct will expand, in the fullness of time, into a +strong and subtle feeling for visible beauty, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_167" id="P_167">[167]</a></span> into a restless +desire to give expression to that feeling.</p> + +<p>We will call this the <i>artistic instinct</i>, the word <i>artistic</i> being +used, for lack of a more suitable term, in its narrow and +conventional sense.</p> + +<p>(4) While the child is still a baby in arms, his mother will sing to +him, and dance him on her knee. This is her first attempt to initiate +him into the mystery of music; and the response that he makes to her +proves that she is a wise teacher, and is appealing to a genuinely +natural faculty. It will not be long before he begins to dance and +sing for himself. Watch the children in a London court or alley when +a barrel-organ appears on the scene. Without having any one to direct +or teach them, they will come together and dance in couples, often +with abundant grace and charm. Nature is their tutor. Her own rhythm, +of which the musician must have caught an echo, is passing through +their ears into their hearts and into their limbs. No instinct is +so spontaneous as this. A child will whistle or sing while his mind +is engaged on other things. If he is happy he will dance about as +naturally, and almost as inevitably, as the leaves dance when the +breeze passes through them.</p> + +<p>We will call this the <i>musical instinct</i>. So elemental is it that man +shares it, in some degree, with other living things. The birds are +accomplished musicians, and their movements, and those of many other +creatures, are full of rhythm and grace.</p> + +<p>In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, in response to the attractive +force of beauty, into that larger life which is at the heart of +Nature, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_168" id="P_168">[168]</a></span> which is not ours until we have made it our own. We will +therefore call these the <i>Ćsthetic Instincts</i>, and place them in a +class by themselves.</p> + +<p>(5) From a very early age the child desires to know the why and +wherefore of things, to understand how effects are produced, to +discover new facts, and pass on, if possible, to their causes. In +response to the pressure of this instinct, the child breaks his toys +in order that he may find out how they work, and asks innumerable +questions which make him the terror and despair of his parents and +the other "Olympians." No instinct is more insistent in the early +days of the child's life. No instinct is more ruthlessly repressed by +those to whom the education of the child is entrusted. No instinct +dies out so completely (except so far as it is kept alive by purely +utilitarian considerations) when education of the conventional type +has done its deadly work. It has been said that children go to school +ignorant but curious, and leave school ignorant and incurious. This +gibe is the plain statement of a patent truth.</p> + +<p>We will call this the <i>inquisitive instinct</i>.</p> + +<p>(6) After analysis comes synthesis. The child pulls his toys to +pieces in order that he may, if possible, reconstruct them, and so be +the better able to control the working of them. The ends that he sets +before himself are those which Comte set before the human +race,—"savoir pour prévoir, afin de pouvoir: induire pour déduire, +afin de construire." The desire to make things, to build things up, +to control ways and means, to master the resources of Nature, to put +his knowledge of her laws and facts to a practical use, is strong in<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_169" id="P_169">[169]</a></span> +his soul. Give him a box of bricks, and he will spend hours in +building and rebuilding houses, churches, towers, and the like. Set +him on a sandy shore, with a spade and a pail, and he will spend +hours in constructing fortified castles with deep, encircling moats +into which the sea may be duly admitted. Or he will make harness and +whips of plaited rushes, armour of tea-paper, swords of tin-plate, +boxes and other articles of cardboard, waggons, engines, and other +implements of wood.</p> + +<p>We will call this the <i>constructive instinct.</i></p> + +<p>In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, through the correlated channels +of theory and practice, into what I may call the machinery of +Nature's life,—an aspect of that life which reveals its mysteries to +reason rather than to emotion, or (to use the language of Eastern +philosophy) to the faculties that try to find order in the Many, +rather than to those which try to hold intercourse with the One.<a name="FNa16" id="FNa16"></a><a href="#Footnote16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +Whichever channel he may use,—and indeed they are not so much two +channels as one, for each in turn is for ever leading into and then +passing out of the other,—his concern is always for "facts," for the +actualities of things, for "objective truth." We will therefore call +these the <i>Scientific Instincts</i>, and place them in a class by +themselves.</p> + +<p>There are six instincts, then,—six formative and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_170" id="P_170">[170]</a></span> expansive +instincts—which Nature has implanted in every normal child, and +which education, so far as it aims at being loyal to Nature, should +take account of and try to foster. Two of these are <i>sympathetic</i>; +two are <i>ćsthetic</i>; two are <i>scientific</i>. In and through the +sympathetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of <i>love</i>. In +and through the ćsthetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of +<i>beauty</i>. In and through the scientific instincts the soul grows in +the direction of <i>truth</i>. It is towards this triune goal that Nature +herself is ever directing the growth of the growing child. The +significance of this conclusion will unfold itself as we proceed.</p> + +<p>These instincts manifest themselves in various ways, but chiefly in +the direction that they give to that very serious occupation of young +children which we call play. It is clear, then, that if these +instincts are to be duly cultivated, the work of the school must be +modelled, as far as possible, on the lines which children, when at +play, spontaneously follow. This Egeria, with her inspired sagacity, +has clearly seen; and she has taken her measures accordingly. In +Utopia the school life of the child is all play,—play taken very +seriously, play systematised, organised, provided with ample +materials and ample opportunities, encouraged and stimulated in +every possible way. Each of the fundamental instincts that manifest +themselves in the child's play, and in doing so give a clear +indication of Nature's aims in the child's life, and of the +directions in which she wishes him to grow, is duly ministered to in +this school, the current that wells up in and through it being +skilfully guided<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_171" id="P_171">[171]</a></span> into a suitable channel, and every obstacle to its +free development being carefully removed. But the guidance which +Egeria gives tends, as we shall see, to foster rather than fetter the +freedom of the child. When the current has been led into a suitable +channel, it is expected to shape its own further course, and even to +impose on itself the limits—the containing walls—which are needed +if its depth and strength are to be maintained.</p> + +<p>Let us now consider each of the six instincts in turn, and see what +special steps Egeria takes to foster its growth.</p> + +<h4>(1) The Communicative Instinct.</h4> + +<p>Through this instinct the child goes out of himself into the lives of +other persons and other living things. The desire is in its essence +one for intercourse, for communion, for the interchange of thoughts, +of feelings, of experiences. The normal child is, as we all know, an +inveterate chatterbox; but he is also a rapt listener. If he desires, +as he certainly does, to tell others about himself, he desires, in no +less a degree, to hear about others, either from themselves, or from +those who are best able to tell him about them. The balance between +the two desires is well maintained by Nature; and it should be +carefully maintained by those who train the young, if the +communicative instinct as a whole is to make healthy growth.</p> + +<p>In too many elementary schools the instinct is systematically +starved, the scholars being strictly forbidden to talk among +themselves, while their conversational intercourse with their teacher +is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_172" id="P_172">[172]</a></span> limited to receiving a certain amount of dry information, and +giving this back, collectively or individually, when they are +expressly directed to do so. The child's instinctive desire to +converse, being deprived by education of its natural outlets, must +needs force for itself the subterranean and illicit outlet of +whispering in class, either under the teacher's nose, if he happens +to be unobservant or indolent, or behind his back, if he happens to +be vigilant and strict. And as the child is forbidden to talk about +things which are wholesome and interesting, it is but natural that in +his surreptitious conversations he should talk about things which +are less edifying, things which are trivial and vulgar, or even +unwholesome and unclean. Children are naturally obedient and +truthful; but in their attempts to find outlets for healthy +activities which are wantonly repressed, they will go far down the +inclined plane of disobedience and deceit.</p> + +<p>In Utopia free conversation is systematically encouraged. No +elementary school is supposed to open before 9 a.m.; but Egeria is in +the habit of coming to school at 8.45 or earlier, so that the +children who wish to do so may come and talk to her freely about the +things that interest them,—what they have observed on their walks to +or from school, what they have heard or read at home, what they think +about things in general, and so on. The school has a good library of +books which are worth reading, both in prose and verse. These the +children read in school and out of school, and are thus brought into +communication with other minds, with other times, with other lands. +They are also accustomed to talk freely to one another about the +books<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_173" id="P_173">[173]</a></span> that they are reading. Whatever lesson may be going on, they +are encouraged to ask questions about the matter in hand, and even to +express their own views about it. They go out into the playground in +groups and make up games and plays, discussing things freely among +themselves. When they are preparing to act an historical scene or a +passage from some dramatic author, they hold a sort of informal +parliament, in which the actors are selected and various important +questions are provisionally settled. They write letters in school to +real people. The older girls take the little ones in hand, and talk +to them and draw them out. When an interesting phenomenon is noticed, +<i>e.g.</i> in a Nature ramble, the children are accustomed to discuss it +in groups, and to try to think out among themselves its cause and +its meaning. Gossip is of course discouraged; but it is scarcely +necessary for Egeria to proscribe it; for idle talk has no attraction +for children who are allowed to talk freely and frankly, at all times +and in all places, about things that are really worth discussing. +Life is full of interest for children who are allowed, as these are, +to take an active interest in it; and subjects of conversation are +therefore ever presenting themselves, in school and out of school, +to the happy children of Utopia. This means that the life of each +individual child is overflowing through many channels, an overflow +which will carry the out-welling life into the lives of other living +beings—human and infra-human, actual and imaginary—and even beyond +these, when it has been met and reinforced by other surging currents, +into the impersonal life of Humanity and of Nature.</p> + +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_174" id="P_174">[174]</a></div> + +<h4>(2) The Dramatic Instinct.</h4> + +<p>Whatever else young children may be, they are all born actors; and in +a school which bases its scheme of education on the actualities of +child life, it is but natural that the dramatic instinct should be +fostered in every possible way. "Work while you work, and play +while you play," is one of those trite maxims which have been +unintelligently repeated till they have lost whatever value they may +once have possessed. "Work while you play, and play while you work," +seems to be Egeria's substitute for it; and she would, I think, do +well to write those words over the porch of her school.</p> + +<p>In the ordinary elementary school a fair amount of acting goes on +in the infant department, and an occasional attempt is made, in +one of the higher classes of the upper department, to act a scene +from Shakespeare or an episode in English history. But during +the five years or so of school life which intervene between the +infant department and "Standard VI," the dramatic instinct is +as a rule entirely neglected; and the consequent outgrowth of +self-consciousness in the children is too often a fatal obstacle to +the success of the spasmodic attempts at dramatisation which are +made in the higher classes.</p> + +<p>In Utopia "acting" is a vital part of the school life of every class, +and every subject that admits of dramatic treatment is systematically +dramatised. In History, for example, when the course of their study +brings them to a suitable episode, the children set to work to +dramatise it. With this end in view,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_175" id="P_175">[175]</a></span> they consult some advanced +text-book or historical novel or other book of reference, and +having studied with care the particular chapter in which they are +interested, and having decided among themselves who are to play what +parts, they proceed to make up their own dialogues, and their own +costumes and other accessories. They then act the scene, putting +their own interpretation on the various parts, and receiving +the stimulus and guidance of Egeria's sympathetic and mœutic +criticism. Their class-mates and the rest of the children in the main +room look on, with their history books open in front of them, and +applaud; and, by gradually familiarising themselves with the various +parts, qualify themselves half-unconsciously to act as under-studies +in the particular scene, and in due course to play their own parts as +interpreters of some other historical episode. I know of no treatment +of history which is so effective as this for young children. The +actual knowledge of the facts of history which a child carries away +with him from an elementary school cannot well be large, and is, in +many cases, a negligible quantity. But the child who has once acted +history will always be interested in it, and being interested in it +will be able, without making a formal study of it, to absorb its +spirit, its atmosphere, and the more significant of its facts. Nor +do the advantages of the dramatic treatment of history end with the +subject itself. The actors in these historical scenes are, as I have +said, expressing their own interpretation of the various parts, and +their own perception of the meaning of each episode as a whole. This +means that they are training their imaginative sympathy,—a<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_176" id="P_176">[176]</a></span> +sovereign faculty which of all faculties is perhaps the most +emancipative and expansive,—and training it, as I can testify, with +striking success; for the dramatic power which they display is +remarkable, and can have been generated by nothing less than +sympathetic insight into the feelings of the various historical +personages and the possibilities of the various situations.</p> + +<p>It is probable that History lends itself more readily to dramatic +treatment than any other subject, but it is by no means the only +subject that is dramatised in Utopia. An interest in Geography is +awakened by scenes in foreign lands and episodes from books of travel +being acted by the children. An interest in Arithmetic, by a shop +being opened, which is well equipped with weights, measures, and +cardboard money, and in which a salesman stands behind the counter +and sells goods to a succession of customers. An interest in +Literature by the acting, with improvised costumes, of passages from +Shakespeare's plays, or scenes from Scott's and Dickens' novels. +Simple plays to illustrate Nature-study are acted by the younger +children; while the Folk Songs, which, as we shall see, play a +prominent part in the musical life of the children, are acted as +well as sung.</p> + +<p>However rude and simple the histrionic efforts of the children may +be, they are doing two things for the actors. They are giving them a +living interest in the various subjects that are dramatised; and, by +teaching them to identify themselves, if only for a moment, with +other human beings, they are leading them into the path of tolerance, +of compassion, of charity, of sympathy,—the ever-widening<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_177" id="P_177">[177]</a></span> path +which makes at last for Nirvânic oneness with the One Life.<a name="FNa17" id="FNa17"></a><a href="#Footnote17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<h4>(3) The Artistic Instinct.</h4> + +<p>The desire to reproduce with pencil, paint, or clay the form and +colour of the outward world will, if duly cultivated, gradually +transform itself into the desire to feel, to understand, to +interpret, to express, not the form and colour only of the outward +world, but also that less palpable but more spiritual quality which +we call beauty. But in order that this transformation may take place, +the child must always endeavour to reproduce with due fidelity the +more palpable qualities of colour and form. In this endeavour he +must bring many faculties into play. He must observe closely and +attentively. He must reflect on what he observes. He must reflect on +what he himself is doing. He must compare his work with the original, +and try to discover how far he has succeeded, and where he has gone +astray. The more faithfully he tries to reproduce what he has seen, +the clearer and surer will be his insight into the less palpable +properties of things,—into those details, those aspects, those +qualities, which do not reveal themselves to the first careless +glance, but which will<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_178" id="P_178">[178]</a></span> gradually reveal themselves to those who will +take the trouble to discover them. When he is asked to reproduce +things which are intrinsically beautiful—flowers, branches, buds, +shells, butterflies, and the like—he begins to realise that if his +work is to be successful, he must do justice to many impalpable, +though not imperceptible, details which go to the making up of +beauty. So the sense of beauty, the feeling for it, the desire to +bring it into his work, grows up in his heart; and a new kind of +fidelity—fidelity to <i>feeling</i> rather than to <i>fact</i> (if I may speak +for the moment in the delusive language of dualism)—begins to weave +itself into his artistic consciousness.</p> + +<p>If there is any school in England in which fidelity to feeling has +evolved itself out of fidelity to fact, that school is in the village +of Utopia. Some ten or twelve years ago a decree went out from +Whitehall that Drawing was to be taught in all the elementary schools +in England. Egeria at once took the children into her confidence, and +said to them: "You have now got to learn to draw: you don't know how +to draw, and I don't know how to draw, but we must all set to work +and see what we can do." A few years later the school was visited by +the inspector to whose zeal as a prophet, and skill as an expositor +and teacher, the transformation in the teaching of drawing which is +gradually taking effect in all parts of the country, has been largely +due. Here is the report<a name="FNa18" id="FNa18"></a><a href="#Footnote18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> that he wrote after his visit—</p> + +<p>"In this school the teaching of Drawing reaches<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_179" id="P_179">[179]</a></span> the highest +educational level I have hitherto met with in our elementary schools, +and the results are the genuine expression of the children's own +thoughts. Flat copies are not used, and the scholars evolve their +own technique, for the Head Teacher is not strong herself in this +respect. The development of thought carries with it the development +of skill, and this is clearly seen in the children's drawings, which +show good form and proportion, some knowledge of light and shade, a +delicate and refined perception of colour, and a wonderful power of +dealing with the difficulties of foreshortening. The central law is +self-effort,—confidence and self-reliance follow. The spontaneous +activities of the children are duly recognised, and the latter decide +what to draw, how to draw it, and the materials to be used. One +cannot remain long in the school without observing the absence of +that timidity, that haunting fear of making a mistake, which +paralyses the minds and bodies of so many of our children. Under the +influence of the Head Teacher the children become acute critics. +Her methods coincide so exactly with those which I have long been +advocating, that I give them in her own words—</p> + +<p>"'I gave each child an ivy-leaf and said, "Now look well at it." We +talked about its peculiarities, looking at it all the time, and then +I told them to draw one, still looking back to the leaf from time to +time. Then I examined their drawings. A good many were, of course, +faulty. In those cases I did not say, "No, you are wrong; this is the +way," and go to the blackboard. I said, "In such and such a part is +yours the same as the leaf? What is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_180" id="P_180">[180]</a></span> different? How can you alter +it?" etc., etc. I make <i>them tell me</i> their faults. There was no +blackboard demonstration.'</p> + +<p>"From a careful examination of their work it is clear that the +children have not only been taught to draw, but that they love and +enjoy their drawing. Form and colour are not only seen, but +understood and felt. The children are impelled by an irresistible +desire to reach and express the truth, and are thus carried along +an ever-moving path of educative action."</p> + +<p>I have already spoken of the love of visible beauty which is a +characteristic feature of the life of this school. It is in the +drawing lesson that this love of beauty has in the main evolved +itself. Other influences have no doubt been at work. Nature-study and +literature, for example, have, as taught in this school, done much to +foster the children's latent love of beauty; but had drawing never +been taught, the influence of those subjects would have been much +less effective than it has been. It is in the struggle to express +what he perceives that the Utopian child has gradually strengthened +and deepened his perceptive powers, till his sight has transformed +itself into insight, and form and colour have come to be interpreted +by him through the medium of the beauty which is behind them,—his +feeling of beauty having, little by little, been awakened and evolved +by his unceasing efforts to interpret the <i>vraie vérité</i> of form and +colour, which, as he now begins to learn, are beauty's outward self.</p> + +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_181" id="P_181">[181]</a></div> + +<h4>(4) The Musical Instinct.</h4> + +<p>In the development of the artistic sense the path of imitation is +followed until it leads at last to heights which it cannot scale. The +development of the musical sense takes from the first a widely +different path. Nature has a beautiful music of her own, but the +child seldom attempts to imitate this. Music belongs to the soul even +more than to the outward world. So at least one feels disposed to +think. But perhaps it is more correct to say that in the presence +of music the provisional distinction between inward and outward, +between the soul and the surrounding world, becomes wholly effaced. +Expression is always the counterpart of perception; and we may rest +assured that the deep, subtle, and elusive feelings to which music +gives utterance have reality for their counterpart. The musician does +not often reproduce in his compositions the audible sounds of the +outward world,—the voices of animals, the songs of birds, the rustle +of leaves, the murmur of the sea, the sighing of the breeze, the +thunder of the storm. What he does reproduce is the music that awakes +in his soul when the emotions which these sounds kindle begin to +struggle for expression,—the music that is behind all the audible +sounds, and perhaps also behind all the inaudible vibrations of +Nature,—the music that is in his heart because it is also at the +heart of Nature,—<i>the rhythm of the Universe</i>, as one may perhaps +call it for lack of a fitter phrase. It is the sense of this rhythm +which inspires the great Composer when he builds up his masterpieces. +It is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_182" id="P_182">[182]</a></span> sense of this rhythm which inspires the child when, in the +joy of his heart, he breaks spontaneously into dance and song. To +bring the rhythm of the Universe into the daily life of the child, +to give free play to his instinctive sense of its all-pervading +presence, is one of the highest functions of the teacher. And the +more carefully the sense of rhythm is cultivated, the more does it +tend to spiritualise itself, and the more profound and more vital is +the life which it struggles to interpret and evolve. There is no +instinct which is so deeply seated as the musical. It is possible for +a child, it is possible for a whole class of children, to sing out of +the depths of the soul; and when this happens we may be sure that a +fountain of spiritual joy has been unsealed, and that a great and +sacred mystery has been unveiled. There is a school in one of the +poorest slums of a large town, in which, some two or three years ago, +the children were taught to sing, and the teachers to teach singing, +by an inspired "master" who believes that to lift the sluices of +spiritual feeling is to quicken into ever-increasing activity its +hidden springs; and neither the teachers nor the children have yet +forgotten their lesson. The children are poor, pale, thin, unkempt, +ill-clad, unlovely; but I am told that when they sing their faces are +transfigured, and they all become beautiful.</p> + +<p>Egeria is an accomplished musician, and though Utopia belongs to one +of the unmusical counties of England, she has found it easy to awaken +the musical instinct in the hearts of its children. A few years ago +she introduced the old English Folk Songs and Morris Dances into the +school. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_183" id="P_183">[183]</a></span> children took to them at once as ducklings take to the +water; and within a year they were able to give an admirably +successful performance of some two dozen songs and dances in the +village hall. Some of these had been rehearsed only once; but the +children, thanks to their having been systematically trained to +educate themselves, are so versatile and resourceful that every item +on their programme was a complete success. The Folk Songs and Morris +Dances are still the delight of the children. They are ever adding to +their repertory of songs; and when they go into the playground for +recreation, they at once form into small groups for Morris Dancing, +the older children taking the little ones in hand, and initiating +them into the pleasures of rhythmical movement.</p> + +<p>There is another way in which Egeria brings music into the lives of +the children. In her own words, she "sets many of their lessons to +music." For example, when they are doing needlework or drawing or any +other quiet lesson, she plays high-class music to them, which forms a +background to their efforts and their thoughts, and which gradually +weaves itself, on the one hand into the outward and visible work that +they are doing, and on the other hand into the mysterious tissue of +their inward life.</p> + +<h4>(5) The Inquisitive Instinct.</h4> + +<p>As the inquisitive instinct makes the child an intolerable nuisance +to his ignorant and indolent elders, it is but natural that in the +unenlightened school, as in the unenlightened home, it should be<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_184" id="P_184">[184]</a></span> +forcibly exterminated. It is through the agency of the formula "Don't +speak till you are spoken to," that its destruction is usually +effected. But under Egeria's ćgis conversation in school hours is, +as we have seen, freely encouraged, and the child's right to ask +questions fully recognised; and one may therefore conjecture that +this proscribed and outlawed instinct will find a safe asylum in her +school. Whatever lesson may be in progress, the Utopian children are +allowed, and even expected, to seek for illumination whenever they +find themselves in the dark, to pause inquiringly at every obstacle +to their understanding what they have seen or heard or read.</p> + +<p>The encouragement which is given in Utopia to the child who seeks to +gratify his desire for knowledge, is positive as well as negative. +When the obstacles which education usually places in his path have +been removed, it is found that the whole atmosphere of the school is +favourable to the growth of his inquisitive instinct. At every turn +he is called upon to plan and contrive, and is thus made to realise +his own limitations, and to try to escape from them. Whatever he may +have in hand,—be it the preparation for acting a new scene, or the +interpretation of a new Folk Song or Morris Dance, or the invention +of a new school game, or the thinking out some new way of treating a +"subject,"—he is sure to find that knowledge is needed if he is +to achieve success; and his desire for knowledge is therefore +continually stimulated by the demands that his own initiative and +activity are ever making upon him.</p> + +<p>But it is in the "Nature lesson" that the inquisitive<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_185" id="P_185">[185]</a></span> instinct finds +in Utopia its freest scope and its fullest opportunity. To one who +had persuaded himself of the innate stupidity of the average English +child, a Nature lesson in Utopia would come as a revelation. He would +learn for the first time that, far from being innately stupid, the +average English child has it in him to reach a very high level of +keenness, acuteness, and intellectual activity. Whenever a lesson is +given on a natural object, <i>e.g.</i> a flower or a leaf, every child has +a specimen and a lens. The object is then closely and carefully +observed, in the hope of discovering features in it which might +escape the unobservant. Whenever such features are discovered the +children try to account for them. In these attempts they display much +ingenuity and intelligence, and are led on by Egeria in the direction +of the true explanation of each phenomenon, and the relation of this +to what they know of the object as a whole, and of its meaning and +function. The eagerness of the children to volunteer explanations of +the facts that they observe is only equalled by the intelligence with +which they grasp the general bearing of the problems that confront +them, and the resourcefulness and quickness of wit with which they +make repeated attempts to solve them.</p> + +<p>And these are not the only qualities to which the Nature lesson gives +free play. It is interesting to note that as on the one hand the +inquisitive instinct is obviously near of kin to the communicative, +so on the other hand it is ever tending to link itself to the +artistic. The closeness of observation which is the basis of success +in Nature-study, and by means of which the inquisitive instinct is +fed<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_186" id="P_186">[186]</a></span> and strengthened, is also the basis of success in drawing; and +in each case it leads beyond itself into a region in which it has to +be supplemented by, and even transfigured into, imagination, the +faculty by means of which we observe what is at once impalpable and +real.<a name="FNa19" id="FNa19"></a><a href="#Footnote19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> And in that region the distinction between truth and beauty +is ever tending to efface itself. The master sculptor is always an +accomplished anatomist; and the genuine naturalist is a lover and +admirer, as well as a student, of Nature. It has been well said that +"to see things in their beauty is to see them in their truth"; and it +is perhaps equally, though more remotely, true that to see things in +their truth is to see them in their beauty. That being so, we need +not wonder that among the Utopian children the love of what is +beautiful in Nature has grown continuously with the growth of their +interest in Nature-study, and that the inquisitive instinct is ever +Reinforcing and being reinforced by the artistic.</p> + +<h4>(6) The Constructive Instinct.</h4> + +<p>Active, intelligent, resourceful, self-helpful, the Utopian child +takes to handwork of various kinds as readily and almost as +spontaneously as the birds in spring-time take to the work of +nest-building. It must indeed be admitted that the systematic +instruction in Gardening, Cookery, and Woodwork which warrants the +payment of special grants for these "subjects" is not given. But +informal<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_187" id="P_187">[187]</a></span> gardening, informal cookery, and informal woodwork are +vital features of the school life. Nor are the children's essays in +handwork limited to these subjects. Whatever implement, instrument, +or other contrivance may be needed in order to illustrate or +otherwise help forward the general work of the school will be made by +the children, so far as their technical ability and the resources of +the school permit. For example, they will make fences, seats, frames, +and sheds for their gardens, and "properties" and dresses for their +dramatic performances. They will illustrate their games and lessons +by means of simple modelling and paper-cutting. The older girls will +dress dolls for the little ones to their own fancy, using their own +discretion as regards material, style of dress, and method of +dress-making. And so on.</p> + +<p>But ready as the Utopian children are to use their hands, and clever +as they are at using them, it is not through manual activity only +that the development of their constructive instinct is carried on. +One of the characteristic features of the school is the largeness +of the scale on which the constructive powers of the children are +encouraged to energise, and the frequency and variety of the demands +that are made upon them. The Utopian child is expected to educate +himself, not merely in the sense of doing by and for himself whatever +task may be set him, but also in the sense of devising new tasks for +himself, in thinking out new ways of treating the different subjects +that appear on the school time-table, in taking thought for the whole +scheme of his education. As the years go by, Egeria makes more and +greater demands on the initiative and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_188" id="P_188">[188]</a></span> intelligence of the +children, her aim being apparently to transform the school by slow +degrees into a self-governing community which, under her presidency, +shall order its own life and work out its own salvation. This means, +as I have lately pointed out, that at every turn the Utopian child is +being called upon to plan and contrive; and this, again, means that +his constructive instinct, with his inquisitive instinct as its other +self, is being continually exercised on the widest possible field +and under the most stimulating of all influences. The result of +this is that reciprocal action is ever going on in his mind between +the faculties that acquire knowledge and the faculties that apply +it,—action which makes for the rapid and healthy growth of both sets +of faculties, and which is therefore ever tending to strengthen the +child's capacity for thinking and to raise the plane of its activity.</p> + +<p>What is the culture of the child's expansive instincts likely to do +for him?</p> + +<p>I will weave into my answer to this question my knowledge of what has +been done and is being done in Utopia.</p> + +<p>It is through the medium of his own exertions that the evolution of +the child's instincts is carried on by Egeria. It may be possible to +lay veneers of information on the surface of a child's mind, but +it is not possible to lay on veneers of growth; and growth, not +information, is the end at which Egeria has always aimed. If a child +is to grow, he must exercise his own limbs, his own organs, his own +faculties. No one else can do this for him; and unless he does it +himself, it will never be done.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_189" id="P_189">[189]</a></span> The school life in Utopia is +therefore one of constant activity. The habit of doing things, of +doing things for himself, of doing things by himself, is gradually +built up in each child. There is no forced inertness in Utopia, +no slackness, no boredom, no yawning. And the activity which is +characteristic of the school is always the child's own activity. The +child himself is behind everything that he does. The child himself +is expressing himself in his every action. Mechanical activity, the +doing of things, not merely at the bidding of another, but also under +his minutely detailed direction, is as foreign to the genius of +the school as is the passivity of the helpless victims of the +unenlightened teacher's "chalk and talk."</p> + +<p>The first consequence, then, of the training of the expansive +instincts which is given in Utopia is the building up in each scholar +of what I may call the habit of rational activity. In many schools +the energies of the child are systematically dammed back, till at +last the springs of his activity, finding that no demand is made upon +them, cease to flow. In Utopia the sluices, though always regulated, +are permanently lifted, and the energies of the child are ever +moving, with a strong and steady current, in whatever channel they +may have chanced to enter. So strong, indeed, and so steady is the +current that it maintains its movement long after the child has left +school. The employers of labour in the neighbourhood of Utopia will +tell you that there are no slackers or loafers in the yearly output +of the school. Egeria recently received a visit from one of her +ex-pupils, a girl of fourteen who is at home keeping house for her +father, and who said<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_190" id="P_190">[190]</a></span> to her in the course of their conversation: "I +do just love washing days; I get up before six and start. Then, when +all the washing is done, I scrub everything bright in the copper +while I have the hot soapsuds." Accustomed as he (or she) is from his +(or her) earliest days to sincere and fearless self-expression, the +Utopian child is entirely incapable of indulging in cant; and the +genuineness of the sentiment which dictated those words is therefore +above suspicion. To work vigorously, to do well whatever he (or she) +has to do, is a real pleasure to the Utopian child. Indeed his whole +being is a living response to the familiar precept: "Whatsoever thy +hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."</p> + +<p>And what he does with his might is always well worth doing. His +constant effort to express himself has, as its necessary counterpart, +a constant effort to find out what is worth expressing, to get to the +truth of things, to see things as they are. The consequent growth +of his perceptive powers may be looked at from two points of view. +On the one hand his growing capacity for getting on terms with +things—for feeling his way among them, for "getting, the hang" of +them, for making himself at home with them, for learning their ins +and outs, for understanding their ways and works—will give him the +power of putting forth an appropriate <i>sense</i> in response to the +demands of each new environment, and, through the medium of this +sense, of converting information into knowledge. For this reason new +"subjects" have no terror for Egeria and her pupils. Though she has +never thought in subjects, she is ready to extend her curriculum in<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_191" id="P_191">[191]</a></span> +any direction in which she thinks that her children are likely to +find interest or profit. The versatility, the mental agility, of the +children is as remarkable as their activity. The current of their +energy is ready to adapt itself to every modifying influence, to +every change of geological formation, that it may encounter in its +course, and to shape its channel or channels accordingly.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, as healthy vigorous growth is always upward (and +downward) as well as outward, the lateral extension of the child's +perceptive powers must needs be balanced in Utopia by the gradual +elevation of his standpoint, with a corresponding widening of his +outlook, and the proportionate deepening of his insight. When the +school life of the child is one of continuous self-expression, +opportunities for "putting his soul" into what he says and does will +often present themselves to him; and if only a few of these are made +use of, his outlook on life will widen, and his imaginative sympathy +with life will deepen, to an extent which to one who had never +visited Utopia might well seem incredible. I have spoken of the +Utopian child's love of the beautiful. This is one aspect of the +spiritual growth that he is always making. Other aspects of it are +his strong sympathy with life in all its forms, and a certain large +and free way of looking at things, which, as far as my experience of +school children goes, is all his own.</p> + +<p>There is yet another aspect of his spiritual growth which is perhaps +the most vital and the most typical of all. When we say that the +child is growing both laterally and vertically (like a shapely tree), +we mean that he is growing as a whole, as a living<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_192" id="P_192">[192]</a></span> soul. Now the +growth of the soul as such must needs take the form of outgrowth, of +escape from "self." Growth is, in its essence, an emancipative +process; and though it sometimes intensifies selfishness and widens +the sphere of its activity, that is invariably due to its being +one-sided and therefore inharmonious and unhealthy. When the child +or the man is growing as a living whole, with a happy, harmonious, +many-sided growth, his growth is of necessity outgrowth, and he must +needs be escaping from the thraldom of his lower and lesser self. +This conclusion is no mere inference from accepted or postulated +premises. What I have seen in Utopia has forced it upon me. The +unselfishness, the natural, easy, spontaneous self-forgetfulness, of +the Utopian child, is the central feature of his moral life,—so +marked and withal so unique a feature that its presence proves to +demonstration, first, that growth of the right sort is necessarily +emancipative, and, next, that the growth made in Utopia is growth +of the right sort. I have already commented on the singular charm +of manner which distinguishes the children of Utopia. Their +self-forgetfulness, their entire lack of self-consciousness, is +one source of this charm. The tactfulness which their life of +self-expression, and therefore of trained perception, tends to +engender, is another. But the moral aspect of Utopianism is one of +such surpassing interest, and also of such profound significance +from the point of view of my fundamental "truism," that I must limit +myself for the moment to this passing reference to it, and reserve +it for fuller treatment in the remaining chapters.</p> + +<p>I could easily make a long list of Utopian virtues<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_193" id="P_193">[193]</a></span> and graces, but I +must content myself with touching on one more typical product of +Egeria's philosophy of education,—the joy which the children wear in +their faces and bear in their hearts. The sense of well-being which +must needs accompany healthy and harmonious growth is realised by him +who experiences it as joy. The Utopian children are by many degrees +the happiest that I have met with in an elementary school, and I +must therefore conclude that all is well with them, that their +well-being—the true end of all education—has been, and is being, +achieved. If you look at any of them with more than a mere passing +glance, you will be sure to win from him the quick response of a +sunny smile,—a smile which is half gladness, half goodwill. And the +joy of their hearts goes with them when their schooldays are over and +they begin to work for their bread. Last year one of the boys, on +leaving school, found employment in a large field on the lower slopes +of the hills, where he had to collect flints and pile them in heaps, +his wage for this dull and tiresome work being no more than fivepence +a day. But he found the work neither dull nor tiresome; for as he +marched up and down the field, collecting and piling the flints with +cheery goodwill, he sang his Folk Songs with all the spontaneous +happiness of a soaring lark.</p> + +<p>Activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a wide and free outlook, +self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy of heart,—these are +qualities which might be expected to unfold themselves under the +influence of the Utopian training, and which do, in point of fact, +flourish vigorously in the soil and atmosphere of Utopia. They are +the outcome of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_194" id="P_194">[194]</a></span> type of education which differs radically from that +which has hitherto been accepted as orthodox,—differing from it with +the unfathomable difference between vital and mechanical obedience, +between life and machinery.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote16" id="Footnote16" href="#FNa16" class="label">[16]</a> The child is struggling to do this, and more than this. +The search for order resolves itself into the search for cause; and +the search for cause will resolve itself, in the last resort, into +the greatest of all adventures,—the search for that pure essence of +things on which all the deeper desires of the soul converge, which +imagination dreams of as absolute beauty, and reason as a beacon-lamp +of all-illuminating light, flashing forth alternately as absolute +reality and absolute truth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote17" id="Footnote17" href="#FNa17" class="label">[17]</a> I shall perhaps be told that my extravagant idealism is +out of place in a book on elementary education. To this possible +reproach I can but answer, in Mrs. Browning's words, that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It takes the ideal to blow a hair's breadth off<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dust of the actual.</span> +</div></div> + +<p>My experience of Utopia has convinced me that in taking thought for +the education of the young it is impossible to be too idealistic, and +that the more "commonsensical" and "utilitarian" one's philosophy of +education, the shallower and falser it will prove to be.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote18" id="Footnote18" href="#FNa18" class="label">[18]</a> An informal report to me, not a formal report to the +Board of Education.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote19" id="Footnote19" href="#FNa19" class="label">[19]</a> Real, in the sense that the beauty of form and colour +is more real than either form or colour, and that a law of Nature is +more real than an isolated fact.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_195" id="P_195">[195]</a></div> + +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h3>EDUCATION THROUGH SELF-REALISATION</h3> +</div> + +<p>Activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a large and free +outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy of heart,—are +there many schools in England in which the soil and atmosphere are +favourable to the vigorous growth of all these qualities? I doubt it. +In the secondary schools, of all grades and types, the education +given is so one-sided, thanks to the inexorable pressure of the +scholarship system, that the harmonious development of the child's +nature is not to be looked for. In the elementary schools, from which +the chilling shadow cast by thirty years of "payment by results" is +passing slowly—very slowly—away, the instinct of the teacher is to +distrust the child and do everything, or nearly everything, for him, +the result being that the whole <i>régime</i> is still unfavourable to the +spontaneous outgrowth of the child's higher qualities. There are of +course schools, both secondary and elementary, in which one or more +of the Utopian qualities flourish with considerable vigour. There are +elementary schools, for example, in which the children, being allowed +by enterprising teachers to walk in new paths without leading +strings, have become unexpectedly active and versatile. And there are +others—mostly in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_196" id="P_196">[196]</a></span> slum regions of great towns—in which the +devotion, the sympathetic kindness, and the gracious bearing of the +teachers have won from the children the response of unselfish +affection, attractive manners, and happy faces.<a name="FNa20" id="FNa20"></a><a href="#Footnote20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Yet even in these +exceptional cases it may be doubted if the development of the +particular quality or qualities for which the school is distinguished +reaches the high-water mark which is reached in each and all of the +seven qualities in Utopia. As for the elementary schools which remain +faithful, as so many still do, to the traditions of the old +régime,—if in these any of the seven qualities manage to resist the +adverse influences to which they are all exposed, they have at best +but a starved and stunted life.</p> + +<p>I have spoken much and with unsparing frankness of the shortcomings +of our elementary schools. The time has come for me to say with +emphasis that however grave and however numerous may be the defects +of elementary education in England, they are defects which it shares +with all other branches of education, and which England shares with +all other Western lands. The plain truth is that education as such is +a failure in the West, a failure in the sense that the very qualities +which it ought to foster—the cardinal virtues, mental, moral, and +spiritual, which are present in embryo in every child, waiting to be +realised—are not merely neglected by it, in its insane ardour for +"results," but<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_197" id="P_197">[197]</a></span> are also exposed, in most of its schools, to strongly +adverse influences. And the reason why education as such is a failure +in the West is that from its earliest days it has been a house +divided against itself, those who were and are responsible for +it having been under the influence of two mutually destructive +assumptions, which they have vainly tried to reconcile with one +another.</p> + +<p>The first of these assumptions is my initial "truism,"—that the +function of education is to foster growth. This is admitted, +implicitly if not directly, by all who think and speak about +education, and even, in their unguarded moments, by most of those +who teach. It is generally admitted, for example, that such mental +qualities as attention, memory, judgment, intelligence, reason, +such moral qualities as loyalty, courage, truthfulness, kindness, +unselfishness, such semi-moral qualities as cleanliness, orderliness, +carefulness, alertness, industry, punctuality, are capable of being +developed by education. It is further admitted that such special +qualities as literary or artistic taste, the mathematical or the +historical sense, an aptitude for business or finance, are ready +to evolve themselves, in response to the fostering influence of +practical experience directed by skilful teaching. It is admitted, +in other words, that there is much in human nature, apart from what +is purely or mainly physical, which is both capable and worthy of +cultivation, and which education ought therefore to try to cultivate.</p> + +<p>So far, so good. These admissions, with the fundamental admission +which underlies them all, might form the basis of a sound philosophy +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_198" id="P_198">[198]</a></span> education, if they were not liable to be stultified and even +nullified by the counter assumption that human nature is innately +evil and corrupt. For from the latter assumption has followed, both +logically and naturally, a theory of education which is not merely +unfavourable but fatal to growth. If human nature is innately evil, +if it has no inborn capacity for goodness or truth, what is there in +it that is worth training? So far as the "great matters" of life are +concerned, the child must be educated by being told in minute detail +what to do, and by being alternately bribed and bullied into doing +it. As he can neither think, nor believe, nor desire, nor do what +is right, he must be told what to think, what to believe, what to +desire, what to do; and as it is assumed that the tasks set him by +his teacher will not be intrinsically attractive, he must be induced +to perform them by the threat of external punishments and the promise +of external rewards. In other words, in the spheres of religion and +morals, so far as these can be walled off from the rest of human +life, he must be educated, not by being helped to grow, but by being +compelled to obey; and as the spheres of religion and morals cannot +possibly be walled off from the rest of human life, the idea of +educating the child through the medium of passive and mechanical +obedience will gradually extend its influence over all the other +departments and aspects of his home and school life, his innate +sinfulness finding its equivalent, in secular matters, in his innate +helplessness and stupidity, while in the place of the creeds, codes, +and catechisms by which his spiritual welfare is provided for, he +will be fed during the hours of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_199" id="P_199">[199]</a></span> secular instruction on rations of +information, formulated rules, and minute directions of various +kinds. Under this <i>régime</i> of wire-pulling on the part of the teacher +and puppet-like dancing on the part of the child, the growth of +the child's faculties,—of the whole range of his faculties, for +they will all come under the blighting influence of the current +misconception of the bent of his nature and the consequent +under-estimate of his powers,—far from being fostered, will be +systematically thwarted and starved. This is the fate which might be +expected to befall the child if the doctrine of his innate sinfulness +were allowed to dominate his education; and this is the fate which +has befallen and is befalling him in all grades of society and in all +the countries of the West.</p> + +<p>It is the doctrine of original sin, of the congenital depravity of +man's nature, which blocks the way to the reform of education,—blocks +the way to it by compelling education to become the destroying angel +instead of the foster-nurse of the child's expanding life. In +criticising the defects of our educational system, we have too long +mistaken symptoms for causes, and believed that we were removing the +latter when we were only palliating or at best excising the former. +To pinch off a withered bud, to lop off a withered limb, of the +diseased tree of education, to train in this or that direction a +branch which is as yet unaffected, is but lost labour so long as +the tree is being slowly poisoned at its roots by a fundamental +misconception of the character and capacity of the child. It is time +that we should reconsider our whole attitude towards human nature. +The widespread<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_200" id="P_200">[200]</a></span> belief that sundry faculties, physical, mental, and +moral, admit of being cultivated and ought to be cultivated in the +schoolroom—a belief which is ever affirming itself against the +educational systems and practices that are ever giving it the +lie—may surely be construed into an admission that my primary truism +is at least a truth. If this is so, if the business of the teacher +is, as I contend, to help the child to grow, healthily, vigorously, +and symmetrically, on all the planes of his being, the inference is +irresistible that education will achieve nothing but failure until +its foundations have been entirely relaid. For faith in the inherent +soundness, in the natural goodness, of the seed or sapling, or +whatever else he may undertake to rear, is the first condition of +success on the part of the grower. And to ask education to bring to +sane and healthy maturity the plant which we call human nature, and +in the same breath to tell it that human nature is intrinsically +corrupt and evil, is to set it an obviously impracticable task. One +might as well supply a farmer with the seeds of wild grasses and +poisonous weeds, and ask him to grow a crop of wheat. Growth can and +does transform potential into actual good, but no process of growth +can transform what is innately evil into what is finally good. A +poisonous seed will ripen of inner necessity into a poisonous plant; +and the more carefully it is fed and tended, the larger and stronger +will the poisonous plant become.</p> + +<p>The time has come, then, for us to throw to the winds the +time-honoured, but otherwise dishonoured and discredited, belief that +the child is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity, and that<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_201" id="P_201">[201]</a></span> +therefore his nature, if allowed to obey its own laws and follow its +own tendencies, will ripen into death, instead of into a larger +and richer life. I shall perhaps be told that if this belief is +abandoned, other religious beliefs will go with it. Let them go. They +have kept bad company, and if they cannot dissociate themselves from +it, they had better share its fate. What is real and vital in our +religious beliefs will gain incalculably by being disengaged from +what may once have had a life and a meaning of its own but is now +nothing better than a morbid growth. To tell a man that, apart from a +miracle, he is predestined to perdition, is the surest way to send +him there; and it is probable that the doctrine of his own innate +depravity is the deadliest instrument for achieving his ruin, that +Man, in his groping endeavours to explain to himself the dominant +facts of his existence, has ever devised.</p> + +<p>Nor is the practical failure of the doctrine—its failure to achieve +any lasting result but the strangulation of Man's expanding life—the +only proof that it is inherently unsound. There is positive proof +that the counter doctrine, the doctrine of Man's potential goodness, +is inherently true. We have seen that the great arterial instincts +which manifest themselves in the undirected play of young children, +are making for three supreme ends,—the sympathetic instincts for the +goal of <i>Love</i>, the artistic instincts for the goal of <i>Beauty</i>, the +scientific instincts for the goal of <i>Truth</i>. We have seen, in other +words, that the push of Nature's forces in the inner life of the +young child is ever tending to take him out of himself in the +direction of a triune<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_202" id="P_202">[202]</a></span> goal which I may surely be allowed to call +<i>Divine</i>. If we follow towards "infinity" the lines of love, of +beauty, and of truth, we shall begin at last to dream of an ideal +point—the meeting-point of all and the vanishing-point of each—for +which no name will suffice less pregnant with meaning or less +suggestive of reality than that of God. It is towards God, then, not +towards the Devil, that the ripening, expansive forces of Nature +which are at work in the child, are directing the process of his +growth. We are taught that Man is by nature a "child of wrath." The +more closely we study his ways and works when, as a young child, he +is left (more or less) to his own devices, the stronger does our +conviction become that he is by nature a "child of God." Those who +are in a position to speak tell us that the normal child is born +physically healthy. If the men of science would study the other sides +of his being as carefully as they have studied his physique, they +would, I feel sure, be able to tell us that he is also born mentally, +morally, and spiritually healthy, and that on these sides, as well as +on the physical side, his growth might be and ought to be a natural +movement towards perfection. For some of my readers such arguments as +these are perhaps too much in the air to be convincing. Well, then, +let us appeal to experience. Let us see what the systematic +cultivation of his natural faculties has done for the child in +Utopia. I have already pointed out that the unselfishness of the +children—the complete absence of self-seeking and self-assertion—is +one of the most noticeable features of the life of their school. Now +there is no place for moral teaching on the time-table of the +school:<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_203" id="P_203">[203]</a></span> and I can say without hesitation that the direct inculcation +of morality is wholly foreign to Egeria's conception of education. +How, then, has the emancipation of the child from the first enemy of +Man's well-being—from all those narrowing, hardening, and +demoralising influences which we speak of collectively as egoistic or +selfish—been effected in Utopia? By no other means than that of +allowing the child's nature to unfold itself, on many sides of its +being and under thoroughly favourable conditions. The twofold desire +which we all experience,—to accept and rest in the ordinary +undeveloped self, and at the same time to exalt and magnify it,—is +the surest and most fruitful source of moral evil. Indeed, it may be +doubted if there is any source of moral evil, apart from those which +are purely sensual, which has not at least an underground connection +with this. If we are to "cap" this deadly fountain, and so prevent it +from desolating human life, we must realise, once and for all, that +the two desires which master us cannot be simultaneously gratified; +that we cannot both rest in the ordinary self and magnify it; that we +can magnify it only by <i>making it great</i>, by helping it to grow. When +we have realised this, we shall be ready to receive the further +lesson that in proportion as the self magnifies itself by the natural +process of growth, so does its desire to magnify itself gradually die +away,—die away with the dawning consciousness that in and through +the process of its growth it is outgrowing itself, forgetting itself, +escaping from itself, that the thing which so ardently desired to be +magnified is in fact ceasing to be. This vital<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_204" id="P_204">[204]</a></span> truth,—which my +visits to Utopia have borne in upon me,—that healthy and harmonious +growth is in its very essence <i>out</i>growth or escape from self, has +depths of meaning which are waiting to be fathomed. For one thing, it +means, if it has any meaning, that what is central in human nature +is, not its inborn wickedness but its infinite capacity for good, not +its rebellious instincts and backsliding tendencies but its +many-sided effort to achieve perfection.</p> + +<p>We must now make our choice between two alternatives. We must decide, +once and for all, whether the function of education is to foster +growth or to exact mechanical obedience. If we choose the latter +alternative, we shall enter a path which leads in the direction of +spiritual death. If we choose the former, we must cease to halt +between two opinions, and must henceforth base our system of +education, boldly and confidently, on the conviction that growth is +in its essence a movement towards perfection, and therefore that +self-realisation is the first and last duty of Man.</p> + +<p>It is by answering possible objections to Utopianism that I shall +best be able to unfold Egeria's philosophy of education. I shall +perhaps be told that in my advocacy of that philosophy <i>I am +preaching dangerous doctrines; that the only alternative for +obedience is the lawlessness of unbridled licence; and that anarchy, +social, moral, and spiritual, is the ultimate goal of the path which +I am urging the teacher to enter</i>. Let me point out, in answer to +this protest, that it is mechanical obedience which I condemn, not +obedience as such.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_205" id="P_205">[205]</a></span> If I condemn mechanical obedience, I do so +because it is unworthy of the name of obedience, because the higher +faculties of Man's being, the faculties which are distinctively +human—reason, imagination, aspiration, spiritual intuition, and the +like—take no part in it, because it is the obedience of an +automaton, not of a living soul. What I wish to oppose to it is +<i>vital obedience</i>, obedience to the master laws of Man's being, +obedience to the laws which assert themselves as central and supreme, +obedience more particularly to those larger and obscurer laws which +obedience itself helps us to discover, obedience in fine to that +hierarchy of laws—(the superior law always claiming the fuller +measure and the higher kind of obedience)—which, if we are to use +the Divine Name, we must needs identify with the will of God. +Obedience, in this sense of the word, is a sustained and soul-deep +effort in which all the higher faculties of Man's being take part, +an effort which is in some sort a voyage of discovery, the doing of +the more obvious duty being always rewarded by the deepening of the +doer's insight and the widening of his outlook, and by the consequent +unveiling to him of the way in which he is to walk and the goal at +which he is to aim. That the path of soul-growth is the path of vital +obedience can scarcely be doubted. The effort to grow is always +successful just so far as it implies knowledge of the laws of the +nature that is unfolding itself, and readiness to obey those laws; +and so far as it is successful, it carries with it the outgrowth of +the very faculties by which knowledge—the higher knowledge which +makes further growth possible—is to be gained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_206" id="P_206">[206]</a></span> Here, as +elsewhere, there is an unceasing interaction between perception and +expression, between knowledge of law and obedience to law, what is +given as obedience being received back as enlightenment, and what is +received as enlightenment being given back as larger, fuller, and +more significant obedience.</p> + +<p>And, be it carefully observed, it is obedience to the laws of human +nature, not obedience to the idiosyncrasies of the individual nature, +which the process of soul-growth at once implies and makes possible. +Growth is, in its essence, a movement towards that perfect type which +is the real self of each individual in turn, and the approach to +which involves the gradual surrender of individuality, and the +gradual escape from the ordinary self. A man is to cling to and +affirm his individuality, not in order that he may rest in it and +make much of it, but in order that he may outgrow it and pass far +beyond it in that one way—the best way for him—which it, and it +alone, is able to mark out for him. In other words, he is to assert +his individual self in order that he may universalise himself in his +own way, and not in obedience to the ruling of custom and authority, +in order that he may escape from himself through the real outlet of +sincere self-expression, and not through the sham outlet of hypocrisy +and cant.</p> + +<p>What I may call the Utopian scheme of education, far from making for +antinomianism and anarchy, is the sworn enemy of individualism and +therefore, <i>a fortiori</i>, of everything that savours of licence. It is +the conventional type of education, with its demands for mechanical +obedience to<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_207" id="P_207">[207]</a></span> external authority, which leads through despotism to +social and political chaos. The whole <i>régime</i> of mechanical +obedience is favourable, in the long run, to the development of +anarchy. Let us take the case of a church or an autocracy which +demands implicit obedience from its subjects, and is prepared to +exact such obedience by the application of physical force or its +moral equivalent. What will happen to it when its subjects begin to +ask it for its credentials? The fact that it has always demanded from +them literal rather than spiritual obedience, and that, in its +application of motive force, it has appealed to their baser desires +and baser fears, makes it impossible for it to justify itself to +their higher faculties, rational or emotional, and makes it necessary +for it to meet their incipient criticism with renewed threats of +punishment and renewed promises of reward. But the very fact that it +is being asked for its credentials means that the force on which it +has hitherto relied is weakening, that its power to punish and +reward, which has always been resolvable into the power to make +people believe that it can punish and reward, is being called in +question and is therefore crumbling away. And behind that power there +is nothing but chaos. For the <i>régime</i> of mechanical obedience, by +arresting the spontaneous growth of Man's higher nature, and by +making its chief appeal to his baser desires and baser fears, becomes +of necessity the foster-mother of egoism; and when egoism, which +makes each man a law to himself and the potential enemy of his kind, +is unrestrained by authority, the door is thrown wide open to +anarchy, and through anarchy to chaos. This is what is happening<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_208" id="P_208">[208]</a></span> in +the West, in our self-conscious and critical age. In every field of +human action, in religion, in politics, in social life, in art, in +letters, authority is being asked for its credentials; and as this +demand, besides being a disintegrating influence, is a sign that the +force on which authority relies is weakening, it is not to be +wondered at that there is a steady drift in many Western countries in +the direction of anarchy,—religious, political, social, artistic, +literary,—or that this <i>régime</i> of incipient anarchy is taking the +form of an ignoble scramble for wealth, for power, for position, for +fame, for notoriety, for anything in fine which may serve to exalt a +man above his fellows, and so minister to the aggrandizement of his +lower self.</p> + +<p>In this drift towards anarchy the school is playing its part. I do +not wish to suggest that the boys and girls of this or any other +Western country are beginning to ask their teachers for their +credentials, or are likely to rise in rebellion against them. The +preparation for anarchy that is going on in the school is not only +quite compatible with what is known as "strict discipline," but is +also, in part at least, the effect of it. What is happening is that +in an acutely critical age the <i>régime</i> of mechanical obedience to +external authority which has been in force in the West for nearly +2000 years, and which is now taking its victims straight towards +anarchy, is being carefully rehearsed in our schools of all types and +grades. During the years when human nature is most pliable (owing to +its richness in sap), most easily trained, and most amenable to +influence, good or evil, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_209" id="P_209">[209]</a></span> child's spontaneous effort to outgrow +himself and so escape from his lower self,—an end which is not to be +reached except by the path of free self-expression,—is persistently +thwarted till at last it dies away; blind and literal obedience to +external authority, for which the consent of his higher faculties +is not asked, and in the giving of which they are not allowed to +take part, is persistently exacted from him till at last his +higher faculties cease to energise, and his lower nature begins to +monopolise the rising sap of his life; in order to enforce the blind +obedience that is asked for, an appeal is made, by an elaborate +system of external rewards and external punishments, to his selfish +desires and ignoble fears; while the examination system, with +its inevitable accompaniments of prizes and class-lists, makes a +special appeal to his competitive instincts,—instincts which are +anti-social, and may even, in extreme cases, become anti-human in +their tendency. And when authority has thus been presented to him, in +a form which he has never been expected to welcome, and when, by the +same process, the growth of his higher self has been arrested, and +his anarchical instincts—his selfishness and self-assertion—have +been systematically cultivated, the critical spirit and temper will +be deliberately aroused in him, especially if he happens to attend +one of those secondary schools which are regarded as highly efficient +because their lists of University distinctions and other "successes" +are inordinately long; for the education given to him in such a +school by his scholarship-hunting teachers is of necessity so bookish +and so one-sided that his intellectual, dialectically<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_210" id="P_210">[210]</a></span> critical +faculties are apt to become hypertrophied, while other faculties +which might have kept these in check are neglected and starved. The +product of such a system of education,—benumbed or paralysed on many +sides of his being by the repressive <i>régime</i> to which he has so long +been subjected, but vigorously alive on the sides of egoism and +intellectual criticism,—will be an anarchist <i>in posse</i> (unless, +indeed, his vitality has been depressed by his school-life below the +point at which reaction becomes possible);—an anarchist <i>in posse</i>, +even though, in his terror of anarchism in others, he should become a +pillar of the Established Church of his country, a J.P. of his town +or county, and an active member of the nearest Conservative +Association.</p> + +<p>In Utopia, on the other hand, where selfishness is outgrown and +forgotten, and where the spirit of comradeship and brotherhood +pervades the school, there can be no preparation for anarchy, if only +for the reason that there is no authority—no despotic authority, +forcibly imposing its will on the school <i>ab extra</i>—to be +potentially dethroned. For all her scholars, Egeria is the very +symbol and embodiment of love, the centre whence all happy, +harmonious, life-giving, peace-diffusing influences radiate, and to +which, when they have vitalised the souls of the children and +transformed themselves into sentiments of loyalty and devotion, they +all return. I am not exaggerating a whit when I say that the Utopian +school is an ideal community, a community whose social system, +instead of being inspired by that spirit of "competitive selfishness" +which makes "each for himself, and the devil take<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_211" id="P_211">[211]</a></span> the hindmost" its +motto, seems to have realised the Socialistic dream of "Each for all, +and all for each."</p> + +<p>I shall perhaps be asked <i>what provision is made in Utopia for +enabling the children to go through the drudgery of school-life, to +master the "3 R's," to "get up" the various subjects which the Code +prescribes, and so forth</i>. To this question there is but one answer: +the best possible provision. "Qui veut la fin veut les moyens." In +the life of organised play which the children lead, attractive ends +are ever being set before them. If they are to achieve these ends, +they must take the appropriate means. What children in other schools +might regard as drudgery, the Utopian takes in his stride. Reading, +writing, and arithmetic are means to ends beyond themselves, ends +which are constantly presenting themselves to the Utopian. If he is +to gratify his communicative instinct, he must learn to read and +write. If he is to gratify his dramatic instinct, he must, <i>inter +alia</i>, read with intelligence books of reference which would be +considered too advanced for the ordinary school-child. If he is to +gratify his inquisitive and constructive instincts, he must learn +to count, measure, and calculate. For whatever means may have to +be taken, must be taken by him. Egeria, as he knows well, will +do nothing for him which he can reasonably be expected to do for +himself. There are subjects, such as drawing, dancing, and singing, +which are, or at any rate ought to be, intrinsically delightful, +as being natural channels of self-expression. There are other +subjects, such as history, geography, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_212" id="P_212">[212]</a></span> English, which can be made +delightful by being treated dramatically. The word "drudgery" has no +meaning for the Utopian child. A group of children in the highest +class recently committed to memory the whole "Trial Scene" of the +<i>Merchant of Venice</i>—some 300 lines or so of blank verse—in order +that they might give themselves the pleasure of acting it. They +accomplished this feat in a little more than a month. In the ordinary +elementary school the child who has committed 150 lines to memory +in the course of a year has done all that is required of him. The +getting up of a subject is drudgery only when the child can see no +meaning in what he is doing, only when the getting up of the subject +is regarded as an end in itself. In Utopia no subject, apart from +those which I have spoken of as intrinsically delightful, is taught +for its own sake. Subjects are taught there either as the means to +desired ends, or because they afford opportunities for the training +of the expansive instincts, the gratification of which is a pure +pleasure to every healthy child.</p> + +<p>But not only does the Utopian child, with his eyes always fixed on +desirable ends, find a pleasure in doing things which other children +are wont to regard as drudgery, but he has the further advantage of +being able to master with comparative facility what other children +find difficult as well as distasteful. From first to last, the +training given in Utopia makes, as we have seen, for the development +of faculty. In my last chapter I set forth in detail some of the ways +and means by which Egeria tries to cultivate the expansive instincts +of her pupils. Behind all these ways and means stands<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_213" id="P_213">[213]</a></span> the master +method—or shall I say the master principle?—of self-expression. +Recognising, as she does, that each of the expansive instincts is a +definite expression of the soul's spontaneous effort to grow, and a +clear indication of a particular direction in which Nature wishes the +soul to grow,—and recognising, as she also does, that the business +of growing must be done by the growing organism and cannot be +delegated to any one else,—Egeria entrusts the work of +self-realisation to the child himself, and makes no attempt to +relieve him of an obligation which no one but himself can discharge.</p> + +<p>Now self-realisation is a twofold process. In the absence of a fitter +and more adequate word, I have applied the term <i>perceptive</i> to those +faculties by means of which we lay hold upon the world that surrounds +us, and draw it into ourselves and make it our own. And I have +contended that this group of faculties has, as its counterpart +and correlate, another group of faculties which I have called +<i>expressive</i>,—the faculties by means of which we go out of ourselves +into the world that surrounds us, and give ourselves to it and try to +identify ourselves with it,—and that the relation between these two +groups is so vital and so intimate that each in turn may be regarded +as the very life and soul of the other. In words which I have already +used, the perceptive faculties, at any rate in childhood, grow +through the interpretation which expression gives them, and in no +other way, and the expressive faculties grow by interpreting +perception, and in no other way. That these two groups of faculties +are, as it were, the reciprocating engines by means of which the +vital movement which we call self-realisation<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_214" id="P_214">[214]</a></span> is effected, is the +conviction on which Egeria's whole scheme of education may be said to +be pivoted. In Utopia self-expression is the medium through which the +expansive instincts are encouraged to unfold themselves. And this +life of self-expression has as its necessary counterpart the +continuous development of the perceptive faculties along the whole +range of the child's nature.</p> + +<p>Hence the all-round capacity of the Utopian child. The development of +his perceptive faculties which his life of self-expression tends to +produce, takes many forms. One of these, and one which in some sort +underlies and interpenetrates all the rest, is the outgrowth of what +I may call the <i>intuitional</i> faculty,—a general capacity for getting +into touch with any new environment in which the child may find +himself, of subconsciously apprehending its laws and properties, of +feeling his way through its unexplored land. It is by means of this +capacity for putting forth a new <i>sense</i> in response to the stimulus +of each new environment, that the Utopian child is able to master +with comparative ease the various subjects which he is expected to +learn. And not with ease only, but with effect. It is, as we have +seen, through the action of an appropriate sense, and in no other +way, that the information which is supplied to the scholar, when he +is learning this or that subject, is converted into <i>knowledge</i>, and +is so made available both for the further understanding of the given +subject and for the nutrition of the scholar's own inner life.</p> + +<p>From every point of view, then, the Utopian scholar has a marked +advantage, in respect of the things with which education is supposed +to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_215" id="P_215">[215]</a></span> mainly concerned—the mastery of subjects and the acquisition +of knowledge—over the product of the conventional type of school. +Whatever the Utopian may have to learn, is a pleasure to him either +for its own sake or as a means to some desirable end. Whatever he may +have to learn, he learns with comparative ease, because his +perceptive faculties have been systematically trained, and he is +therefore at home, in greater or lesser degree, in any new +environment. And whatever he may have to learn, he learns with +effect, because he is able to digest the information that he +receives, and convert it into knowledge, and so retain it in the form +in which it will best conduce both to his further progress in that +particular branch of study and to the general building up of his +mind.</p> + +<p>In the ordinary result-hunting school the scholar fares very +differently from this. As a rule, he takes but little pleasure in his +work, for subjects which have their chief value as means to desirable +ends are presented to him as ends in themselves, and as such are +rightly regarded by him as meaningless and therefore as intolerably +dull; while subjects which are either intrinsically attractive, as +being natural channels of self-expression, or potentially attractive +as providing opportunities for self-expression, have no attraction +for him, as in neither case is self-expression on his part permitted. +Again, he finds great difficulty in mastering the subjects on his +time-table, or even in making the first step towards mastering them, +for, owing to his perceptive faculties as a whole having been +starved by the repressive <i>régime</i> which denied them the outlet +of expression, he has not evolved the power of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_216" id="P_216">[216]</a></span> putting forth an +appropriate sense in response to the stimulus of a new environment, +and is therefore helpless in the presence of what is unfamiliar or +unexpected. One of his faculties, his memory, has indeed been +hypertrophied by being unduly exercised, and his capacity for +receiving information is in consequence unhealthily great; but +because he lacks, in this case or in that, the <i>sense</i> which might +enable him to digest the information received and convert it into +knowledge, the food with which he has been crammed speedily passes +through him, undigested and unassimilated, and the hours which he has +spent in acquiring information will have done as little for his +progress in the given subject as for the general growth of his mind.</p> + +<p>The difference between the two schemes of education—that which +exacts mechanical obedience, and that which seeks to foster +growth—may be looked at from another point of view. Under the +former, interference with what I may call the subconscious processes +of Nature is at its maximum. Under the latter, at its minimum. In +order to realise what this means let us suppose that such +interference were possible where fortunately it is and must ever be +impossible,—in the first and second years of the child's life. +Fortunately for the child, it is impossible for us to educate him, +in any formal sense of the word, until he has mastered his mother +tongue. Were it otherwise, his mother tongue would never be mastered. +Before he reaches the age of two the child accomplishes the +marvellous feat of acquiring an entirely new language. While he is +learning it Nature is his only teacher, and under her tuition he +masters the new language without the least strain<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_217" id="P_217">[217]</a></span> and with complete +success. But let us suppose that it was possible for a teacher of the +conventional type to give minute directions to a child by some other +medium of expression than that of language. And let us suppose that +such a teacher made up her mind that she, and not Nature, was to +teach the child his mother tongue. One can readily imagine what would +happen. The teacher would probably have a theory that no child should +begin to talk till he was two or even two and a half years old; and +if so, the child would be kept in a state of enforced dumbness till +he reached that age. In any case, he would be strictly forbidden +to speak till his teacher gave him formal permission to do so. +Half-an-hour in the morning, and half-an-hour in the afternoon would +probably be set aside for the language lesson. For so many weeks or +months the child would be strictly limited to words of two or three +letters. For so many more weeks or months, to words of four or five +letters. Things which had names of more than the prescribed number +of letters would be kept away from the child; or, if that was +impossible, he would not be allowed to talk about them. For half a +year perhaps he would be limited to the use of nouns and verbs. +Prepositions might then be introduced into his vocabulary; and, +later, adjectives and adverbs. And so on; and so on. And the outcome +of all this elaborate training would be that the child would never +learn to talk his mother tongue.</p> + +<p>It is by methods analogous in all respects to this that many of the +subjects on the time-table are taught in thousands of our schools. +The teacher seems to imagine that he knows, fully and precisely,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_218" id="P_218">[218]</a></span> how +each subject ought to be taught; and instead of standing aside, and +trying to learn how Nature wishes this or that subject to be taught +(if Nature can be said to take any interest in "subjects"), and then +trying to co-operate with her subconscious tendencies, he makes out +his elaborate scheme of instruction, sets before the child as the +goal of his efforts the production of certain formal results, and +drives him towards these with whip and bridle, satisfied that if he +succeeds in producing them, the subject will have been duly mastered. +And all the time he will not have given a thought to what is +happening to the child's inner life. Yet it is more than probable +that the teacher's disregard of, and therefore incessant interference +with, the subconscious processes of Nature has quite as disastrous +results in the teaching of composition, let us say, or drawing, as it +would certainly have in the hypothetical case of the teaching of the +child's mother tongue.</p> + +<p>But in truth the Utopian conception of what constitutes efficiency +differs so radically from the current conception, that little is to +be gained by comparing them. If I am asked by those who value outward +and visible results for their own sake, whether the training given in +Utopia is "efficient," I can but answer: "Yes, but efficient in a +sense which you cannot even begin to understand,—efficient in the +sense of developing faculty and fostering life, whereas the price +paid for your boasted efficiency is the starvation of faculty and the +destruction of life."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"<i>But how</i>," it will be asked, "<i>are the Utopian<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_219" id="P_219">[219]</a></span> children, one and +all, induced to exert themselves? The standard of activity in the +school is, on your own showing, exceptionally high. Much is expected +of the children. Yet there are no rewards for them to hope for, and +no punishments for them to fear. How, then, are those who are by +nature less energetic or less persevering than the rest to be induced +to rise to the level of the teacher's expectation</i>?" By implication +this question has been answered again and again. But it deserves a +direct answer, and I will try to give it one.</p> + +<p>To begin with, it is incorrect to say that there are no rewards or +punishments in Utopia. Outward rewards and outward punishments are +entirely unknown there; but there are inward rewards to be had for +the seeking, and there are inward punishments to be feared, though it +must be admitted that the fear of them seldom overshadows, even for +a passing moment, the sunlit life of the Utopian child. What induces +the Utopian child to work is, in brief, delight in his work. He is +allowed and even encouraged to energise along the lines which his +nature seems to have marked out for him, and in response to the +stress of forces which seem to be welling up from the depths of his +inner life. Exertion of this kind is in itself a delight. Nature has +taken care to make all the exercises by which growth is fostered, at +any rate in the days of childhood when growth is most rapid and +vigorous, intrinsically attractive. Had she done otherwise she would +have failed to make due provision for the growth of Man's being +during the years which precede the outgrowth of self-consciousness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_220" id="P_220">[220]</a></span> +and the possibility of self-discipline, of the narrower and sterner +kind.</p> + +<p>And not only are the exercises by which healthy and harmonious growth +is secured intrinsically attractive, but also the sense of well-being +which accompanies such growth is an unfailing source of happiness. In +Utopia the end for which the children are working is not an external +reward or prize to be conferred on them if they achieve certain +prescribed results, but rather the actual goal to which the path that +they have entered is taking them,—a goal which is ever lighting the +path with its foreglow, and which is therefore at once an infinitely +distant lodestar and an ever present delight. For the consummation of +any process of growth is always the perfection, the final well-being, +of the thing that grows; and therefore in each successive stage of +the process there is a truer prefigurement of the perfection which +is being gradually achieved, and a fuller sense of that well-being +which, at its highest level, is perfection's other self.</p> + +<p>For the Utopian, then, to walk in the path of self-realisation is its +own reward; and to wander from that path is its own punishment. But +as the forces of Nature are all co-operating to keep the child in +the path of self-realisation, and as Egeria has allied herself with +those forces and is working with them in every possible way, the +rewards which the Utopian wins for himself are very many, while the +punishments which he inflicts on himself are very few. In other +words, the pressure on him to exert himself is so strong, his +opportunities for exerting himself (under Egeria's sympathetic rule) +are so many, and the pleasure of exerting himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_221" id="P_221">[221]</a></span> is found to be so +great, that the temptation to be idle or rebellious can scarcely be +said to exist.</p> + +<p>It is indeed in respect of the motives to exertion which they +respectively supply, that the superiority of the Utopian to the +conventional type of education is perhaps most pronounced. I have +said that Egeria allies herself with the expansive forces of Nature. +The teacher of the conventional type has to fight against those +forces. Let us assume that the two teachers are on a level in respect +of their capacity for influencing and stimulating their pupils, +and let us indicate that level by the algebraical symbol <i>x</i>. Then +the difference between the motive force which Egeria exerts, and +the motive force which her rival exerts, is the difference between +<i>x</i> + <i>y</i>, and <i>x</i> - <i>y</i>, <i>y</i> being used to symbolise the aggregate +motive force of the expansive tendencies of the child's inner nature. +Such a difference is incalculable. The scheme of education which is +based on distrust of the child's nature and belief in its intrinsic +sinfulness and stupidity, necessarily arrays against itself the +hidden forces of that maligned and despised nature, and must needs +overcome their resistance before it can hope to achieve its proposed +end. While Egeria is helping Nature to provide suitable channels for +the various expansive tendencies that are at work in the child, and +to guide them all into the central channel of self-realisation, her +rival is engaged in digging a canal (to be filled, when finished, +with dead, stagnant water) which is so designed that not only will no +use be made by it of the life stream of the child's latent energies, +but also costly culverts and other works will have to be constructed +for it in<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_222" id="P_222">[222]</a></span> order to divert and send to waste that troublesome +current.</p> + +<p>The waste of motive force which goes on under any scheme of education +through mechanical obedience, is indeed enormous. And what is most +lamentable is that the energies of the teacher are being largely +wasted in the effort to neutralise the latent energies of the child. +No wonder that, in order to produce his meagre and illusory, +"results," the teacher should have to resort to motive forces which, +by appealing to the lower side of the child's nature, will enable +him to bear down the resistance, and, in doing so, to impede the +outgrowth of the higher,—to the hope of external rewards and the +threat of external punishments. And no wonder that, owing to the +teacher having to work unceasingly against the grain of the +child's nature, of these two demoralising forces, the fear of +punishment—which, if not the more demoralising, is certainly the +more wasteful of energy—should bulk the more largely in the eyes +of the child.</p> + +<p>In fine, then, whereas the conventional type of education is so +wasteful of motive force that it dissipates the greater part of the +teachers' and the scholars' energies in needless friction,—in +Utopia, on the other hand, there is such an economy of motive force +that the very joy which, under its scheme of education, always +accompanies the child's expenditure of energy, and which might be +regarded as merely a waste by-product, becomes in its turn a powerful +incentive to further exertion.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><i>"But is there not too much joy in Utopia? Is not the sky too +cloudless? Is not the atmosphere<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_223" id="P_223">[223]</a></span> too clear? Does the Utopian never +act from a sense of duty? Has he never to do anything that is +distasteful to him?"</i> This objection raises an interesting question. +Is the function of the sense of duty to enable us to do distasteful +things? And if so, are we to regard it as the highest of motives to +moral action? In the days when Kant's idea of the "moral imperative" +was in the ascendant, the belief got abroad that the essence of +virtue was to do what you hated doing. Looking back to my Oxford +days, I recall some doggerel lines, of German origin, in which this +belief finds apt expression. A disciple who is in trouble about his +soul says to his master:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Willing serve I my friends, but do it, alas! with affection,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so gnaws me my heart, that I'm not virtuous yet."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>To this the master replies:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Help except this there is none: you must strive with + might to contemn them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with horror perform then what the law may enjoin."</span> +</div></div> + +<p>If this conception of morality is correct, if it is true that the +atmosphere of the virtuous life should be one of horror and even of +hatred, then it must be admitted that the Utopian children are +receiving a seriously defective education. But the "if" is a large +one; and for my part I incline to the belief that love, as a motive +to action, is better than hatred, joy than horror, sunshine than +gloom.</p> + +<p>The day will indeed come when the Utopian—a child no longer—will +have to do things, either for his own sake or in order to discharge +obligations to others, which will be, or will seem to be, against the +grain even of his happy nature; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_224" id="P_224">[224]</a></span> the sense of duty will then have +to come to his aid. But there is no reason why he, or his teachers, +should anticipate that day. To compel him, while still a child, to +work against the grain of his nature, when there was no real need for +this, would not be the best preparation for the trials that await +him. To compel him to spend the greater part of his school-life in +doing what was distasteful to him, would be the worst possible +preparation for them.</p> + +<p>For, to begin with, the sense of duty is not the highest motive to +action. A far higher motive is love. If the sense of duty to God, for +example, had not devotion to God and love of God behind it, the +object of one's worship would be a malignant rather than a beneficent +deity, a devil rather than a God. Or let us take the case of a child +who is dangerously ill, and who needs to be carefully and even +devotedly nursed. By whom will he be the more effectively nursed,—by +his mother who loves him passionately, or by a hired nurse who cannot +be expected to love him but who has a strong sense of duty to her +employers? (I am assuming that as regards professional skill, and +the sense of duty to God, the two women are on a level.) Surely the +mother, sustained by love in the endurance of sleeplessness and +fatigue, and in the exercise of that unceasing vigilance which lets +no symptom escape it, will be the better nurse. Love, as a motive to +moral action, has the immense advantage over the sense of duty of +being able to rob the hour of trial of its gloom, by strengthening +the lover to make light of labour and difficulty till at last the +sense of effort is lost in the sense of joy. But if love is the +highest of all motives, is it not well that<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_225" id="P_225">[225]</a></span> the child's life should +as far as possible, and for as long as possible, be kept under its +influence, to the exclusion of other motives. We have seen that the +Utopian child takes many things in his stride which other children +would regard as distasteful. If they are not distasteful to him, the +reason is that he does them, not from a sense of duty, but under the +inspiration of love,—love of life, love of Egeria, love of his +schoolmates, love of his school. And the longer he can remain on the +high plane of love, the better it will be for his after life.</p> + +<p>And when the time comes for him to yield himself to the "saving arms" +of duty, he will have had the best of all preparations for that hour +of trial, for he will have been braced and strengthened for it by the +most moralising of all disciplines, that of growth. What is the sense +of duty? We too seldom ask ourselves this question. Is it not a +feeling of obligation, of being in debt, to some person, or persons, +or institution, or society, or even to some invisible Power;—to +a friend, for example, a relative, a dependent, an employer, a +"contracting party," a commanding officer,—or, again, to one's trade +or profession, to one's political party, to one's church, to one's +country,—or, in the last resort, to God? And is not this feeling +accompanied by the secret conviction that until the debt has been +liquidated, to the best of the debtor's ability, justice will not +have been done? The sense of duty is, I think, a derivative sense, +an offshoot from the more primitive sense of justice,—a sense so +primitive that it may almost be said to have made possible our social +life. If this is so, if the sense of duty is resolvable into the +sense of justice, then the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_226" id="P_226">[226]</a></span> training which is given in Utopia—a +training which makes for healthy and harmonious growth, and therefore +(as we have seen) for outgrowth or escape from self—is the best +preparation for a life of duty, that can possibly be given. For under +its influence the sense of justice, which is essentially a social +instinct, knowing no distinction between oneself and one's neighbour, +will be relieved of the hostile pressure of its arch-enemy, the +anti-social instinct of selfishness,<a name="FNa21" id="FNa21"></a><a href="#Footnote21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> and will therefore make +rapid and vigorous growth. The sense of justice is, as might be +expected, strongly developed in the selfless atmosphere of Utopia, +where indeed it has helped, in no small degree, to evolve the +wonderful social life of the school; and, that being so, there is no +fear but what the Utopian will be sustained by the sense of duty when +the time comes for him to work against the grain of his nature. But +however strong may be his sense of duty, he will always have the +great advantage of being seldom called upon to do what he dislikes, +and therefore of being able to keep the fibre of his sense of duty +from being either unduly relaxed or unduly hardened by overwork; for +he has been accustomed from his earliest days to make light of, and +even find a<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_227" id="P_227">[227]</a></span> pleasure in, what is usually accounted drudgery, and he +has been accustomed to work, in school and out of school, under the +inspiration of joy and love.</p> + +<p><i>But is the education given in Utopia useful</i>? I wish I knew who was +asking this question, for I cannot hope to answer it to his +satisfaction until I know what is his standard of values. What end +does he set before the teachers of our elementary schools? If he +would tell me this, I might be able to say Yes or No to his question.</p> + +<p>At present there seems to be no agreement among educationalists, +professional or amateur, as to what constitutes usefulness in +education. Those who belong to the "upper classes" are apt to assume +that the "lower orders" will have been adequately educated when they +have been taught reading, writing, arithmetic, needlework, and +"religion," subjected to a certain amount of repressive discipline, +and compelled to go to church or chapel. If, after having passed +through this mill, the children of the "lower orders" do not develop +into good men and women and useful citizens, it is not their +education which is to blame, but the inborn sinfulness of their +corrupt and fallen natures. Such an education is regarded by those +who advocate it as pre-eminently <i>useful</i>. There is no nonsense about +it, no cant of idealism, no taint of socialism. It keeps the "lower +orders" in their places, and forbids them to dream of rising above +"that state of life unto which it" has pleased "God to call them." As +it is a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of the conventional type of education, +my objection to it is that it makes the best possible provision for +securing the end which<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_228" id="P_228">[228]</a></span> the conventional type seems to have set +before itself,—in other words, for depressing the vitality of the +child, for starving his faculties, for arresting his growth. As +such, it has not even the merit of being sordidly useful; for +unless stupidity is a better thing than intelligence, slowness than +alertness, helplessness than initiative, lifelessness than vital +activity, the child who has passed through that dreary mill will be +far less effective, even as a day-labourer, than the child whose +school-life has been one of continuous and many-sided growth. It is +strange that the reactionary members of the "upper classes" should be +too short-sighted to discern this obvious truth. But perhaps they +have a secret conviction that by so educating the "lower orders" as +to make them slow and stupid, helpless and lifeless, they will be the +better able to keep them in a state of subservience to and dependence +on themselves.<a name="FNa22" id="FNa22"></a><a href="#Footnote22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> If this is so, there is method in the madness of +the "upper classes"; and their conception of the course that +education ought to take has the merit of being entirely true to their +basely selfish conception of the end that education ought to serve.</p> + +<p>I have alluded to this pseudo-utilitarian theory, not because it is +intrinsically worthy of serious attention, but because there is +undoubtedly a strong and influential current of opinion which sets in +its<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_229" id="P_229">[229]</a></span> direction. There are other advocates of a "useful" education who +seem to regard the elementary school, not as a training ground for +good men and women, but as a kind of technical institute in which the +children are to be trained for the various callings by which, when +they grow up, they will have to earn their daily bread. This theory +need not be seriously considered, for its inherent absurdity has +caused it to be tacitly abandoned by all whose opinion carries +weight; and the more reasonable theory that the education given in +the elementary school should be as far as possible adapted to the +environment of the school—that it should be given a rural bias, for +example, or a marine bias, or even an urban bias—has begun to take +its place. That it should ever have found advocates is interesting as +showing how easy it is for unenlightened public opinion to +misinterpret the word "useful."<a name="FNa23" id="FNa23"></a><a href="#Footnote23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>There is a third class of critics, composed for the most part of +members of Local Education Committees, who seem to think that ability +to pass a "leaving" examination is the only valid proof of the +usefulness of elementary education. If these influential critics, who +are showing in various ways that they care more for machinery than +for life, could have their will, they would probably revert to the +"good old days" of cut-and-dried syllabuses, formal examinations of +individual scholars, percentages of passes, and the like. As I have +already taken pains to explain what the <i>régime</i> of the "good<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_230" id="P_230">[230]</a></span> old +days" really meant, I need not waste my time in exposing the +fallacies which underlie this conception of "usefulness."</p> + +<p>Here, then, are three distinct standards of usefulness in elementary +education. According to the first, education is useful in proportion +as it tends, by repressing the activities and atrophying the +faculties of the scholars, to keep the "lower orders" in their +places, and in so doing to provide the "upper classes" with a +sufficiency of labourers and servants. According to the second, it is +useful in proportion as it is able to prepare the scholars for their +various callings in after life.<a name="FNa24" id="FNa24"></a><a href="#Footnote24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> According to the third, in +proportion as it enables the scholars to pass with credit certain +"leaving" and other examinations of a formal type.</p> + +<p>I will now assume that the end of education is to produce, or at any +rate contribute to the production of, good men and women; and that +the education given in elementary schools is useful in exact +proportion as it serves this end. I am not using the word "good" in +its Sunday School sense. Nor does the word suggest to my mind that +blend of stupidity, patience, and submissiveness which sometimes +passes for "goodness" when the "upper classes" are taking thought for +the welfare of the "lower orders." The good man, as I understand the +phrase, is a good son, a good brother, a good husband, a good father, +a good citizen, a good townsman, a good workman, a good servant, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_231" id="P_231">[231]</a></span> +good master. In fine, he is a good specimen of his kind, well +grown and well developed, efficient on all the planes of his +being,—physical, mental, moral, spiritual. This conception of what +constitutes useful education differs radically from those which I +have just been considering; but I believe that when it has been +adequately expounded, and submitted to the judgment of those whose +opinion is worth having, it will not be seriously gainsaid.</p> + +<p>If education is useful in proportion as it tends to produce good men +and women, the education given in Utopia is useful to the highest +degree. For a child cannot become a good man (or woman) except by +<i>growing</i> good; and if he is to grow good, his nature must be allowed +to develop itself freely and harmoniously (for just so far as it is +normal and healthy it is necessarily making for its own perfection), +and the one end and aim of the teacher must be to stimulate and +direct this process of spontaneous growth. This, as we have seen, is +the one end and aim of Egeria; and it is therefore clear that she +is taking effective steps—the most effective that can possibly +be taken—to produce good men and women. We have but to name the +qualities which are characteristic, as we have already seen, of her +pupils and ex-pupils,—activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, +a large and free outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy +of heart,—in order to convince ourselves that those who have passed +through the Utopian school are on the high road which leads to +"goodness." So obvious is all this, that in defining the word +"useful" I may be said to have decided the question in favour of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_232" id="P_232">[232]</a></span> +Utopia; and what is now in dispute is not whether Utopianism is +"useful," in any sense of the word, but whether my sense of the word +is the right one.</p> + +<p>I cannot go much further into this question without exceeding the +limits of the theme which I am handling in this chapter. For in +considering the after life of the Utopian child, I am entering a +region in which the idea of <i>education</i> begins to merge itself in the +larger idea of <i>salvation</i>; and though education, as begun in Utopia, +is in its essence a life-long process, I must pay some heed to the +limits which tradition and custom have imposed on the meaning of the +word.</p> + +<p>But before I close this chapter I must be allowed to give one +illustration in support of my contention that the education given in +Utopia is useful. Of the many complaints that are brought against the +output of our elementary schools, one of the most serious is that the +boys and girls who have recently left school are voracious readers of +a vicious and demoralising literature which seems to be provided for +their special benefit. The reason why they take so readily to this +garbage is that they have lost their appetite for wholesome food. +They are not interested in healthy literature, in Nature-study, in +music, in art, in handicraft,—in any pursuit which might take them +out of themselves into a larger and freer life; and so they fall +victims to the allurements of a literature which appeals to their +baser, more sensual, and more selfish instincts,—the very instincts +which growth (in the true sense of the word) spontaneously relegates +to a subordinate position and places under effective control. It is +the inertness, the apathy, the low vitality of the average<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_233" id="P_233">[233]</a></span> child of +fourteen, which is the cause of his undoing. His taste for false and +meretricious excitement—a taste which may lead him far along the +downward path—is the outcome of his very instinct to live, an +instinct which, though repressed by the influences that have choked +its natural channels, cannot resign itself to extinction, and at +last, in its despairing effort to energise, forces for itself the +artificial outlet of an imaginative interest in vice and crime.</p> + +<p>The "young person" who, on leaving school, becomes a voracious +devourer of unwholesome literature, cannot be said to have received +a "useful" education. That vice and crime—whether practised or +imagined—are in the first instance artificial outlets, outlets which +the soul would not use if its expansive instincts were duly fostered, +is proved by the absence of "naughtiness" in the Utopian school, +and the absence of any taste for morbid excitement amongst Utopian +ex-scholars. The unwholesome literature which gives so much concern +to those who are interested in the welfare of the young, is unknown +in Utopia. And in this, as in other matter, the "goodness" of the +children and "young persons" is due, not to any lack of life and +spirit, but to the very abundance of their vitality. Apart from the +fact that vigorous growth, whether in plant or animal or human soul, +is in itself a sure prophylactic against the various evils to which +growing life is exposed, the Utopians are guarded against the danger +of demoralising books and demoralising amusements by their many-sided +interest in life. Their instinct to live, finding natural and +adequate outlets in many directions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_234" id="P_234">[234]</a></span> has no need to force for itself +the artificial outlet of morbid excitement,—an outlet for imprisoned +energies, which has too often proved an opening to a life of vice and +crime. There is a Shakespeare in every cottage in Utopia; but the +advocates of a repressive and restrictive education for the "lower +orders" need not be alarmed at this, for the Utopians, who have found +the secret of true happiness, are freer than most villagers from +social discontent. Nor are Egeria's ex-pupils less efficient as +labourers or domestic servants because they are interested in good +literature, in Nature-study, in acting, or because they can still +dance the Morris Dances and sing the Folk Songs which they learned in +school.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote20" id="Footnote20" href="#FNa20" class="label">[20]</a> I am thinking more particularly of some of the Roman +Catholic schools in the Irish quarter of Liverpool, where the +singularly kind and gracious bearing of the teaching "sisters" +towards their poor, ill-fed, and ill-clad pupils is an educative +influence of incalculable value.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote21" id="Footnote21" href="#FNa21" class="label">[21]</a> The sense of justice, which would give to each his due, +and therefore not more than his due to oneself, seems to hold the +balance between selfishness and love, being as it were, equidistant +from the greed and self-indulgence of the former and the lavishness +and self-devotion of the latter. If this is so, and if the sense of +duty is, as I have suggested, an offshoot from the sense of justice, +one can understand why, on the one hand, the sense of duty should be +needed to hold the self-seeking instincts in check, and why, on the +other hand, it should be an altogether lower and weaker motive than +love, by which indeed, <i>in its own interest</i>, it should always be +ready to be superseded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote22" id="Footnote22" href="#FNa22" class="label">[22]</a> I was once present when the Utopian children were going +through a programme of Folk Songs and Morris Dances in the village +hall. A lady who was looking on remarked to me: "This is all very +fine; but if this sort of thing goes on, where are we going to find +our servants?" The selfishness of this remark is obvious. What is +less obvious, but more significant, is its purblindness. In point of +fact the Utopian girls make excellent domestic servants, and are well +content to "go into service."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote23" id="Footnote23" href="#FNa23" class="label">[23]</a> Some two or three years ago it was seriously proposed +that <i>marine navigation</i> should be taught in all the elementary +schools of a certain maritime county!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote24" id="Footnote24" href="#FNa24" class="label">[24]</a> The parent who wrote to a schoolmaster, "Please do not +teach my boy any more poetry, as he is going to be a grocer," must +have been under the influence of this conception of usefulness.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="sectionheader"> +<div class="pagenum"><a name="P_235" id="P_235">[235]</a></div> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h3>SALVATION THROUGH SELF-REALISATION</h3> +</div> + +<p>In Utopia the transition from <i>education</i> to <i>salvation</i>, both in +theory and practice, is obvious and direct. The difference between +education and salvation is, indeed, purely nominal: in their essence +the two processes are one. As the education given in Utopia is, in +the main, self-education, there is no reason why it should not be +continued indefinitely after the child has left school; and as its +function is to foster the growth of the child's many-sided nature +(with its vast potentialities), there is every reason why it should +be continued as long as he lives. In other words, the path of +salvation is the path of self-realisation, the most important part of +which is traversed in childhood; and to attain to salvation (which is +in a sense unattainable) is to remain faithful to that path till it +passes beyond our thought.</p> + +<p>Outside Utopia there is a widely different conception of the meaning +and purpose of education, and a correspondingly different conception +of the nature of salvation and the means by which it is to be +achieved. The idea of salvation, with the complementary idea of +perdition, may be regarded as the crown and completion of that scheme +of external rewards and punishments which plays so<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_236" id="P_236">[236]</a></span> prominent a +part in Western education. Salvation, which is the highest of all +external rewards, just as perdition is the severest of all external +punishments, is not a path to be followed, but a state of happiness +to be won and enjoyed. It follows that the relation between education +and salvation is, in the main, one of analogy, rather than of +identity (as in Utopia), or even of vital connection. Or shall we say +that education is not so much the first act in the drama of salvation +as the first rehearsal of the play?</p> + +<p>There are, of course, two conceptions of salvation in the West, just +as there are two worlds to be lived in,—the Supernatural world and +the world of Nature.</p> + +<p>In what are called religious circles, to be saved is to have gained +admission to Heaven, and, in doing so, to have escaped the torment +and misery of Hell. There was a time when Hell was taken very +seriously; but the idea of never-ending torment and misery is found, +when steadily faced, to be so intolerable that popular thought, even +in religious circles, is now turning away from it; and so loosely do +men sit, in these "degenerate days," to the old doctrine of eternal +punishment, that "to die" and "to go to heaven" are becoming +interchangeable terms. But if all men are to be admitted to Heaven +(or to its ante-room, Purgatory) at the end of this, their one +earth-life, it is clear that there can be no causal connection +between conduct and salvation. For though there may be degrees of +happiness in Heaven to reward the varying degrees of virtue on +earth, all these are dwarfed to nothing by the unimaginable abyss +of difference which yawns between Heaven and Hell; and the +practical upshot of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_237" id="P_237">[237]</a></span> current eschatology is that all men—the +self-sacrificing equally with the self-indulgent, the kind and +compassionate equally with the hard-hearted, the spiritually-minded +equally with the worldly, the aspiring equally with the +indifferent—are to reap the same reward. If a man is a notoriously +evil liver, those who have suffered at his hands or been violently +scandalised by his conduct may perhaps find a sombre pleasure in +consigning him to Hell, which, indeed, might otherwise have to put +up its shutters. But though the doors of Heaven may be closed against +a few exceptional scoundrels, they are nowadays thrown open to all +the rest of Mankind; and the maxim, "Live anyhow, and you will be +saved somehow," seems to sum up with tolerable accuracy the popular +attitude towards the twofold problem of duty and destiny.</p> + +<p>I do not for a moment suggest that this happy-go-lucky eschatology is +formally countenanced by the Churches and Sects. They would doubtless +repudiate it with indignation; but the fact remains that their +own teaching is largely responsible for it. For not only is the +idea of <i>natural</i> retribution wholly foreign to the genius of +supernaturalism, but also, in the two great schools of Western +theology, there is, and always has been, a strong tendency to +undervalue conduct (in the broad, human sense of the word), and to +make the means of salvation mechanical rather than vital. At any rate +the sacramental teaching of the Catholic Church, and the Calvinistic +doctrine of salvation through faith in the finished work of Christ, +readily lend themselves to such an interpretation.</p> + +<p>So ineffective is the current eschatology, in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_238" id="P_238">[238]</a></span> bearing on +conduct, that the latent energy of Man's nature—his latent desire to +have a central purpose in life—is compelling him to work out for +himself another and a more mundane conception of salvation, to set +before himself as the end of life the winning of certain temporal +prizes, and to keep this end steadily in view from day to day and +from year to year. Such a conception of salvation has always had a +strong attraction for him, though in his more orthodox days he found +it desirable to subordinate it to, or if possible harmonise it with, +the conception which his religion dictated to him; and of late its +attractiveness has been increased by the fact that he is beginning to +throw his eschatology (even in its present emasculated form) to the +winds.</p> + +<p>So far, I have had in my mind those quarters of Western thought in +which the belief in the reality of the soul and the kindred belief +in immortality still survive. But in point of fact both beliefs +are dying before our eyes,—dying as a dumb protest against the +inadequacy of the popular philosophy, against the intrinsic +incredibility of its premises, against its fundamental misconception +of the meaning of life and the nature and conditions of salvation, +above all against the way in which the beliefs themselves have been +persistently misinterpreted and travestied. And where the beliefs are +dying, the latent externalism and materialism of Western thought and +Western life are able to assert themselves without let or hindrance. +"To be saved," as the phrase is now widely understood, means to get +on in life, to succeed in business or in a profession, to make money, +to rise in the social scale (if necessary, on the shoulders of +others), to force one's way<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_239" id="P_239">[239]</a></span> to the front (if necessary, by trampling +down others), to be talked about in the daily papers, to make a +"splash" in some circle or coterie,—in these and in other ways to +achieve some measure of what is called "success."</p> + +<p>And in proportion as this mundane conception of salvation tends to +establish itself, so does the drift towards social and political +anarchy, which is now beginning to alarm all the lovers of order and +"progress," tend to widen its range and accelerate its movement. For +though the current idea of achieving salvation through "success" is a +comfortable doctrine for the successful few, it is the reverse of +comfortable for the unsuccessful many, among whom the idea is gaining +ground that as salvation is the reward, not of virtue, but of a +judicious blend of cleverness, unscrupulousness, selfishness, and +greed, there is no reason, in the moral order of things, why it +should not be wrested from those who are enjoying it, either by +organised social warfare or by open violence and crime. And even if +an anarchical outbreak should result in perdition all round instead +of salvation all round, it would at least be some consolation to the +"lost" to feel that they had dragged the "saved" down into their own +bottomless pit. This would not be a lofty sentiment; yet I do not +see who is in a position to condemn it,—not the supporter of the +existing social order, which legalises a general scramble, first for +the "prizes" of life and then for the bare means of subsistence, and +is well content that in that scramble the weak, the ignorant, and +the unfortunate should go to the wall,—not the exponent of the +conventional theology, which has<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_240" id="P_240">[240]</a></span> taught men to dream of a Heaven in +which the happiness of the "elect" will be unruffled by the knowledge +that an eternity of misery is the doom of perhaps a majority of their +fellow-men.</p> + +<p>In the West, then, there are two conceptions of salvation,—a +selfish, worldly conception which is daily becoming more effective, +and a selfish other-worldly conception which is daily becoming more +ineffective, and is therefore less and less able to compete with or +control its rival. Out of the attempts that are made to realise +both these conceptions and to keep them on friendly terms with one +another, there is emerging a state of chaos—political, social, +moral, spiritual,—a weltering chaos of new and old ideals, new and +old theories of life, new and old standards of values, new and old +centres of authority, new and old ambitions and dreams. And in this +chaos there are only two principles of order, the first (which is +also the ultimate cause of all our disorder) being the pathetic fact +that nearly all the actors in the bewildering drama are still seeking +for happiness outside themselves, the second being the fundamental +goodness of man's heart.</p> + +<p>I will now go back to Utopia. There a new conception of salvation is +implicit in the new theory of education which has revolutionised the +life of the school. Humble as is the sphere and small as is the scale +of Egeria's labours, her work is, I firmly believe, of world-wide +importance and lasting value, for she has provided an experimental +basis for the idea that salvation is to be achieved by growth, and +growth alone.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_241" id="P_241">[241]</a></span> I will now try to interpret that idea.</p> + +<p>The education of the child in school begins when he is four or five +years old, and lasts till he is thirteen or fourteen. But he enters +the path of salvation the day he is born. He comes into the world a +weak, helpless baby; but, like every other seedling, he has in him +all the potencies of perfection,—the perfection of his kind. +To realise those potencies, so far as they can be realised within +the limits of one earth-life, is to achieve salvation. Are those +potencies worth realising? To this question I can but answer: "Such +as they are, they are our all." We might ask the same question with +regard to an acorn or a grain of wheat; and in each case the answer +would be the same. There are, indeed, plants and animals which are +noxious <i>from our point of view</i>. But that is not the view which they +take of themselves. Each of them regards his own potencies in the +light of a sacred trust, and strives with untiring energy to realise +them. If the potencies of our nature are not worth realising we had +better give up the business of living. If they are, we had better +fall into line with other living things.</p> + +<p>An unceasing pressure is being put upon us to do so. The perfect +manhood which is present in embryo in the new-born infant, just as +the oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn, will struggle +unceasingly to evolve itself. With the dawn of self-consciousness, we +shall gradually acquire the power of either co-operating with, or +thwarting, the spontaneous energies that are welling up in us and +making for our growth. In this respect we stand, in some sort, apart +from the rest of living<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_242" id="P_242">[242]</a></span> things. But the power to co-operate with +our own spontaneous energies is to the full as natural as are the +energies themselves. To fathom the mystery of self-consciousness is +beyond my power and beside my present purpose; but we may perhaps +regard our power of interfering, for good or ill, with the +spontaneous energies of our nature, as the outcome of a successful +effort which our nature has made both to widen the sphere of its own +life and to accelerate the process of its own growth. But just +because we possess that power, it is essential that we, above all +other living things, should believe in ourselves, should believe in +the intrinsic value of our natural potencies, with a whole-hearted +faith. For if we do not, we shall hinder instead of helping the +forces that are at work in us, and we shall retard instead of +accelerating the process of our growth.</p> + +<p>We have seen that education in the West has hitherto been a failure +because, owing to the ascendency of the doctrine of original sin, it +has been based on distrust of human nature; and we have seen that in +Utopia, where Egeria's faith in human nature is so profound that she +has allowed the children to go far towards educating themselves, the +results achieved have gone beyond my wildest dream of what was +practicable, at any rate within the limits of the school life of +village children. What is true of education is true <i>a fortiori</i> of +salvation. If it is impossible to construct a satisfactory scheme of +education on the basis of distrust of human nature, it is even more +impossible (if there are degrees in impossibility) to construct on +the same basis a satisfactory scheme of salvation. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_243" id="P_243">[243]</a></span> have already +contended that if education is to be reformed, the doctrine of +original sin must go; and I now contend that if our philosophy of +life is to be reformed, we must abandon, not that doctrine only, but +the whole dualistic philosophy which centres in the opposition of +Nature to the Supernatural. For trust in human nature—the +microcosm—is impossible, so long as Nature—the macrocosm—is liable +to be disparaged and discredited (in our minds) by the visionary +splendours of the Supernatural world; and to devise a harmonious +scheme of life is impossible so long as an inharmonious conception +of the Universe dominates our thought,—a conception so inharmonious +that it divides the Universe, the All of Being, into two hostile +camps, and in doing so introduces the "war of the worlds" into each +individual life.</p> + +<p>When a fruit-grower plants a fruit-tree, he does three things for it. +By choosing an appropriate soil and aspect, he brings adequate +supplies of <i>nourishment</i> within reach of it. By manuring it at the +right season, he both adds to its store of nourishment and gives +it the <i>stimulus</i> which will help it to absorb and assimilate the +nourishment that is immediately available for its use. And, by +pruning and training it judiciously, he gives it the <i>guidance</i> which +will enable it to develop itself to the best advantage from the +fruit-bearing point of view (fruit-bearing being the end which he +sets it). He does these three things for it, but he does no more than +these. He realises that in all these operations he is only taking +advantage of the innate powers and tendencies of the tree, and +enabling these to deploy themselves under as favourable conditions<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_244" id="P_244">[244]</a></span> +as possible; and he is therefore well content to leave the rest to +the tree itself, feeling sure that its own spontaneous effort to +achieve perfection will do all that is needed. His trust in the +ability and willingness of the tree to work out its salvation is +complete.</p> + +<p>These are the lines on which the farmer and the fruit-grower conduct +their business,—lines, the neglect of which would involve them in +early disaster and in ultimate ruin. And these are the lines on which +human nature ought to be trained, in school and out of school, from +the day of birth to the day of death. But they are lines on which it +will never be trained so long as the doctrine of the depravity of +Nature in general and human nature in particular controls our +philosophy of life.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of natural depravity, or original sin, is the outcome of +Man's attempt to explain to himself the glaring fact of his own +imperfection. The doctrine grew up in an age when men were ignorant +of the fundamental laws of Nature, and among a people who, though +otherwise richly gifted, had no turn for sustained thought. So long +as men were ignorant of Nature's master law of evolution, it was but +natural that they should account for their own imperfection by +looking back to a Golden Age,—a state of innocence and bliss from +which they had somehow fallen, and to which they could not, by any +effort or process of their corrupted nature, hope to return. While +this idea—half myth and half doctrine—was growing up in the mind +of Israel, the counter idea of the evolution or growth of the soul, +of its ascent from "weak beginnings" towards a state of spiritual +perfection,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_245" id="P_245">[245]</a></span> was growing up among the thinkers of India, and the +derivative doctrine of salvation through the natural process of +soul-growth was being gradually elaborated. But though the philosophy +of India produced some impression on the conscious thought, and a +far deeper impression on the subconscious thought, of the West, its +master idea of spiritual evolution—<i>through a long sequence of +lives</i>—was wholly foreign to the genius of Christendom, which had +borrowed its <i>ideas</i> from the commonplace philosophy of Israel; and +it was not till the nineteenth century of our era that the idea of +evolution began to make its way, from the quarter of physical +science, into Western thought.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of original sin must once have had a meaning and a +purpose. For one thing, it must have been generated by a sudden rise +in Man's moral standard; and as such it must have had a salutary +influence on his conduct and inward life. But it is now outstaying +its welcome. The Biblical story of the Fall, in virtue of which it +was once authoritatively taught, is ceasing to be regarded as serious +history; and the doctrine must therefore either justify itself to +critical thought or resign itself to rejection as inadequate and +unsound. But there is only one line of defence which its supporters +can take. As the doctrine was the outcome of Man's premature attempt +to explain the fact of his own imperfection, if it is to survive in +the world of ideas it must be able to show, first and foremost, that +the fact in question cannot be accounted for on other grounds. Will +it be able to do this, at a time when the idea of evolution is +beginning to impregnate our mental atmosphere,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_246" id="P_246">[246]</a></span> and in doing so is +making us realise that we are near of kin to all other living things, +and that our lives, like theirs, are dominated by the master-law of +<i>growth</i>?</p> + +<p>That there is much moral evil in the world is undeniable. Are we +therefore to predicate original depravity of man's heart and soul? +But there is also much physical evil in the world,—pain, weakness, +disease, decay, and death. Are we therefore to predicate original +depravity of man's body? And this physical evil, this liability to +disease, is not confined to man, but also affects all other living +things. Are we therefore to predicate original depravity of a +new-born lamb, of a new-laid egg, of an acorn, of a grain of wheat?</p> + +<p>Let us consider certain typical forms of moral evil, and see if we +can account for them, without having recourse to the hypothesis of +original sin. The vicious propensities which manifest themselves in +children and "young persons" may be divided into two main classes, +<i>apparent</i> and <i>actual</i>.<a name="FNa25" id="FNa25"></a><a href="#Footnote25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Of the former class the chief cause is, +in a word, <i>immaturity</i>. Of the latter, <i>environment</i>.</p> + +<p>Analogies drawn from plant life may help us to understand how these +causes operate.</p> + +<p><i>Immaturity</i>. If an Englishman who had never before tasted an apple +were to eat one in July, he would probably come to the conclusion +that it was a hard, sour, indigestible fruit, "conceived in sin and +shapen in iniquity," and fit only to be consigned<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_247" id="P_247">[247]</a></span> to perdition (on a +dustheap, or elsewhere). But if the same man were to wait till +October and then eat an apple from the same tree, he would form a +wholly different conception of its value. He would find that the +sourness had ripened into wholesome and refreshing acidity; the +hardness into that firmness of fibre which, besides being pleasant to +the palate, makes the apple "keep" better than any other fruit; the +indigestibility into certain valuable dietetic qualities; and so on. +It is the same with the growing child. <i>Most of his vices are virtues +in the making</i>. During the first year or so of his life he is a +monster of selfishness; and selfishness is the most comprehensive and +far-reaching of all vicious tendencies. Does this mean that he has +been conceived in sin? Not in the least. It means that he is making a +whole-hearted effort to guard and unfold the potencies of life—in +the first instance, of physical life—which have been entrusted to +him. It means that he has entered the path of self-realisation, and +that if he will be as faithful to that path during the rest of his +life as he has been during those early months of uncompromising +selfishness, he will be able at last to scale the loftiest heights of +self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p><i>Environment</i>. The influences which environment exerts seem to fall +under three heads—</p> + +<p>(1) General influences of a more or less permanent character, such as +home, neighbourhood, social grade, etc.</p> + +<p>(2) General influences of a more or less variable character, such as +education, employment, friendship, etc.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_248" id="P_248">[248]</a></span> (3) Particular influences, such as companionship (good or bad), +literature (wholesome or pernicious), places of amusement (elevating +or debasing), special opportunities for self-sacrifice or +self-indulgence, etc.</p> + +<p>Corresponding to these in plant-life we have—</p> + +<ul style="list-style-type:none;"> +<li>(1) Soil, situation, and climate:</li> +<li>(2) Cultivation and weather:</li> +<li>(3) The various insects and micro-organisms which are ready to + assail or protect growing life.</li> +</ul> + +<p>(1) If two acorns from the same tree were sown, the one in a deep +clay soil and a favourable situation, the other in a light sandy soil +and an unfavourable situation, the former would in time develop into +a large and shapely, the latter into a puny and misshapen oak-tree. +It would be the same, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, with two human beings who +were exposed from their earliest days to widely different permanent +influences.</p> + +<p>(2) If wheat of a certain strain were sown on the same day in two +adjoining fields, one of which was well farmed and the other badly +farmed, the resulting crops would differ widely in yield and value. +It would be the same with two human beings, one of whom (to take a +pertinent example) attended a school of Utopian tendencies, and the +other a school of a more conventional type. Of all moralising (or +demoralising) influences education is by far the most important, +owing to the fact that it can do more, and is in a position to do +more, than any other influence either to foster or to hinder growth.</p> + +<p>The influence of weather on plant-life is, of course, enormous. In +one year the fruit-crop in a given neighbourhood is a failure: in +another year<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_249" id="P_249">[249]</a></span> it gluts the market. One explanation of this fact, +which has its exact analogies in human life, will be given in the +next paragraph.</p> + +<p>(3) All forms of life are exposed to the attacks of enemies of +various kinds. Whether they shall beat off those attacks or succumb +to them depends in large measure on the nature of the growth that +they are making; and this again depends, largely if not wholly, on +the nature of the general influences to which they have been exposed. +For many years I lived in a district in which hops were grown on a +large scale; and I naturally took an interest in the staple industry +of my adopted county. I noticed that whenever (during the summer +months) there came a spell of cold winds from the north-east—winds +which tend to arrest plant-growth—the hop-bines were at once +assailed by blight and other pests, and the safety of the growing +crop was imperilled. And I noticed further that when the wind got +round to the south-west, and warm showers began to stimulate the +growth of the flagging plants, the pests that had assailed them +disappeared as if by magic, and the anxieties of the growers were +relieved. As it is with plants, so it is with human beings. They too +have their enemies,—temptations of various kinds and other evil +influences that "war against the soul." And they too will be able to +beat off their assailants just so far as their own growth is vigorous +and healthy; and will succumb to their attacks, to their own serious +detriment, just so far as their own growth is feeble and sickly.</p> + +<p>The bearing of this fact on the problem of the origin of moral evil +is obvious. That the evils<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_250" id="P_250">[250]</a></span> which assail the organism, be it a plant +or a human being, are not inherent in its nature, is proved by the +fact that when the growth of the organism is normal and unimpeded, +the assailants are always beaten off. As it is the growth of the +organism—the development of its own nature—which enables it to +resist the evils that threaten it, we must assume that its nature is +good. Indeed the evils that threaten it are called evils for no other +reason than that they imperil its well-being; and it follows that in +calling them evils we imply that the organism is intrinsically good.</p> + +<p>When we have eliminated from human nature the vicious tendencies +which are due either to immaturity or to the numberless influences +that come under the general head of environment, we shall find that a +very small percentage remain to be accounted for. We need not have +recourse to the doctrine of original sin in order to account for +these. So far I have said nothing about heredity, partly because its +influence on the moral development of the individual is, I think, +very small compared with that of environment, and partly because it +is impossible to consider the extent and character of its influence, +without going deeply into certain large and complicated problems. For +example, it would be impossible for me to say much about the current, +though gradually waning, belief in the force of heredity, without +saying something about its Far Eastern equivalent, the belief in +re-incarnation,—in other words, without asking whether a man +inherits from his parents and other ancestors, or from his former +selves. That different persona are born with widely different moral +tendencies and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_251" id="P_251">[251]</a></span> propensities, is as certain as that some strains of +wheat are hardier and more productive than others. And it is +possible, and even probable, that there are exceptional cases of +moral evil which point to congenital depravity, and cannot otherwise +be accounted for. But in these admissions I am making no concession +to the believer in original sin; for he regards human nature as such +as congenitally depraved, and therefore can take no cognisance of +exceptional cases of congenital depravity, cases which by breaking +the rule that the new-born child is morally and spiritually healthy, +may be said to prove it.</p> + +<p>In fine, then, all moral evil can be accounted for on grounds which +are quite compatible with the assumption that the normal child is +healthy, on all the planes of his being, at the moment of his birth. +That he carries with him into the world the capacity for being +affected by adverse influences of various kinds, is undeniable; but +so does every other living thing; and if congenital depravity is to +be predicated of him for that reason, it must also be predicated of +every new-born animal and plant.</p> + +<p>But the final proof that Man is by nature a child of God, is one +which has already been hinted at, and will presently be further +developed,—namely, that growth—the healthy, vigorous growth of the +whole human being, the harmonious development of his whole nature—is +in its essence a movement towards moral and spiritual perfection. And +the final proof that the doctrine of Man's congenital depravity is +false is the practical one that the doctrine is ever tending to +fulfil its own gloomy predictions, and to justify its own low +estimate of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_252" id="P_252">[252]</a></span> human nature,—in other words, that by making education +repressive and devitalising, by introducing externalism, with its +endless train of attendant evils, into Man's daily life, and by +making him disbelieve in and even despair of himself, it has done +more perhaps than all other influences added together to deprave his +heart and to wreck his life.</p> + +<p>To one who has convinced himself that human nature is fundamentally +good, in the sense that the new-born child is as a rule sound and +healthy on all the planes of his being, it must be clear that the +path of soul-growth or self-realisation is the only way of salvation. +What salvation means, what the path of self-realisation will do for +him who enters it, is a theme to which I could not hope to do justice +within the limits of this work. I will therefore content myself +with indicating certain typical aspects of the process which I +have called self-realisation, and saying something about each of +these. Four aspects suggest themselves to me as worthy of special +consideration,—the <i>mental</i>, the <i>moral</i>, the <i>social</i>, and the +<i>religious</i>.<a name="FNa26" id="FNa26"></a><a href="#Footnote26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<h4>The Mental Aspect of Self-realisation.</h4> + +<p>There are two features of the process of self-realisation, on the +importance of which I cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_253" id="P_253">[253]</a></span> insist too often or too strongly. The +first is that the growth which the life of self-realisation fosters +is, in its essence, harmonious and many-sided. The second is that +the life of self-realisation is, from first to last, a life of +self-expression, and that self-expression and perception are the face +and obverse of the same mental effort.</p> + +<p>If the life of self-realisation did not provide for the growth of the +self in its totality, the self as a living whole, it would not be +worthy of its name. One-sided growth, inharmonious growth, growth in +which some faculties are hypertrophied and others atrophied, is not +self-realisation. When trees are planted close together, as in the +beech-forests of the Continent, they climb to great heights in their +struggle for air and light, but they make no lateral growth. When +trees are pollarded, they make abundant lateral growth, but they +cease to climb upward. When trees are exposed to the prevailing winds +of an open sea-coast, they are blown over away from the sea, and make +all their growth, such as it is, on the landward side. When trees +are on the border of a thick plantation, they make all their growth +towards the open air, and are bare and leafless on the opposite side. +In each of these cases the growth made is inharmonious and one-sided: +the balance between the two intersecting planes of growth, or between +the two opposite sides, has been lost. But when a tree is planted in +the open, and when all the other conditions of growth are favourable, +it grows harmoniously in all directions,—upward, outward, and all +around. In other words, it is growing as a whole, growing, as it +ought to grow, through every fibre<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_254" id="P_254">[254]</a></span> of its being, and yet maintaining +a perfect symmetry of form and the harmony of true proportion among +its various parts.</p> + +<p>This is the kind of growth which the soul makes in the life of +self-realisation; and if it falls appreciably short of this standard, +if it develops itself on this side or that, to the neglect of all +other sides, then we must say of it that, though it is realising this +or that faculty or group of faculties, it is not realising itself. I +have spoken of the six great expansive instincts which indicate the +main lines of the child's natural growth, and I have shown that in +Utopia the cultivation of all those instincts is duly provided for. +In the life of self-realisation the soul would continue to grow on +the lines which those instincts had marked out for it. I do not mean +that when the child goes out into the work-a-day world, he must give +to all six instincts the systematic training which they received, or +ought to have received, in school. The exigencies of the daily round +of life are such as to make that impossible, in all but the most +exceptional cases. But that is all the more reason why the expansive +instincts should be carefully and skilfully trained in school. For +where they are so trained, an impetus is given to each of them which +will keep it alive and active long after the direct influence of +the school has ceased, and will enable it to absorb and assimilate +whatever nutriment may come in its way. If the Utopian training +cannot be followed up, in its entirety, in the child's after-life, it +can at least initiate a movement which need never be arrested,—a +movement in the direction of the triune goal of Man's being, the goal +towards which his<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_255" id="P_255">[255]</a></span> expansive instincts are ever tending to take him, +the goal of Love, Beauty, and Truth.</p> + +<p>The life of many-sided growth is also a life of self-expression. This +means that the self-expression, like the growth which it fosters, is +many-sided; and this again means that the perceptive faculties, which +unfold themselves through the medium of self-expression, are not so +much separate faculties as a general capacity for getting on terms +with one's environment and gaining an insight into its laws and +properties. In a school which lays itself out to teach one or two +subjects thoroughly, to the neglect of others, a sense, or special +perceptive faculty, will gradually be evolved by the study of each +subject, provided, of course, that the path of self-expression is +followed,—a literary sense, a historical sense, a mathematical +sense, and so on. But while these special senses are being developed, +the remaining perceptive faculties are being starved, and no attempt +is being made to cultivate that general capacity of which I have just +spoken. The consequent loss to the child, both in his school-life and +in his after-life, is very great. For not only is his mental growth +one-sided and inharmonious, but even in the subjects in which he +specialises he will lose appreciably, owing to his special perceptive +faculties not having as their background any general capacity for +seeing things as they are.</p> + +<p>I will try to explain what I mean. In what is known as "Society" +there is a valuable quality called "tact," in virtue of which the +man or woman who is endowed with it always says and does "the right +thing." This quality is compounded partly of sympathetic insight +into the feelings, actual and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_256" id="P_256">[256]</a></span> possible, of others, and partly of +a keen and subtle sense for all the <i>nuances</i> of social propriety. +Like every other perceptive faculty, it is the outcome of +self-expression,—of years of self-expression on the plane of social +intercourse. That general perceptive faculty, or perceptive capacity, +which is the outcome of years of self-expression on many sides of +one's being, has so much in common with the <i>tact</i> of the man of +society, that the epithet <i>tactful</i> may perhaps be applied to it. The +larger, like the lesser, faculty is compounded, partly of sympathetic +insight into latent possibilities, and partly of a delicate sense for +<i>nuances</i> of all kinds. But even this formula does less than justice +to its complex nature. Generated as it is by a life of many-sided +self-expression, it reflects its origin in its internal constitution. +Many elements of thought and feeling have woven themselves into it; +and it is ready to take a colour from each new environment or even +from each new situation. It can become emotional, for example, when +the matter in hand appeals, in any sort or degree, to the emotions; +and there are occasions when its latent sense of humour becomes an +invaluable antidote to that over-seriousness which so often leads men +astray. Above all, it is in its essence, imaginative, for it is ever +learning to picture things to itself as they are or as they might be; +and the higher the level and the wider the sphere of its activity, +the more boldly imaginative it becomes. A faculty so subtle and so +sympathetic must needs play a vitally important <i>rôle</i>, not only when +its possessor is studying "subjects" or handling concrete problems, +but also, and more especially, when he is dealing with the "affairs +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_257" id="P_257">[257]</a></span> life"; and we can understand that when it is wholly or largely +lacking, each of the special faculties which specialising is supposed +to foster will suffer from not being tempered and yet vitalised by +its all-penetrating influence.</p> + +<p>That we may the better understand this, and the better understand +what the path of self-realisation does for the mental development +of him who walks in it, let us ask ourselves what type of mind the +conventional type of education is likely to produce. And let us study +the conventional type of education on what is supposed to be its +highest level. Let us consider the education given to the sons of +the "upper classes." And let us take this highest level at its own +highest level. Let us take the case of those who go through that +tri-partite course of education which begins in a high-class +"Preparatory School," is continued in one of the "Great Public +Schools," and is completed at Oxford or Cambridge. A boy enters +a Preparatory School at the age of eight or nine, and is there +prepared, in general for entrance into one of the Great Public +Schools, and in particular for one of the competitive examinations on +the results of which the entrance scholarships of the Great Public +Schools are awarded. He enters one of the Great Public Schools at +the age of thirteen or fourteen, and is there prepared, in general +for admission to Oxford or Cambridge, and in particular for the +scholarship examinations of the various Oxford and Cambridge +Colleges. He enters Oxford or Cambridge at the age of eighteen +or nineteen, and is there prepared, directly for his degree +examination—"Pass" or "Honours" as the case may be—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_258" id="P_258">[258]</a></span> indirectly +for the public examination which admits to the Indian and Colonial, +and the higher grades of the Home, Civil Service. This course of +education lasts about fourteen years, and costs from Ł1,500 to +Ł4,500.</p> + +<p>What will it do for the boy who goes through it? The education given +in the Preparatory School is completely dominated by the scholarship +and entrance examinations at the Great Public Schools. The lines on +which those examinations are conducted are the lines on which the +Preparatory Schoolmaster must educate his pupils. He has no choice in +the matter. The title "Preparatory" seals his doom. His business is, +not to give his pupils the education that is best suited to their +capacities and their years, but to prepare them for admission to a +more advanced school. The more scholarships he can win at Eton, +Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, and the rest, the higher will be the +repute of his school; and as the competition between school and +school is fierce and unintermittent, he cannot afford to throw away a +single chance. In other words, he cannot afford to make a single +serious experiment. The education given in the Great Public Schools +is similarly dominated by the scholarship and entrance examinations +held by the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The lines on which those +examinations are conducted are in the main the lines on which the +boys must be educated. It is possible that the Great Public Schools +are freer to go their own ways than are the Preparatory Schools; but +if they are, they make but little use of their freedom.</p> + +<p>So far as the rank and file of the boys are concerned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_259" id="P_259">[259]</a></span> it may be +doubted if the word "educative" is applicable, in any sense or +degree, to the daily round of their work. Of the six great expansive +instincts which are struggling to evolve themselves in every healthy +child, not one can be said to find a congenial soil or a stimulating +atmosphere in the ordinary classroom either of the Preparatory or of +the Public School. Four of the six—the <i>dramatic</i>, the <i>artistic</i>, +the <i>musical</i>, and the <i>constructive</i>—are entirely or almost +entirely neglected. Music and Handwork<a name="FNa27" id="FNa27"></a><a href="#Footnote27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> are "extras" (a fatally +significant word); the teaching of Drawing is, as a rule, quite +perfunctory; and Acting is not a recognised part of the school +curriculum. The truth is that marks are not given for these +"subjects"—for in the eyes of the schoolmaster they are all +"subjects"—in any entrance or scholarship examination, and that +therefore it does not <i>pay</i> to teach them. There remain two +instincts,—the <i>communicative</i> and the <i>inquisitive</i>. The study of +the "Humanities"—History and Literature, ancient and modern—ought +to train the former; and the study of Science ought to train the +latter. But in the case of the average boy, the study of the +Humanities resolves itself, in the main, into a prolonged and +unsuccessful tussle with the difficulties of the Greek and Latin +languages, the mastering of which is regarded as an end in itself +instead of as the gateway to the wonder-worlds of ancient life and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_260" id="P_260">[260]</a></span> +thought; and the study of Science is, as a rule, a pure farce.<a name="FNa28" id="FNa28"></a><a href="#Footnote28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +Not one, then, of the expansive instincts of the average boy receives +any training during the nine or ten years of his school life; and as, +in his struggle for the "Pass" degree of his University, he will +follow the lines on which he has been accustomed to work in both his +schools, he will go out into the world at the age of twenty-two or +twenty-three, the victim of a course of education which has lasted +for fourteen years and cost thousands of pounds, and which has done +nothing whatever to foster his mental or spiritual growth. It is true +that in all the Public Schools a certain amount of informal education +is done through the medium of Musical Societies, Natural History +Societies, Debating Societies, School Magazines, and the like; that +the discipline of a Public School, with its system of School and +House prefects, has considerable educational value; that the playing +fields do something towards the formation of character; that the +boys, by exchanging experiences and discussing things freely among +themselves, help to educate one another; and that during the four +months of each year which the schoolboy spends away from school, he +is, or may be, exposed to educative influences of various kinds.<a name="FNa29" id="FNa29"></a><a href="#Footnote29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +But the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_261" id="P_261">[261]</a></span> broad fact remains that the <i>studies</i> of the youthful +graduate, whether in school classroom or college lecture-room, have +been wholly unformative and therefore wholly uneducative.</p> + +<p>But let us consider the education given in our Public Schools and +Universities, at what is presumably the highest of all its levels. +Let us see what is done for the boys who have sufficient ability to +win Scholarships and read for Honours at Oxford and Cambridge. It is +to the supposed interests of these brighter boys that the vital +interests of their duller schoolfellows are perforce sacrificed. Are +the results worth the sacrifice? The brighter boys fall into two main +groups,—those who have a turn for the "Humanities," and those who +have a turn for Mathematics and Science. Where the "Humanities" are +effectively taught,—where, for example, the scholar is allowed to +pass through the portals of Latin and Greek grammar and composition +into the wonder-world that lies beyond them,—the <i>communicative</i> +instinct receives a valuable training. It is, unfortunately, quite +possible for a boy, or even for a man, to be what is called a "good +scholar," and yet to take no interest whatever in the history or +literature of Greece and Rome; and the examination system undoubtedly +tends to foster this bastard type of humanism. But when, as a result +of his school and University training, a scholar has passed the +linguistic portals and found pleasure in the worlds beyond, we may +say of him that his education has fostered the growth of one of his +expansive instincts,—perhaps the most important of all, but still +only one. When Science is effectively taught, the growth of the +<i>inquisitive</i> instinct is similarly<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_262" id="P_262">[262]</a></span> fostered; but the inquisitive +instinct, though of great value, when trained in conjunction with +other instincts, has but little value as a "formative" when trained +by itself. From this point of view it compares unfavourably with the +communicative instinct, being as much less formative than the latter, +as the mysteries of the material world are less significant and less +able to inspire and vitalise their interpreter than the mysteries of +human life; and a purely (or mainly) scientific training is therefore +worth far less as an instrument of education than a purely (or +mainly) humanistic training.</p> + +<p>But why should the boys at our Great Public Schools and the young +men at our Universities have to choose between a scientific and a +humanistic training? Why should these ancient and famous institutions +be content to train one only of the six expansive instincts instead +of at least <i>two</i>? Here, as elsewhere, the scholarship system blocks +the way. Some scholarships are given for Classics, others for +History, others for Mathematics, others for Natural Science. Not +a single scholarship is given, at either University, for general +capacity, as measured by the results of a many-sided examination. +Why should this be? The answer is that under any system of formal +examination many-sidedness in education necessarily means +<i>smattering</i>; and that against smattering the Universities have, very +properly, set their faces. But, after all, there is no necessary +connection between many-sidedness and smattering. In Utopia, where +the concentric rings of growth are formed by the gradual evolution of +an inner life, whatever feeds that inner life is a contribution, +however humble, to the growth of the whole tree; and many-sidedness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_263" id="P_263">[263]</a></span> +far from being a defect, is one of the first conditions of success +in education. But in the Great Public Schools, where veneers of +information are being assiduously laid on the surface of the boy's +mind with a view to his passing some impending examination, the +greater the number and variety of such veneers, the more certain they +all are to split and waste and perish. Indeed the real reason why +specialising has to be resorted to in the case of the brighter boys, +is that in no other way can provision be made for the fatal process +of veneering being dispensed with, and for faculty being evolved by +growth from within.</p> + +<p>But a heavy price has to be paid for the growth of these specialised +faculties. If Science is to be seriously studied the student must +give the whole of his time to it. This means that he must give up the +idea of educating himself. It is only by turning his back on history, +on literature, on philosophy, on music, on art, that he can hope to +meet the exacting and ever-growing demands which Science makes on +those who desire to be initiated into its mysteries. To say that when +he has "taken his degree" he is only half-educated, is greatly to +over-estimate the formative influence of his highly specialised +training. A sense has undoubtedly been developed in him, an instinct +has been awakened, one or two of his mental faculties have been +vigorously cultivated; but his training has been the reverse of +humanising; and as his studies and his consequent attitude towards +Nature have been essentially <i>analytical</i>, he may, in the absence of +those correctives which his compulsory specialising has withheld from +him, have learned to regard the dead side of things as the real +side,—a conception<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_264" id="P_264">[264]</a></span> which, if it mastered him, would materialise his +whole outlook on life.</p> + +<p>The case of the "humanist" is different. The subjects which he +studies appeal to many sides of his being; and if he could respond +to their appeal, they might do much for his mental and spiritual +development. That he should be able to respond to their appeal is of +vital importance. When he has become a decent "scholar," a chance +is given to him, which if he neglects he will probably lose for +ever,—the chance of making good, in part at least, the deficiencies +of his early education. Had he lived in Utopia, his life of +many-sided self-expression would have given a general training to his +perceptive faculties, in which the twin faculties of imagination and +sympathy would have had their share. But neither in his Preparatory +School nor in the lower classes of his Public School has any serious +attempt been made during school hours to ripen either of those mighty +faculties, whereas much has been done in both schools to retard their +growth. He is doomed, then, to begin his study of the history and +literature of the Ancient World with a considerable knowledge of +the Latin and Greek languages, but (in too many cases) with an +unimaginative mind and an unsympathetic heart. There is, however, +much in that history and that literature,—not to speak of +the history and the literature of his own and other modern +countries,—which, if it could but have its way, would appeal +strongly to his imagination and his sympathy, dormant and undeveloped +as these faculties are,—appeal to them so strongly as to awaken them +at last from their slumber and quicken them into active life. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_265" id="P_265">[265]</a></span> +alas! the shadow of an impending examination is always falling on his +humanistic studies, nullifying the appeal that they make to him, and +compelling him to look at them from a sordidly utilitarian point of +view. For to give marks for the response that he might make to their +appeal, or even to set questions which would afford free scope for +the play of his imagination or the flow of his sympathy, is beyond +the power of any examiner. There are two things, and two only, which +"pay" on the examination day,—the possession of information and the +power to make use of it; and the humanist who would win prizes at his +school or gain high honours at his University, must therefore regard +the memorable doings and the imperishable sayings of his fellow-men, +not as things to be imagined and felt, admired and loved, wondered at +and pondered over, but as things to be pigeon-holed in his memory, to +be taken out and arranged under headings, to be dissected and +commented on and criticised.<a name="FNa30" id="FNa30"></a><a href="#Footnote30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>Of the part that memory plays in the education of our humanist, I +need not speak. An undue burden is probably laid upon it; but that is +a matter of minor importance. What is of supreme importance is that +in cultivating his critical faculty with an almost intensive culture, +while they starve, or at any rate leave untended, his more vital and +more emancipative faculties of imagination and sympathy, our Great +Public Schools and Universities<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_266" id="P_266">[266]</a></span> are doing him a serious and lasting +injury. Let us take the case of a young man of energy and ability who +has just left Oxford or Cambridge, having won high honours in one of +the humanistic "schools." Let us assume that, like so many of his +kind, he has a keenly critical mind, but is deficient in imagination +and sympathy; and let us then try to forecast his future. That the +faith of his childhood, undermined by his criticism, has already +fallen to pieces or will shortly do so, is more than probable. That +he will be too unimaginative to attempt to construct a new faith out +of the ruins of the old, is practically certain. His lack of faith, +in the broader sense of the word, will incapacitate him for high +seriousness (which he will regard as "bad form"), and <i>a fortiori</i> +for enthusiasm (which he will shun like the plague), and will +therefore predispose him to frivolity. Being fully persuaded, owing +to his lack of imaginative sympathy, that his own outlook on life is +alone compatible with mental sanity, and yet being too clear-sighted +to accept that outlook as satisfactory, he will mingle with his +frivolity a strain of bitterness and discontent,—the bitterness of +self-corroding scepticism, and the discontent which grows apace +through its very effort to ignore its own existence. In a word, his +attitude towards life will be one of <i>cynicism</i>,—that blend of +hardness and bitterness with frivolity which exactly inverts the +ideal of the modern poet, when he dreams of an age in the far-off +future,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Which without hardness will be sage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gay without frivolity.<a name="FNa31" id="FNa31"></a><a href="#Footnote31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And the bitterness of his cynicism will be made<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_267" id="P_267">[267]</a></span> bitterer still by +the fact that, owing to his being (in all probability) unmusical, +inartistic, and unable to amuse himself with any form of handwork, he +will have no taste or hobby to distract him from himself. For a time, +indeed, the "genial sense of youth" will keep his sinister tendencies +in check; and in the middle period of life, his struggle to achieve +"success"—for of course he will be an externalist to the core—will +tend to keep them in the background. But in his later years, when he +will have either failed to achieve "success" or discovered—too +late—that it was not worth achieving, his cynicism will assert +itself without let or hindrance, and, with his growing incapacity for +frivolity, will become harder and bitterer, till at last the dark +shadow of incurable pessimism will fall on him and involve his +declining years in ever deepening gloom. I do not say that many of +our University humanists will conform to this type; but I do say that +the type is easily recognisable and is becoming increasingly +familiar.</p> + +<p>Even the intellectual development of our humanist, who is nothing if +not intellectual, will be adversely affected by the one-sidedness of +his education. Well-informed and acutely critical he will probably +be; but he will lack the saving grace of that "tactful" faculty which +years of many-sided self-expression can alone evolve,—a faculty +which (as we have seen) is subtly adaptive when it deals with small +matters, boldly imaginative when it deals with great matters, and +delicately sympathetic along the whole range of its activity. +This sinuous and penetrative sense is to the more logically +critical faculty what equity is to law; and in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_268" id="P_268">[268]</a></span> absence the +intellectuality of our young "intellectual" will be as incomplete as +would be the legal system of a country which knew nothing of equity +and tried to bring all legal problems under the direct control of +positive law. For it will be his business, as he goes through life, +to deal in and with words and phrases; and as words and phrases are +ever tending to change their force, and even their meaning, under our +hands, and as his use and treatment of them will be logical and +"legal" rather than tactful and "equitable," he will again and again +misinterpret and misuse them, and will so do badly the very thing +which he is expected to do well. The man who, though endowed with an +acute and vigorous intellect, can neither think imaginatively nor +reason tactfully, has grave intellectual defects; and the blinder he +is to the existence of these defects the more pronounced will they +become.</p> + +<p>The pity of it is that when these unimaginative "intellectuals" go +out into the world, they will fill posts in which they will have +unrivalled opportunities for establishing and disseminating their +unwholesome influence. A section of them will go into the teaching +profession, the higher grades of which are almost entirely recruited +from Oxford and Cambridge. Another section will go into the legal +profession, and through it will enter Parliament in considerable +numbers, where, being trained advocates, they will exercise an +influence out of all proportion to their numerical strength. And a +third section will man the higher grades of the Home, Colonial, and +Indian Civil Services. Teachers, legislators, administrators,—if +there are any walks in life in which cynicism and a capacity<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_269" id="P_269">[269]</a></span> for +merely destructive criticism are out of place, and in which +imagination and sympathy are imperatively demanded, they are these +three; and it is nothing short of a national calamity that these +great and commanding professions should be manned, in part at least, +by men whose mission in life is to paralyse rather than to vitalise, +to fetter rather than to set free.</p> + +<p>The further pity of it is that the training of these "intellectuals" +might easily have taken an entirely different course. Much of the +specialising which goes on in our Great Public Schools and +Universities, and which is so destructive of mental and spiritual +vitality, is wholly unnecessary. The course of education which the +sons of the "upper classes" go through has this in common with +elementary education, that in neither case need "utilitarian" +considerations weigh with the teachers. The parents of a large +proportion of our Public School boys can afford to give their sons a +<i>liberal</i> education (in the truest and fullest sense of the word) up +to the age of twenty-two or twenty-three; and in the case of these +boys, at any rate, the excessive specialisation which makes their +education so illiberal is done, not in response to the demands +of professions (such as the medical or the engineering) which +necessitate early specialising, but solely in response to the demands +of an examination system which we adopted before we had begun to ask +ourselves what education meant, and which, partly from the force of +habit and partly because it is in keeping with our general attitude +towards life, we still bow down before with a devotion as ardent and +as irrational as that which<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_270" id="P_270">[270]</a></span> inspired the cry of "Great is Diana of +the Ephesians."<a name="FNa32" id="FNa32"></a><a href="#Footnote32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>At its best, then, the education given by the Great Public Schools +and Universities fosters the growth of one of the expansive +instincts,—the <i>communicative</i>, a mighty instinct which opens up to +imagination and sympathy the whole wide world of human life; but +because it leaves all the other expansive instincts untended, it +gives that one instinct an inadequate and unsymmetrical training, a +training which checks the growth of the very faculties—imagination +and sympathy—of which the instinct is largely compounded and for the +sake of which it may almost be said to exist. At its second best, +this costly education fosters the growth of the <i>inquisitive</i> +instinct,—a grandly expansive instinct when trained in conjunction +with the others, but one which is constrictive rather than expansive +when trained by itself and for its own sake. At its ordinary level, +it trains no instinct whatever, and is therefore unworthy of the name +of education. Why should this be so? Why should a course of education +which lasts so long and costs so much do so little for its victims, +and do that little so badly or, at any rate, so inadequately? Because +from first to last it has looked outward instead of inward; because +it has laboured unceasingly to produce "results," and has never given +a thought to growth.<a name="FNa33" id="FNa33"></a><a href="#Footnote33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="P_271" id="P_271">[271]</a></span> Let us now go to the other end of the social scale. What the path of +self-realisation might do for the children of the "upper classes" if +they were allowed to follow it, we may roughly calculate, partly by +measuring what the alternative scheme of education has failed to do +for them, partly by reminding ourselves of what the path has done for +the village children of Utopia. The children of the "upper classes" +have such an advantage over the children of Utopia in the matter of +environment,—to say nothing of inherited capacity,—that one would +expect the path to do much more for their mental development than +it has done for the mental development of the Utopians, especially +as they could afford to remain much longer in the first and most +important of its stages, the stage of self-education (in the more +limited sense of the word). The gain to the whole nation if the +mental development of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_272" id="P_272">[272]</a></span> the highest social stratum could be raised as +much above its normal level as the mental development of youthful +Utopia has been raised above the normal level of an English rural +village, would be incalculably great. But greater still—incalculably +greater—would be the gain to the nation if the rank and file of its +children could be led into the path of self-realisation, and therein +rise to the high level of brightness, intelligence, and +resourcefulness which has been reached in Utopia.</p> + +<p>Nor is this dream so wildly impracticable as some might imagine. So +far as the natural capacity of the average child is concerned, there +is no bar to its realisation. Egeria has taught me that the mental +capacity of the average child, even in a rustic village belonging to +a county which is proverbial for the slow wits of its rustics, is +very great. It is sometimes said that of the children who have been +trained in our elementary schools, not one in twenty is fit to profit +by the education given in a secondary school: and if by this is +meant that in nineteen cases out of twenty the elementary scholar, +<i>educated as he has probably been</i>, is unlikely to profit by the +education given in a secondary school, <i>conducted as those schools +usually are</i>, I am not prepared to say offhand that the statement +is untrue. But if it means that the average mental capacity of the +children of our "lower orders" is hopelessly inferior to that of +the children of our middle and upper classes, I can say without +hesitation that it is a slander and a lie. Whether there is any +difference, in respect of innate mental capacity, between level +and level of our social scale, may be doubted; but the Utopian<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_273" id="P_273">[273]</a></span> +experiment has proved to demonstration that in the lowest level of +all the innate mental capacity is so great that we cannot well expect +to find any considerable advance on it even in the highest level of +all.</p> + +<p>But where, it will be asked, are we to find Egerias to man our +elementary schools? For the moment this problem does not admit of a +practical solution. But that need not discourage us. I admit that in +far too many of our schools the teachers, through no fault of their +own, are what I may call machine-made, and that they are engaged in +turning out machine-made scholars, some of whom in the fullness of +time will develop into machine-made teachers. But there is a way of +escape from this vicious circle,—the path of self-realisation. +That path has transformed the children of a rustic village in a +slow-witted county into Utopians. Why should it not transform some +at least among the boys and girls who are thinking of entering the +teaching profession into Egerias, or at any rate into teachers +of Egeria's type? Even as it is, replicas of Egeria,—not exact +replicas, for she is too original to be easily replicated, +but teachers who, like her, preach and practise the gospel of +self-education,—are beginning to spring up in various parts of the +country; and each of their schools, besides being a centre of light, +may well become a nursery for teachers who will follow in the +footsteps of those who have trained them, and will in their turn do +pioneer work in other schools. The thin end of the wedge is even now +being driven into the close-grained mass of tradition and routine; +and each successive blow that is struck by<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_274" id="P_274">[274]</a></span> a teacher of intelligence +and initiative will widen the incipient cleft.</p> + +<p>The dream, then, of leading the children of England—the children of +the "masses" as well as of the "classes"—into the path of +self-realisation, is not so widely impracticable as to convict the +dreamer of insanity. And if we could realise the dream, if we could +go but a little way towards realising it, how immense would be the +gain to our country! If the average level of mental development in +England were as high as it is in Utopia, to what height would not the +men and women of exceptional ability be able to rise? The mountain +peaks that spring from an upland plateau soar higher towards the sky +than the peaks, of the same apparent height, that spring from a +low-lying plain. And "the great mountains lift the lowlands on to +their sides."</p> + +<p>But this is not the only reason why the gospel of self-realisation +should be preached in all parts of the land. There is another reason +which is becoming more and more urgent. If the Utopian scheme of +education were widely adopted, an antidote would be found to a grave +and growing evil which is beginning to imperil the mental health of +every civilised community, and of this more than any other. The more +civilised (in the Western sense of the word) a country becomes, the +less educative does life—the rough-and-tumble life of the work-a-day +world—tend to become. In a thoroughly "civilised" country, where the +material conditions of life are highly organised, and where industry +is highly specialised, so much is done for the individual by those +who organise his life and<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_275" id="P_275">[275]</a></span> labour, that it ceases to be necessary for +him, except within narrow limits, to shift for himself. In a less +civilised community men have to use their wits as well as their hands +at every turn; and resourcefulness and versatility are therefore in +constant demand. The industrial life of a Russian peasant, who is of +necessity a Jack-of-many-trades, is incomparably more educative than +that of the Lancashire cotton operative, most of whose thinking and +much of whose operating may be said to be done for him by the +complicated machinery which he controls; who does, indeed, learn to +do one thing surpassingly well, but in doing that one thing becomes, +as he progresses, more and more automatic, so that the highest praise +we can give him is to say that he does his work with the sureness and +accuracy of a machine. It follows that the more civilised a country +becomes, the more important is the part that the elementary school +plays in the life of the nation,—and that not merely because the +ability to read, write, and cipher is, in the conditions which modern +civilisation imposes, almost as much a "necessary of life" as the +ability to walk or talk, but also and more especially because it +devolves upon the school to do for the citizen in his childhood what +life will not do for him in his manhood, or will do for him but in +scant measure, to stimulate his vital powers into healthful activity, +to foster the growth of his soul. And the more the people in a +civilised country are withdrawn from the soil and herded into mines +and mills and offices, the more imperative is it that the school +should quicken rather than deaden the child's innate faculties, +should bring sunshine<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_276" id="P_276">[276]</a></span> rather than frost into his adolescent life. In +such a country as ours the responsibilities of the teacher are only +equalled by his opportunities; for the child is in his hands during +the most impressionable years of life; and those years will have been +wasted, and worse than wasted, unless they have fitted the child to +face the world with resourcefulness, intelligence, and vital energy, +ready to wrest from his environment, by enlarging and otherwise +transforming it, those educative influences which are still to be had +for the seeking, but are no longer automatically supplied.</p> + +<h4>The Moral Aspect of Self-Realisation.</h4> + +<p>If Man, if each man in turn, is born <i>good</i>, the process of growth, +or self-realisation, which is presumably taking him towards the +perfection of which his nature admits, must needs make him +continuously <i>better</i>. In other words, growth, provided that it is +healthy, harmonious, and many-sided, provided that it is growth of +the whole being, is in itself and of inner necessity the most +moralising of all processes. Nay, it is the only moralising process, +for in no other way can what is naturally good be transformed into +what is ideally best.</p> + +<p>This argument, apart from its being open to the possible objection +that it plays on the meaning of the word "good," is perhaps too +conclusive to be really convincing. I will therefore try to make my +way to its conclusion by another line of thought.</p> + +<p>The desire to grow, to advance towards maturity, to realise his true +self—the self that is his in embryo from the very beginning—is +strong in every living thing, and is therefore strong in every child +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_277" id="P_277">[277]</a></span> man. But the desire, which necessarily takes its share in the +general process of growth, must needs pass through many stages on its +way to its own highest form. In infancy, it is a desire for physical +life, for the preservation and expansion of the physical self; and in +this stage it is, as I have already pointed out, uncompromisingly +selfish. The new-born baby is the incarnation of selfishness; and it +is quite right that he should be so. It is his way of trying to +realise himself. As the child grows older, the desire to grow becomes +a desire for self-aggrandisement,—a desire to shine in various ways, +to surpass others, to be admired, to be praised; and though in this +stage it may give rise to much vanity and selfishness, still, so long +as it has vigorous growth behind it and is in its essence a desire +for further growth, it is in the main a healthy tendency, and to call +it sinful or vicious would be a misuse of words.</p> + +<p>But when, in the course of time, the average, ordinary, surface +self—the self with which we are all only too familiar—has been +fully evolved and firmly established, the day may come when, owing to +various adverse conditions, the growth of the soul will be arrested, +and the ordinary self will come to be regarded as the true self, as +the self which the man may henceforth accept and rest in, as the +self in virtue of which he is what he is. Should the desire for +self-aggrandisement survive that day, the door would be thrown open +to selfishness of a malignant type and to general demoralisation. And +this is what would assuredly come to pass. In the first place, the +desire for self-aggrandisement, which always has the push of Nature's +expansive<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_278" id="P_278">[278]</a></span> forces behind it, would certainly survive that ill-omened +day. Indeed, it were well that it should do so; for "while there is +life, there is hope," and when the soul is ceasing to grow, it is +through the desire for self-aggrandisement that Nature makes her last +effort to keep it alive, by compelling it to energise on one or two +at least of the many sides of its being. In the second place, the +desire would gradually cease to be resolvable into the desire for +continued growth, and would gradually transform itself into the +desire to glorify and make much of the ordinary self, to minister to +its selfish demands, to give it possessions, riches, honour, power, +social rank, and whatever else might serve to feed its self-esteem, +and make it think well of itself because it was well thought of by +"the world." And in the third place, in its effort to glorify and +make much of the ordinary self, the desire would, without a moment's +compunction, see other persons pushed to the wall, trampled under +foot, slighted and humiliated, robbed of what they valued most, +outraged and wounded in their tenderest feelings. It is my firm +conviction that at the present day three-fourths of the moral evil in +the world, or at any rate in the Western world, are the direct or +indirect outcome of egoism,—egoism which, as a rule, is mean, petty, +and small-minded, but is often cruel and ruthless, and can on +occasion become heroic and even titanic in its capacity for evil and +in the havoc that it works,—egoism which in ninety-nine cases out of +a hundred is generated by the desire for self-aggrandisement having +outlived its better self, the desire to grow.</p> + +<p>If arrested growth is the chief source of<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_279" id="P_279">[279]</a></span> malignant egoism, there is +an obvious remedy for the deadly malady. The egoist must re-enter the +path of self-realisation. His great enemy is his lower self;<a name="FNa34" id="FNa34"></a><a href="#Footnote34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> and +the surest way to conquer this enemy is to outgrow it, to leave it +far behind. When the path of self-realisation has been re-entered, +when the soul has resumed the interrupted process of its growth, the +desire for self-aggrandisement will spontaneously transform itself, +first into the desire for further growth, and then into the desire +for outgrowth or escape from self, and will cease to minister to the +selfish demands of the lower self; and as the lower self is all the +while being gradually left behind by the growing soul, and is +therefore ceasing to assert itself, and ceasing to clamour, like a +spoilt child, for this thing and for that,—it will not be long +before the antidote to the poison of egoism will have taken due +effect, and the health of the soul will have been restored.</p> + +<p>But let me say again—for I can scarcely say it too often—that the +growth which emancipates from self is many-sided growth, the growth, +not of any one faculty, or group of faculties, but of the soul as +such. Were it not so, the life of self-realisation might easily +become a life of glorified and therefore intensified selfishness. It +is quite possible, as we know from experience, for a high degree of +"culture" to co-exist with a high degree of egoism. It is possible, +for example, for the ćsthetic instincts, when not kept aglow by the +sympathetic, or hardened with an alloy of the scientific, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_280" id="P_280">[280]</a></span> evolve +a peculiar form of selfishness which leads at last to looseness +of life and general demoralisation. And it is possible for the +scientific instincts, when developed at the expense of the ćsthetic +and the sympathetic, to evolve a hard, unemotional type of character +which is self-centred and selfish owing to its positiveness and lack +of imagination. But these are instances of inharmonious growth. When +growth is harmonious and many-sided, it leads of necessity to +out-growth, to escape from self. For the expansive instincts are so +many ways of escape from self which Nature opens up to the soul;—the +sympathetic instincts, a way of escape into the boundless ćther of +love; the ćsthetic instincts, a way of escape into the wonder-world +of beauty; the scientific instincts, a way of escape into the world +of mysteries which is lighted by the "high white star of truth." It +is only when one of the expansive instincts is allowed to aggrandise +itself at the expense of the others, that the consequent outgrowth of +selfishness in what I may call the internal economy of one's nature +begins to reflect itself in a general selfishness of character. An +instinct may readily become egoistic in its effort to affirm or +over-affirm itself, to grasp at its share or more than its share of +the child's rising life: and if it does, it may gradually suck down +into the vortex of its egoism the whole character of the child as he +ripens into the man. But growth, as such, is anti-egoistic just +because it is growth, because it is a movement towards a larger, +fuller, and freer life: and it is restricted, even more than +one-sided growth,—it is the apathy, the helplessness, the deadness +of soul that overtakes, first the child<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_281" id="P_281">[281]</a></span> and then the man, when his +expansive instincts are systematically starved and thwarted,—which +is the chief cause of his incarceration in his petty self.</p> + +<p>If three-fourths of the moral evil in the world are due to +malignant egoism, the source of the remaining fourth is, in a word, +<i>sensuality</i>. By sensuality I mean the undue or perverted development +of the desires and passions of the animal self,—the desire for +food and drink, the sexual desires, the desire for physical or +semi-physical excitement, the animal passion of anger, and the rest. +As an enemy of the soul, sensuality is less dangerous, because more +open and less insidious, than egoism. The egoist, who mistakes his +ordinary for his real self, may well lead a life of systematic +selfishness without in the least realising that he is living amiss. +But the animal self is never mistaken for the real self; and the +sensualist always has an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that, +in indulging his animal desires and passions to excess, he is doing +wrong. This feeling may, indeed, die out when he "grows hard" in his +"viciousness"; but in the earlier stages of the sensual life it is +sure to "give pause"; and there are, I think, few persons who do not +feel that the sensual desires and passions are so remote from the +headquarters of human life, that in yielding to them beyond due +measure they are acting unworthily of their higher selves. At any +rate we may regard the temptations to sensual indulgence that lie in +our path as evil influences which are assailing us from without +rather than from within; and we may therefore liken them to the +blight, rust, mites, mildew, and other pests<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_282" id="P_282">[282]</a></span> that assail hops, +fruit, wheat, and other growing plants.</p> + +<p>And, like the pests that assail growing plants, the sensual pests +that war against the soul must be beaten off by vigorous and +continuous growth. No other prophylactic is so sure or so effective +as this. When I was asked whether the Utopian education was useful +or not, I adduced, as an instance of its usefulness, its power of +protecting the young from the allurements of a pernicious literature, +to which the victims of the conventional type of education, with +their lowered vitality and their lack of interest in life, too +readily succumb. This is a typical example of the way in which the +rising sap of life strengthens the soul to resist the temptations to +undue sensual indulgence by which it is always liable to be assailed. +The victim of a repressive, growth-arresting type of education, +having few if any interests in life, not infrequently takes to the +meretricious excitements of sensuality in order to relieve the +intolerable monotony of his days. But the training which makes for +many-sided growth, by filling the life of the "adolescent" with many +and various interests, removes temptations of this particular type +from his path. And it does more for him than this. It generates in +him a state of health and well-being, in which the very vigour and +elasticity of his spiritual fibre automatically shields him from +temptation by refusing to allow the germs of moral disease to effect +a lodgment in his soul. It would be well if our moralists could +realise that the chief causes of weakness in the presence of sensual +temptation are, on the one hand, boredom and <i>ennui</i>, and on the other +hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_283" id="P_283">[283]</a></span> flabbiness and degeneracy of spiritual fibre, and that the +remedy for both these defects is to give the young the type of +education which will foster rather than hinder growth.</p> + +<p>We are now in a position to estimate the respective values, as +moralising influences, of the path of self-realisation and the path +that leads to "results." Whatever tends to arrest growth tends also +and in an equal degree to demoralise Man's life; for, on the one +hand, by transforming the healthy desire for continued growth into +the unhealthy desire for mere self-aggrandisement, it generates +malignant egoism, with its endless train of attendant evils; and, on +the other hand, by depressing the vitality of the soul and so +weakening its powers of resistance, it exposes it to the attacks of +those powers and desires which we speak of in the aggregate as +sensuality. If this is so, the inference is irresistible that the +externalism of "civilised" life, with the repressive and devitalising +system of education which it necessitates, is responsible for the +greater part of the immorality—I am using the word in its widest +sense—of the present age. Contrariwise, whatever tends to foster +growth tends also, and in an equal degree, to moralise Man's +life; for, on the one hand, by transforming the desire for +self-aggrandisement into the desire, first for continued growth +and then for out-growth, it gives the soul strength to eliminate +the poison of egoism from its system; and, on the other hand, by +vitalising the soul and so strengthening its powers of resistance, it +enables it to beat off the attacks of those enemies of its well-being +which serve under the banner of sensuality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_284" id="P_284">[284]</a></span> If this is so, the +inference is irresistible that self-realisation is the only effective +remedy for the immorality of the present age.</p> + +<p>The comparison between the two schemes of life may be carried a stage +further. If egoism and sensuality are the two primary vices, the +secondary vices will be the various ways and means by which egoism +and sensuality try to compass their respective ends. Let us select +for consideration one group of these vices,—the important group +which fall under the general head of <i>untruthfulness</i>. Insincerity, +disingenuousness, shiftiness, trickery, duplicity, chicanery, +evasion, intrigue, <i>suppressio veri</i>, <i>suggestio falsi</i>, fraud, +mendacity, treachery, hypocrisy, cant,—their name is Legion. That +externalism, whether in school or out of school, is the foster-mother +of the whole brood, is almost too obvious to need demonstration. +In school the child lives in an atmosphere of unreality and +make-believe. The demand for mechanical obedience which is always +pressing upon him is a demand that he shall be untrue to himself. +Sincerity of expression, which is the fountain-head of all +truthfulness, is not merely slighted by his teacher, but is +systematically proscribed. He is always (under compulsion) pretending +to be what he is not,—to know what he does not know, to see what he +does not see, to think what he does not think, to believe what he +does not believe. And he lives, from hour to hour, under the dark +shadow of severity and distrust,—severity which is too often +answered by servility, and distrust which is too often answered by +deceit. When he goes out into the world, he finds that though there +are many sins<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_285" id="P_285">[285]</a></span> for which there is forgiveness, there is one for which +there is no forgiveness,—the sin of being found out; and he orders +his life accordingly. He finds that he must give account of himself +to public opinion, which necessarily judges according to the +appearance of things, and is only too ready to be hoodwinked and +gulled. He finds that to "succeed" is to achieve certain outward and +visible results,—results which are out of relation to the <i>vraie +vérité</i> of things, which are in no way symbolical of merit, and for +the winning of which any means may be resorted to provided that +scandals are avoided and the letter of the law is obeyed. He finds +that the system of advertising which plays so large a part in modern +life, and without which it is so hard to "succeed," is in the main a +system of organised mendacity. Finally, and above all, he finds that +the examination system, with its implicit demands for trickery and +shiftiness, and its almost open invitation to cram and cheat, is not +confined to the school but has its equivalent in "the world," and is +in fact the basis of civilisation as well as of education in the +West.</p> + +<p>This is the provision that externalism makes for the practical +inculcation of truthfulness,—a virtue which its religion and +its ethics profess to honour above all others. The life of +self-realisation, on the other hand, is a life of genuine +self-expression; and a life of genuine self-expression is obviously +a life of fearless sincerity. In such a life there is no place for +untruthfulness or any member of its impish brood. The one concern of +the child, as of the man, is to be loyal to intrinsic reality, to be +true to his true self. His standard is always<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_286" id="P_286">[286]</a></span> inward, not outward. +He knows that he is what he is, not what he is reputed to be. +<i>Quantum unusquisque est in oculis Tuis, tantum est et non amplius.</i></p> + +<p>Here, then, as elsewhere, we see that the difference between the +morality of externalism and the morality of self-realisation is a +difference, not of degree but of direct antagonism,—the difference +between a poison and its antidote, between the cause of a malady and +the cure.</p> + +<p>While the path of self-realisation is emancipating us from egoism and +sensuality, in what general direction is it leading us? Is its +ethical ideal positive or merely negative? And if it is positive, +what is its character, and how is it to be realised? The answer to +this question will be given in the remaining sections.</p> + +<h4>The Social Aspect of Self-realisation.</h4> + +<p>He must either be richly endowed with "the good things of life" or be +of an exceptionally optimistic disposition, who can view the existing +social order with complete satisfaction. Even among those who are +richly endowed with "the good things of life" there must be many who +realise that the "Have-nots" have some cause for complaint. And even +among those who are of an exceptionally optimistic disposition there +must be some who realise that the grounds of their optimism are +personal to themselves, and that they cannot expect many others to +share their satisfaction with things as they are.</p> + +<p>The phrase "the good things of life" is significant, and explains +much. It means that an outward<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_287" id="P_287">[287]</a></span> standard of reality has fully +established itself in the community, that money and the possessions +of various kinds which money can buy are regarded as the good things +of life,—things which are intrinsically good, and therefore +legitimate ends of Man's ambition and endeavour, things to pursue +which is to fulfil one's destiny and to win which is to achieve +salvation. It means, in other words, that the life of the community +is a scramble for material possessions and outward and visible +"results"—a scramble which on its lowest level becomes a struggle +for bare existence, and on the next level a struggle for the +"necessaries of life"—and that this legalised scramble is the basis +of the whole social order. In such a scramble the great prizes are +necessarily few, and the number of complete failures is always +considerable; for the wealthier a country, the higher is its standard +of comfort, so that the <i>proportion</i> of failures—the percentage of +men who are submerged and outcast, who are in want and misery—is at +least as great in the wealthiest as in the poorest community, while +the extremes of wealth and poverty are as a rule greatest where the +pursuit of riches is carried on with the keenest vigour and the most +complete success.</p> + +<p>There are many persons, rich as well as poor, who, viewing the +legalised scramble from an entirely impersonal standpoint, are filled +with disgust and dismay, and who dream of making an end of it, by +substituting what they call <i>collectivism</i> for the individualism +which they regard as the source of all our troubles. These persons +are known as <i>Socialists</i>. Their ruling idea is that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_288" id="P_288">[288]</a></span> "State" +should become the sole owner of property, and that this radical +change should be effected by a series of legislative measures. With +their social ideal, regarded as an ideal, one has of course the +deepest sympathy. Their motto is, I believe, "Each for all, and all +for each"; and if this ideal could be realised, the social millennium +would indeed have begun. But in trying to compass their ends by +legislation, <i>before the standard of reality has been changed</i>, they +are making a disastrous mistake. For, to go no further, our schools +are hotbeds of individualism, the spirit of "competitive selfishness" +being actively and systematically fostered in all of them, with a few +exceptions; and so long as this is so, so long as our highly +individualised society is recruited, year by year, by a large +contingent of individualists of all ranks, drawn from schools of +all grades, for so long will the Socialistic ideal remain an +impracticable dream. An impracticable and a mischievous dream; for +in the attempt to realise it, the community will almost inevitably +be brought to the verge of civil war. When the seeds of socialistic +legislation, or even of socialistic agitation, are sown in a soil +which is highly charged with the poison of individualism, the +resulting crop will be class hatred and social strife.</p> + +<p>No, we must change our standard of reality before we can hope to +reform society. Where the outward standard prevails, where material +possessions are regarded as "the good things of life," the basis of +society must needs be competitive rather than communal, for there +will never be enough of those "good things" to satisfy the desires of +<i>all</i> the members of any community. And even if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_289" id="P_289">[289]</a></span> socialistic +dream of state-ownership could be universally realised, the +change—so long as the outward standard of reality prevailed—would +not necessarily be for the better, and might well be for the worse. +Competition for "the good things of life" would probably go on as +fiercely as ever; but it would be a scramble among nations rather +than individuals, and it might conceivably take the form of open +warfare waged on a titanic scale.<a name="FNa35" id="FNa35"></a><a href="#Footnote35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> Even now there are indications +that such a struggle, or series of struggles, if not actually +approaching, is at any rate not beyond the bounds of possibility. And +on the way to the realisation of the collectivist ideal, we should +probably have in each community a similar struggle for wealth and +power among political parties,—a struggle which would generate many +social evils, of which civil war might not be the most malignant.</p> + +<p>But if we are to change our standard of reality we must change it, +first and foremost, in the school. The way to do this is quite +simple. We need not give lessons on altruism. We need not teach or +preach a new philosophy of life. All that we need do is to foster the +growth of the child's soul. When the growth of the soul is healthy +and harmonious, the cultivation of all the expansive instincts having +been fully provided for, the <i>communal</i> instinct will evolve itself +in its own season; and when the communal instinct has been fully<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_290" id="P_290">[290]</a></span> +evolved, the social order will begin to reform itself. This is what +has happened in Utopia. There, where competition is unknown, where +prizes are undreamed of, where the growth of the child's natural +faculties, and the consequent well-being of his soul, is "its own +exceeding great reward," the communal instinct has grown with the +growth of the child's whole nature, and has generated an ideal social +life.</p> + +<p>At the end of the last section I asked myself what was the ethical +ideal of the life of self-realisation,—the positive ideal as +distinguished from the more negative ideal of emancipating from +egoism and sensuality. I will now try to answer this question. +Emancipation from egoism and sensuality is effected by the outgrowth +of a larger and truer self. This larger and truer self, as it unfolds +itself, directs our eyes towards the ideal self—the goal of the +whole process of growth—which is to the ordinary self what the +full-grown tree, embodying in itself the perfection of oakhood, is to +the sapling oak, or what the ripe peach, embodying in itself the +perfection of peachhood, is to the green unripened fruit. The ideal +self is, in brief, perfect Manhood. What perfect Manhood may be, we +need not pause to inquire. Whatever it may be, it is the true self of +each of us. It follows that the nearer each of us gets to it, the +nearer he is to the true self of each of his fellow-men; that the +more closely he is able to identify himself with it, the more closely +he is able to identify himself with each of his fellow-men; that in +realising it, he is realising, he is entering into, he is becoming +one with, the real life of each of his fellow-men. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_291" id="P_291">[291]</a></span> not of each +of his fellow-men only. He is also entering into the life of the +whole community of men—(for it is the presence of the ideal self in +each of us which makes communal life possible)—and, through this, of +each of the lesser communities to which he may happen to belong. In +other words, he is losing himself in the lives of others, and is +finding his well-being, and therefore his happiness, in doing so. +But self-loss, with joy in the loss of self, is, in a word, love.</p> + +<p>The path of self-realisation is, then, in its higher stages, a life +of love. He who walks in that path must needs lead a life of love. +He will love and serve his fellow-men, both as individuals and as +members of this or that community, not because he is consciously +trying to live up to a high ideal, but because he has reached a stage +in his development beyond which he cannot develop himself except by +leading a life of love, because the path of self-realisation has led +him into the sunshine of love, and if he will not henceforth walk in +that sunshine he will cease to follow his path. He has indeed long +walked in the foreglow of the sunshine of love. The dawn of the orb +of love is heralded by a gradual twilight, which lights the path of +self-realisation, even in its earlier stages. In Utopia the joy on +the faces of the children is the joy of goodwill not less than of +well-being. Or rather it is the joy of goodwill because it is the joy +of well-being, because well-being would not be well-being if it did +not ceaselessly generate goodwill.</p> + +<p>That love is "the fulfilling of the law," and therefore the keystone +of every sound system of ethics, is a truth on which I need scarcely +insist. The final<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_292" id="P_292">[292]</a></span> proof that the ethics of self-realisation are +sound to the core lies in the fact that the path of self-realisation, +besides emancipating from egoism and sensuality, leads all who walk +in it, first into the foreglow and then into the sunshine of love. +But it is with the social rather than the ethical aspect of +self-realisation that I am now concerned. And the social aspect of +the fact which has just been stated is obviously of vital importance. +Love, which is commensurate with life, has innumerable phases. One of +these is what I have called the communal instinct,—the sense of +belonging to a community, of being a vital part of it, of sharing +in its life, of being what one is (in part at least) because one +shares in its life. If Socialism is to realise its noble dream, this +instinct, strongly developed and directed towards the well-being of +the whole social order, must become part of the normal equipment of +every citizen. And if this is to come to pass, self-realisation must +be made the basis of education in all our schools. What it has done +for the children of Utopia, in the way of developing their communal +instinct and making their school an ideal community, it is capable of +doing for every school in England,—I might almost say for every +school on the face of the earth.</p> + +<p>There are faddists who advocate the teaching of <i>patriotism</i> in our +elementary schools. There are Local Education Committees which insist +on <i>citizenship</i> being taught in the schools under their control. By +teaching patriotism, and citizenship is meant treating them as +"subjects," finding places for them on the "time-table," and giving +formal lessons on them. Where this is done, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_293" id="P_293">[293]</a></span> time of the +teachers and the children is wasted. The teaching of patriotism +and citizenship, if it is to produce any effect, must be entirely +informal and indirect. Let the child be so educated that he will +develop himself freely on all the sides of his being, and his +communal instinct will, as I have said, evolve itself in its own +season. Until it has evolved itself, patriotism and citizenship will +be mere names to him, and what he is taught about them will make no +impression on him. When it has evolved itself, he will be a patriot +and a good citizen in <i>posse</i>, and will be ready on occasion to prove +his patriotism and his good citizenship by his deeds, or, better +still, by his life.<a name="FNa36" id="FNa36"></a><a href="#Footnote36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>While the communal instinct is evolving itself, first in the school +and then in the community at large, the standard of reality will, by +a parallel or perhaps identical process, be transforming itself in +all the grades of society. The inward will be taking the place of the +outward standard; and men will be learning to form a different +conception of "the good things of life" from that which now dominates +our social life. The Socialist will then have his opportunity. +That any member of the community should be in physical want or +irremediable misery, will begin to be felt, partly as a personal +grief, partly as a reflection on himself, by each member of the +community in turn; and steps will begin to be taken—what steps I +cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_294" id="P_294">[294]</a></span> pretend to forecast—to make physical want and irremediable +misery impossible. Meanwhile, with the gradual substitution of the +inward for the outward standard of reality, the mad scramble for +wealth and possessions and distinctions will gradually cease, the +conception of what constitutes "comfort" and of what are the real +"necessaries of life" will be correspondingly changed, and men will +begin to realise that of the genuine "good things of life"—the good +things which the children of Utopia carry with them into the world, +and which make them exceedingly rich in spite of their apparent +poverty—there are enough and more than enough "to go round."</p> + +<h4>The Religious Aspect of Self-realisation.</h4> + +<p>The oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn. What is it that is +present in embryo in the new-born child? To achieve salvation is to +realise one's true self. But what is one's true self? The "perfection +of manhood" is an obvious answer to this question; but it explains so +little that we cannot accept it as final. We may, however, accept it +as a resting-place in our search for the final answer.</p> + +<p>It is on the religious aspect of self-realisation that I now propose +to dwell. The function of Religion is to bring a central aim into +man's life, to direct his eyes towards the true end of his being +and to help him to reach it. The true end of Man's being is the +perfection of his nature; and the way to this end is the process +which we call growth. When I speak of Man's nature I am thinking of +his universal nature, of the nature which is common<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_295" id="P_295">[295]</a></span> to all men, the +nature of Man as Man. Each of us has his own particular nature, his +individuality, as it is sometimes called. The nature of Man as Man is +no mere common measure of these particular natures, but is rather +what I may call their organised totality, the many-sided nature which +includes, explains, and even justifies them all.</p> + +<p>What perfection may mean when we predicate the term of our common +nature, we cannot even imagine. The potentialities of our nature seem +to be infinite, and our knowledge of them is limited and shallow. +When we compare an untutored savage or a brutal, ignorant European +with a Christ or a Buddha, or again with a Shakespeare or a Goethe, +we realise how vast is the range—the lineal even more than the +lateral range—of Man's nature, and we find it easy to believe that +in any ordinary man there are whole tracts, whole aspects of human +nature, in which his consciousness has not yet been awakened, and +which therefore seem to be nonexistent in him, though in reality they +are only dormant or inert. These, however, are matters with which we +need not at present concern ourselves. Let the potentialities of our +common nature be what they may. Our business is to realise them as, +little by little, they present themselves to us for realisation. Let +the end of the process of growth be what it may. Our business is to +grow.</p> + +<p>In the effort to grow we are not left without guidance. The stimulus +to grow, the forces and the tendencies that make for growth, all come +from within ourselves. Yet it is only to a limited extent that they +come under our direct control. So, too,<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_296" id="P_296">[296]</a></span> the goal of growth, the +ideal perfection of our nature, is our own; and yet on the way to it +we must needs outgrow ourselves. What part do we play in this mighty +drama? The mystery of selfhood is unfathomable. The word <i>self</i> +changes its meaning the moment we begin to think about it. So does +the word <i>nature</i>. The range of meaning is in each case unlimited. +Yet there are limits beyond which we cannot use either word without +some risk of being misunderstood. When we are meditating on our +origin and our destiny, some other word seems to be needed to enable +us to complete the span of our thoughts.</p> + +<p>Is not that word <i>God</i>? The source of our life, the ideal end of our +being,—how shall we think about these if we may not speak of them as +<i>divine</i>? And in using the word "divine," do we not set ourselves +free to stretch the respective meanings of the words "self" and +"nature" beyond what would otherwise have been the breaking point of +each? The true self is worthier of the name of "self" than the +apparent self. The true nature is worthier of the name of "nature" +than the lower nature. But the true self is the Divine Self; and the +highest nature is the Nature of God. If this is so, we serve God best +and obey God best by trying to perfect our nature in response to a +stimulus, a pressure, and a guidance which is at once natural and +divine.</p> + +<p>In other words, we serve God best by following the path of +self-realisation. And the better we serve God, the more truly and +fully do we learn to know him. If to know him, and to live up to our +knowledge of him, is to be truly religious, then the life<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_297" id="P_297">[297]</a></span> of +self-realisation is, in the truest and deepest sense of the word, a +<i>religious</i> life. Or rather it is the only religious life, for in no +other way can knowledge of God be won.</p> + +<p>Let me try to make good this statement. Knowledge of God is the +outcome, not of definite dogmatic instruction in theology, but of +spiritual growth. Knowledge, whatever may be its object, is always +the outcome of growth. Even knowledge of <i>number</i> is the outcome, not +of definite dogmatic instruction in the arithmetical rules and +tables, but of the growth of the arithmetical sense. It is the same +with literature, the same with history, the same with chemistry, the +same with "business," the same with navigation, the same with the +driving of vehicles in crowded streets, the same with every art, +craft, sport, game, and pursuit. In evolving a special sense, the +soul is growing in one particular direction, a direction which is +marked out for it by the environment in which it finds it needful or +desirable to energise. The soul has, as we have seen, a general power +of adapting itself to its environment, of permeating it, of feeling +its way through it, of getting to understand it, of dealing with it +at last with skill and success. As is the particular environment, so +is the subtle, tactful, adaptive, directly perceptive, subconsciously +cognitive faculty,—the "sense," as I have called it—by means of +which the soul acquires the particular knowledge that it needs. The +more highly specialised (whether by subdivision or by abstraction) +the environment, the more highly specialised the sense. The larger +and more comprehensive the environment, the larger and more "massive" +the sense.<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_298" id="P_298">[298]</a></span> The acquired aptitude which enables an omnibus driver to +steer his bulky vehicle through the traffic of London is a highly +specialised sense. At the other end of the scale we have the +"massive" spiritual faculties which deal with whole aspects of life +or Nature, such as the sense of beauty or of moral worth.</p> + +<p>But there is a sense which is larger and more "massive" even than +these. When the environment is all-embracing, when it covers the +whole circle of which the soul is or can be the centre, the growth +made in response to it is the growth of the soul as such, and the +knowledge which rewards that growth is the knowledge of supreme +reality, or, in the language of religion, the knowledge of God. The +highest of all senses is the religious sense, the sense which gives +us knowledge of God. But the religious sense is not, as we are apt +to imagine, one of many senses. No one individual sense, however +"massive" or subtle it might be, could enable its possessor to get +on terms, so to speak, with the totality of things, with the +all-vitalising Life, with the all-embracing Whole. <i>The religious +sense is the well-being of the soul.</i> For the soul as such grows in +and through the growth of its various senses,—its own growth being +reinforced by the growth of each of these when Nature's balance is +kept, and retarded by the growth of one or more of them when Nature's +balance is lost,—and in proportion as its own vital, central growth +is vigorous and healthy, its power of apprehending reality unfolds +itself little by little. That power is of its inmost essence. When +reality, in the full sense of the word, is its object, it sees with +the whole of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_299" id="P_299">[299]</a></span> being; it is itself, when it is at the centre of +its universe, its own supreme perceptive faculty, its own religious +sense.</p> + +<p>If this is so, if the soul in its totality, the soul acting through +its whole "apperceptive mass," is its own religious sense, it is +abundantly clear that the path of self-realisation is the only path +which leads to knowledge of God, and through knowledge of God to +salvation. For self-realisation is the only scheme of life which +provides for the growth of the soul in its totality, for the +harmonious, many-sided development of the soul as such. I have often +dwelt on this point. If we have never before realised its importance +we must surely do so now. A one-sided training, even when its +one-sidedness takes the form of specialising in theology, is a +non-religious, and may well become an irreligious training, for it +does not lead to, and may well lead away from, knowledge of God.</p> + +<p>And if we have never before realised how great are the opportunities +and responsibilities of the teacher, we must surely do so now. For a +certain number of years—the number varies with the social standing +of the child, and the financial resources of his parents—the teacher +can afford to disregard utilitarian considerations and think only of +what is best for the child. What use will he make of those years? +Will he lead the child into the path of self-realisation, and so give +a lifelong impetus to the growth of his soul? Or will he, in his +thirst for "results," lead him into the path of mechanical obedience, +or, at best, of one-sided development, and so blight his budding +faculties and arrest the growth of his soul? On the practical answer +that<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_300" id="P_300">[300]</a></span> he gives to this question will depend the fate of the child. +For to the child the difference between the two paths will be the +difference between fulfilling and missing his destiny, between +knowledge and ignorance of God.</p> + +<p>If any of my readers have imagined that I am an advocate of what is +called "secular education," they will, I hope, now realise that they +have misread this book. Far from wishing to secularise education, I +hold that it cannot be too religious. And, far from wishing to limit +its religious activities to the first forty minutes of the morning +sessions, I hold that it should be actively religious through every +minute of every school session, that whatever it does it should do to +the glory of God.</p> + +<p>But how does knowledge of God show itself? Knowledge, so far as it is +real, always shows itself in right bearing, and (if action is called +for) in right action. Knowledge of arithmetic and of other more or +less abstract subjects, shows itself in the successful working of the +corresponding problems, theoretical or practical as the case may be. +Knowledge of the laws of physical nature shows itself in practical +mastery of the forces and resources of physical nature. Knowledge of +history and geography, in a right attitude towards the problems and +sub-problems of these complex and comprehensive subjects, an attitude +which may on occasion translate itself into right action. And so on. +Knowledge of God, being a state or attitude of the soul as such, must +show itself in the right bearing and the right action of the soul as +such, in other words, of Man as Man,—not as mathematician, not as +financier, not as sculptor, not as<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_301" id="P_301">[301]</a></span> cricketer, but simply as Man. Now +Man as Man has to bear himself aright towards the world in which he +finds himself, and in particular towards the world which touches him +most closely and envelops him most completely,—the world of human +life. Therefore knowledge of God will show itself, principally and +chiefly, though by no means wholly, in dealing aright with one's +fellow-men, in being rightly disposed towards them, and in doing the +right things to them. I have found it convenient to disconnect the +moral from the religious aspect of self-realisation. We can now see +that in the last resort the two aspects are one.</p> + +<p>From every point of view, then, and above all from that of Religion, +the path of self-realisation is seen to be the path of salvation. +For it is the only scheme of life which enables him who follows it +to attain to knowledge of God; and knowledge of God has, as its +necessary counterpart, a right attitude, in general towards the world +which surrounds him, and in particular towards his fellow-men.</p> + +<p>But is it possible, within the limits of one earth-life, to follow +the path of self-realisation to its appointed goal? And if not, will +the path be continued beyond that abrupt turn in it which we call +death? The respective attitudes of the two great schools of popular +thought towards the problem of the grave, are in brief as follows. +The Materialists (or Naturalists, as they miscall themselves) believe +that death is the end of life. The Supernaturalists believe that one +earth-life (or even a few years or months) of mechanical obedience to +supernatural direction will be rewarded by an<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_302" id="P_302">[302]</a></span> eternity of happiness +in "Heaven." But those who walk in the path of self-realisation, and +whose unswerving loyalty to Nature is rewarded by some measure of +insight into her deeper laws, know that the goal of the path is +infinitely far away, and in their heart of hearts they laugh both the +current eschatologies to scorn. And the higher they ascend, as they +follow the path, the more vividly do they realise how unimaginably +high above them is the summit of the mountain which the path is +ascending in spiral coils.</p> + +<p>The Utopian experiment, humble as it is, can, I think, throw some +light on these mighty problems. The relations between the type and +the various sub-types, between the type and the individual, between +the sub-type and the individual—whether in plant or beast or +man—are matters which could not be handled within the limits of this +book, and which I have therefore as far as possible ignored. Nor have +I attempted to deal with the difficult problems that are presented by +the existence of races, such as the Negro, which seem to be far below +the normal level of human development. There is, however, in the vast +region of thought which these and kindred problems open out to us, +one by-way which I must be allowed to follow for a while.</p> + +<p>The wild <i>bullace</i> is, I believe, the ancestor of many of our yellow +<i>plums</i>. In other words, bullacehood can develop into plumhood, and +even into the perfection of plumhood. Similarly human nature can +develop into something so high above the normal level of human nature +that it might almost seem to belong to another <i>genus</i>. But there<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_303" id="P_303">[303]</a></span> is +a difference between the two cases. The bullace ideal is in the +individual bullace tree. So, in a sense, is the plum ideal. But the +latter cannot be realised, or even approached, by the individual +bullace tree. It cannot be realised, or even approached, by the +bullace species except through a long course of culture and breeding. +Is it the same with Man? Let us take English rusticity as a +particular type of human nature,—the equivalent of bullacehood for +the purpose of argument. This is a distinct type, and may be said +to have its own ideal.<a name="FNa37" id="FNa37"></a><a href="#Footnote37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Emerging from this, and gradually +transforming it, is the ideal of human nature, the ideal for Man as +Man. As the bullace ideal is to the plum ideal, so is the ideal of +English rusticity to the ideal of human nature. But whereas the plum +ideal cannot be realised in any appreciable degree by the individual +bullace, the human ideal can be realised in a quite appreciable +degree by the individual English rustic. There have always been and +will always be isolated cases to prove that this is so,—cases of men +of quite humble origin who have attained to high degrees of mental +and spiritual development. These have hitherto been regarded as +exceptional cases. But Egeria has convinced me that under favourable +conditions the <i>average</i> child can become the rare exception, and +attain to what is usually regarded as a remarkably high degree of +mental and spiritual development. Innocent joy, self-forgetfulness, +communal devotion, heartfelt goodwill, gracious manners—to speak of +spiritual development only—are characteristics<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_304" id="P_304">[304]</a></span> of <i>every</i> Utopian +child. What are we to infer from this? The bullace ideal is +realisable (under favourable conditions) by each individual bullace +tree,—but the plum ideal is not. The English rustic ideal is +realisable by each individual rustic child. <i>But so is the human +ideal in Utopia</i>.</p> + +<p>But what of the children who do not belong to Utopia? What would have +happened to the Utopian children if there had been no Egeria to lead +them into the path of self-realisation? They would have lived and +died ordinary English rustics,—healthy bullaces, but in no respect +or degree plums. Egeria has convinced me that the average child, +besides being born mentally and spiritually healthy, has immense +capacity on every side of his being. The plum ideal is the true +nature of the plum, but is not the true nature of the bullace. But +Egeria has convinced me that the human ideal—the divine self—is the +true nature of each of us, even of the average rustic child; and she +has also convinced me that each of us can go a long way towards +realising that ideal. Had there been no Egeria in Utopia, the +Utopians would have lived and died undeveloped, having arrived at a +maturity of a kind, the maturity of the bullace as distinguished from +that of the plum, but having failed to realise in any appreciable +degree what the Utopian experiment has proved to be their true +nature. What then? Is this the end of the average man? Will Nature +admit final defeat? The curve of a man's life, as it sweeps round +from birth to death, passes through the point of apparent maturity; +but the real nature of the man has never ripened, and when he +descends into the grave he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_305" id="P_305">[305]</a></span> still the embryo of his true self. +Will the true self never be realised? Never, if death is indeed the +end of life. But in that case the man will have failed to fulfil the +central purpose of Nature, and, alone among her children, will have +escaped from the control of her all-pervading law of growth.</p> + +<p>It is in their desire to keep Man in line with the rest of Nature's +children that so many thinkers and scientists in the West forbid him +to look beyond the horizon of the grave. But in truth it is only by +being allowed to look beyond that horizon that Man can be kept in +line with the rest of Nature's children; for if death means +extinction to him, as it means (or seems to mean) to the beetle or +the fly, he will have lived to no purpose, having failed to realise +in any appreciable degree what every other living thing realises +within its appointed limits,—the central tendencies of his being. +That a living thing, an average specimen of its kind, should within +the limits of a normal life fail completely to realise those +potentialities which are distinctive of its real nature,—fail so +completely that the very existence of those potentialities might, but +for an occasional and quite exceptional revelation, have remained +unsuspected,—is entirely at variance with what we know of the ways +and works of Nature. Yet failure to realise his true manhood is, +outside the confines of Utopia, the apparent lot of nine men out of +ten. An entire range of qualities, spiritual and mental, which +blossom freely in the stimulating atmosphere of Utopia, and which +must therefore exist in embryo in every normal child, fail to +germinate (or at best only just begin to germinate) within the +lifetime<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_306" id="P_306">[306]</a></span> of the average non-Utopian.<a name="FNa38" id="FNa38"></a><a href="#Footnote38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The inference to be drawn +from these significant facts is that the apparent limits of Man's +life are not the real limits; that the one earth-life of which each +of us is conscious, far from being the whole of one's life, is but a +tiny fragment of it,—one term of its ascending "series," one day in +its cycle of years. In other words, the spiritual fertility of the +average Utopian child, taken in conjunction with the spiritual +sterility of the average non-Utopian child (and man), points to the +conclusion which the thinkers of the Far East reached thousands of +years ago,—that for the full development of human nature a plurality +of lives is needed, which will do for the individual soul what +generations of scientific breeding and culture will do for the +bullace that is to be transformed into a plum.</p> + +<p>This is one lesson which Utopia has taught me. There is another which +had also been anticipated by the thinkers of the Far East. If under +exceptionally favourable conditions certain spiritual and mental +qualities are able to blossom freely in the space of a few years, +which under normal conditions would remain undeveloped during a +lifetime of seventy or eighty years, may we not infer that there is a +directer path to spiritual maturity than that which is ordinarily +followed? May we not infer that there are ways of living, ways into<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_307" id="P_307">[307]</a></span> +which parents and teachers can lead the young, which, if faithfully +followed, will allow the potencies of Man's higher nature to evolve +themselves with what we, with our limited experience, must regard as +abnormal celerity, and which will therefore shorten appreciably Man's +journey to his goal?<a name="FNa39" id="FNa39"></a><a href="#Footnote39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> And if there is a directer path to spiritual +maturity than that which is ordinarily followed, is not the name for +it <i>Self-realisation</i>?</p> + +<p>I will not pursue these speculations further. But, speaking for +myself, I will say that the vista which the idea of self-realisation +opens up to me goes far beyond the limits of any one earth-life or +sequence of earth-lives, and far, immeasurably far, beyond the limits +of the sham eternity of the conventional Heaven and Hell.</p> + +<p>But even if there is the fullest provision in Nature (whether by a +spiral ascent through a long chain of lives, or by some directer +path) for the final development in each individual man of the +potencies of perfect manhood, for the final realisation of the divine +or true self,—what then? What does it all mean? Why are we to follow +the path of self-realisation? What is the purpose of the cycle of +existence? There is an answer to this obstinate question,—an answer +which explains nothing, and yet is final, in that it leaves nothing +to be explained. The expansive energies and desires, to yield to +which is our wisdom and our happiness, are ever transforming +themselves, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="P_308" id="P_308">[308]</a></span> we yield to them, into the might and the ardour of +Love. And for love there is no final resting-place but the sea of +Divine Love from which it came. "<i>Amor ex Deo natus est, nec potest +nisi in Deo requiescere</i>."</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote25" id="Footnote25" href="#FNa25" class="label">[25]</a> There is of course an intermediate class of vicious +tendencies, which may be described as apparent rather than actual, +and which are caused partly by immaturity, partly by environment. +Many of the "naughtinesses" of school children belong to this class.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote26" id="Footnote26" href="#FNa26" class="label">[26]</a> The <i>physical</i> aspect is, of course, of incalculable +importance. My only reason for ignoring it is that I am not competent +to deal with it. The <i>ćsthetic</i> aspect is also of incalculable +importance; but I know so little about music or art, that I must +limit my treatment of this aspect to pointing out that until the +musical and artistic instincts of the masses are systematically +trained in our elementary schools, through the medium of free +self-expression on the part of the children, we shall have neither a +national music nor a national art.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote27" id="Footnote27" href="#FNa27" class="label">[27]</a> Workshops, for the use of the engineering classes, are, +I believe, attached to the "Modern Side" of some of our Great Public +Schools; but I doubt if there is one among the Great Public Schools, +or even among the Preparatory Schools which lead up to them, in which +"hand-work" is part of the <i>normal</i> curriculum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote28" id="Footnote28" href="#FNa28" class="label">[28]</a> I know a youth who recently attended Science lectures +for two years at one of the most famous of our Great Public Schools, +and at the end of that time had not the faintest idea what branch of +Science he had been studying. Science is, I believe, seriously taught +in the Great Public Schools to those who wish to take it seriously; +but, if taught at all, it is certainly not taught seriously to the +rank and file of the boys who belong to the "Classical side" of their +respective schools.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote29" id="Footnote29" href="#FNa29" class="label">[29]</a> See also <a href="#Footnote33">footnote 2</a> to page 270.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote30" id="Footnote30" href="#FNa30" class="label">[30]</a> When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, there was one at +least of my friends who took a genuine delight in the literary +masterpieces of Greece and Rome,—the delight, not of a fastidious +scholar but of a born lover of good literature. He got a "Third" in +Classical "Mods," and was "gulfed" in "Greats." "Serve him right," +his "dons" must have said, for I am afraid he cut their lectures. +<span class="Greek" title="hôs apoloito kai allos hotis toiauta ge rhezoi."> +ὡς ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος ὅτις τοιαῦτά γε ρέζοι.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote31" id="Footnote31" href="#FNa31" class="label">[31]</a> <i>Stanzas on the Grande Chartreuse</i>, by Matthew Arnold.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote32" id="Footnote32" href="#FNa32" class="label">[32]</a> When I apply the epithet "irrational" to the outcry at +Ephesus, I am thinking of the mob, not of the silversmiths. The +latter knew what they were about.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote33" id="Footnote33" href="#FNa33" class="label">[33]</a> Having said so much in disparagement of the mental +training given in the great Public Schools and the older +Universities, let me now try to make my peace with my old school and +my University by expressing my conviction that those who are studying +the "Humanities," whether at school or college, <i>and finding pleasure +in their studies</i>, are receiving the best education that is at +present procurable in England. An old Oxonian may perhaps be allowed +to make public profession of his faith in the special efficacy of +that course of study which is known familiarly as "Greats," the +examination in which is, of all examinations, the most difficult to +cram for and the most profitable to read for.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely necessary for me to add that in the older +Universities, as in the great Public Schools, many valuable educative +influences are at work outside the lecture-room. For one thing, the +undergraduates, who come from all parts of the world, are always +educating one another. For another thing, the "atmosphere" of Oxford +and Cambridge does much for the mental and spiritual development of +those who are able to respond to its stimulus. Even the <i>genius loci</i> +is educative, in its own quiet, subtle way. But it would be an +impertinence on my part to labour this point. It is because Oxford +and Cambridge educate their <i>alumni</i> in a thousand ways, the worth of +which no formal examination can test or measure, that they stand +apart from all other Universities.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote34" id="Footnote34" href="#FNa34" class="label">[34]</a> I mean by the "lower self," not the animal base of +one's existence, but the ordinary self <i>claiming to be the true +self</i>, and so rising in rebellion against its lawful lord.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote35" id="Footnote35" href="#FNa35" class="label">[35]</a> In other words, it might conceivably take the form of +<i>clan</i> warfare, highly organised and waged on a world-wide field; and +we learn from the history of the Highlands of Scotland and of Old +Japan that of all forms of warfare the most cruel and relentless, +with the exception of that which is waged in the name of religion, is +the warfare between clan and clan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote36" id="Footnote36" href="#FNa36" class="label">[36]</a> There is such a thing as communal egoism, when a man +regards the community or society to which he belongs as a kind of +"possession," to be paraded and bragged about, just as in personal +love there is such a thing as egoism <i>ŕ deux</i>. But the communal +instinct which is generated by self-realisation readily purges itself +of every egoistic taint.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote37" id="Footnote37" href="#FNa37" class="label">[37]</a> I mean by the "ideal" the true nature of the given +species and the true self of each individual specimen.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote38" id="Footnote38" href="#FNa38" class="label">[38]</a> When I compare the average Utopian with the average +non-Utopian, I am of course thinking of the "masses," not of the +"classes." If the comparison is to have any value, the conditions in +the two cases must be fairly equal. Mentally, the "classes" are, on +the whole, more highly developed (thanks to their more favourable +environment) than the "masses." Spiritually and morally, they are +perhaps on a par with them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote39" id="Footnote39" href="#FNa39" class="label">[39]</a> This was the idea which inspired the Founder of +Buddhism, and led him to formulate a scheme of life, in virtue +of which he takes rank (as it seems to me) as the greatest +educationalist, as well as the greatest moralist, that the world +has ever known.</p></div> +</div> + +<p class="closing">THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE *** + +***** This file should be named 20555-h.htm or 20555-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/5/5/20555/ + +Produced by R. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: What Is and What Might Be + A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular + +Author: Edmond Holmes + +Release Date: February 10, 2007 [EBook #20555] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE *** + + + + +Produced by R. Cedron, Andrew Sly and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +WHAT IS AND WHAT +MIGHT BE + +A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN GENERAL AND +ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN PARTICULAR + +BY + +EDMOND HOLMES + +AUTHOR OF +"THE CREED OF CHRIST," "THE CREED OF BUDDHA," "THE SILENCE +OF LOVE," "THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE," ETC. + + +LONDON +CONSTABLE & COMPANY +1912 + + + First published, May 1911. + Second impression, July 1911. + Third impression, September 1911. + Fourth impression, November 1911. + Fifth impression, January 1912. + Sixth impression, October 1912. + + ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All | +|other inconstancies in spelling or punctuation are as in the original.| ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + +PREFACE + + +My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the _externalism_ of +the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undue regard to outward and +visible "results" and to neglect what is inward and vital, is the +source of most of the defects that vitiate Education in this country, +and therefore that the only remedy for those defects is the drastic +one of changing our standard of reality and our conception of the +meaning and value of life. My reason for making a special study of +that branch of education which is known as "Elementary," is that I +happen to have a more intimate knowledge of it than of any other +branch, the inside of an elementary school being so familiar to me +that I can in some degree bring the eye of experience to bear upon +the problems that confront its teachers. I do not for a moment +imagine that the elementary school teacher is more deeply tainted +than his fellows with the virus of "Occidentalism." Nor do I think +that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other +educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because, +though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so +deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to +eradicate. Also there is at least a breath of healthy discontent +stirring in the field of elementary education, a breath which +sometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams of sunshine, +whereas over the higher levels of the educational world there hangs +the heavy stupor of profound self-satisfaction.[1] I am not +exaggerating when I say that at this moment there are elementary +schools in England in which the life of the children is emancipative +and educative to an extent which is unsurpassed, and perhaps +unequalled, in any other type or grade of school. + +I am careful to say all this because I foresee that, without a +"foreword" of explanation, my adverse criticism of what I have called +"a familiar type of school" may be construed into an attack on the +elementary teachers as a body. I should be very sorry if such a +construction were put upon it. No one knows better than I do that the +elementary teachers of this country are the victims of a vicious +conception of education which has behind it twenty centuries of +tradition and prescription, and the malign influence of which was +intensified in their case by thirty years or more[2] of Code +despotism and "payment by results." Handicapped as they have been by +this and other adverse conditions, they have yet produced a noble +band of pioneers, to whom I, for one, owe what little I know about +the inner meaning of education; and if I take an unduly high +standard in judging of their work, the reason is that they +themselves, by the brilliance of their isolated achievements, have +compelled me to take it. I will therefore ask them to bear with me, +while I expose with almost brutal candour the shortcomings of many of +their schools. They will understand that all the time I am thinking +of education in general even more than of elementary education, +and using my knowledge of the latter to illustrate statements and +arguments which are really intended to tell against the former. They +will also understand that at the back of my mind I am laying the +blame of their failures, not on them but on the hostile forces which +have been too strong for many of them,--on the false assumptions of +Western philosophy, on the false standards and false ideals of +Western civilisation, on various "old, unhappy, far-off things," the +effects of which are still with us, foremost among these being that +deadly system of "payment by results" which seems to have been +devised for the express purpose of arresting growth and strangling +life, which bound us all, myself included, with links of iron, and +which had many zealous agents, of whom I, alas! was one. + + + + + +PART I + +WHAT IS + +OR + +THE PATH OF MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SALVATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE + + +The function of education is to foster growth. By some of my readers +this statement will be regarded as a truism; by others as a +challenge; by others, again, when they have realised its inner +meaning, as a "wicked heresy." I will begin by assuming that it is +a truism, and will then try to prove that it is true. + +The function of education is to foster growth. The end which +the teacher should set before himself is the development of +the latent powers of his pupils, the unfolding of their latent +life. If growth is to be fostered, two things must be liberally +provided,--nourishment and exercise. On the need for nourishment I +need not insist. The need for exercise is perhaps less obvious, but +is certainly not less urgent. We make our limbs, our organs, our +senses, our faculties grow by exercising them. When they have reached +their maximum of development we maintain them at that level by +exercising them. When their capacity for growth is unlimited, as in +the case of our mental and spiritual faculties, the need for exercise +is still more urgent. To neglect to exercise a given limb, or organ, +or sense, or faculty, would result in its becoming weak, flabby, and +in the last resort useless. In childhood, when the stress of +Nature's expansive forces is strongest, the neglect of exercise will, +for obvious reasons, have most serious consequences. If a healthy +child were kept in bed during the second and third years of his life, +the damage done to his whole body would be incalculable. + +These are glaring truisms. Let me perpetrate one more,--one which is +perhaps the most glaring of all. The process of growing must be done +by the growing organism, by the child, let us say, and by no one +else. The child himself must take in and assimilate the nourishment +that is provided for him. The child himself must exercise his organs +and faculties. The one thing which no one may ever delegate to +another is the business of growing. To watch another person eating +will not nourish one's own body. To watch another person using his +limbs will not strengthen one's own. The forces that make for the +child's growth come from within himself; and it is for him, and him +alone, to feed them, use them, evolve them. + +All this is-- + + "As true as truth's simplicity, + And simpler than the infancy of truth." + +But it sometimes happens that what is most palpable is least +perceptible; and perhaps it is because the truth of what I say is +self-evident and indisputable, that in many Elementary Schools in +this country the education given seems to be based on the assumption +that my "truisms" are absolutely false. In such schools the one end +and aim of the teacher is to do everything for the child;--to feed +him with semi-digested food; to hold him by the hand, or rather by +both shoulders, when he tries to walk or run; to keep him under close +and constant supervision; to tell him in precise detail what he is to +think, to feel, to say, to wish, to do; to show him in precise detail +how he is to do whatever may have to be done; to lay thin veneers of +information on the surface of his mind; never to allow him a minute +for independent study; never to trust him with a handbook, a +note-book, or a sketch-book; in fine, to do all that lies in his +power to prevent the child from doing anything whatever for himself. +The result is that the various vital faculties which education might +be supposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in the +over-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes for him +to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously cared for, he +is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless, +resourceless, without a single interest, without a single purpose in +life. + +The contrast between elementary education as it too often is, and as +it ought to be if the truth of my "truisms" were widely accepted, is +so startling that in my desire to account for it I have had recourse +to a paradox. "Trop de verite," says Pascal, "nous etonne: les +premiers principes ont trop d'evidence pour nous." I have suggested +that the inability of so many teachers to live up to the spirit, or +even to the letter, of my primary "truism," may be due to its having +too much evidence for them, to their being blinded by the naked light +of its truth. + +But there may be another explanation of the singular fact that a +theory of education to which the teacher would assent without +hesitation if it were submitted to his consciousness, counts for +nothing in the daily routine of his work. Failure to carry an +accepted principle into practice is sometimes due to the fact that +the principle has not really been accepted; that its inner meaning +has not been apprehended; that assent has been given to a formula +rather than a truth. The cause of the failure may indeed lie deeper +than this. It may be that the nominal adherents of the principle are +in secret revolt against the vital truth that is at the heart of it; +that they repudiate it in practice because they have already +repudiated it in the inner recesses of their thought. "This people +draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their +lips; but their heart is far from me." Tell the teacher that the +function of education is to foster growth; that therefore it is his +business to develop the latent faculties of his pupils; and that +therefore (since growth presupposes exercise) he must allow his +pupils to do as much as possible by and for themselves,--place these +propositions before him, and the chances are that he will say "Amen" +to them. But that lip assent will count for nothing. One's life is +governed by instinct rather than logic. To give a lip assent to the +logical inferences from an accepted principle is one thing. To give a +_real_ assent to the essential truth that underlies and animates the +principle is another. The way in which the teacher too often conducts +his school leads one to infer that the intuitive, instinctive side of +him--the side that is nearest to practice--has somehow or other held +intercourse with the inner meaning of that "truism" which he repeats +so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional +assumptions on which he bases his life. Or perhaps this work of +subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being done for +him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by the +genius of the land in which he lives. + +Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything) +for the children whom he professes to educate? One obvious answer to +this question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the +"Education Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him. +For a third of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to +examine every child in every elementary school in England on a +syllabus which was binding on all schools alike. In doing this, they +put a bit into the mouth of the teacher and drove him, at their +pleasure, in this direction and that. And what they did to him they +compelled him to do to the child. + +So far as the action of the "Education Department" was concerned, +this policy was abandoned--in large measure, if not wholly--in 1895; +but its consequences are with us still. What conception of the +meaning and purpose of education could have induced "My Lords" to +adopt such a policy, and, having adopted it, to adhere to it for more +than thirty years? Had one asked "My Lords" at any time during those +thirty years what they regarded as the true function of education, +and had one suggested to them (as they had probably never turned +their minds to the question) that the function of education was to +foster the growth of the child, they might possibly have given an +indolent assent to that proposition. But their educational policy +must have been dictated by some widely different conception. They +must have believed that the mental progress of the child--the only +aspect of progress which concerned educationalists in those +days--would best be tested by a formal examination on a prescribed +syllabus, and would best be secured by preparation for such a test; +and they must have accepted, perhaps without the consent of their +consciousness, whatever theory of education may be implicit in that +belief. + +In acting as they did, "My Lords" fell into line with the +Universities, the Public Schools, the Preparatory Schools, the Civil +Service Commissioners, the Professional Societies, and (to make a +general statement) with all the "Boards" and "Bodies" that +controlled, directly or indirectly, the education of the youth of +England. We must, therefore, widen the scope of our inquiry, and +carry our search for cause a step farther back. How did the belief +that a formal examination is a worthy end for teacher and child to +aim at, and an adequate test of success in teaching and in learning, +come to establish itself in this country? And not in this country +only, but in the whole Western world? In every Western country that +is progressive and "up to date," and in every Western country in +exact proportion as it is progressive and "up to date," the +examination system controls education, and in doing so arrests the +self-development of the child, and therefore strangles his inward +growth. + +What is the explanation of this significant fact? In my attempt to +account for the failure of elementary education in England to foster +the growth of the educated child, I have travelled far. But I +must travel farther yet. The Western belief in the efficacy +of examinations is a symptom of a widespread and deep-seated +tendency,--the tendency to judge according to the appearance of +things, to attach supreme importance to visible "results," to measure +inward worth by outward standards, to estimate progress in terms of +what the "world" reveres as "success." It is the Western standard of +values, the Western way of looking at things, which is in question, +and which I must now attempt to determine. + +That I should have to undertake this task is a proof of the +complexity of education, of the bewildering tanglement of its +root-system, of the depths to which some of its roots descend into +the subsoil of human-life. The defect in our system of education +which I am trying to diagnose is one which the "business man," who +may have had reason to complain of the output of our elementary +schools, will probably account for in one sentence and propound a +remedy for in another. But I, who know enough about education to +realise how little is or can be known about it, find that if I am to +understand why so many schools turn out helpless and resourceless +children, I must go back to the first principles of modern +civilisation, or in other words to the cardinal axioms of the +philosophy of the West. + +This does not mean that I must make a systematic study of Western +metaphysics. Professional thinkers abound in the West; but the rank +and file of the people pay little heed to them. It is true that they +take themselves very seriously; but so does every clique of experts +and connoisseurs. The indirect influence of their theories has at +times been considerable; but their direct influence on human thought +is, and has always been, very slight. For the plain average man, who +cannot rid himself of the suspicion that the professional thinker is +a professional word-juggler, has a philosophy of his own which was +formulated for him by an unphilosophical people, and which, though it +is now beginning to fail him, was once sufficient for all his needs. + +At the present moment there are two schools of popular thought in the +West. For many centuries there was only one. For many centuries men +were content to believe that the outward and visible world--the world +of their normal experience--was the all of Nature. But they were not +content to believe that it was the "all of Being." The latter +conception would have said "No" to certain desires of the heart which +refuse to be negatived,--desires which are as large and lofty as they +are pure and deep: and in order to provide a refuge for these, +men added to their belief in a natural world which was bounded +by the horizon of experience (as they understood the word), the +complementary belief in a world which transcended the limits of +experience, and in which the dreams and hopes for which Nature could +make no provision might somehow or other be realised and fulfilled. +With the development of physical science, the conception of the +Supernatural has become discredited, and a materialistic monism has +begun to dispute the supremacy of that dualistic philosophy which had +reigned without a rival for many hundreds of years. But antagonistic +as these philosophies are to one another, they have one conception in +common. The popular belief that the world of man's normal experience +is the Alpha and Omega of _Nature_, is the very platform on which +their controversies are carried on. Were any one to suggest to them +that this belief was without foundation, that there was room and to +spare in Nature for the "supernatural" as well as for the normal, +that the supernatural world (as it had long been miscalled) was +nothing more nor less than "la continuation occulte de la Nature +infinie,"--they would at once unite their forces against him, and +assail him with an even bitterer hatred than that which animates them +in their own intestine strife. + +The dualistic philosophy which satisfied the needs of the West for +some fifteen centuries was systematised and formulated for it, in the +language of myth and poetry, by an Eastern people. The acceptance of +official Christianity by the Graeco-Roman world was the result of +many causes, two of which stand out as central and supreme. The first +of these was the personal magnetism of Christ, in and through which +men came in contact with, and responded to, the attractive forces of +those moral and spiritual ideas which Christ set before his +followers. The second was the readiness of the Western mind to accept +the philosophy of Israel,--a philosophy with the master principles of +which it had long been subconsciously familiar, and for the clear and +convincing presentation of which it had long been waiting. Of the +personal magnetism of Christ and the part that it has played in the +life of Christendom, I need not now speak. My present concern is to +show how the philosophy of Israel--accepted nominally for Christ's +sake, but really for its own--has influenced the educational policy +of the West. + +In the Old Testament the Western mind found itself face to face with +the philosophical theories--theories about the world and its origin, +about Man and his destiny, about conduct and its consequences--to +which its own mythologies had given inadequate expression, but which +the poetical genius of a practical people was able to formulate to +the satisfaction of a practical world. In the philosophy of Israel +"Nature" was conceived of, not as animated by an indwelling life or +soul, but as the handiwork of an omnipotent God. In six days--so runs +the story--"God created the heavens and the earth." Whether by the +word which we translate as "days" were meant terrestrial days or +cosmic ages matters nothing, for in either case the broad fact +remains that according to the Biblical narrative the work of creation +occupied a definite period of time, and that on a certain day in the +remote past the Creator rested from his labours, surveyed his +handiwork, and pronounced it to be very good. + +His next step was to stand aside from the world that he had made, +leave it to its own devices and see how it would behave itself in the +person of its lord and his viceroy,--Man. That the Creator should +place Creation on its trial and that it should speedily misbehave +itself, may be said to have been preordained. The idea of a Creator +postulates the further idea of a Fall. The finished work of an +omnipotent Creator is presumably good,--good in this sense, if in +no other, that its actualities must needs determine the creature's +ideals and standards of good. But the world, as Man knows it, seems +to be deeply tainted with evil. How is this anomaly to be accounted +for? The story of the Fall is the answer to this question. Whether +modern theology regards the story of the Fall as literally or only as +symbolically true, I cannot say for certain. The question is of minor +importance. What is of supreme importance is that Christian theology +accepts and has always accepted the consequences of the _idea_ of the +Fall, and that in formulating those consequences it has provided the +popular thought of the West with conceptions by which its whole +outlook on life has been, and is still, determined and controlled. + +The idea of the Fall, as dramatised by Israel and interpreted by the +"Doctors" of the West, gives adequate expression--on the highest +level of his thinking--to the crude dualism which constitutes the +philosophy of the average man. Hence the immense attractiveness of +the idea to the practical races of the West,--to peoples whose chief +idea is to get their mental problems solved for them as speedily, as +authoritatively, and as intelligibly as possible, that they may thus +be free to devote themselves to "business," to the tangible affairs +of life. + +Let us follow the philosophy of the Fall into some of its more +obvious consequences. The Universe (to use the most comprehensive +of all terms) is conceived of as divided into two dissevered +worlds,--the world of Nature, which is fallen, ruined, and accursed, +and the Supernatural world, which shares in the perfection and +centres in the glory of God. Between these two worlds intercourse is, +_in the nature of things_, impossible. But Man is not content that +his state of godless isolation should endure for ever. As a thinker, +he has exiled God from Nature and therefore from his own daily life. +But, as a "living soul," he craves for reunion with God; and so long +as the gulf between the two worlds remains impassable, his philosophy +will be felt to be incomplete. A supplementary theory of things must +therefore be devised. Corrupt and fallen as he is, Man cannot hope +to climb to Heaven; but God, with whom nothing is impossible, can at +his own good pleasure come down to earth. And come he will, whenever +that sense of all-pervading imperfection which exiled him, in its +premature attempt to explain itself, to his supernatural Heaven, is +realised in man's heart as a desire for better things. But what will +be the signs of his advent? The philosophy of the Fall is at no loss +for an answer to this question. There was a time when Nature was +the mirror of God's face. But it is so no longer. The mirror was +shattered when Adam fell. Henceforth it is only by troubling the +waters of Nature, by suspending the operation of its laws, by turning +its order into confusion, by producing _supernatural_ phenomena, or +"miracles" as they are vulgarly called, that God can announce his +presence to Man. + +The question of the miraculous is one into which we need not enter. +Let us assume that God can somehow or other come to Man, and that +Man can somehow or other recognise God's presence and interpret his +speech. We have now to ask ourselves one vital question. With what +purpose does God visit the world which has forfeited his favour, and +what does he propose to do for ruined Nature and fallen Man? For +Nature, nothing. For Man, to provide a way of escape from Nature. +The dualism of popular thought must needs control the very efforts +that men make to deliver themselves from its consequences. The +irremediable corruption of Man's _nature_ is the assumption on which +the whole scheme of salvation is to be hinged. His deliverance from +sin and death will be effected, not by the development of any natural +capacity for good, but by his being induced to quit the path (or +paths) of Nature, and to walk, under Divine direction, in some new +and narrow path. + +But how will this end be achieved? That Man cannot discover the path +of salvation for himself will, of course, be taken for granted. The +catastrophe of the Fall has corrupted his whole nature, and has +therefore blinded him to the light of truth. "The way of man is not +in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." The +promptings of his own nature, which he would follow if left to +himself, can do nothing but lead him astray. It will also be taken +for granted that the path of salvation is a path of action. When the +whole inward disposition is hopelessly corrupt, the idea of achieving +salvation by growing, by bringing one's hidden life to the perfection +of maturity, must perforce be abandoned. It is only by _doing_ God's +will that Man can hope to regain his favour. One thing, then, is +clear. Man must be told in exact detail what he is to do and also +(should this be necessary) how he is to do it. In other words, an +elaborate Code of Law, covering the whole range of human life and +regulating all the details of conduct, must be delivered by God to +Man. If Man will obey this Law he will be saved. If he will not obey +it, he will be lost. + +There is another aspect of the idea of a supernatural revelation on +which it is necessary to touch. As intercourse between Nature and the +Supernatural world takes place, not in the natural order of things +but at the good pleasure of the Supernatural God, revelation must +needs be conceived of as a highly-specialised process. A revelation +which was addressed to the whole human race, and to which the whole +human race was able to respond, could scarcely be regarded as of +supernatural origin. The distinction between the supernaturalness of +the appeal and the naturalness of the response would gradually tend +to efface itself: for "what is universal is natural," and the voice +which every man was able to recognise would come at last to be +regarded as a voice from within oneself. If the supernatural +character of an alleged revelation is to be established, its +uniqueness must be duly emphasised. A particular people must be +chosen for the purpose of the divine experiment. A particular +law-giver must be commissioned to declare to the chosen people the +will of the Supernatural God. And from time to time a particular +prophet must be sent to rebuke the chosen people for its +backslidings, to show it where it has gone astray, and to exhort +it to turn again to its God. + + For if it is far from Man to discern good, it is still farther from +him to desire it. How, then, shall he be induced to walk in the path +which the Law has prescribed for him? To this question there can be +but one answer: By the promise of external reward, and the threat of +external punishment. To set before Man an ideal of life--an ideal +which would be to him an unfailing fountain of magnetic force and +guiding light--is not in the power of legalism. For if an ideal is +to appeal to one, it must be the consummation of one's own natural +tendencies; but the current of Man's natural tendencies is ever +setting towards perdition, and the vanishing point of his heart's +desires is death. Were an ideal revealed to the Law-giver and by him +presented to his fellow-men, and were the heart of Man to respond +to the appeal that it made to him, the basic assumption of +legalism--that of the corruption of Man's nature--would be +undermined; for Man would have proved that it belonged to his nature +to turn towards the light,--in other words, that he had a natural +capacity for good. The plain truth is that legalism is precluded, by +its own first principles from appealing to any motive higher than +that instinctive desire for pleasure which has as its counterpart a +quasi-physical fear of pain. It is impossible for the lawgiver to +appeal to Man's better nature, to say to him: "Cannot you see for +yourself that this course of action is better than that,--that love +is better than hatred, mercy than cruelty, loyalty than treachery, +continence than self-indulgence?" What he can and must say to him is +this, and this only; "If you obey the Law you will be rewarded. If +you disobey it you will be punished." And this he must say to him +again and again. + +It is true that among the many commandments which the Law sets before +its votaries, there are some--the moral commandments, properly so +called--which do in point of fact, and in defiance of the +philosophical assumption of legalism, appeal to the better nature +of Man. But these are at best an insignificant minority; and their +relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development +into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism. For +legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident, +will try to cover the whole of human life. The religion that is +content to do less than this, the religion that acquiesces in the +distinction between what is religious and what is secular, is, as we +shall presently see, a religion in decay. Religion may perhaps be +defined as Man's instinctive effort to bring a central aim into his +life and so provide himself with an authoritative standard of values. +In its highest and purest form, Religion controls Man's life, both as +a whole and in all its essential details, through the central aim or +spiritual ideal which it sets before him and the consequent standard +of values with which it equips him. But legalism is debarred by its +distrust of human nature from trying to control the details of life +through any central aim or ideal; and its assumption that all the +commandments of the Law are of divine origin, and therefore equally +binding upon Man, is obviously incompatible with the conception of +a standard of moral worth. Its attempt to cover the whole of life +must therefore resolve itself into an attempt to control the details +of conduct _in all their detail_; to deal with them, one by one, +bringing each in turn under the operation of an appropriate +commandment, and if necessary deducing from the commandment a special +rule to meet the special case. In other words, besides being told +what he is not to do (in the more strictly moral sphere of conduct), +and what he is to do (in the more strictly ceremonial sphere), Man +must be told, in the fullest detail, how he is to do whatever may +have to be done in the daily round of his life. Such at least is the +aim of legalism. The nets of the Law are woven fine, and flung far +and wide. If there are any acts in a man's life which escape through +their clinging meshes, the force of Nature is to be blamed for this +partial failure, not the zeal of the Doctors of the Law. + +It is towards this inverted ideal that the doctrine of salvation +through obedience will lead its votaries, when its master +principle--that of distrust of human nature--has been followed out +into all its natural consequences,--followed out, as it was by +Pharisaism, with a fearless logic and a fixed tenacity of purpose. +An immense and ever-growing host of formulated rules, not one in a +hundred of which makes any appeal to the heart of Man or has any +meaning for his higher reason, will crush his life down, slowly and +inexorably, beneath their deadly burden. "At every step, at the work +of his calling, at prayer, at meals, at home and abroad, from early +morning till late in the evening, from youth to old age, the dead, +the deadening formula"[3] will await him. The path of obedience +for the sake of obedience speedily degenerates into the path of +mechanical obedience; and the end of that path is the triumph of +machinery over life. + +For it is to the letter of the Law, rather than to the spirit, that +the strict legalist is bound to conform. The letter of the Law is +divine; and obedience to it is within the power of every man who will +take the trouble to learn its commandments. What the spirit of the +Law may be, is beyond the power of fallen Man to determine; and were +an attempt made to interpret it, the result would be a state of +widespread moral chaos, for there would be as many interpretations of +it as there were minds that had the courage and the initiative to +undertake so audacious a task. As it is with the Law as such, so it +is with each of its numerous commandments. The man who professes to +obey the spirit of a commandment is in secret revolt against its +divine authority. For he is presuming to criticise it in the light +of his own conscience and insight, and to limit his obedience to it +to that particular aspect of it which he judges to be worthy of his +devotion. From such a criticism of the Fourth Commandment as "the +Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath" to open violation +of the letter of the commandment (on this occasion or on that) there +is but a single step. The whole structure of legalism would collapse +if men were allowed to absolve themselves from obedience to the +letter of the Law, out of regard for what they conceived to be its +spirit. To interpret a commandment, in the sense of providing for its +application to the fresh cases that may arise for treatment, is the +work, not of poets and prophets but of Doctors and Scribes. The path +of literal, and therefore of mechanical, obedience is the only path +of safety; and the more punctiliously the letter is obeyed, the more +perfect will be the machinery of salvation, and the nearer will +legalism get to the appointed goal of its labours,--the extinction +of spiritual life. + +As is the life that legalism expects us to lead, so is the scheme of +rewards and punishments by which (as we have already seen) it +constrains us to lead it. The materialisation of life that takes +place under the sway of the Law is accurately matched and measured by +the materialisation of the doctrine of moral retribution. The general +idea that virtue is rewarded and vice punished is profoundly true. +But the idea is easily misinterpreted; and it necessarily shares in +the degradation of one's general conception of life. Virtue rewards +the virtuous by making them more virtuous. Vice punishes the vicious +by making them more vicious. So long as the rewards for which we hope +and the punishments which we dread are conceived of as inward and +spiritual, we are on safe ground. But such a scheme of rewards and +punishments is wholly foreign to the genius of supernaturalism. It +is not by becoming more virtuous that we are saved. It is not by +becoming more vicious that we are lost. We are saved by obedience, +we are lost by disobedience, to the formulated rules of a +divinely-delivered law. To appeal to Man's higher self, when there is +no higher self to appeal to,--to set before him as the supreme reward +of virtue the development of his better nature, when his nature is +intrinsically evil,--would be an obvious waste of labour. And as, +apart from the presumed repugnance of the "natural man" to the +presumed delights of the Law, the intrinsic attractiveness of the +life that legalism prescribes must needs diminish in exact proportion +as the authority of the Law becomes oppressive and vexatious, and the +letter of it tends to establish itself at the expense of the +spirit,--it is clear that a scheme of rewards and punishments will +become, in effect as well as in theory, the only weapon in the +armoury of the legalist. It is also clear that there will be much +work for that one weapon to do. The central tendencies of Man's +nature, besides being _ex hypothesi_ evil, are antagonistic _de +facto_ to the galling despotism and the irrational requirements of +the Law; and the lawgiver, far from being able to enlist those +tendencies under his banner by appealing to the highest of them--the +natural leaders of the rest,--must be prepared to overcome their +collective resistance by winning to his side the lowest of them, by +terrifying Man's weaker self with threats, by corrupting his baser +self with bribes. The ruin of Man's nature, whether hypothetical or +actual,[4] has left intact (or relatively intact) only the animal +base of it. It is to his animal instincts, then, that legalism must +appeal in its endeavour to influence his conduct. In other words, the +punishments and the rewards to which Man is to look forward must be +of the same _genus_, if not of the same _species_, as the lash of +the whip that punishes the lagging race-horse, or the lump of sugar +that rewards his exertions. And with the inevitable growth of egoism +and individualism in the demoralising atmosphere with which legalism +(and its lineal successors) must needs invest human life, Man's +conception of the rewards and punishments that await him will +deteriorate rather than improve. The Jewish desire for national +prosperity was an immeasurably nobler motive to action than is the +Christian's fear of the quasi-material fires of Hell. Indeed it is +nothing but our familiarity with the latter motive that has blinded +us to its inherent baseness. It is no exaggeration to say that there +have been epochs in the history of Christendom (as there are still +quarters of Christian thought and phases of Christian faith) in which +the trumpet-call that was meant to rouse the soldiers of God to +renewed exertion has rung in their ears as an ignominious "_sauve qui +peut_." + +The tendency of legalism to externalise life has another aspect. In +the eyes of the strict legalist there is no such thing as an inward +state of human worth. The doctrine of the corruption of Man's nature +is incompatible with the idea of "goodness" being measurable +(potentially if not actually) in terms of the health and happiness +of the "inward man." Goodness, as the legalist conceives it, is +measurable in terms of correctness of outward conduct, and of that +only. And when life is regulated by an elaborate Law, the rules of +which are familiar to all men, there is no reason why a man's outward +conduct should not be appraised, with some approach to accuracy, by +his neighbours and friends. Hence it is that in the atmosphere of +legalism an excessive deference is wont to be paid to public, and +even to parochial, opinion. The life of the votary of the Law is +lived under strict and constant _surveillance_; and a man learns +at last to value himself as his conduct is valued by a critical +onlooker, and to make it the business of his life to produce +"results" which can be weighed and measured by conventional +standards, rather than to grow in grace,--with silent, subtle, +unobtrusive growth. + +Were I to try to prove that the _regime_ of the Law was necessarily +fatal to the development of Man's higher faculties--conscience, +freedom, reason, imagination, intuition, aspiration, and the rest--I +should waste my time. Legalism, as a scheme of life, is based on the +assumption that development along the lines of Man's nature is a +movement towards perdition; and to reproach the legalist for having +arrested the growth of the human spirit by the pressure of the Law +were to provoke the rejoinder that he had done what he intended +to do. The two schemes of Salvation--the mechanical and the +evolutional--have so little in common that neither can pass judgment +on the other without begging the question that is in dispute. When I +come to consider the effect of legalism--or rather of the philosophy +that underlies legalism--on education, I may perhaps be able to find +some court of law in which the case between the two schemes can be +tried with the tacit consent of both. Meanwhile I can but note +that in the atmosphere of the Law growth is as a matter of fact +arrested,--arrested so effectually that the counter process of +degeneration begins to take its place. The proof of this statement, +if proof be needed, is that legalism, when its master principle has +been fully grasped and fearlessly applied, takes the form of +Pharisaism, and that it is possible for the Pharisee to "count +himself to have apprehended," to congratulate himself on his +spiritual achievement, to believe, in all seriousness, that he has +closed his account with God. + +Pharisaism is at once the logical consummation and the _reductio ad +absurdum_ of legalism. It is to the genius of Israel that we owe that +practical interpretation of the fundamental principle of +supernaturalism, which was embodied in the doctrine of salvation +through obedience to the letter of a Law. And it is to the genius +of Israel that we owe that rigorously logical interpretation of +the _axiomata media_ of legalism, which issued in due season in +Pharisaism. The world owes much to the courage and sincerity +of Israel,--to his unique force of character, to his fanatical +earnestness, to his relentless tenacity of purpose. In particular, +it owes a debt which it can never liquidate to what was at once the +cause and the result of his over-seriousness,--to his lack of any +sense of humour,--a negative quality which allowed his practical +logic to run its course without let or hindrance, and prevented +the "brakes" of common-sense from acting when he found himself, in +his very zeal for the Law, descending an inclined plane into an +unfathomable abyss of turpitude and folly. The man (or people) who is +able, of his own experience, to tell the rest of mankind what a given +scheme of life really means and is really worth, owing to his having +offered himself as the _corpus vile_ for the required experiment, is +one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. Had Israel been +less sincere or less courageous, we might never have known what +deadly fallacies lurk in the seemingly harmless dualism of popular +thought. + + * * * * * + +But the West, it will be said, is Christian, not Jewish. Is it +Christian? If the word "Christian" connotes acceptance of the +teaching as well as devotion to the person of Christ, it is scarcely +applicable either to the official or to the popular religion of +the West. For Christ, the stern denouncer of the Pharisees, was +the whole-hearted enemy of legalism; and the legal conception of +salvation through mechanical obedience still dominates the religion +and life of Christendom. + +The Jewish Law tried to cover, and tended more and more to cover, the +whole of human life. It is true that it controlled the details rather +than the totality of life; but the reason why it dealt with life, +detail by detail, was that its exponents, owing to their spiritual +purblindness, were unable to see the wood for the trees. In +Christendom, while the doctrine of salvation through mechanical +obedience was retained, the authority of a Church was substituted +for that of a Code of Law. The growth of the idea of Humanity, as +opposed to that of mere nationality, made this necessary. As the +former idea began to compete with the latter, the need for a +divinely-commissioned society which should declare the will and +communicate the grace of God, not to one nation only but to all men +who were willing to hearken and obey,--and whose action, as a channel +of intercourse between God and Man, should be continuous rather +than spasmodic,--began to make itself felt. A Code of Law might +conceivably suffice to regulate the life of one small nation; +but when we consider under what varying conditions of climate, +occupation, custom, tradition, and so forth, the general life of +Humanity is carried on, we see clearly that no one Code can even +begin to suffice for the needs of the whole human race. Hence, and +for other reasons which we need not now consider, the West, in +accepting the philosophy of Israel, translated its master idea of +salvation through mechanical obedience into the notation of +ecclesiastical, as distinguished from legal, control. + +That obedience to a supernaturally-commissioned Church, or rather to +the One supernaturally-commissioned Church, is the first and last +duty of Man, is the fundamental assumption on which the stately +fabric of Catholic Christianity has been reared. In various ways the +Church has striven to exact implicit obedience from her children. +Through the medium of the Confessional she has secured some measure +of control over their morals. By regulating the worship of God--both +public and private--she has been able to rule off a sphere of human +conduct in which her own authority is necessarily paramount. By +supplying the faithful with rations of "theological information" (to +quote the apt phrase of a pillar of orthodoxy), and requiring them to +accept these on her authority as indisputably true, she has succeeded +in imposing her yoke on thought as well as on conduct. By claiming +to control the outflow of Divine grace, through the channels of +the Sacraments, she has been able to threaten the rebellious with +the dread penalty of being cut off from intercourse with God. +And by telling men, with stern insistence, that the choice between +obedience and disobedience to herself is the choice between eternal +happiness and eternal misery, she has sought to extend her dominion +beyond the limits of time and to raise to an infinite power her +supremacy over the souls of men. + +But just because the life of collective Humanity is large, complex, +and full of change and variety, the Church which aspires to be +universal, however strong may be her desire to superintend all the +details of human thought and conduct, and however ready she may be +to adapt herself to local and temporal variations, must needs allow +whole aspects and whole spheres of human life to escape from her +control. The history of Christendom is the history of the gradual +emancipation of the Western world from the despotism of the Church. +The various activities of the human spirit--art, science, literature, +law, statecraft, and the rest--have, one and all, freed themselves by +slow degrees from ecclesiastical control, till little or nothing has +been left for the Church to regulate but her own rites and +ceremonies, the morals (in a narrow and ever-narrowing sense of the +word), and the faith (in the theological sense of the word), of the +faithful. + +With the emancipation of Man's higher activities from ecclesiastical +control, the distinction between the _religious_ and the _secular_ +life has gradually established itself. That this should happen was +inevitable. Mechanical obedience being of the essence of supernatural +religion, the secularising of human life became absolutely necessary +if any vital progress was to be made. The Church patronised art, +music, and the drama so far as they served her purposes. When they +outgrew those purposes, in response to the expansive forces of human +nature, she treated them as secular and let them go their several +ways. In the interests of theology she tried to keep physical science +in leading-strings; but when, after a bitter struggle, science broke +loose from her control, she treated it too as secular and let it go +its way. + +Let us see what this distinction involves. As salvation is to be +achieved by obedience to the Church and in no other way, it follows +that in all those spheres of life which are outside the jurisdiction +of the Church (except, of course, so far as questions of "morals" may +arise in connection with them), Man's conduct and general demeanour +are supposed to have no bearing on his eternal destiny. This is the +view of the secular life which is taken by the Church. And not by the +Church alone. As, little by little, the Institution--be it Church, or +Sect, or Code, or Scripture--which claims to be the sole accredited +agent of the Eternal God, relaxes its hold upon the ever-expanding +life of Humanity, all those developments of human nature which cease +to be amenable to its control come to be regarded as mundane, as +unspiritual, as carnal, as matters with which God has no concern. + +Were this view of the secular life confined to those who call +themselves religious, no great harm would be done. Unfortunately, the +secular life, which is under the influence of the current conception +of God as one who holds no intercourse with Man except through +certain accredited agents, is ready to acquiesce in the current +estimate of itself as godless, and to accept as valid the distinction +between the religious life and its own. Hence comes a general +lowering of Man's aims. As the secular life is content to regard +itself as godless, and so deprives itself of any central and unifying +aim, it is but natural that success in each of its many branches +should come to be regarded as an end in itself. It is but natural, to +take examples at random, that the artist should follow art for art's +sake, that the man of science should deify positive knowledge, that +the statesman should regard political power as intrinsically +desirable, that the merchant and the manufacturer should live to make +money, and that the highest motive which appeals to all men alike +should be the desire to bulk large in the eyes of their fellow-men. +Even the ardent reformer, whose enthusiasm makes him unselfish, +pursues the ideal to which he devotes himself, as an end in itself, +and makes no attempt to define or interpret it in terms of its +relation to that supreme and central ideal which he ought to regard +as the final end of human endeavour. When we remind ourselves, +further, that secularism, equally with supernaturalism, tends to +identify "Nature" with lower nature--in other words, with the +material side of the Universe and the carnal side of Man's being,--we +shall realise how easy it is for the secular life, once it has lost, +through its divorce from religion, the tonic stimulus of a central +aim, to sink, without directly intending to do so, into the mire of +materialism,--a materialism of conduct as well as of thought. + +But if the loss to the secular life, from its compulsory +despiritualisation, is great, the loss to religion, from the +secularisation of so much of Man's rational activity, is greater +still. The very distinction between the secular and the religious +life is profoundly irreligious, in that it rests on the tacit +assumption that there is no unity, no central aim, in human life; +and the fact that official religion is ready to acquiesce in the +distinction, is ready, in other words, to make a compromise with its +enemy "the world," is a proof that it is secretly conscious of its +own failing power, and is even beginning to despair of itself. As it +resigns itself to this feeling (as yet perhaps but dimly realised), +its reasons for entertaining it must needs grow stronger. The +progressive enlargement of the sphere of Man's secular activities is +accompanied, step for step, by the devitalisation of the idea of the +Divine. What kind of intercourse can God be supposed to hold with Man +if the latter is to be left to his own devices in what he must needs +regard as among the more important aspects of his life,--in his +commercial and industrial enterprises, in his art, in his literature, +in his study of Nature's laws, in his mastery of Nature's forces, +in his pursuit of positive truth and practical good? As in these +matters Man frees himself, little by little, from the yoke of +supernaturalism, which he has been accustomed to identify with +religion, his formal conception of his relation to God and of the +part that God plays in his life--the conception that is defined and +elucidated for him by religious "orthodoxy"--becomes of necessity +more irrational, more mechanical, more unreal, more repugnant to his +better nature and to the higher developments of his "common-sense." +The tendency to exalt the letter of what is spoken or written, at the +expense of the spirit, is as much of the essence of ecclesiasticism +as of legalism. "_Si dans les regles du salut le fond l'emporterait +sur la forme, ce serait la ruine du sacerdoce._" And, as a matter of +experience, the hair-splitting puerilities of Pharisaism under the +Old Dispensation have been matched, and more than matched, in the +spheres of ritual, of dogmatic theology, and of casuistical morality, +under the New. As Man gradually shifts the centre of gravity of his +being from the religious to the secular side of his life, this +puerile element in religion--the element of ultra-formalism, of +irrationality, of unreality--tends, like a morbid growth, to draw to +itself the vital energies of what was once a healthy organism but +is now degenerating into a "body of death." If, in these days of +absorbing secular activity, Man continues to tolerate the theories +and practices of the religious experts, the reason is--apart from the +influence of custom and tradition and of his respect for venerable +and "established" institutions--that they are things which he has +neither time nor inclination to investigate, and which he can +therefore afford to tolerate as being far removed from what is vital +and central in his life. I am told that the Catholic Church holds, in +the case of a dying man, "that the eternal fate of the soul, for good +or for evil, may depend upon the reception or the non-reception of +absolution, and even of extreme unction." That the truly appalling +conception of God which is implicit in this sentence should still +survive, that it should not yet have been swept out of existence by +the outraged common-sense and good feeling of Humanity, is a proof of +the immense indifference with which the Western world, absorbed as it +is in secular pursuits, regards religion. + +It may indeed be doubted if men have ever been so non-religious as +are at the present day the inhabitants of our highly-civilised and +thoroughly-Christianised West. At any rate the absence of a central +aim in human life has never been so complete as it is now. Most men +are content to drift through life, toiling for the daily bread which +will enable them to go on living, yet neither knowing nor caring to +know why they are alive. There is a minority of stronger and more +resolute men who devote life with unwavering energy to the pursuit of +what I may call private and personal ends. Thus the man of business +lives for the acquisition of riches; the scholar and the scientist, +of knowledge; the statesman, of power; the speculator, of excitement; +the libertine, of pleasure; and so forth. Few are they who ever +dream of devoting life as a whole to the pursuit of an end which is +potentially attainable by all men, and which is therefore worthy of +Man as Man. The idea of there being such an end has indeed been +almost wholly lost sight of. Those among us who are of larger +discourse than the rest and less absorbed by personal aims, ask +themselves mournfully: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? +Is life worth living? and other such questions; and being unable to +answer them to their satisfaction, or get them answered, resign +themselves to a state of quasi-stoical endurance. That religion +cannot be expected to answer these questions--the very questions +which it is its right and its duty to answer--seems to be taken for +granted by all who ask them. Religion, as it is now conceived of, +is a thing for priests and ministers, for churches and chapels, for +Sundays and Saints'-days, for the private devotions of women and +children, for educational debates in Parliament, for the first lesson +on the time-table (9.5 to 9.45 a.m.) of a Public Elementary School. +The "unbeliever" is eager to run a tilt against religion. The +"non-believer" is content to ignore it. The "believer" is careful to +exclude it from nine-tenths of his life. It is to this pass that the +gospel of salvation by machinery has brought the most "progressive" +part of the human race. + +The phase of non-religiousness through which the West is passing has, +we may rest assured, a meaning and a purpose. At the meetings of the +Catholic Truth Society it is customary for the speakers to deplore +the steady relapse of Christendom into paganism, which is going on +before their eyes. As the Church had things her own way for ten +centuries or more, these complaints on the part of her champions are +equivalent to a confession on her part of disastrous failure. Why is +the Church, after having evangelised the West and ruled it for a +thousand years, allowing it to slide back into paganism? The answer +to this question is that she herself is unwittingly paganising it. +I mean by this that, without intending to do so, she is compelling +it to choose between secularised life and arrested growth. Were a +growing tree encircled with an iron band, the day would surely come +when the tree, by the force of its own natural expansion, would +either shatter the band or allow it to cut deep into its own stem. +The growing consciousness of Humanity has long been encircled by a +rigid and inadequate conception of God. The gradual secularisation of +the West means that the soul of man is straining that particular +conception of God to breaking-point: and it is infinitely better that +it should be broken to pieces than that its iron should be allowed to +sink deep into the soul. + +The secularisation of contemporary life means this, and more than +this. It means the gradual handing back of Man's life to the control +of Nature,--of Nature which is as yet unequal to the task that is +being set it, owing to its having been through all these centuries +identified with its lower self, taught to distrust itself, and +otherwise misinterpreted and mismanaged, but which, in obedience to +the primary instinct of self-preservation, will gradually rise to +the level of the responsibility that is being laid upon it. With the +further secularisation of Man's life, the need for religion to make +effective the control of Nature, by pointing out to it its own ideal +and so co-ordinating and organising all its forces, will gradually +make itself felt, and the regeneration of religion will at last have +begun. + + * * * * * + +For many centuries the current of religious belief in the West was +almost entirely confined to the one channel of Catholic Christianity. +There the mighty river pursued his course, "brimming and bright and +large," till the time came when, with the gradual loss of his +pristine energy-- + + "Sands began + To hem his wintry march, and dam his streams + And split his currents"; + +Side channels were formed, and grew in number; and though Catholicism +is still the central channel for the moving waters, the river has now +fallen on evil days, and "strains along," "shorn and parcelled," like +the river of the Asian desert-- + + "forgetting the bright speed he bore + In his high mountain cradle." + +Of the many side streams into which Western Christianity has split, +the majority may be spoken of collectively as Protestant. +Protestantism claims to have liberated a large part of Christendom +from the yoke of Rome; and it is therefore right that we should ask +ourselves in what sense and to what extent it has brought freedom +to the human spirit. The answer to this question is, I think, that +though Protestantism has fought a good fight for the _principle_ of +freedom, it has failed--for many reasons, the chief of which is that +it began its work before men were ripe for freedom--to lead its +votaries into the path of spiritual life and growth. Confronted by +the uncompromising dogmatism of Rome, it had to devise a counter +dogmatism of its own in order to rally round it the faint-hearted +who, though eager to absolve themselves from obedience to the +despotism of the Church, yet feared to walk by their own "inward +light." In making this move, which was not the less false because +it was in a sense inevitable, Protestantism may be said to have +renounced its mission. That it has done much, in various ways, for +human progress is undeniable; but the fact remains that it has +failed to revitalise Christianity. Its master-stroke in its struggle +with priestcraft--the substitution of "faith" for "works" as the +basis of salvation--has done little or nothing to relieve the West +from the deadly pressure of Israel's philosophy. For faith, as +Protestantism understands the word, is the movement of the soul, +not towards the ideal end of its being but towards an alleged +supernatural transaction,--the redemption of the world by the +death of Christ on the Cross. Gratitude to Christ for his love and +self-sacrifice may indeed be an effective motive to action, but faith +in the efficacy of Christ's atoning sacrifice is no guide to conduct. +The inability of Protestantism to deduce a scheme of life from its +own master-principle of salvation by "faith" has compelled it, in +its desire to avoid the pitfalls of antinomianism, to revive in a +modified form the practical legalism of the Old Testament. The +Protestant desires to show his gratitude to Christ by leading a +correct life; but his distrust of his own higher nature compels him +to go to some external authority for ethical guidance; and as he has +repudiated the authority of the supernaturally-inspired Church, he +is compelled to have recourse to the supernaturally-inspired Bible. +Hence the traditional alliance between Protestantism and the Old +Testament, in which the path of duty is far more clearly and +consistently defined than in the New. And hence the singular fact +that Calvinism, which is the backbone of Protestantism, and which in +theory, and even (at times) in practice, regards "works" as "filthy +rags," finds its other self in Puritanism, which is in the main a +recrudescence of Jewish legalism in the more strictly _moral_ sphere +of conduct. + +It is owing to its alliance with the legalism of Israel, that +Protestantism has been in some respects an even greater enemy of +human freedom than Catholicism, and has on the whole done more than +the latter to narrow and maim human life. The strict legalist tries, +as we have seen, to bring the whole of human life under the direct +control of the Law; and when he finds, as the Puritan did in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that whole aspects of life have +in point of fact escaped from the control of religion and won from +the latter a tacit acceptance of themselves as secular, he not +unnaturally tends to regard these non-religious aspects of life as +"carnal," and therefore as unacceptable to God. Hence the antipathy +of the Protestant, in his seasons of Puritanical fanaticism, to +art, music, the drama, and other noble fruits of the human spirit. +Catholicism has found itself compelled to tolerate the secular +activities of the layman; Protestantism, while tolerating those +activities by which man earns his daily bread and which may be spoken +of collectively as "business," has from time to time waged war +against all the developments of human nature which are neither +spiritual (in the narrow and rigid sense of the word) nor obviously +useful, and has sought to extirpate the corresponding desires from +the heart of Man. On the more artistic side of human life, it has +done as much to impede the growth of the soul as Catholicism has +done on the more intellectual side; and through its influence on +character it has done as much to harden the fibre of the soul as +Catholicism has done to relax it, the tendency of both religions +being to destroy that elasticity of fibre which mediates between +hardness and flabbiness, and which has its counterpart in vigorous +health and strength. + +The truth is--but it is a truth which Protestantism is apt +to misinterpret, and which Catholicism finds it expedient to +ignore--that religion is not a branch or department of human life, +but a way of looking at life as a whole. Indeed, it is of the essence +of religion (as has been already suggested) that it should look +at life as a whole, and so be able to look at each of its details +in the light of that supreme synthesis which we call Divine. And +the religion which sanctions, and by its own action necessitates, +the division of life into two branches--the secular and the +religious--has obviously missed its destiny and betrayed its trust. + + * * * * * + +A brief summary of the contents of this chapter will prepare the way +for the next. The movements of higher thought in the West have been +dominated, nominally by the professional thinker, really by the +average man. As a thinker, the average man is incurably dualistic. +Enslaved as he is to the requirements of his instrument, language, he +instinctively opposes mind to body, spirit to matter, good to evil, +the Creator to the Creation, God to Man; and in each case he fixes a +great gulf between the "mighty opposites" that constitute the given +antithesis. Confronted by the mystery of existence, he has explained +it by the story of Creation. Confronted by the twin mysteries of sin +and sorrow, he has explained them by the story of the Fall. From the +story of the Fall he has passed on to the doctrine of original sin, +to the belief that Nature in general, and human nature in particular, +is corrupt and ruined, and therefore intrinsically evil. Shrinking +from the hopeless prospect which this belief opens up to him, he +has found refuge in the conception of another world,--of a world +above and beyond Nature, a world of Divine perfection from which +information and guidance can at God's good pleasure be doled out +to Man. For a "supernatural revelation" (as theologians call this +sending of help from God to Man) special instruments are obviously +needed,--a special People, a special Scripture, a special Lawgiver, +a special Prophet, a special Church. Hence has arisen the idea that +certain persons, certain castes, certain institutions have a monopoly +of Divine truth and grace, and are therefore in a position to dictate +to their fellow-men how they are to bear themselves if they wish to +be "saved," what they are to believe, what they are to do. From this +the transition has been easy to the further idea that salvation is +to be achieved by blind and mechanical obedience,--by renouncing +the right to follow one's own higher nature, to obey one's own +conscience, to use one's own reason, to map out one's own life. In +order to induce men to yield the obedience which is required of them, +their lower instincts have had to be appealed to (for the higher, +ruined by the Fall, have presumably ceased to operate),--their desire +for pleasure by the promise of Heaven, their fear of pain by the +threat of Hell. And in order that their lives may be kept under +close supervision and their merits accurately appraised, an +ever-increasing stress has had to be laid on what is outward, +visible, and measurable in human life, as distinguished from what +is inward and occult,--on correctness in the details of prescribed +conduct, or again in the details of formulated belief. As the idea of +salvation through mechanical obedience develops into a systematised +scheme of life, the higher and more spiritual faculties of Man's +nature become gradually atrophied by disuse. In other words, the +channel of soul growth--the only channel that leads to spiritual +health, and therefore to "salvation"--becomes gradually obstructed, +with the result that the vital energies of the soul tend either to +dissipate themselves and run to waste, or to make new channels for +themselves,--channels of degenerative tendency, the end of which is +spiritual death. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] By "self-satisfaction" I mean satisfaction with the +existing system _as a system_. That strenuous efforts are being made +to improve the system, within its own limits, I can well believe. But +the system itself, with the defects and limitations which are of its +essence, seems to be regarded as adequate, and even as final, by +nearly all who work under it. + +[2] 1862 to 1895 A.D. + +[3] The _Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ_, by Dr. +Emil Schuerer. + +[4] In its extreme form legalism tends to bring about that +ruin of human nature which it starts by postulating; for, by +forbidding Man's higher faculties to energise, it necessarily arrests +their development, and so makes it possible for the lower faculties +to draw to themselves an undue share of the rising sap of Man's +life. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EDUCATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE + + +The God of popular theology has been engaged for more than thirty +centuries in educating his child, Man. His system of education has +been based on complete distrust of Man's nature. In the schools which +Man has been required to attend--the Legal School under the Old +Dispensation, the Ecclesiastical School under the New--it has +been taken for granted that he can neither discern what is true, +nor desire what is good. The truth of things has therefore been +formulated for him, and he has been required to learn it by rote and +profess his belief in it, clause by clause. His duty has also been +formulated for him, and he has been required to perform it, detail by +detail, in obedience to the commandments of an all-embracing Code, or +to the direction of an all-controlling Church. + +It has further been taken for granted that Man's instincts and +impulses are wholly evil, and that "Right Faith" and "Right Conduct" +are entirely repugnant to his nature. In order to overcome the +resistance which his corrupt heart and perverse will might therefore +be expected to offer to the authority and influence of his teachers, +a scheme of rewards and punishments has had to be devised for his +benefit. As there is no better nature for the scheme to appeal to, +an appeal has had to be made to fears and hopes which are avowedly +base. The refractory child has had to be threatened with corporal +punishment in the form of an eternity of torment in Hell. And he has +had to be bribed by the offer of prizes, the chief of which is an +eternity of selfish enjoyment in Heaven,--enjoyment so selfish that +it will consist with, and even (it is said) be heightened by, the +knowledge that in the Final Examination the failures have been many +and the prize-winners few. + +And as, under this system of education, obedience is the first and +last of virtues, so self-will--in the sense of daring to think and +act for oneself--is the first and last of offences. It is for the +sin of spiritual initiative--the sin of trying to work out one's +own salvation by the exercise of reason, conscience, imagination, +aspiration, and other spiritual faculties--that the direst penalties +are reserved. The path of salvation is the path of blind, passive, +mechanical obedience. To deviate even a little from that path is to +incur the penalty of eternal death. + + * * * * * + +As Man is educated by his father, God, so must the child be educated +by his father, the adult man. If the nature of Man is intrinsically +evil, the child must needs have been conceived in sin and shapen in +iniquity. If Man, even in his maturity, cannot be trusted to think +or desire or do what is right, still less can he be so trusted when +he is that relatively immature and helpless being, the child. If +the adult man has to be told in the fullest detail (whether by a +formulated Law or by a living Church) how he is to conduct himself, +still greater is the need for such or similar direction to be given +to the child. If the adult is to be "saved" by strict and mechanical +obedience, and by no other method, still greater is the need for +such obedience on the part of the child. If a system of external +and quasi-material rewards and punishments is indispensable in the +education of the adult, still less can it be dispensed with in the +education of the child. These _a fortiori_ arguments are strong; but +there is a stronger. The child will develop into the adult, and he +cannot too soon be initiated into the life which, as the adult, he +will have to lead. The process of educating the child is not merely +analogous to the process of "saving" the man. It is a vital part +of it. For childhood is the time when human nature is most easily +moulded; and the bent that is given to it then is, in nine cases out +of ten, decisive of its ultimate destiny. + +It is clear, then, that if Man is to be "saved" by a _regime_ of +mechanical obedience, his education in his childhood must be based on +the same general conception of life and duty. This means, in the +first place, that the child must be brought up in an atmosphere of +severity. The God of the Old Testament--the Deity whose _nimbus_ +overshadows the life of the West--combines in his own person the +functions of law-giver, governor, prosecutor, judge, and executioner. +His subjects are a race of vile offenders, whose every impulse is +bad, and whose nature turns towards evil as inevitably as a plant +turns towards the light. As he cannot trust them to know good from +evil, he has had to provide them with an elaborate code of law; and +he has had to take for granted that, left to themselves, they will +break his commandments, and find pleasure in doing so. From the very +outset, then, his attitude towards them has been one of suspicion and +rising anger. He is always on the look-out for disobedience, and he +is ready to chastise the offender almost before he has had time to +commit the offence. His pupils, brought up in an atmosphere of +suspicion, and taught from their earliest days to disbelieve in and +condemn themselves, can scarcely be blamed for living _down_ to the +evil reputation which they have unfortunately gained. To persuade a +man that he is a miserable sinner is to go some way towards leading +him into the path of sin. Systematic distrust paralyses and +demoralises those who live under it, and so tends to justify the +cruelty into which it too readily develops. The penalties which God +has attached to the sins which he may almost be said to have provoked +Man to commit, are so terrible and unjust that if the fear of them +has not robbed life of all its sunshine, the reason is that their +very horror has numbed Man's imagination, and made it impossible for +him even to begin to picture to himself their lurid gloom. + +In the West men have loyally striven to reproduce towards their +children the supposed attitude of their God of Wrath towards +themselves. From very tender years the child has been brought up in +an atmosphere of displeasure and mistrust. His spontaneous activities +have been repressed as evil. His every act has been looked upon with +suspicion. He has been ever on the defensive, like a prisoner in the +dock. He has been ever on the alert for a sentence of doom. He has +been cuffed, kicked, caned, flogged, shut up in the dark, fed on +bread and water, sent hungry to bed, subjected to a variety of +cruel and humiliating punishments, terrified with idle--but to him +appalling--threats. In his misery he has shed a whole ocean of +tears,--the salt and bitter tears of hopeless grief and helpless +anger, not the soul-refreshing tears which are sometimes distilled +from sorrow by the sunshine of love. But of all the cruelties to +which he has been subjected, the most devilish has been that of +making him believe in his own criminality, in the corruption of his +innocent heart. In the deadly shade of that chilling cloud, the +flower of his opening life has too often withered before it has had +time to expand. For what is most cruel in cruelty is its tendency to +demoralise its victims, especially those who are of tender years--to +harden them, to brutalise them, to make them stubborn and secretive, +to make them shifty and deceitful, to throw them back upon +themselves, to shut them up within themselves, to quench the joy of +their hearts, to numb their sympathies, to cramp their expansive +energies, to narrow and darken their whole outlook on life. All this +the cruelty of his seniors would do to the child, even if he had not +been taught to believe in his own inborn wickedness. But that belief, +with which he has been indoctrinated from his earliest days, +necessarily weakens his power of resisting evil, and so predisposes +him to fall a victim to the malignant germs that cruelty sows in his +heart. We tell the child that he is a criminal, and treat him as +such, and then expect him to be perfect; and when our misguided +education has begun to deprave him, we shake our heads over his +congenital depravity, and thank God that we believe in "original +sin."[5] + +In the next place, if Man is to be faithful to his model, he must +bring up the child in an atmosphere of vexatious interference and +unnatural restraint. That Man himself has been brought up in such an +atmosphere in both his schools--the Legal and the Ecclesiastical--I +need not take pains to prove. What he has suffered at the hands of +his Schoolmaster--the God of Israel (and of Christendom)--he has +taken good care to inflict on his pupil, the child. Such phrases as: +"Don't talk," "Don't fidget," "Don't worry," "Don't ask questions," +"Don't make a noise," "Don't make a mess," "Don't do this thing," +"Don't do that thing," are ever falling from his lips. And they are +supplemented with such positive instructions as: "Sit still," "Stand +on the form," "Hold yourself up," "Fold arms," "Hands behind backs," +"Hands on heads," "Eyes on the blackboard." At every turn--from +infancy till adolescence, "from early morning till late in the +evening"--these "dead and deadening formulas" await the unhappy +child. The aim of his teachers is to leave nothing to his nature, +nothing to his spontaneous life, nothing to his free activity; to +repress all his natural impulses; to drill his energies into complete +quiescence; to keep his whole being in a state of sustained and +painful tension. And in order that we may see a meaning and a +rational purpose in this _regime_ of oppressive interference, we must +assume that its ultimate aim is to turn the child into an animated +puppet, who, having lost his capacity for vital activity, will be +ready to dance, or rather go through a series of jerky movements, in +response to the strings which his teacher pulls. It is the inevitable +reaction from this state of tension which is responsible for much of +the "naughtiness" of children. The spontaneous energies of the child, +when education has blocked all their lawful outlets, must needs force +new outlets for themselves,--lawless outlets, if no others are +available. The child's instinct to live will see to that. It +sometimes happens that, when the channel of a river has been blocked +by winter's ice, the river, on its awakening in Spring, will suddenly +change its course and carve out a new channel for itself, reckless of +the destruction that it may cause, so long as an outlet can by any +means be found for its baffled current. It is the same with the river +of the child's expanding life. The naughtiest and most mischievous +boy not infrequently develops into a hero, or a leader of men. The +explanation of this is that through his very naughtiness the current +of soul-growth, which ran stronger in him than in his school-mates, +kept open the channel which his teachers were doing their best to +close. Even Hooliganism--to take the most serious of the periodic +outbursts of juvenile criminality--resolves itself, when thoughtfully +considered, into a sudden and violent change in the channel of a +boy's life, a change which is due to the normal channel (or channels) +of his expansive energies having been blocked by years of educational +repression. His wild, ruffianly outrages are perhaps the last +despairing effort that his vital principle makes to assert itself, +before it finally gives up the struggle for active existence. + + * * * * * + +When severity and constraint have done their work, when the spirit of +the child has been broken, when his vitality has been lowered to its +barest minimum, when he has been reduced to a state of mental and +moral serfdom, the time has come for the system of education through +mechanical obedience to be applied to him in all its rigour. In other +words, the time has come for Man to do to the child, what the God +whom he worships is supposed to have done to him,--to tell him in the +fullest and minutest detail what he is to do to be "saved," and to +stand over him with a scourge in his hand and see that he does it. In +the two great schools which God is supposed to have opened for Man's +benefit, freedom and initiative have ever been regarded (and with +good reason) as the gravest of offences. Literal obedience has +been exacted by the Law; blind obedience by the Church; passive +obedience--the obedience of a puppet, or at best of an automaton--by +both. The need for this insistence on the part of Law and Church is +obvious. If any lingering desire to think things out for himself, if +any intelligent interest in what he was taught, survived in the +disciple, the whole system of salvation by machinery would be in +danger of being thrown out of gear. + +As it has been, and still is, in the schools which God has opened +for Man, so it has been, and still is, in the schools which Man +has opened for the child. Blind, passive, literal, unintelligent +obedience is the basis on which the whole system of Western education +has been reared. The child must distrust himself absolutely, must +realise that he is as helpless as he is ignorant, before he can begin +to profit by the instruction that will be given to him. His mind must +become a _tabula rasa_ before his teacher can begin to write on it. +The vital part of him--call it what you will--must become as clay +before his teacher can begin to mould him to his will. + +The strength of the child, then, is to sit still, to listen, to say +"Amen" to, or repeat, what he has heard. The strength of the teacher +is to bustle about, to give commands, to convey information, to +exhort, to expound. The strength of the child is to efface himself in +every possible way. The strength of the teacher is to assert himself +in every possible way. The golden rule of education is that the child +is to do nothing for himself which his teacher can possibly do, or +even pretend to do, for him. Were he to try to do things by or for +himself, he would probably start by doing them badly. This is not to +be tolerated. Imperfection and incorrectness are moral defects; and +the child must as far as possible be guarded from them as from the +contamination of moral guilt. He must therefore trust himself to his +teacher, and do what he is told to do in the precise way in which +he is told. His teacher must stand in front of him and give such +directions as these: "Look at me," "See what I am doing," "Watch my +hand," "Do the thing this way," "Do the thing that way," "Listen to +what I say," "Repeat it after me," "Repeat it all together," "Say it +three times." And the child, growing more and more comatose, must +obey these directions and ask no questions; and when he has done what +he has been told to do, he must sit still and wait for the next +instalment of instruction. + +What is all this doing for the child? The teacher seldom asks himself +this question. If he did, he would answer it by saying that the end +of education is to enable the child to produce certain outward and +visible results,--to do by himself what he has often done, either in +imitation of his teacher, or in obedience to his repeated directions; +to say by himself what he has said many times in chorus with his +class-mates; to disgorge some fragments of the information with which +he has been crammed; and so forth. What may be the value of these +outward results, what they indicate, what amount or kind of mental +(or other) growth may be behind them,--are questions which the +teacher cannot afford to consider, even if he felt inclined to +ask them. His business is to drill the child into the mechanical +production of quasi-material results; and his success in doing this +will be gauged in due course by an "examination,"--a periodic test +which is designed to measure, not the degree of growth which the +child has made, but the industry of the teacher as indicated by the +receptivity of his class. + +The truth is that inward and spiritual growth, even if it were +thought desirable to produce it and measure it, could not possibly be +measured. The real "results" of education are in the child's heart +and mind and soul, beyond the reach of any measuring tape or weighing +machine. It follows that if the work of the teacher is to be tested, +an external test must be applied. This means that external results, +results which can be weighed and measured, must be aimed at by both +teacher and child, and that the value of these as symbols of what is +inward and intrinsic must be wholly ignored. Not that the inward +results of education would in any case be seriously considered. When +education is based on the passivity of the child, nothing matters to +him or to his teacher except the accuracy with which he can reproduce +what he has been taught,--can repeat what he has been told, or do by +himself what he has been told how to do. What connection there may be +between these achievements and his mental state matters so little +that the bare idea of there being such a connection is, as a rule, +entirely lost sight of. The externalisation of religion in the West, +as evidenced by its ceremonialism and its casuistry, has faithfully +mirrored itself in the externality of Western education. The +examination system (which I will presently consider) keeps education +in the grooves of externality, and drives those grooves so deep as +to make escape from them impossible. Yet it does but give formal +recognition to, and in so doing crown and complete--as the keystone +crowns and completes the arch--the whole system of education in the +West. It is because what is outward and visible counts for everything +in the West, first in the life of the adult and then in the life of +the child, that the idea of weighing and measuring the results of +education--with its implicit assumption that the real results of +education are ponderable and measurable (a deadly fallacy which now +has the force and authority of an axiom)--has come to establish +itself in every Western land. + + * * * * * + +The tendency of the Western teacher to mistake the externals for the +essentials of education, and to measure educational progress in terms +of the "appearance of things," gives rise to many misconceptions, +one of the principal of which is the current confusion between +information and knowledge. To generate knowledge in his pupils is +a legitimate end of the teacher's ambition. In schools and other +"academies" it tends to become the chief, if not the sole, end; and, +things being what they are, the teacher may be pardoned for regarding +it as such. But what is knowledge? The vulgar confusion between +knowledge and information is the accepted answer to this question. +But the answer is usually given before the question has been +seriously considered. One who allowed himself to reflect on it, +however briefly or cursorily, would quickly realise that it is +possible to have intimate and effective knowledge of a subject +without being able to impart any information about it. Successful +action, as in arts, crafts, games, sports, and the like, must needs +have subtle and accurate knowledge behind it; but the possessor of +such knowledge is seldom able to impart it with any approach to +lucidity. On the other hand, it frequently happens that one who has a +retentive memory is able to impart information glibly and correctly, +without possessing any real knowledge of the subject in question. + +The truth is that knowledge, which may perhaps be provisionally +defined as a correct attitude towards one's environment, has almost +as wide a range as that of human nature itself. At one end of the +scale we have the quasi-animal instinct which governs successful +physical action. At the other end we have the knowledge, of which, +and of the possession of which, its possessor is clearly, conscious. +Between these extremes there is an almost infinite series of strata, +ranging through every conceivable degree of subconsciousness. The +knowledge that is real and effective is absorbed into one or more of +the subconscious strata, from which it gradually ascends, under the +influence of attention and reflection, towards the more conscious +levels, gaining, as it ascends, in scope and outlook what it may +possibly lose in subtlety and nearness to action. When knowledge, +after passing upwards through many subconscious strata, rises to +what I may call the surface-level of consciousness, it is ready, on +occasion, to give itself off as information. This exhalation from the +surface of consciousness is genuine information, not to be confounded +with knowledge, to which it is related as the outward to the inward +state, still less to be confounded with that spurious information +which floats, as we shall presently see, like a film on the surface +of the mind, meaning nothing and indicating nothing except that it +has been artificially deposited, and that in due season it will be +skimmed off, if the teacher's hopes are fulfilled, for the +delectation of an examiner. + +There are, of course, many cases in which the conscious acquisition +of information is a necessary stage in the acquisition of knowledge. +But in all such cases, if the information acquired is to have +any educative value, it must be allowed to sink down into the +subconscious strata, whence, after having been absorbed and +assimilated and so converted into knowledge, it will perhaps reascend +towards the surface of the mind, just as the leaves which fall in +autumn are dragged down into the soil below, converted into fertile +mould, and then gradually lifted towards the surface; or as the fresh +water that the rivers pour into the sea has to be slowly absorbed +into the whole mass of salt water before it (or its equivalent) can +return to the land as rain. When information which has been received +and assimilated rises to the surface of the mind, it will be ready, +when required to do so, to reappear as information, and perhaps +to return in that form to the source from which it came. But the +information which is given off will differ profoundly from that which +has been received, for between the two will have intervened many +stages of silent absorption and silent growth. + +It may be necessary, then, in the course of education, both to supply +and to demand information. But the information which is supplied must +be regarded as the raw material of knowledge, into which it is to be +converted by a subtle and secret process. And the information which +is demanded must be regarded as an exhalation (so to speak) from the +surface of a mind which has been saturated with study and experience, +and therefore as a proof of the possession of knowledge. To assume +that knowledge and information are interchangeable terms, that to +impart information is therefore to generate knowledge, that to give +back information is therefore to give proof of the possession of +knowledge,--is one of the greatest mistakes that a teacher can make. + +But the mistake is almost universally made. Information being related +to knowledge, as what is outward to what is inward, it is but natural +that education in the West, which on principle concerns itself with +what is outward, and ignores what is inward, should have always +regarded, and should still regard, the supplying of information as +the main function of the teacher, and the ability of the child to +retail the information which has been supplied to him as a convincing +proof that the work of the teacher has been successfully done. In +nine schools out of ten, on nine days out of ten, in nine lessons out +of ten, the teacher is engaged in laying thin films of information on +the surface of the child's mind, and then, after a brief interval, +in skimming these off in order to satisfy himself that they had been +duly laid. He cannot afford to do otherwise. If the child, like the +man, is to be "saved" by passive obedience, his teacher must keep +his every action and operation under close and constant supervision. +Were the information which is supplied to him allowed to descend into +the subconscious strata of his being, there to be dealt with by the +secret, subtle, assimilative processes of his nature, it would +escape from the teacher's supervision and therefore from his control. +In other words, the teacher would have abdicated his function. He +must therefore take great pains to keep the processes by which the +child acquires knowledge (or what passes for such) as near to the +surface of his mind as possible; in rivalry of the nurse who should +take so much interest in the well-being of her charges that she would +not allow them to digest the food which she had given them, but would +insist on their disgorging it at intervals, in order that she might +satisfy herself that it had been duly given and received. It is no +doubt right that the teacher should take steps to test the industry +of his pupils; but the information which the child has always to keep +at the call of his memory, in order that he may give it back on +demand in the form in which he has received it, is the equivalent +of food which its recipient has not been allowed to digest. + +The confusion between information and knowledge lies at the heart of +the religion, as well as of the education, of the West. In this, as +in other matters, the training of the child by his teacher has been +modelled on the supposed training of Man by God. It is scarcely an +exaggeration to say that the whole scheme of salvation by mechanical +obedience is pivoted on the assumed identity of information and +knowledge. In both the schools which Man has attended three things +have always been taken for granted. The first is that salvation +depends upon right knowledge of God. The second, that right knowledge +of God and correct information about God are interchangeable phrases. +The third, that correct information about God is procurable by, and +communicable to, Man. From these premises it has been inferred that +if Man can be duly supplied with correct information about God, and +can be induced to receive and retain it, he will be able to "save +his soul alive." The difference between the two schools is, that in +the Legal School the information supplied to Man has been largely +concerned with the _Will_ of God, so far as it bears on the life +of Man, and has therefore taken the form of a Code of formulated +commandments; whereas in the Ecclesiastical School it has mainly been +concerned with the _Being_ of God, as interpreted from his doings and +especially from his dealings with Man, and has therefore taken the +form of catechisms and creeds. And there is, of course, the further +difference that in the Legal School Man's acceptance of what he is +taught has taken the _practical_ form of doing what he is told to do, +detail by detail; whereas in the Ecclesiastical School it has been +mainly _oral_ (though also partly ceremonial), the business of the +disciple being to commit to memory the creed or catechism which has +been placed in his hands, and recite it, formula by formula, with +flawless accuracy. But the difference between the two schools is +wholly superficial, being, in fact, analogous to that between the +conventional teaching of Drawing, in which the pupil finds salvation +in doing what he is told to do, line by line, and stroke by stroke, +and the conventional teaching of History and Geography, in which the +pupil finds salvation in saying what he is told to say, name by name, +and date by date. The relation between the two great branches of +education, the education of Man by God, and the education of the +child by the man, is one, not of analogy merely, but also of cause +and effect. It is because the Jew thought to "save his soul alive" by +obeying, blindly and unintelligently, a multitude of vexatious rules, +that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils in Drawing by +telling them in the fullest detail (either in his own person or by +means of a diagram) what lines and strokes they are to make. And it +is because the Christian has thought to "save his soul alive" by +reciting with parrot-like accuracy the formulae of his creeds and +catechisms, that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils +in History and Geography by making them repeat from memory a series +of definitions, dates, events, names of persons, names of places, +articles of commerce, and the like. I do not say that the modern +teacher consciously imitates his models; but I say that he and they +have been inspired by the same conception of life, and that the +influence of that conception has been, in part at least, transmitted +by them to him. + + * * * * * + +That education in the West should ultimately be controlled by a +system of formal examination, may be said to have been predestined by +the general trend of religious thought and belief. Wherever literal +obedience is regarded as the first, if not the last, condition of +salvation, the tendency to measure worth and progress by the outward +results that are produced will inevitably spring up and assert +itself. In this tendency we have the whole examination system in +embryo. When Israel, with characteristic thoroughness, had embodied +in Pharisaism the logical inferences from his religious conceptions, +a merciless examination system came into being, in which every +one was at once examiner and examinee, and in which the whole of +human life was dragged out (as far as that was possible) into the +fierce light of public criticism, and placed under vigilant and +unintermittent supervision. When Pharisaism was revived, with many +modifications but with no essential change of character, under the +name of Puritanism, the tendency to arraign human life at the bar of +public opinion reasserted itself, and gave rise, as in New England +and covenanting Scotland, to an intolerable spiritual tyranny. In +Catholic countries the believer is subjected in the Confessional to a +periodical oral examination, in which he passes in review the outward +aspect of his inward and spiritual life, detailing for the benefit of +his confessor his sins of ceremonial omission or laxity, and such +lapses from moral rectitude as admit of being formulated in words and +accurately valued in terms of expiatory penance. Even in the Anglican +Church, which has too great a regard for the Englishman's traditional +love of personal freedom to be unduly inquisitorial, the clergyman is +apt to measure the spiritual health and progress of his parishioners +by the frequency with which they attend church and "Celebration," +while the Bishop measures the spiritual health and progress of each +parish by the number of its communicants and the frequency with which +they communicate, statistics under both heads being (I am told) +regularly forwarded to him from all parts of his diocese. + +It was inevitable, then, the relation between that sooner or later +the education of the young should come under the control of a +system of formal religion and education being what it was and is, +examination, and that it should be as much easier to apply the system +to education than to religion as it is easier to test knowledge (in +the conventional sense of the word) than conduct. It is to the vulgar +confusion between knowledge and information that we owe the formal +examination, as it is now conducted in most Western countries. In a +society which mistakes the externals for the essentials of life, it +is but natural that the teacher, with the full consent of the parents +of his pupils, should regard the imparting of knowledge as the end +and aim of his professional life, and that the parents should demand +some guarantee that knowledge has been successfully imparted to their +children. If by knowledge were meant a correct attitude of mind, the +teacher would realise that the idea of testing it in any way which +would satisfy the average parent was chimerical; and his clients, if +they continued to ask for a guarantee of successful teaching, would +require something widely different from that which has hitherto +contented them. But when information is regarded as the equivalent of +knowledge, the testing of the teacher's work becomes a simple matter, +for it is quite easy to frame an examination which will ascertain, +with some approach to accuracy, the amount of information that is +floating on the surface of the child's mind; and it is also easy to +tabulate the results of such an examination,--to find a numerical +equivalent for the work done by each examinee, and then arrange the +whole class in what is known as the "order of merit," and accepted +as such, without a moment's misgiving, by all concerned. + +Unfortunately, however, it is equally easy to prepare children for an +examination of this, the normal type. As children have receptive +memories, it is easy for the teacher to lay films of information +on the surface of their minds. As they have capacious and fairly +retentive memories, it is easy for the teacher, especially if he is a +strict disciplinarian, to make his pupils retain the greater part of +what they have been taught. To skim off and give back to the teacher +(or examiner) portions of the floating films of information, is a +knack which comes with practice, and which the average child easily +acquires. The teacher will, of course, demand that his school shall +be examined on a clearly-defined syllabus; and the examiner, in his +own interest, will gladly comply with this demand. The examiner will +go further than this. If he happens to be employed by the State or by +a Local Authority, and has, therefore, many schools of the same type +to examine, he will, in order to save himself unnecessary trouble, +prescribe the syllabus on which all the schools in his area are to +be examined. This means that he will dictate to the teacher what +subjects he is to teach, how much ground he is to cover in each year +(or term), in what general order he is to treat each subject, and on +what general principles he is to teach it. Intentionally he will do +all this. Unintentionally he will do far more than this. As he wishes +his examination to be a test and not a mere formality, as he wishes +to sift the examinees and not to set the seal of approval on all of +them indiscriminately, he will take care that some at least of his +questions are different from what the teacher might expect them to +be. Also, as he is himself a rational being, he will probably +endeavour to test intelligence as well as memory; and, with this end +in view, he will set questions, the precise nature of which it will +be difficult for the teacher to forecast. But the teacher will make a +practice of studying the questions set in the periodical examinations +and of preparing his pupils accordingly, equipping them (if he is an +expert at his work) with a stock of superficial intelligence as well +as of information, and putting them up to whatever knacks, tricks, +and dodges will enable them to show to advantage on the examination +day. In his desire to outwit the teacher, the examiner will turn and +double like a hare who is pursued by a greyhound. But the teacher +will turn and double with equal agility, and will never allow himself +to be outdistanced by his quarry. + +The more successful the teacher is in keeping up with the examiner, +the more fatal will his success be to his pupils and to himself. +In the ardour of the chase he is being lured on into a region of +treacherous quicksands; and the longer he is able to maintain the +pursuit, the more certain is it that he will lose himself at last +in depths and mazes of misconception and delusion. It is only by +stripping himself of his own freedom and responsibility that the +teacher is able to keep pace with the examiner, and each turn +or double that he makes involves a fresh surrender of those +prerogatives. In consenting to work on a prescribed syllabus he has +given up the idea of planning out his work for himself. In attempting +to adapt his teaching to the questions set by the examiner, he is +allowing the latter to dictate to him, in the minutest detail, how +each subject is to be taught. In other words, in order to achieve the +semblance of success, he is delivering himself, mind and soul, into +the hands of the examiner, and compelling the latter, perhaps against +his will, to become a Providence to him and to order all his goings. +This means that his distrust of himself is as complete as his +distrust of the child, and that his faith in the efficacy of +mechanical obedience has led him to seek salvation for himself, +as well as for his pupils, by following that fatal path. + +It is in this way that a formal examination reacts upon and +intensifies the sinister tendencies of which it is at once a product +and a symptom. The examination system is, as I have said, the +keystone of the arch of Western education, crowning and completing +the whole structure, and at the same time holding it together, and +preventing it from falling, as it deserves to fall, into a ruinous +heap. Education, as it is now interpreted and practised in the West, +could not continue to exist without the support of the examination +system; but the price that it pays, and will continue to pay, for +this deadly preservative, is the progressive aggravation of all its +own inherent defects. The plight of an organism is indeed desperate +when the very poison which it ought, if healthy, to eliminate from +its system, has become indispensable to the prolongation of its life. + +It is notorious that the application of the examination principle to +religion--the attempt to estimate spiritual health and growth in +terms of outward action--generates hypocrisy, or the pretence of +being more virtuous (and more religious) than one really is. When +applied to the education of the young, the same principle generates +hypocrisy of another kind,--the pretence of being cleverer than one +really is, of knowing more than one really knows. So long as the +hypocrite realises that he is a hypocrite, there is hope for him. But +when hypocrisy develops into self-deception, the severance between +outward and inward, between appearance and reality, is complete. +In a school which is ridden by the examination incubus, the whole +atmosphere is charged with deceit. The teacher's attempt to outwit +the examiner is deceitful; and the immorality of his action is +aggravated by the fact that he makes his pupils partners with him in +his fraud. The child who is being crammed for an examination, and who +is being practised at the various tricks and dodges that will, it +is hoped, enable him to throw dust in the examiner's eyes, may not +consciously realise that he and his teacher are trying to perpetrate +a fraud, but will probably have an instinctive feeling that he is +being led into crooked ways. If he has not that feeling, if the +crooked ways seem straight in his eyes, we may know that his sense +of reality is being poisoned by the vitiated atmosphere which he +has been compelled to breathe. Nor, if that is his case, will +he lack companionship in his delusion. In the atmosphere of the +examination system, deceit and hypocrisy are ever changing into +self-deception; and all who become acclimatised to the influence of +the system--pupils, teachers, examiners, parents, employers of +labour, ministers of religion, members of Parliament, and the +rest--fall victims, sooner or later, to the poison that infects +it, and are well content to cheat themselves with outward and +visible results, accepting "class-lists" and "orders of merit" as of +quasi-divine authority, mistaking official regulations for laws of +Nature, and the clumsy movements of over-elaborated yet ill-contrived +machinery for the subtle processes of life. + +Of the many evils inherent in Western education, which the +examination system tends to intensify, one of the greatest is that of +starving the child's activities, of making him helpless, apathetic, +and inert. Original sin finds its equivalent, in the sphere of mental +action, in original impotence and stupidity. It is not in the child +to direct his steps, and the teacher must therefore direct them for +him, and, if necessary, support him with both hands while he makes +them. Even if the outward results which are the goal of the teacher's +ambition were to be produced for his own satisfaction only, he would +take care to leave as little as possible to the child's independent +effort. But when the results in question have to satisfy an examiner, +and when, as may well happen, the teacher's own professional welfare +depends on the examiner's verdict, it is but natural that he should +hold himself responsible for every stroke and dot that his pupil +makes. When the education given in a school is dominated by a +periodical examination on a prescribed syllabus, suppression of +the child's natural activities becomes the central feature of the +teacher's programme. In such a school the child is not allowed to do +anything which the teacher can possibly do for him. He has to think +what his teacher tells him to think, to feel what his teacher tells +him to feel, to see what his teacher tells him to see, to say what +his teacher tells him to say, to do what his teacher tells him to do. +And the directions given to him are always minute. Not the smallest +room for free action is allowed him if his teacher can possibly help +it. Indeed, it is the function of the skilful teacher to search for +such possible nooks and crannies, and fill them up. It is true that +if an examination is to be passed with credit some thinking has to be +done. But the greater part of this thinking must be done by the +teacher, the _role_ of the pupil, even when he is an adult student, +being essentially passive and receptive. The pupil must indeed be +actively passive and industriously receptive; but for the rest, he +must as far as possible leave himself in the teacher's hands. How +to outwit the examiner is the one aim of both the teacher and the +examinee; and as the teacher is presumably older, wiser, and far +more skilful at the examination game than his pupil, the duty of +thinking--of planning, of contriving, and even (in the deeper sense +of the word) of studying--necessarily devolves on the former; and the +latter, instead of relying upon himself and learning to use his own +wits and resources, becomes more and more helpless and resourceless, +and gradually ceases to take any interest in the work that he is +doing, for its own sake, his chief, if not his sole, concern being +to outwit the examiner and pass a successful examination. (One +frequently meets with clever University students who, having read a +certain book for a certain examination and had no question set from +it, regard the time given to the study of it as wasted, and have +no compunction about expressing this opinion!) If these are evils +incidental--I might almost say essential--to the examination of adult +scholars, it stands to reason that they will be greatly aggravated +when the examinees are young children. For the younger the child, the +more ignorant and helpless he is (however full he may be of latent +capacity and spontaneous activity), and therefore the more ready he +is to lean upon his teacher and to look to him for instruction and +direction. + +The desire to outwit, and so win approval from, an examiner, is not +the only reason why the teacher so often reduces to an absurdity the +traditional distrust of the child. His own inability to educate the +child on other lines is another and not less potent reason. The +examination _regime_ to which he has been subjected himself, partly, +perhaps, under compulsion, but also and in larger measure of his +own choice, deprives him, as we have already seen, of much of his +freedom, initiative, and responsibility; and that being so, it is +inevitable that within the limited range of free action which is left +to him, he in his turn should devote his energies to depriving his +pupils of the same vital qualities, and to making them the helpless +creatures of habit and routine which he himself is tending to become. +To give free play to a child's natural faculties and so lead him +into the path of self-development and self-education, demands a high +degree of intelligence on the part of the teacher, combined with the +constant exercise of thought and initiative within a wide range of +free action. If you tell a teacher in precise detail, whether +directly or indirectly, that he is to do this thing, and that +thing, and the next thing, he will not be able to carry out your +instructions, except by telling his pupils, again in precise detail, +that they are to do this thing, and that thing, and the next thing. +He cannot help himself. He has no choice in the matter. He is the +victim of a quasi-physical compulsion. The pressure which is put upon +him will inevitably be transmitted by him and through him to his +pupils, and will inevitably be multiplied (the relations between +teacher and pupil being what they are) in the course of transmission. + +There is nothing that a healthy child hates so much as to have the +use of his natural faculties and the play of his natural energies +unduly restricted by parental or pedagogic control. We may therefore +take for granted that the child will find himself ill at ease in a +school in which every vital activity is rigidly repressed, and in +which he spends most of his time in sitting still and waiting for +orders. Nor will it add to his happiness to live habitually in an +atmosphere of constraint, of austerity, of suspicion, of gloom. But I +need not take pains to prove that education, as it is conducted in +Western countries, is profoundly repugnant to the natural instincts +of the healthy child. For that is precisely what it is intended to +be. The idea of a child enjoying his "lessons" is foreign to the +genius of the West. Dominated as he is by the inherited conviction +that Man's nature is corrupt and that his instincts are evil, the +Western teacher has set himself the task of doing violence to the +child's instinctive tendencies, of thwarting his inborn desires, of +working against the grain of his nature. He has expected the child to +rebel against this _regime_, and he has welcomed his rebellion as a +proof of the corruption of Man's nature, and therefore of the +soundness of the traditional philosophy of education. + +But if education is hateful to the child, how is he to be induced to +submit to being educated? Some co-operation on his part will be +necessary. How is it to be secured? By precisely the same methods as +those by which Man, in the course of his education, has been induced +to co-operate with God. The child, like Man, is to be "saved"--to be +rescued from Nature and from himself--by being led into the path of +mechanical obedience. The child, like Man, is to be kept in that path +by a system of external rewards and punishments. If he will not do +what he is told to do, he will be punished by his teacher. If he +will do what he is told to do, he will escape punishment, and he may +possibly, when his merits have accumulated sufficiently, receive a +reward. In the education of Man by the God of Israel the balance +between rewards and punishments has been kept fairly even. Hell has +been balanced by Heaven, calamity by prosperity, death by life. It +has been far otherwise with the child. His punishments have been +many, and his rewards few. At the present day men are more humane +than they used to be; and corporal punishment, though still resorted +to, counts for less than it used to do in the training of the child. +But punishments of various kinds are still regarded as indispensable +adjuncts to school discipline; and it is still taken for granted in +far too many schools that the fear of punishment and the hope of +reward are the only effective motives to educational effort. + +It is difficult to say which of the two motives is the more likely to +demoralise the child. A _regime_ of punishment is not necessarily a +_regime_ of cruelty; but punishment can scarcely fail to savour of +severity, and when the doctrine of original sin is in the ascendant, +and the inborn wilfulness and stubbornness of the child are +postulated by his teachers, the indefinable boundary line between +severity and cruelty is easily crossed. Of the tendency of cruelty +to demoralise its victims I have already spoken. But the effect of +punishment on the child must be considered in its relation to his +mental, as well as to his moral, development. Scholarships, prizes, +high places in class, and other such rewards are for the few, not for +the many. If the many are to be roused to exertion, the fear of +punishment (in the hypothetical absence of any other motive) must +be ever before them. What will happen to them when that motive is +withdrawn, as it will be when the child becomes the adolescent? His +education has been distasteful to the child, partly because his +teachers have assumed from the outset that it would be and must be +so, but chiefly because in their ignorance they have taken pains to +make it so, his school life having been so ordered as to combine the +maximum of strain with the maximum of _ennui_. His teachers have done +everything for him, except those mechanical and monotonous exercises +which they felt they might trust him to do by himself. Some of +his mental faculties have become stunted and atrophied through lack +of exercise. Others have been allowed to wither in the bud. If he +happens to belong to the "masses," he will have completed his school +education at the age of thirteen or fourteen. What will he do with +himself when there is no longer a teacher at his elbow to tell him +what to do and how to do it, and to stand over him (should this be +necessary) while he does it? Why should he go on with studies which +he has neither the inclination nor the ability to pursue, and +which, in point of fact, he has never really begun? And why should he +continue to exert himself when, owing to his being at last beyond the +reach of punishment, the need for him to do so--the only need which +he has been accustomed to regard as imperative--has ceased to exist? + +The objections to the hope of reward as a motive to educational +effort are of another kind. Prizes, as I have said, are for the few; +and it is the consciousness of being one of the elect which invests +the winning of a prize with its chief attraction. The prize system +makes a direct appeal to the vanity and egoism of the child. It +encourages him to think himself better than others, to pride himself +on having surpassed his class-mates and shone at their expense. The +clever child is to work hard, not because knowledge is worth winning +for its own sake and for his own sake, but because it will be +pleasant for him to feel that he has succeeded where others have +failed. It is a just reproach against the examination system that +while, by its demand for outward results it does its best to destroy +individuality, the essence of which is sincerity of expression, it +also does its best to foster individualism, by appealing, with its +offer of prizes and other "distinctions," to those instincts which +predispose each one of us to affirm and exalt that narrow, +commonplace, superficial aspect of his being which he miscalls his +_self_. + +Thus the hope of reward tends to demoralise the clever child by +making an appeal to basely selfish motives. At the same time it is +probably deluding him with the belief that he has more capacity than +he really has. If the examination system is, as I have suggested, the +keystone of the arch of Western education, it is by means of the +prize system that the keystone has been firmly cemented into its +place. An examination which had no rewards or distinctions to offer +to the competitors would not be an effective stimulus to exertion. +That being so, our educationalists have taken care that to every +examination some external reward or rewards shall be attached. Even +if there are no material prizes to appeal to the child's cupidity, +there is always the class-list, with its so-called "order of merit," +to appeal to his vanity. Our educationalists have also taken care +that during the periods of childhood, adolescence, and even early +maturity, every prize that is offered for competition shall be +awarded after a formal examination and on the consideration of its +tabulated results. The appointments in the Home, Colonial, and Indian +Civil Services, the promotions in the Army and Navy, the fellowships +and scholarships at the Universities, the scholarships at the Public +Schools, the medals, books, and other prizes that are offered to +school-children, are all awarded to those who have distinguished +themselves in the corresponding examinations, no other qualification +than that of ability to shine in an examination being looked for in +the competitors. There are, no doubt, exceptions to these general +statements, but they are so few that they scarcely count. We have +seen that the ascendency of the examination system in our schools and +colleges is largely due to the vulgar confusion between information +and knowledge; and we have also seen that the examination system +reacts upon that fatal confusion and tends to strengthen and +perpetuate it. If, then, the effect of the prize system is to +consolidate the authority of the formal examination and intensify +its influence, we shall not go far wrong in assuming that in the +various competitions for prizes the confusion between information +and knowledge will play a vital part. And, in point of fact, the +cleverness which enables the child--I ignore for the moment the +adolescent and the adult student--to win prizes of various kinds is +found, when carefully analysed, to resolve itself, in nine cases out +of ten, into the ability to receive, retain, and retail information. +As this particular, ability is but a small part of that mental +capacity which education is supposed to train, it is clear that the +clever child who gets to the top of his class, and wins prizes in so +doing, may easily be led to over-estimate his powers, and to take +himself far more seriously than it is either right or wise of him to +do. His over-confidence may for a time prove an effective stimulus to +exertion; but the exertion will probably be misdirected; and later +on, when he finds himself confronted by the complex realities of +life, and when problems have to be solved which demand the exercise +of other faculties than that of memory, his belief in himself, which +is the outcome of a false criterion of merit, may induce him to +undertake what he cannot accomplish, and may lead at last--owing to +his having lost touch with the actualities of things--to his complete +undoing. + +And as under the prize system the child who is high in his class is +apt to over-estimate his ability, so the child who is low in his +class is apt to accept the verdict of the class-list as final, and to +regard himself as a failure because he lacks the superficial ability +which enables a child to shine on the examination day. Again and +again it happens that the dunce of his class goes to the front in the +battle of life. But numerous and significant as these cases are, they +are unfortunately exceptions to a general rule. For one dunce who +emerges from the depths of "apparent failure," there are ten who go +under after a more or less protracted struggle, and sink contentedly +to the bottom. The explanation of this is that though every child +has capacity (apart, of course, from the congenital idiot and the +mentally "defective"), there are many kinds of capacity which a +formal examination fails to discover, and which the education that +is dominated by the prize system fails to develop. The child whose +particular kind of capacity does not count, either in the ordinary +school lesson or on the examination day, is not aware that he is +capable; and as he is always low on the class-list, and is therefore +regarded by his teachers as dull and stupid, he not unnaturally +acquiesces in the current and apparently authoritative estimate, of +his powers, and, losing heart about himself, ends by becoming the +failure which he has been taught to believe himself to be. In brief, +while the prize system breeds ungrounded and therefore dangerous +self-esteem in the child whom it labels as bright, it breeds +ungrounded but not the less fatal self-distrust in the child whom +it labels as dull. + +We have seen that there comes a time in the life of every man when +the fear of punishment ceases to act as a stimulus to educational +exertion. It is the same with the hope of reward. Examinations, and +the prizes which reward success in examinations, are for the young. +What will happen to the prize-winner when there are no more prizes +for him to compete for? Will he continue to pursue knowledge for its +own sake? Alas! he has never pursued it for its own sake. He has +pursued it for the sake of the prizes and other honours which it +brought him. When he has won his last prize the chances are that +he will lose all interest in that branch of learning in which he +achieved distinction, unless, indeed, he has to earn his livelihood +by teaching it. Of the scores of young men who distinguish themselves +in "Classics" at Oxford and Cambridge, how many will continue to +study the classical writers when they have gained the "Firsts" for +which they worked so diligently? Apart from those who are going +to teach Classics in the Public Schools or Universities, a mere +handful,--one in ten perhaps, though that is probably an extravagant +estimate. And yet the poets, philosophers, and historians whom they +have studied are amongst the greatest that the world has produced. +What is it, then, that kills, in nine cases out of ten, the +classical student's interest in the masterpieces of antiquity? The +obvious fact that he was never interested in them for their own +sakes--that he studied them, not in order to enjoy them or profit by +them, but in order to pass an examination in them, of which he might +be able to say in after years: + + "I am named and known by that hour's feat, + There took my station and degree." + +How many Wranglers, other than those who have or will become +schoolmasters or college tutors, continue to study mathematics? How +many of the First Classmen in Science, History, Law, and other Honour +"Schools" continue to study their respective subjects? In every case +an utterly insignificant minority. + +But if the prize system does this to the young man of twenty-two or +twenty-three, if it kills his interest in learning, if it makes him +register an inward vow never again to open the books which he has +crammed so successfully for his examinations, what may it be expected +to do to the child whose school education comes to an end when he +is only thirteen or fourteen years old? When, with the fear of +punishment, the complementary hope of reward is withdrawn from him, +is it reasonable to expect him to continue his education, to continue +to apply himself to subjects with which his acquaintance has been +entirely formal and superficial, and which he has never been allowed +to digest and assimilate? The utter indifference of the average +ex-elementary scholar to literature, to history, to geography, to +science, to music, to art, is the world-wide answer to this question. + +For what is, above all, hateful in any scheme of rewards and +punishments, when applied to the school life of the young, is that it +wholly externalises what is really an inward and spiritual process, +the evolution of the youthful mind. Just as in the sphere of religion +it is postulated as a self-evident truth that righteousness is not +its own reward, nor iniquity its own punishment,--so in the sphere of +education it is postulated as a self-evident truth, that knowledge is +not its own reward, nor ignorance its own punishment. And just as in +the sphere of religion the appeal to Man's selfish hopes and ignoble +fears has generated a radical misconception of the meaning and +purpose of righteousness, which has caused his moral and spiritual +energies to be diverted into irreligious or anti-religious channels, +to the detriment of his inward and spiritual growth,--so in the +sphere of education the appeal to the child's selfish desires and +ignoble fears has generated a radical misconception of the meaning +and purpose of knowledge, which has caused his mental energies to be +diverted into uneducational channels, to the detriment of his mental +growth. In each case the scheme of rewards and punishments, acting +like an immense blister, when applied to a healthy body, draws to the +surface the life-blood which ought to nourish and purify the vital +organs of the soul (or mind), thereby impoverishing the vital +organs, and inflaming and disfiguring the surface. For if the surface +life, with its outward and visible "results," is to be happy and +productive, the health of the vital organs must be carefully +maintained. This is the fundamental truth which those who control +education in the West have persistently ignored. + +The system of education which I have tried to describe is a practical +embodiment of the ideas that govern the popular philosophy of the +West. One who had studied that philosophy, and who wished to +ascertain what provision it made for the education of the young, +would in the course of his inquiry construct _a priori_ the precise +system of education which is in vogue in all Western countries. +The supposed relation between God and his fallen and rebellious +offspring, Man, is obviously paralleled by the relation between the +teacher and the child; and it is therefore clear that the supposed +dealings of God with Man ought to be paralleled by the dealings of +the teacher with the child. That they are so paralleled--that +salvation by machinery has found its most exact counterpart in +education by machinery--the history of education has made abundantly +clear. + +Whatever else the current system of education may do to the child, +there is one thing which it cannot fail to do to him,--to blight his +mental growth. What particular form or forms this blighting influence +may take will depend in each particular case on a variety of +circumstances. Experience tells us that what happens in most cases is +that Western education strangles some faculties, arrests the growth +of others, stunts the growth of a third group, and distorts the +growth of a fourth. + +Is it intended that education should do all this? This question is +not so paradoxical as it sounds. My primary assumption that the +function of education is to foster growth may be a truism in the +eyes of those who agree with it; but Western orthodoxy, just so +far as it is self-conscious and sincere, must needs repudiate it +as a pestilent heresy. For if what grows is intrinsically evil, +what can growth do for it but carry it towards perdition? + +What is it that grows? It is time that I should ask myself this +question. My answer to it is, in brief, that it is the whole human +being that grows, the whole nature of the child,--body, mind, heart +and soul. When I use these familiar words, I am far from wishing +to suggest that human nature is divisible into four provinces or +compartments. In every stage of its development human nature is a +living and indivisible whole. Each of the four words stands for a +typical aspect of Man's being, but one of the four may also be said +to stand for the totality of Man's being,--the word _soul_. For it +is the soul which manifests as _body_, which thinks as _mind_, which +feels and loves as _heart_, and which is what it is--though not +perhaps what it really or finally is--as _soul_. + +The function of education, then, is to foster the growth of the +child's whole nature, or, in a word, of his soul. I ought, perhaps, +to apologise for my temerity in using this now discredited word. In +the West Man does not believe in the soul. How can he? He does not +believe in God either as the eternal source or as the eternal end of +his own nature. It follows that he does not and cannot believe in +the unity of his own being. He has been taught that his nature is +corrupt, evil, godless; and that the "soul," which is somehow or +other attached to his fallen nature during his "earthly pilgrimage," +was supernaturally created at the moment of his birth. He is now +beginning to reject this conception of the soul; but he cannot yet +rise to the higher conception of it as the vital essence of his +being, as the divine germ in virtue of which his nature is no mere +aggregate of parts or faculties, but a living whole. So deeply rooted +in the Western mind is disbelief in the reality of the soul that it +is difficult to use the word, when speaking to a Western audience, +without exposing oneself to the charge of insincerity,--not to speak +of the graver charge of "bad form." A savour either of _cant_ or +_gush_ hangs about the word, and is not easily detached from it. That +being so, it must be clearly understood that I mean by the soul the +nature of Man considered in its unity and totality,--no more than +this, and no less. + +In the opening paragraph of this book I said that some of my readers +would regard my fundamental assumption as a truism, others as a +challenge, and others again as a wicked heresy. Whether it shall be +regarded as a truism, a challenge, or a heresy, will depend on the +way in which it is worded. To say that the function of education is +to foster the growth of human nature, is to invite condemnation from +those who regard human nature as ruined and corrupt. To say that the +function of education is to foster the growth of the soul, is to +issue a challenge to Western civilisation, which is based on the +belief that the end of Man's being is not the growth of his soul, but +the growth of his balance at the bank of material prosperity. To say +that the function of education is to foster the growth of certain +faculties, is to insist on what no one who had given his mind to +the matter would care to deny. For even the orthodox, who regard +Man's nature in its totality as intrinsically evil, admit without +hesitation that there are faculties in Man which can be and ought +to be trained; while the "man of the world," whom we may regard as +the most typical product of Western civilisation, is clamorous in +his demand that education shall foster the growth of certain mental +faculties which will enable the child to become an efficient clerk or +workman, and so contribute to the enrichment of his employer and the +community to which he belongs. + +The Western educationalist will admit, then, that the function of +education is to foster growth; and if you ask him what it is that +grows or ought to grow under education's fostering care, he will give +you a long list of faculties--mental, for the most part, but also +moral and physical--and then break off under the impression that he +has set education an adequate and a practicable task. But he has +set it an inadequate and an impracticable task. For behind all the +faculties that he enumerates dwells the living reality which he +cannot bring himself to believe in,--the soul. And because he cannot +bring himself to believe in the soul, he deprives the faculties +which he proposes to cultivate of the very qualities which make +them most worthy of cultivation,--of their interrelation, their +interdependence, their organic unity. In other words he devitalises +each of them by cutting it off from the life which is common to all +of them, and so paralyses its capacity for growing in the very act +of taking thought for its growth. He forgets that every faculty which +is worth cultivating both draws life from, and contributes life to, +the general life of the growing child. He forgets that the child +himself--"the living soul"--is growing in and through the growth of +each of his opening faculties; and that unless, when a faculty seems +to be growing, the life of the child is at once expressing itself in +and renewing itself through the process of its growth, its semblance +of growth is a pure illusion, the results that are produced being in +reality as fraudulent as artificial flowers on a living rose-bush. + +But the whole question may be looked at from another point of view. +Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the function of education +is to train, or foster the growth of, certain faculties, which are +mainly though not exclusively mental, and that when those faculties +have been duly trained the teacher has done his work. What, then, +are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt +to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary +school,--the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance +at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to +us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained--those +which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those +which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science +are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. +When such subjects as Composition, Drawing or Singing are being +taught, the child's expressive faculties are being trained. So at +least one might be disposed to assume. + +In what relation do the perceptive faculties stand to the expressive? +Is it possible to cultivate either group without regard to the other? +It must be admitted that the methods employed in the ordinary +elementary school seem to be governed by the assumption that the +perceptive and the expressive faculties are two distinct groups which +admit of being separately trained. In the ordinary Drawing lesson, +for example, the child is trying to express what he does not even +pretend to have perceived; whereas in the ordinary History or Science +lesson the process is reversed, and the child pretends to perceive +what he makes no attempt to express. + +But is the assumption correct? Do the two groups of faculties admit +of being separately trained? Is it possible to devote this hour or +half-hour to the training of perception, and that to the training +of expression? Surely not. Perception and expression are not two +faculties, but one. Each is the very counterpart and correlate, each +is the very life and soul, of the other. Each, when divorced from +the other, ceases to be its own true self. When perception is real, +living, informed with personal feeling, it must needs find for +itself the outlet of expression. When expression is real, living, +informed with personal feeling, perception--the child's own +perception of things--must needs be behind it. More than that. _The +perceptive faculties_ (at any rate in childhood) _grow through the +interpretation which expression gives them, and in no other way. And +the expressive faculties grow by interpreting perception, and in no +other way_. The child who tries to draw what he sees is training his +power of observation, not less than his power of expression. As he +passes and repasses between the object of his perception and his +representation of it, there is a continuous gain both to his vision +and to his technique. The more faithfully he tries to render his +impression of the object, the more does that impression gain in truth +and strength; and in proportion as the impression becomes truer and +stronger, so does the rendering of it become more masterly and more +correct. So, again, if a man tries to set forth in writing his views +about some difficult problem--social, political, metaphysical, or +whatever it may be--the very effort that he makes to express himself +clearly and coherently will tend to bring order into the chaos and +light into the darkness of his mind, to widen his outlook on his +subject, to deepen his insight into it, to bring new aspects of it +within the reach of his conscious thought. And here, as in the case +of the child who tries to draw what he sees, there is a continuous +reciprocal action between perception and expression, in virtue of +which each in turn helps forward the evolution of the other. Even in +so abstract and impersonal a subject as mathematics, the reaction of +expression on perception is strong and salutary. The student who +wishes to master a difficult piece of bookwork should try to write +it out in his own words; in the effort to set it out concisely and +lucidly he will gradually perfect his apprehension of it. Were he to +solve a difficult problem, he would probably regard his grasp of the +solution as insecure and incomplete until he had succeeded in making +it intelligible to the mind of another. When perception is deeply +tinged with emotion, as when one sees what is beautiful, or admires +what is noble, the attempt to express it in language, action, or art, +seems to be dictated by some inner necessity of one's nature. The +meaning of this is that the perception itself imperatively demands +expression in order that, in and through the struggle of the artistic +consciousness to do full justice to it, it may gradually realise its +hidden potentialities, discover its inner meaning, and find its true +self. + +Once we realise that expression is the other self of perception, it +becomes permissible for us to say that to train the perceptive +faculties--the faculties by means of which Man lays hold upon the +world that surrounds him, and draws it into himself and makes it his +own--is the highest achievement of the teacher's art. Even from the +point of view of my primary truism, this conception of the meaning +and purpose of education holds good. For according to that truism the +business of the teacher is to foster the growth of the child's soul; +and the soul grows by the use of its perceptive faculties, which, by +enabling it to take in and assimilate an ever-widening environment, +cause a gradual enlargement of its consciousness and a proportionate +expansion of its life. But the perceptive faculties in their turn +grow by expressing themselves; and unless they are allowed to express +themselves--unless the child is allowed to express himself (for +expression, if it is genuine, is always self-expression)--their +growth will be arrested, and the mission which _all_ educationalists +assign to education will not have been fulfilled. + +The question is, then, Does the system of education which prevails in +all Western countries provide for self-expression on the part of the +child? + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] I mean by the words "original sin" what the plain, +unsophisticated, believing Christian means by them. A modern poet, +in a moment of impulsive orthodoxy, praises Christianity because it + + "taught original sin, + The corruption of man's heart ..." + +This definition is sufficiently accurate. "Original sin," says the +Ninth Article of the Anglican Church, "... is the fault and +corruption of the Nature of every man ... whereby man is of his own +nature inclined to evil ... and therefore, in every person born into +the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." How far the +popular interpretation of the doctrine of original sin coincides with +the latest theological refinement of the doctrine, I cannot pretend +to say. When it finds it convenient to explain things away, theology, +like Voltaire's Minor Prophet, "est capable de tout"; and the need +for reconciling the doctrine of original sin with the teaching of +modern science has in recent years laid a heavy tax on its +ingenuity. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A FAMILIAR TYPE OF SCHOOL[6] + + +In this chapter I shall have in my mind a type of school which is +familiar to all who are interested in elementary education. What +percentage of the schools of England are of that particular type +I cannot pretend to say. In the days of payment by results the +percentage was unquestionably very high. The system under which we +all worked made that inevitable. The days of payment by results are +over, but their consequences are with us still. The pioneer is abroad +in the land, but he has had, and still has, formidable difficulties +to overcome. The percentage of routine-ridden schools is considerably +lower than it used to be, and it is falling from year to year. Of +this there can be no doubt. Each teacher in turn who reads this +chapter will, I hope, be able to say that the school which is in my +mind is not his. But I can assure him that there are thousands of +schools in which all or most of the evils on which I am about to +comment are still rampant; and I will add, for his consolation, that +it would be a miracle if this were not so. + +The first forty minutes of the morning session are given, in almost +every elementary school, to what is called _Religious Instruction_. +This goes on, morning after morning, and week after week. The child +who attends school regularly and punctually, as many children do, +will have been the victim of upwards of two thousand "Scripture +lessons" by the time he leaves school. + +The question of religious education in elementary schools has long +been the centre of a perfect whirlpool of controversial talk. The +greater part of this talk is, to speak plainly, blatant cant. Every +candidate for a seat in the House of Commons thinks it incumbent upon +him to say something about religious education, but not one in a +hundred of them has ever been present in an elementary school while +religious instruction was being given. The Bishops of the Established +Church wax eloquent in the House of Lords over the wickedness of a +"godless education" and the virtue of "definite dogmatic teaching," +but it may be doubted if there is a Bishop in the House who has in +recent years sat out a Scripture lesson in a Church of England +school. It would be well if all who talked publicly about religious +education could be sentenced to devote a month to the personal study +of religious instruction as it is ordinarily given in elementary +schools. At the end of the month they would be wiser and sadder men, +and in future they would probably talk less about religious education +and think more. + +The Scripture lesson, as it is familiarly called, is supposed to make +the children of England religious, in the special sense which each +church or sect attaches to that word,--to make them good Catholics, +good Churchmen, good Wesleyans, good Bible Christians, good Jews. But +as those who are most in earnest about religion, and most sincere in +their religious convictions, unite in assuring us that England is +relapsing into paganism, it may be doubted if the religious education +of the elementary school child--a process which has been going on for +half a century or more--has been entirely successful. While the fact +that the English parent, who must himself have attended from 1,500 +to 2,000 Scripture lessons in His schooldays, is not under any +circumstances to be trusted to give religious instruction to his own +children, shows that those who control the religious education of the +youthful "masses" have but little confidence in the effect of their +system on the religious life and faith of the English people. + +They have good ground for their subconscious distrust of it. We have +seen that the vulgar confusion between information and knowledge is +at the root of much that is unsound in education. There is no branch +of education in which this confusion is so fallacious or so fatal as +in that which is called religious. The process of converting +information into knowledge is a comparatively easy one when we are +dealing with matters of detailed fact. Information as to the dates of +the kings of England, as to the bays and capes of the British Isles, +as to the exports and imports of Liverpool, as to the weights and +measures of this or that country, is in each case readily convertible +into knowledge of the given facts. But directly we get away from mere +facts, and begin to concern ourselves with what is large, vague, +subtle, and obscure,--with forces, for example, with causes, with +laws, with principles,--the difficulty of collecting adequate and +appropriate information about our subject becomes great, and the +difficulty of converting such information into knowledge becomes +greater still. Information as to the dates and names of the English +kings, and other historical facts, is easily converted into knowledge +of those facts, but it is not easily converted into knowledge of +English history. Information as to the names and positions of capes +and bays, as to areas and populations, and other geographical facts, +is easily converted into knowledge of those facts, but it is not +easily converted into knowledge of geography. Information as to +arithmetical rules and tables, as to weights and measures, and other +arithmetical facts, is easily converted into knowledge of those +facts, but it is not easily converted into knowledge of arithmetic. +In each case a _sense_ must be evolved if the information is to be +assimilated, and so converted into real knowledge; and though it is +true that the sense in question grows, in part at least, by feeding +on appropriate information, it is equally true that if, owing to +defective training, the sense remains undeveloped, the information +supplied will remain unassimilated, and the tacit assumption that the +possession of information is equivalent to the possession of real +knowledge will delude both the teacher and the taught. It is +possible, as one knows from experience, for a boy to have mastered +all the arithmetical rules and tables with which his master has +supplied him, and to have all his measures and weights at his +fingers' ends, and yet to be so destitute of the arithmetical sense +as to give without a moment's misgiving an entirely nonsensical +answer to a simple arithmetical problem,--to say, for example, as I +have known half a class of boys say, that a _room_ is _five shillings +and sixpence wide_. Such a boy, though his head may be stuffed with +arithmetical information, has no knowledge of arithmetic. + +The gulf between memorised information and real knowledge becomes +deep and wide in proportion as the subject matter is one which +demands for its effective apprehension either intellectual effort or +emotional insight. When both these variables are demanded, the gulf +widens and deepens at a ratio which is "geometrical" rather than +"arithmetical"; and when a high degree of each is demanded, the +separation between knowledge and information is complete. + +The Art Master who should try to train the aesthetic sense of his +pupils by making them learn by heart a string of propositions in +which he had set out the artistic merits of sundry masterpieces of +painting and sculpture, would expose himself to well-merited +ridicule. So would the teacher who should try to train the scientific +sense of his pupils by no other method than that of making them +learn scientific formulae by heart. What shall we say, then, of the +teacher who tries to train the religious sense of his pupils by +supplying them with rations of theological and theologico-historical +information? Whatever else we may mean by the word God, we mean what +is infinitely great, and therefore beyond the reach of human thought, +and we mean what is "most high," and therefore beyond the reach of +the heart's desire. It follows that for knowledge of God the maximum +of intellectual effort is needed, in conjunction with the maximum of +emotional insight; and it follows further that the gulf between +knowledge of God and information about God is unimaginably wide and +deep,--so wide and so deep that out of our very attempts to span or +fathom it the doubt at last arises whether the idea of acquiring +information about God may not, after all, be the idlest of dreams. + +Nevertheless the pastors and masters of our elementary schools are, +with few exceptions, engaged, _sancta simplicitate_, in trying to +make the children of England religious by cramming them with +theological and theologico-historical information,--information as to +the nature and attributes of God, as to the inner constitution of +his being, as to his relations to Man and the Universe, as to his +reported doings in the past. And in order that the giving, receiving, +and retaining of this unverifiable information may be regarded by +all concerned as the central feature of the Scripture lesson, to +the neglect of all the other aspects of religious education, the +spiritual "powers that be" (and also, I am told, some of the Local +Education Authorities) have decreed that the schools under their +jurisdiction shall be subjected to a yearly examination in +"religious knowledge" at the hands of a "Diocesan Inspector," or some +other official. + +To one who has convinced himself, as I have, that a right attitude +towards the thing known is of the essence of knowledge, and that +reverence and devotion--to go no further--are of the essence of a +right attitude towards God, the idea of holding a formal examination +in religious knowledge seems scarcely less ridiculous than the idea +of holding a formal examination in unselfishness or brotherly love. +The phrase "to examine in religious knowledge" has no meaning for me. +The verb is out of all relation to its indirect object. What the +Diocesan Inspector attempts to do cannot possibly be done. The test +of religious knowledge is necessarily practical and vital, not formal +and mechanical. Even if I were to admit, for argument's sake, that +the information with which we cram the elementary school child +between 9.5 and 9.45 a.m. had been supernaturally communicated by God +to Man, my general position would remain unaffected. For experience +has amply proved that a child--or, for the matter of that, a man--may +know much theology and even be "mighty in the Scriptures," and yet +show by his conduct that his religious sense has not been awakened, +and that therefore he has no knowledge of God; just as we have seen +that a child may know by heart all arithmetical rules and tables, and +yet show, by his helplessness in the face of a simple problem, that +his arithmetical sense has not been awakened, and that therefore he +has no knowledge of arithmetic. + +The time given to religious instruction is, to make a general +statement, the only part of the session in which the children are +being prepared for a formal _external_ examination. That being so, it +is no matter for wonder that many of the glaring faults of method and +organisation which the examination system fostered in our elementary +schools between the years 1862 and 1895, and which are now being +abandoned, however slowly, reluctantly, and sporadically, during the +hours of "secular" instruction, still find a refuge in the Scripture +lesson. Overgrouping of classes, overcrowding of school-rooms, +collective answering, collective repetition, scribbling on slates, +and other faults with which inspectors were only too familiar in +bygone days, are still rampant while religious instruction is being +given.[7] The Diocesan Inspector is an examiner, pure and simple, and +is never present when the Scripture lesson is in progress. Whether he +would find anything to criticise if he were present, may be doubted. +I have frequently been told by teachers that it is his demand for a +good volume of sound, when he is catechising the children, which +keeps alive during the Scripture lesson the pestilent habit of +collective answering, in defiance of the obvious fact that what is +everybody's business is nobody's business, and that an experienced +bell-wether can easily give a lead to a whole class. An inconvenient +train service may compel H.M. Inspector to be present when religious +instruction is being given; but though he may find much to deplore +in what he sees and hears, he must abstain from criticism, and be +content to play the _role_ of the man who looks over a hedge while a +horse is being stolen. + +In most elementary schools religion is taught on an elaborate +syllabus which is imposed on the teacher by an external authority, +and which therefore tends to destroy his freedom and his interest in +the work. It is not his business to take thought for the religious +training of his pupils, to consider how the religious instinct may +best be awakened in them, how their latent knowledge of God may +best be evolved. His business is to prepare them for their yearly +examination, to cram them with catechisms, hymns, texts, and +collects, and with stories of various kinds,--stories from the +folk-lore of Israel, from the history of the Jews, from the Gospel +narratives. To appeal to the reasoning powers of his pupils would be +foreign to his aim, and foreign, let me say in passing, to the whole +tradition of religious teaching in the West. The burden of preparing +for an examination, whatever the examination may be, falls mainly on +the faculty of memory. This is a rule to which there are very few +exceptions. When the examination is one in "religious knowledge," the +burden of preparing for it falls wholly on the faculty of memory. +To appeal to the reasoning powers of the scholars might conceivably +provoke them to ask inconvenient questions, and might even give +rise to a spirit of rationalism in the school,--the spirit which +"orthodoxy" has always regarded as the very antipole to religious +faith. + +But what of the child's emotional faculties? Will not the beauty of +the Gospel stories, will not the sublimity of the Old Testament +poetry, make their own appeal to these? They might do so if they were +allowed to exert their spiritual magnetism. But what chance have +they? The chilling shadow of the impending examination falls upon +them and cancels their educative influence. It is not because the +Gospel stories are full of beauty and spiritual meaning that the +child has to learn them, but because he will be questioned on them by +the Diocesan Inspector. It is not because certain passages from the +Old Testament are poetry of a high order that the child commits them +to memory, but because he may have to repeat them to the Diocesan +Inspector. We cannot serve God and Mammon,--the God of poetry and the +inward life, the Mammon of outward results. The thing is not to be +done, and the pretence of doing it is a mockery and a fraud. The +compulsory preparation of the plays of Shakespeare and other literary +masterpieces for a formal examination, too often gives the schoolboy, +or the college student, a permanent distaste for English literature. +The study of the Ancient Classics for the Oxford "Schools" or the +Cambridge "Tripos" too often gives the studious undergraduate a +permanent distaste for the literatures of Greece and Rome. Does it +not follow _a fortiori_ that to cram a young child, for the purposes +of a formal examination, to cram him, year after year, with the +idyllic stories of the New Testament and the poetic beauties of the +Old, will in all probability go a long way towards blighting in the +bud the child's latent capacity for responding to the appeal, not of +the Bible alone, but of spiritual poetry as such? + +I do not wish to suggest that the religious instruction given in +our elementary schools is always formal and mechanical. There are +teachers who can break through the toils of any system, however +deadly, and give life to their teaching in defiance of conditions +which would paralyse the energies of lesser men. As I write, I recall +two teachers of elementary schools, who, in spite of having to +prepare their pupils for diocesan inspection, succeeded in quickening +their religious instincts into vital activity. The first was a +schoolmaster,--a "strong Churchman," and a sincerely religious man. +The second was a woman of genius, whose extraordinary sympathy with +and insight into the soul of the child, enabled her to give free play +to all his expansive instincts, and in and through the evolution of +these to foster the growth of his religious sense. I can never feel +quite sure that this teacher fully realised how deeply, and yet +healthily, religious her children were. If she did not, I can but +apply to her what Diderot said to David the painter, when the latter +confessed that he had not intended to produce some artistic effect +which the former had discovered in one of his pictures: "Quoi! c'est +a votre insu? C'est encore mieux." To make children religious without +intending to do so is a profoundly significant achievement, for +it means that the fatal distinction between religious and secular +education has been "utterly abolished and destroyed." + +Both these teachers fell, as it happened, under the ban of the +Diocesan Inspector's displeasure. The schoolmaster took over a +school which was not only inefficient in the eyes of the Education +Department, in respect of instruction and discipline, but was also +tainted in its upper classes with moral depravity. He speedily +restored it to efficiency, and reformed its moral tone. In +accomplishing these salutary changes, he relied mainly on an appeal +which he made, in all manly sincerity, to the religious sense of the +older boys. The faith in human nature which prompted him to make this +appeal was justified by the response which it evoked. In less than a +year the school was transformed beyond recognition. In less than two +years it was one of the best in its county; indeed in respect of +moral tone and religious atmosphere it was perhaps _the_ best. +Meanwhile the work of cramming the children for the yearly diocesan +examination must have fallen into arrears; for the school, which +under my friend's incompetent predecessor had always been classed as +"Excellent," sank to the level of "Good" in the year after he left, +and in the following year to the level of "Fair." Any one who has any +acquaintance with the reports of the Diocesan Inspector knows that +the summary mark "Fair," when employed by him, is equivalent to +utter damnation. + +The schoolmistress always had a horror of formal teaching, and a +special horror of cramming young children for formal examinations; +and I can only wonder that her downfall was so long delayed. Sooner +or later, if she was to remain true to her own first principles, her +work was bound to incur the condemnation of the Diocesan Inspector. + +Nevertheless, having read hundreds of diocesan reports, and realised +how lavish of praise and chary of blame the Diocesan Inspector +usually is, I am inclined to suspect that the comparative failure +of the children on the examination day was not the sole or even the +chief cause of the severe censure which these two schools received. +I am inclined to think that in each case the inspector recognised in +the exceptional religious vitality of a school which was deficient, +from his point of view, in religious knowledge, an implicit challenge +to his own preconceived notions, and that, without for a moment +intending to be unfair, he responded to this challenge by giving the +school a strongly adverse report. Immorality and irreligiousness +as such are comparatively venial offences in the eyes of religious +orthodoxy. What it cannot tolerate is that men should be moral and +religious in any but the "orthodox" ways. + +Apart from these two exceptional cases, there are of course hundreds +and even thousands of teachers whose personal influence is a partial +antidote to the numbing poison which is being distilled but surely, +from the daily Scripture lesson. But the net result of giving formal +and mechanical instruction on the greatest of all "great matters" is +to depress the spiritual vitality of the children of England to a +point which threatens the extinction of the spiritual life of the +nation. My schoolmaster friend, who, besides being deeply religious +(in the best sense of the word), is a man of sound judgment and wide +and varied experience, has more than once assured me that religious +instruction, as given in the normal Church of England school (his +experience has been limited to schools of that type), is paganising +the people of England,--paganising them because it presents religion +to them in a form which they instinctively reject, accepting it at +first under compulsion, but turning away from it at last with +deep-seated weariness and permanent distaste. + +The boy who, having attended two thousand Scripture lessons, says to +himself when he leaves school: "If this is religion, I will have no +more of it," is acting in obedience to a healthy instinct. He is to +be honoured rather than blamed for having realised at last that the +chaff on which he has so long been fed is not the life-giving grain +which, unknown to himself, his inmost soul demands. + +That England is relapsing into paganism is, as we have seen, the +sincere conviction of many earnest Christians. Why this should be so, +they cannot understand. In their desire to account for so distressing +a phenomenon, they will have recourse to any explanation, however +far-fetched and fantastic, rather than acknowledge that it is the +Scripture lesson in the elementary school which is paganising the +masses. If the Churches could have their way, they would doubtless +try to mend matters by doubling the hours that are given to +religious instruction, by making the Diocesan Inspector's visit +a half-yearly instead of a yearly function, and by cramming the +children for it with redoubled energy. In their refusal to reckon +with human nature, they are true to the first principles of their +religion and their philosophy. But it is possible to buy consistency +at too high a price. The laws and tendencies of Nature are what they +are; and it is madness, not heroism, to ignore them. To those who +refuse to reckon with human nature, the day will surely come when +human nature, evolving itself under the stress of its own forces and +in obedience to its own laws, will cease to take account of them.[8] + +When the hands of the clock point to a quarter to ten, the religious +education of the child is over for the day, and his secular +instruction has begun. That the religious education of the child +should be supposed to end when the Scripture lesson is over, is the +last and strongest proof of the fundamental falsity of that +conception of religion on which, as on a quicksand, his education, +religious and secular, has been based. + + After Scripture comes as a rule Arithmetic. During the former lesson +the teacher, acting under compulsion, does his best, as we have seen, +to deaden the child's spiritual faculties. During the latter, he not +infrequently does his best to deaden the child's mental faculties. In +each case he is to be pitied rather than blamed. The conditions under +which he works, and has long worked, are too strong for him. If we +are to understand why secular instruction, as given in our elementary +schools, is what it is, we must go back for half a century or so and +trace the steps by which the "Education Department" forced elementary +education in England into the grooves in which, in many schools, +it is still moving, and from which even the most enlightened and +enterprising teachers find it difficult to escape. + +In 1861 the Royal Commission (under the Duke of Newcastle as +Chairman), which had been appointed in 1858 in order to inquire into +"the state of popular education in England, and as to the measures +required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary instruction +to all classes of the people," issued its report, in which it +recommended _inter alia_ that the Grants paid to elementary schools +should be expressly apportioned on the examination of individual +children. This recommendation was carried into effect in the Lowe +Revised Code of 1862; and from that date till 1895 a considerable +part of the Grant received by each school was paid on the results of +a yearly examination held by H.M. Inspector on an elaborate syllabus, +formulated by the Department and binding on all schools alike. On the +official report which followed this examination depended the +reputation and financial prosperity of the school, and the reputation +and financial prosperity of the teacher.[9] The consequent pressure +on the teacher to exert himself was well-nigh irresistible; and he +had no choice but to transmit that pressure to his subordinates and +his pupils. The result was that in those days the average school was +a hive of industry. + +But it was also a hive of misdirected energy. The State, in +prescribing a syllabus which was to be followed, in all the subjects +of instruction, by all the schools in the country, without regard to +local or personal considerations, was guilty of one capital offence. +It did all his thinking for the teacher. It told him in precise +detail what he was to do each year in each "Standard," how he was to +handle each subject, and how far he was to go in it; what width of +ground he was to cover; what amount of knowledge, what degree of +accuracy was required for a "pass," In other words it provided him +with his ideals, his general conceptions, his more immediate aims, +his schemes of work; and if it did not control his methods in all +their details, it gave him (by implication) hints and suggestions +with regard to these on which he was not slow to act; for it told him +that the work done in each class and each subject would be tested +at the end of each year by a careful examination of each individual +child; and it was inevitable that in his endeavour to adapt his +teaching to the type of question which his experience of the +yearly examination led him to expect, he should gradually deliver +himself, mind and soul, into the hands of the officials of the +Department,--the officials at Whitehall who framed the yearly +syllabus, and the officials in the various districts who examined +on it. + +What the Department did to the teacher, it compelled him to do to the +child. The teacher who is the slave of another's will cannot carry +out his instructions except by making his pupils the slaves of +his own will. The teacher who has been deprived by his superiors +of freedom, initiative, and responsibility, cannot carry out his +instructions except by depriving his pupils of the same vital +qualities. The teacher who, in response to the deadly pressure of a +cast-iron system, has become a creature of habit and routine, cannot +carry out his instructions except by making his pupils as helpless +and as puppet-like as himself. + +But it is not only because mechanical obedience is fatal, in the +long run, to mental and spiritual growth, that the regulation of +elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is +to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the +nature of things, a bad syllabus, and because the degree of its +badness varies directly with the area of the sphere of educational +activity that comes under its control. It is easy for us of the +Twentieth Century to laugh at the syllabuses which the Department +issued, without misgiving, year after year, in the latter half of the +Nineteenth. We were all groping in the dark in those days; and our +whole attitude towards education was so fundamentally wrong that the +absurdities of the yearly syllabus were merely so much by-play in +the evolution of a drama which was a grotesque blend of tragedy and +farce. But let us of the enlightened Twentieth Century try our hands +at constructing a syllabus on which all the elementary schools of +England are to be prepared for a yearly examination, and see if +we can improve appreciably on the work of our predecessors. Some +improvement there would certainly be, but it would not amount to very +much. Were the "Board" to re-institute payment by results, and were +they, with this end in view, to entrust the drafting of schemes of +work in the various subjects to a committee of the wisest and most +experienced educationalists in England, the resultant syllabus would +be a dismal failure. For in framing their schemes these wise and +experienced educationalists would find themselves compelled to take +account of the lowest rather than of the highest level of actual +educational achievement. What is exceptional and experimental cannot +possibly find a place in a syllabus which is to bind all schools and +all teachers alike, and which must therefore be so framed that the +least capable teacher, working under the least favourable conditions, +may hope, when his pupils are examined on it, to achieve with decent +industry a decent modicum of success. Under the control of a uniform +syllabus, the schools which are now specialising and experimenting, +and so giving a lead to the rest, would have to abandon whatever was +interesting in their respective curricula, and fall into line with +the average school; while, with the consequent lowering of the +current _ideal_ of efficiency, the level of the average school would +steadily fall. A uniform syllabus is a bad syllabus, for this if for +no other reason, that it is compelled to idealise the average; and +that, inasmuch as education, so far as it is a living system, grows +by means of its "leaders," the idealisation of the average is +necessarily fatal to educational growth and therefore to educational +life. + +It was preordained, then, that the syllabuses which the Department +issued, year by year, in the days of payment by results should have +few merits and many defects. Yet even if, by an unimaginable miracle, +they had all been educationally sound, the mere fact that all the +teachers in England had to work by them would have made them potent +agencies for evil. To be in bondage to a syllabus is a misfortune for +a teacher, and a misfortune for the school that he teaches. To be in +bondage to a syllabus which is binding on all schools alike, is a +graver misfortune. To be in bondage to a bad syllabus which is +binding on all schools alike, is of all misfortunes the gravest. Or +if there is a graver, it is the fate that befell the teachers of +England under the old _regime_,--the fate of being in bondage to a +syllabus which was bad both because it had to come down to the level +of the least fortunate school and the least capable teacher, and also +because it was the outcome of ignorance, inexperience, and +bureaucratic self-satisfaction. + +Of the evils that are inherent in the examination system as such--of +its tendency to arrest growth, to deaden life, to paralyse the higher +faculties, to externalise what is inward, to materialise what is +spiritual, to involve education in an atmosphere of unreality and +self-deception--I have already spoken at some length. In the days of +payment by results various circumstances conspired to raise those +evil tendencies to the highest imaginable "power." When inspectors +ceased to examine (in the stricter sense of the word) they realised +what infinite mischief the yearly examination had done. The children, +the majority of whom were examined in reading and dictation out of +their own reading-books (two or three in number, as the case might +be), were drilled in the contents of those books until they knew +them almost by heart. In arithmetic they worked abstract sums, in +obedience to formal rules, day after day, and month after month; +and they were put up to various tricks and dodges which would, it +was hoped, enable them to know by what precise rules the various +questions on the arithmetic cards were to be answered. They learned +a few lines of poetry by heart, and committed all the "meanings and +allusions" to memory, with the probable result--so sickening must +the process have been--that they hated poetry for the rest of their +lives. In geography, history, and grammar they were the victims of +unintelligent oral cram, which they were compelled, under pains and +penalties, to take in and retain till the examination day was over, +their ability to disgorge it on occasion being periodically tested by +the teacher. And so with the other subjects. Not a thought was given, +except in a small minority of the schools, to the real training of +the child, to the fostering of his mental (and other) growth. To get +him through the yearly examination by hook or by crook was the one +concern of the teacher. As profound distrust of the teacher was the +basis of the policy of the Department, so profound distrust of the +child was the basis of the policy of the teacher. To leave the child +to find out anything for himself, to work out anything for himself, +to think out anything for himself, would have been regarded as a +proof of incapacity, not to say insanity, on the part of the teacher, +and would have led to results which, from the "percentage" point of +view, would probably have been disastrous. + +There were few inspectors who were not duly impressed from 1895 +onwards by the gravity of the evils that inspection, as distinguished +from mere examination, revealed to them; but it may be doubted +if there were many inspectors who realised then, what some among +them see clearly now, that the evils which distressed them were +significant as symptoms even more than as sources of mischief,--as +symptoms of a deep-seated and insidious malady, of the gradual +ossification of the spiritual and mental muscles of both the teacher +and the child, of the gradual substitution in the elementary school +of machinery for life. + +For us of the Twentieth Century who know enough about education to +be aware of the shallowness of our knowledge of it, and of the +imperfection of the existing educational systems of our country, it +may be difficult to realise that in the years when things were at +their worst, at any rate in the field of elementary education, the +Nation in general and the "Department" in particular were well +content that things should remain as they were,--well content that +the elementary school should be, not a nursery of growing seedlings +and saplings, but a decently efficient mill, and that year after year +this mill should keep on grinding out its dreary and meaningless +"results." But in truth that ignorant optimism, that cheap content +with the actual, was a sure proof that things _were_ at their +worst;--for + + "When we in our viciousness grow hard, + (O misery on't) the wise gods seal our eyes + In our own filth; drop our clear judgments: make us + Adore our errors"; + +and the multiform discontent with education in its present stage of +development, which is characteristic of our own generation, and which +is in some ways so confusing and disconcerting, and so unfavourable +to the smooth working of our educational machinery, has the merit of +being a healthy and hopeful symptom. + +But bad as things were in those days, there was at least one +redeeming feature. The children were compelled to _work_, to exert +themselves, to "put their backs into it." The need for this was +obvious. The industry of the child meant so much professional +reputation and, in the last resort, so much bread and butter to his +teacher. It is true that the child was not allowed to do anything by +or for himself; but it is equally true that he had to do pretty +strenuously whatever task was set him. He had to get up his two (or +three) "Readers" so thoroughly that he could be depended upon to pass +both the reading and the dictation test with success. He had to work +his abstract sums in arithmetic correctly. He had to take in and +remember the historical and geographical information with which he +had been crammed. And so forth. There must be no shirking, no +slacking on his part. His teachers worked hard, though "not according +to knowledge"; and he must do the same. Active, in the higher sense +of the word, he was never allowed to be; but he had to be actively +receptive, strenuously automatic, or his teacher would know the +reason why. + +Such was the old _regime_. Its defects were so grave and so vital +that, now that it has become discredited (in theory, if not in +practice), we can but wonder how it endured for so long. As an +ingenious instrument for arresting the mental growth of the child, +and deadening all his higher faculties, it has never had, and I +hope will never have, a rival. Far from fostering the growth of +those great expansive instincts--sympathetic, aesthetic, and +scientific--which Nature has implanted in every child, it set itself +to extirpate them, one and all, with ruthless pertinacity. As a +partial compensation for this work of wanton destruction, it made the +child blindly obedient, mechanically industrious, and (within very +narrow limits) accurate and thorough. I have described it at some +length because I see clearly that no one who does not realise what +the elementary school used to be, in the days of its sojourn in the +Land of Bondage, can even begin to understand why it is what it is +to-day. + +Having for thirty-three years deprived the teachers of almost every +vestige of freedom, the Department suddenly reversed its policy and +gave them in generous measure the boon which it had so long withheld. +Whether it was wise to give so much at so short a notice may be +doubted. What is beyond dispute is that it was unwise to expect so +great and so unexpected a gift to be used at once to full advantage. +A man who had grown accustomed to semi-darkness would be dazzled to +the verge of blindness if he were suddenly taken out into broad +daylight. This is what was done in 1895 to the teachers of England, +and it is not to be wondered at that many of them have been purblind +ever since. For thirty-three years they had been treated as machines, +and they were suddenly asked to act as intelligent beings. For +thirty-three years they had been practically compelled to do +everything for the child, and they were suddenly expected to give him +freedom and responsibility,--words which for many of them had +well-nigh lost their meaning. To comply with these unreasonable +demands was beyond their power. The grooves into which they had been +forced were far too deep for them. The routine to which they had +become accustomed had far too strong a hold on them. The one change +which they could make was to relax their own severe pressure on the +child. This they did, perhaps without intending to do it. Indeed, +now that there was no external examination to look forward to, the +pressure on the child may be said to have automatically relaxed +itself. What happened--I will not say in all schools, but in far too +many--was that the teaching remained as mechanical and unintelligent +as ever, that the teacher continued to distrust the child and to do +everything for him, but that the child gradually became slacker and +less industrious. Not that his teacher wished him to "slack," but +that the stimulus of the yearly examination had been withdrawn at a +time when there was nothing to take its place. Exercise is in itself +a delightful thing when it is wholesome, natural, and rational; +but when it is unwholesome, unnatural, and irrational, it will not +be taken in sufficient measure except in response to some strong +external stimulus. Under the old examination system an adequate +stimulus had been supplied by the combined influence of competition +and fear (chiefly the latter). When the examination system was +abolished, that stimulus necessarily lost its point. Had it then been +possible for the teacher to make the exercise which his pupils were +asked to take wholesome, natural, and rational, a new stimulus--that +of interest in their work--would have been applied to the pupils, and +they would have exerted themselves as they had never done before. +But it was not possible for the average teacher to execute at a +moment's notice a complete change of front, and it was unwise of the +Department to expect him to do so. Apart from an honourable minority, +who had always been in secret revolt against the despotism of the +Code, the old teachers were helpless and hopeless. The younger ones +had been through the mill themselves, first in the Elementary School, +then in the Pupil-Teacher Centre, and then in the Training College +(both the latter having been in too many cases cramming +establishments like the Elementary School); and when they went back +to work under a head teacher who was wedded to the old order of +things, they found no difficulty in falling in with his ways and +carrying out his wishes. If a young teacher, fresh from an +exceptionally enlightened Training College, became an assistant under +an old-fashioned head teacher, he soon had the "nonsense knocked out +of him," and was compelled to toe the line with the rest of the +staff. + +But it was not only because the teachers of England had got +accustomed to the Land of Bondage, that they shrank from entering the +Promised Land. There was, and still is, another and a stronger +reason. Wherever the teacher looks, he sees that the examination +system, with its demand for machine-made results, controls education; +and he feels that it is only by an accident that his school has +been exempted (in part at least) from its pressure. The Board of +Education still examine for labour certificates, for admission as +uncertificated assistants, for the teacher's certificate. They expect +head teachers to hold terminal examinations of all the classes in +their schools. They allow Local Authorities to examine children in +their schools as formally and as stringently as they please, and to +hold examinations for County Scholarships, for which children from +elementary schools are eligible. Admission to secondary schools of +all grades depends on success in passing entrance examinations. So +does admission to the various Colleges and Universities. In the +schools which prepare little boys for the "Great Public Schools," +the whole scheme of education Is dominated by the headmaster's desire +to win as many entrance scholarships as possible. In the "Great +Public Schools" the scheme of education is similarly dominated by +the headmaster's desire to win as many scholarships as possible +at the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. In the Universities all the +undergraduates without exception are reading for examinations of +various kinds,--pass "schools," honour "schools," Civil Service +examinations, and the like. Officers in the Army and Navy have never +done with examinations; and there is not a single profession which +can be entered through any door but that of a public examination. +Wherever the teacher looks he sees that examinations are held in high +honour, and that the main business of teachers of all grades is to +produce results which an outside examiner would accept as +satisfactory; and he naturally takes for granted that the production +of such results is the true function of the teacher, whether his +success in producing them is to be tested by a formal examination or +not. The air that he breathes is charged with ideas--ideas about life +in general and education in particular--which belong to the order of +things that he is supposed to have left behind him, and are fiercely +antagonistic to those as yet unrecognised ideas which give the new +order of things its meaning, its purpose, and its value. + +How can we expect the teacher to look inward when all the conditions +of his existence, not as a teacher only but also as a citizen and a +man, conspire to make him look outward? But if the Fates are against +his looking inward, to what purpose has he been emancipated from the +direct control of a system which had at least the merit of being in +line with all the central tendencies of Western civilisation? How +does it profit him to be free if, under the pressure of those +tendencies, the chief use that he makes of his freedom is to grind +out from his pupils results akin to those which were asked for in the +days of schedules and percentages? Freedom was given him in order +that he might be free to take thought for the vital welfare of his +pupils. Or, if freedom was not given to him for that purpose, it were +better that it had been withheld from him until those who were able +to give or withhold it had formed a juster conception of its meaning. + +The truth is that the exemption of the elementary school, and of it +alone among schools, from the direct pressure of the examination +system, is an isolated and audacious experiment, which is carried on +under conditions so unfavourable to its success that nothing but a +high degree of intelligence and moral courage (not to speak of +originality) on the part of the teacher can make it succeed. Can we +wonder that in many cases the experiment has proved a failure? + +At the end of the previous chapter I asked myself whether the +education that was given in the ordinary elementary school tended to +foster self-expression on the part of the child. We can now see what +the answer to this question is likely to be. For a third of a +century--from 1862 to 1895--self-expression on the part of the child +may be said to have been formally prohibited by all who were +responsible for the elementary education of the children of England, +and also to have been prohibited _de facto_ by all the unformulated +conditions under which the elementary school was conducted. In 1895 +the formal prohibition of self-expression ceased, but the _de facto_ +prohibition of it in the ordinary school is scarcely less effective +to-day than it was in the darkest days of the old _regime_. For + + "The evil that men do lives after them," + +and the old _regime_, though nominally abrogated, overshadows us +still. When I say this I do not merely mean that many teachers who +were brought up under the old _regime_ have been unable to emancipate +themselves from its influence. I mean that the old _regime_ was +itself the outcome and expression of traditional tendencies which +are of the essence of Western civilisation, of ways of thinking +and acting to which we are all habituated from our earliest days, +and that these tendencies and these ways of thinking and acting +overshadow us still. The formal abrogation of the old _regime_ counts +for little so long as the examination system, with its demand for +visible and measurable results and its implicit invitation to cram +and cheat, is allowed to cast its deadly shadow on education as +such,--and so long as the whole system on which the young of all +classes and grades are educated is favourable to self-deception on +the part of the teacher and fatal to sincerity on the part of the +child. Constrained by every influence that is brought to bear upon +him to judge according to the appearance of things, the teacher can +ill afford to judge righteous judgment,--can ill afford to regard +what is outward and visible as the symbol of what is inward and +spiritual, can ill afford to think of the work done by the child +except as a thing to be weighed in an examiner's balance or measured +by an examiner's rule. + +Things being as they are in the various grades of education and in +the various strata of social life, it is inevitable that the +education given in many of our elementary schools should be based, +in the main, on complete distrust of the child. In such schools, +whatever else the child may be allowed to do, he must not be allowed +to do anything by or for himself. He must not express what he really +feels and sees; for if he does, the results will probably fall short +of the standard of neatness, cleanness, and correctness which +an examiner might expect the school to reach. At any rate, the +experiment is much too risky to be tried. In the lower classes +the results produced would certainly be rough, imperfect, untidy. +Therefore self-expression must not be permitted in that part of the +school. And if not there, it must not be permitted anywhere, for the +longer it is delayed the greater will be the difficulty of starting +it and the greater the attendant risk. The child must not express +what he really perceives; and as genuine perception forces for itself +the outlet of genuine expression, he must not be allowed to exercise +his perceptive faculties. Instead of seeing things for himself, he +must see what his teacher directs him to see, he must feel what his +teacher directs him to feel, he must think what his teacher directs +him to think, and so on. But to forbid a child to use his own +perceptive faculties is to arrest the whole process of his growth. + +I will now go back to the _Arithmetic_ lesson. During the years in +which the children in elementary schools were examined individually +in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the one virtue which was +inculcated while the arithmetic lesson was in progress was that of +obedience to the formulated rule. On the yearly examination day it +was customary to give each child four questions in arithmetic, of +which only one was a "problem." Two sums correctly worked secured +a "pass"; and it was therefore possible for the child to achieve +salvation in arithmetic by blindly obeying the various rules with +which his teacher had equipped him. He had, indeed, to decide for +himself in each case which rule was to be followed; but he did this +(in most schools), not by thinking the matter out, but by following +certain by-rules given him by his teacher, which were based on a +careful study of the wording of the questions set by the inspector, +and which held good as long as that wording remained unchanged. For +example, if a subtraction sum was to be dictated to "Standard II," +the child was taught that the number which was given out first was to +be placed in the upper line, and that the number which came next was +to be subtracted from this. He was not taught that the lesser of the +two numbers was always to be subtracted from the larger; for in order +to apply that principle he would have had to decide for himself which +was the larger of the two numbers, and the consequent mental effort +was one which his teacher could not trust him to make. It is true +that in his desire to save the child from the dire necessity of +thinking, the teacher ran the risk of being discomfited by a sudden +change of procedure on the part of an inspector. The inspector, for +example, who, having been accustomed to say "From 95 take 57," chose +to say, for a change, "Take 57 from 95," would cause widespread havoc +in the first two or three schools that were the victims of his +unlooked-for experiment. But the risks which the teacher ran who +taught his pupils to rely on trickery rather than thought were worth +running; for the inspectors, like the teachers and the children, were +ever tending to become creatures of routine, and the vagaries of +those who had the reputation of being tiresomely versatile could be +provided against--largely, if not wholly--by increased ingenuity on +the part of the teacher, and increased attention to tricky by-rules +on the part of the child. + +The number of schools in which arithmetic is intelligently and even +practically taught is undoubtedly much larger than it was in the days +of payment by results; but there are still thousands of schools in +which obedience to the rule for its own sake is the basis of all +instruction in arithmetic. Now to live habitually by rule instead of +by thought is necessarily fatal, in every field of action, to the +development of that _sense_ or perceptive faculty, on which right +action ultimately depends. Following his reputed guide blindly, +mechanically, and with whole-hearted devotion, the votary of the rule +never allows his intuition, his faculty of direct perception and +subconscious judgment, to play even for a moment round the matters +on which he is engaged; and the result is that the faculty in +question is not merely prevented from growing, but is at last +actually blighted in the bud. This is but another way of saying what +I have already insisted upon,--that to forbid self-expression on the +part of the child is to starve his perceptive faculties into +non-existence. + +There is no folly perpetrated in the elementary school of to-day for +which there are not authoritative precedents to be found in the +conduct of one or other of the two great schools which the God of +Western theology is supposed to have opened for the education of Man. +And it is in that special development of the Legal School which +is known as Pharisaism that we shall look for a precedent for the +conventional teaching of arithmetic in our elementary schools. The +ultra-legalism of the Pharisee in the days of Christ finds its exact +counterpart in the ultra-legalism of the child who has been taught +arithmetic by the methods which the yearly examination fostered, and +which are still widely prevalent. In the one case there was, in the +other case there is, an entire inability on the part of the zealous +votary of the rule to estimate the intrinsic value of the results of +his blind and unintelligent action. The sense of humour, which is a +necessary element in every other healthy sense, and which so often +keeps us from going astray, by suddenly revealing to us the inherent +absurdity of our proposed action, is one of the first faculties to +succumb to the blighting influence of an ultra-legal conception of +life. As an example of the unwavering seriousness of the Pharisee in +the presence of what was intrinsically ridiculous, let us take his +attitude towards the problem of keeping food warm for the Sabbath +day. "According to Exodus xvi. 23, it was forbidden to bake and to +boil on the Sabbath. Hence the food, which it was desired to eat hot +on the Sabbath, was to be prepared before its commencement, and kept +warm by artificial means. In doing this, however, care must be taken +that the existing heat was not increased, which would have been +'boiling.' Hence the food must be put only into such substances as +would maintain its heat, not into such as might possibly increase it. +'Food to be kept warm for the Sabbath must not be put into oil-dregs, +manure, salt, chalk, or sand, whether moist or dry, nor into straw, +grape-skins, flock, or vegetables, if these are damp, though it may +if they are dry. It may, however, be put into clothes, amidst fruits, +pigeons' feathers, and flax tow. R. Jehudah declares flax tow +unallowable and permits only coarse tow.'"[10] Following his rule +out, step by step, with unflinching loyalty, into these ridiculous +consequences, the Pharisee had entirely lost the power of seeing that +they were ridiculous, and was well content to believe, with Jehudah, +that the difference between keeping food warm in coarse tow and in +flax tow was the difference between life and death. This _reductio +ad absurdum_ of legalism is exactly paralleled, in many of our +elementary schools, in the answers to arithmetical questions given by +the children. The "Fifth Standard" boys who told their inspector, as +an answer to an easy problem, that a given room was five shillings +and sixpence wide, had followed out their rule--they had +unfortunately got hold of a wrong rule--step by step, till it led +them to a conclusion, the intrinsic absurdity of which they were one +and all unable to see.[11] There are many elementary schools in +England in which a majority of the answers given to quite easy +problems would certainly be wrong, and a respectable minority of them +ludicrously wrong. Nor is this to be wondered at; for though the +types of problems that can be set in elementary schools are not +numerous, to provide his pupils with the by-rules which shall enable +them in all, or even in most cases, to determine which of the +recognised rules are appropriate to the given situation, passes the +wit of the teacher. But if the helplessness of so many elementary +scholars in the face of an arithmetical problem is lamentable, still +more lamentable is the fact that the scholar is seldom met with who, +having given an entirely wrong answer to an easy problem, is able to +see for himself that, whatever the right answer may be, the answer +given is and must be wrong. So fatal to the development of the +arithmetical sense is the current worship of the rule for its own +sake, and so deadly a narcotic is the conventional arithmetic lesson +to all who take part in it! + + It is not in the arithmetic lesson, then, that provision is +ordinarily made for the development of a sense, or perceptive +faculty, through the medium of self-expression on the part of the +child. On the contrary, the very _raison d'etre_ of the arithmetic +lesson, as it is still given in many schools, is to destroy the +arithmetical sense, and make the child an inefficient calculating +machine, which, even when working, is too often inaccurate and +clumsy, and which the slightest change of environment throws at +once and completely out of gear. + +After the arithmetical lesson come, as a rule, lessons in "_Reading_" +and "_Writing_"--in reading in some classes, in writing in others. +The first thing that strikes the visitor who enters an ordinary +elementary school while a reading lesson is in progress, is that the +children are not reading at all, in the accepted sense of the word. +They are not reading to themselves, not studying, not mastering the +contents of the book, not assimilating the mental and spiritual +nutriment that it may be supposed to contain. They are standing up, +one by one, even in the highest class of all, and reading aloud to +their teacher. + +Why are they doing this? Is it in order that their teacher may show +them how to master the more difficult words in their reading lesson? +This may be the reason, in some schools; but there are others, +perhaps a majority, in which the teacher tells his pupils the words +that puzzle them instead of helping them to make them out for +themselves. Besides, if reading were properly taught in the lower +classes, the children in the upper classes would surely be able to +master unaided the difficulties that might confront them. + +Or is it in order that elocution may be cultivated? But elocution is +seldom, if ever, cultivated in the ordinary elementary school, the +veriest mumbling on the part of the child being accepted by his +teacher (who follows him with an open book in his hand), provided +that he can read correctly and with some attempt at "phrasing." +Indeed, the indistinct utterance of so many school children may be +attributed to the fact that they have read aloud to their teachers +for many years, and that during the whole of that time a very low +standard of distinctness has been accepted as satisfactory. + +Or is it in order that the teacher may help his pupils to understand +what they are reading? This may be one of his reasons for hearing +them read aloud; but so far as the higher classes are concerned it is +a bad reason, for the older the child the more imperative is it that +he should try to make out for himself the meaning of what he reads; +and the teacher who spoon-feeds his pupils during the reading lesson +is doing his best to make them incapable of digesting the contents of +books for themselves. + +No, there are two chief reasons why the teacher makes children of +eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen years of age read aloud to him +as if they were children of six or seven. The first reason is that +the unemancipated teacher instinctively does to-day what he did +twenty years ago, and that twenty years ago, when children were +examined in reading from their own books, the teacher heard them read +aloud, day after day in order that he might make sure that they knew +their books well enough to pass the inspector's test. The second +reason, which is wider than the first, and may be said to include and +account for it, is that the reading-aloud lesson fits in with the +whole system of Western education, being the outcome and expression +of that complete distrust of the child which is, and always has been, +characteristic of the popular religion and philosophy of the West. If +you ask the teacher why the children, even in the highest classes, +are never allowed to work at such subjects as history and geography +by themselves, he will tell you frankly that he cannot trust them to +do so, that they do not know how to use a book. And he cannot see +that in giving this excuse he is condemning himself, and making open +confession of the worthlessness of the training that he has given to +his pupils. + +Whatever else the reading-aloud lesson may be, it is a dismal waste +of time. Child after child stands up, reads for a minute or so, and +then sits down, remaining idle and inert (except when an occasional +question is addressed to him) for the rest of the time occupied +by the so-called lesson. In this, as in most oral lessons, the +elementary school child passes much of his time in a state which is +neither activity nor rest,--a state of enforced inertness combined +with unnatural and unceasing strain. Activity is good for the child, +and rest, which, is the complement of activity, is good for the +child; but the combination of inertness with strain is good for +neither his body nor his mind. Indeed, it may be doubted if there is +any state of mind and body which is so uneducational as this, or so +unfavourable to healthy growth. + + But the main objection to the reading-aloud lesson is, I repeat, that +while it is going on the children are not reading at all, in the +proper sense of the word, not attacking the book, not enjoying it, +not extracting the honey from it. And the consequences of the +inability to read which is thus engendered are far-reaching and +disastrous. The power to read is a key which unlocks many doors. One +of the most important of these doors--perhaps, from the strictly +scholastic point of view, _the_ most important--is the door of study. +The child who cannot read to himself cannot study a book, cannot +master its contents. It is because the elementary school child cannot +be trusted to do any independent study, that the oral lesson, or +lecture, with its futile expenditure of "chalk and talk," is so +prominent a feature in the work of the elementary school. And it is +because the oral lesson necessarily counts for so much, that the +over-grouping of classes, with all its attendant evils, is so widely +practised. The grouping together of "Standards" V, VI, and VII, with +the result that the children who go through all those Standards are +compelled to waste the last two years of their school life, is a +practice which is almost universal in elementary schools of a certain +size. And there are few schools of that size in which those Standards +could not be broken up into two, if not three, independent classes, +if the children, whose ages range as a rule between eleven and +fourteen, could be trusted to work by themselves. In many cases this +over-grouping is wholly inexcusable, the headmaster having no class +of his own to teach, and being therefore free to do what obviously +ought to be done,--to separate the older and more advanced children +from the rest of the top class, and form them into a separate class +(a real top class) for independent study and self-education under his +direction and supervision. But so strong is the force of habit, and +so deeply rooted in the mind of the teacher is distrust of the child, +that it is rare to find the head teacher to whom the idea of breaking +up an over-grouped top class has suggested itself as practicable, or +even as intrinsically desirable. + +We owe it, then, to the reading-aloud fetich that in many of our +schools the children are compelled to spend the last two (or even +three) years of their school life--the most important years of all +from the point of view of their preparation for the battle of +life--in marking time, in staying where they were. It is to those +years of enforced stagnation that the reluctance of the ex-elementary +scholar to go on with his education is largely due; for no one can +keep on moving who is not already on the move, and the desire to +continue education is scarcely to be looked for in one who has been +given to understand that his education has come to an end. But there +is another and a shorter cut from the conventional reading lesson to +the early extinction of the child's educational career. The child who +leaves school without having learned how to use a book, will find +that the one door through which access is gained to most of the halls +of learning--the door of independent study--is for ever slammed in +his face. Not that he will seriously try to open it; for with the +ability to read the desire to read will have aborted. The distrust of +the child, on which Western education is based, is a bottomless gulf +in which educational effort, whatever form it may take or in whatever +quarter it may originate, is for the most part swallowed up and made +as though it had not been. The child who leaves school at the age of +fourteen will have attended some 2,000 or 3,000 reading lessons in +the course of his school life. From these, in far too many cases, he +will have carried nothing away but the ability to stumble with +tolerable correctness through printed matter of moderate difficulty. +He will not have carried away from them either the power or the +desire to read. + +In the days of percentages, instruction in "_Writing_" below Standard +V was entirely confined to handwriting and spelling; and even in the +higher Standards the teacher thought more about handwriting and +spelling than any other aspect of this composite subject. Now +handwriting and spelling are merely means to an end,--the end of +making clear to the reader the words that have been committed to +paper by the writer. But it is the choice rather than the setting +out of words that really matters, and the name that we give to the +choosing of words is Composition. The excessive regard that has +always been paid in our elementary schools to neat handwriting and +correct spelling is characteristic of the whole Western attitude +towards education. No "results" are more easily or more accurately +appraised than these, and it follows that no "results" are more +highly esteemed by the unenlightened teacher. For wherever the +outward standard of reality has established itself at the expense of +the inward, the ease with which worth (or what passes for such) can +be measured is ever tending to become in itself the chief, if not the +sole, measure of worth. And in proportion as we tend to value the +results of education for their measureableness, so we tend to +undervalue and at last to ignore those results which are too +intrinsically valuable to be measured. + + * * * * * + +Hence the neglect of _Composition_ in so many elementary schools. I +mean by composition the sincere expression in language of the child's +genuine thoughts and feelings. The effort to "compose," whether +orally or on paper, is one of the most educational of all efforts; +for language is at once the most readily available and the most +subtle and sympathetic of all media of expression; and the effort +to express himself in it tends, in proportion as it is sincere +and strong, to give breadth, depth, and complexity to the child's +thoughts and feelings, and through the development of these to weave +his experiences into the tissue of his life. But sincerity of +expression is not easily measured, and the true value of the thoughts +and feelings that are struggling to express themselves in a child's +composition is beyond the reach of any rule or scale; whereas +neatness of handwriting and correctness of spelling are, as we have +seen, features which appeal even to the carelessly observant eye. + +Knowing this, the teacher takes care that the exercise-books of his +pupils shall be filled with neat and accurate composition exercises, +and that some of the neatest and most accurate of these shall be +exhibited on the walls of his school. The visitor whose eye ranges +over these exercises and goes no further may be excused if he forms +a highly favourable opinion of the school which can produce such +seemingly excellent work. But let him spend a morning in the school, +and see how these "results" have been produced. He will probably +change his mind as to their value. The teaching of composition in +the ordinary elementary school is too often fraudulent and futile. +Indeed, there is no lesson in which the teacher's traditional +distrust of the child goes further than in this. In the lower classes +the child is taught how to construct simple sentences (as if he +had never made one in the previous course of his life), and he is +not trusted to do more than this. He listens to a so-called object +lesson, and when it is over he is told to write a few simple +sentences about the Cow or the Horse, or whatever the subject of the +lesson may have been; and lest his memory (the only faculty which he +is allowed to exercise) should fail him, the chief landmarks of the +lesson are placed before him on the blackboard. This string of simple +sentences reproduced from memory passes muster as composition. And +yet that child began to practise oral composition at the age of +eighteen months, and at the age of three was able to use complex +sentences with freedom and skill. In the upper classes the +composition is too often as mechanical, as unreal, and as insincere +as in the lower. Sometimes a given subject is worked out by the +teacher with the class, the children, one by one, suggesting +sentences, which are shaped and corrected by the teacher and then +written up on the blackboard, until there are enough of them to fill +one page of an ordinary exercise book. Then the whole essay (if one +must dignify it with that name) is copied out, very neatly and +carefully, by every child in the class; and the result is shown to +the inspector as original composition. At other times or in other +schools the class teacher does not go quite so far as this. He +contents himself with talking the subject over with the class, and +then writing a series of headings[12] on the blackboard. Or, again, +trusting to the child's red-hot memory, he will allow him to write +out what he remembers of an object-lesson, or a history lesson, or +whatever it may be. Composition exercises which are the genuine +expression of genuine perception, which have behind them what the +child has experienced, what he has felt or thought, what he has read, +what he has studied, are the exception rather than the rule; for +in such exercises there would probably be faults of spelling, +faults of grammar, colloquialisms, careless writing (due to the +child's eagerness), and so forth; and the work would therefore be +unsatisfactory from the showman's point of view. The child's natural +capacity for expressing himself in language is systematically starved +in order that outward and visible results, results which will win +approval from those who judge according to the appearance of things, +may be duly produced. + +The case of oral composition in the unemancipated elementary school +is even more hopeless than that of written composition. The latter +has a time set apart for it on the time-table, and is at any rate +supposed to be taught. The former is wholly ignored. Many teachers +seem to have entirely forgotten that the desire and the ability to +talk are part of the normal equipment of every healthy child. There +was, indeed, a time when children were taught to answer questions +in complete sentences even when one-word answers would have amply +sufficed. For example, when a child was asked how many pence there +were in a shilling, he was expected to answer, "There are twelve +pence in a shilling"; when he was asked what was the colour of snow, +he was expected to answer, "The colour of snow is white "; and so on. +And both he and his teacher flattered themselves that this waste of +words was oral composition! In point of fact the sentence in each of +these cases was worth no more, as an effort of self-expression, than +its one important word--_twelve_, _white_, or whatever it might be; +and the child, who was allowed to think that he had produced a real +sentence, had in effect done no more than envelop one real word in a +hollow formula. There are still many schools in which this ridiculous +practice lingers, and in which it constitutes the only attempt at +oral composition that the child is allowed to make. Where it has died +out the idea of teaching oral composition has too often died with it. +Young children are, as a rule, voluble talkers, with a considerable +command of language. But it not infrequently happens that at the +close of his school life the once talkative child has lapsed into a +state of sullen taciturnity. In common with other vital faculties, +his power of expressing himself in speech has withered in the +repressive atmosphere to which he has so long been exposed. + +It is in the oral lesson that one would expect oral composition to +be taught or at any rate practised. In such subjects as _History_, +_Geography_, _English_, _Elementary Science_, the teaching in most +elementary schools is mainly, if not wholly, oral. In the days of +payment by results separate and variable grants were given for these +subjects; and which, if either, of two grants should be recommended +depended in each case on the result of an oral examination conducted +by H.M. Inspector, the employment of a written test in any class +being strictly forbidden by "My Lords." In this examination proof +of the possession of information was all that the inspector could +demand; and the quickest and easiest way of obtaining such proof +was to ask the class questions which could be briefly answered by +the children individually. Questions which were designed to test +intelligence might, of course, have been asked, and in some districts +were freely asked; but to have reduced the grant because the children +failed to answer these would have provoked an outcry; while, had the +inspector asked questions which demanded long answers, he would, in +the limited time at his command, have given but few children the +chance of showing that they had been duly prepared for the +examination. The consequence was that the oral lesson on a "class +subject" usually took the form of stuffing the children with pellets +of appropriate information, some of which they would, in all +probability, have the opportunity of disgorging when they were +questioned by the inspector on the yearly "parade day." + +Not only, then, did the official examination in history, geography +and elementary science direct the teaching of these subjects into +channels in which the golden opportunities that they offer for the +practice of written composition were perforce thrown away, but also +the examination was so framed that even the practice of oral +composition, in preparation for it, was actively discouraged. And the +neglect of composition acted disastrously on the teaching of the +subjects in question; for wherever self-expression on the part of the +child is forbidden, the appropriate "sense," or perceptive faculty, +cannot possibly evolve itself,--perception and expression being, as +we have elsewhere seen, the very life and soul of each other; and in +the absence (to take pertinent examples) of the historical or the +geographical sense, the possession of historical or geographical +information cannot possibly be converted into knowledge of history +or geography. The prompt, accurate, and general answering which was +rewarded by the award of the higher grants for "class subjects" was, +in nine cases out of ten, the outcome of assiduous and unintelligent +cram,--a mode of preparation for which the policy of the Education +Department was mainly responsible. + + But when separate grants ceased to be paid for class subjects, were +not the teachers free to teach them by rational methods? No doubt +they were--in theory. In point of fact they were in bondage to the +strongest of all constraining influences,--the force of inveterate +habit. For twenty years they had taught the class subjects by the one +safe method of vigorous oral cram. This method had answered their +purpose, and it was but natural that they should continue to teach by +it. What happened, when separate grants ceased to be paid, was that +the need for responsiveness on the part of the scholar gradually +lessened. The pellets of information were still imparted, but it +became less and less incumbent upon the teacher to see that his +pupils were ready to disgorge them at a moment's notice. And so the +cramming lesson gradually transformed itself into a _lecture_, in +which the teacher did all or nearly all the talking, while the +children sat still and listened or pretended to listen, an occasional +yawn giving open proof of the boredom from which most of them were +suffering. + +That is the type of oral lesson which is most common at the present +day. "Results" in history, geography, nature study and English are +seldom asked for by the inspector; and the teacher takes but little +trouble to produce them. But his distrust of the child is as firmly +rooted as ever, and his unwillingness to allow the child to work by +or for himself is as strong as it ever was. The consequence is that +there are many schools in which the teacher now does everything +during the oral lesson, while the child does as nearly as possible +nothing. Formerly the child was at any rate allowed (or rather +required) to be actively receptive. Now he is seldom allowed to do +anything more active than to yawn. And all the time he is secretly +longing to energise--to do something with himself--to use his mental, +if not his physical faculties--to work, if not to play. One might +have thought that in the history and geography lessons, if in no +other, "Standards VI" and "VII" (where the numbers were too small +to admit of these standards having a teacher to themselves) would +be separated from "Standard V," and allowed to work out their own +salvation by studying suitable text-books under proper supervision +and guidance. But no; the force of habit is too strong for the +machine-made teacher. Twenty years ago history and geography were +"class subjects," and as such were taught orally to whole classes of +children. And they must still be taught as "class subjects," even +if this should involve the "Sixth" and "Seventh Standards" being +brigaded with, and kept down for one or even two years to, the level +of the "Fifth,"--kept down, it would seem, for no other purpose than +that of being the passive recipients of the teacher's windy "talk," +and the helpless witnesses of his futile "chalk," and of having their +own activities paralysed and their own powers of expression starved +into inanition. + +I will deal with one more "secular" subject before I bring this +sketch to a close. There are still many schools in which the hours +that are set apart for _Drawing_ are devoted in large measure to the +slavish reproduction of flat copies. A picture of some familiar +object--outlined, shaded, or tinted as the case may be, and not +infrequently highly conventionalised--hangs in front of the class; +and the children copy it, stroke by stroke, and curve by curve, and +put in the shading and lay on washes of colour. As long practice at +work of this kind develops a certain degree of manual dexterity, and +as the free use of india-rubber is permitted and even encouraged, the +child's finished work may be so neat and accurate as to become worthy +of a place on the school wall. But what is the value, what is the +meaning of work of this kind? When such a drawing lesson as I have +described is in progress, the divorce between perception and +expression is complete. And as each of these master faculties is the +very life and soul of the other, their complete divorce from one +another involves the complete eclipse of each. The child who copies +a flat copy does not perceive anything except some other person's +reproduction of a scene or object; and even this he does not +necessarily grasp as a whole, his business being to reproduce it with +flawless accuracy, line by line. Indeed, it may well happen that he +does not even know what the picture or diagram before him is intended +to represent. Nor is he expressing anything, for he has not made his +model in any sense or degree his own. Thus, during the whole of a +lesson in which the perceptive and expressive faculties are supposed +to be receiving a special training, they are lying dormant and inert. +Each of them is, for the time being, as good as dead. And each of +them will assuredly die if this kind of teaching goes on for very +long, die for lack of exercise, die wasted and atrophied by disuse. +The extent to which the copying of copies can injure a child's power +of observation exceeds belief. I have seen a bowl placed high above +the line of sight of a class of fifty senior boys, each one of whom +(his memory being haunted, I suppose, by some diagram which he had +once copied) drew it as if he were looking into it from above. Not +one of those boys could see the bowl as it really was, or rather +as it really was to be seen. A child who had never drawn a stroke +in his life, but whose perceptive faculties had not been deadened +by education, would have sketched the bowl more correctly than +any of those quasi-experts. And with the wasting of the power of +observation, the executive power is gradually lost; for perception +is ever interpenetrating, reinforcing, and stimulating expression; +and when the eye is blind, the hand, however skilful its mere +manipulation may be, necessarily falters and loses its cunning. + +Four or five years ago, had one entered an elementary school while +drawing was being taught, such a lesson as I have just described +would have been in progress in ninety-nine cases out of every +hundred. Since then a systematic warfare has been waged by the Board +against the "flat copy"; and though it is still very far from +extinct, there is now perhaps an actual majority of schools in which +its use has been discontinued. But the number of schools in which +drawing from the object is effectively taught, though increasing +steadily, is still small. In those schools, indeed, the results are +surprisingly good,--so good as to justify, not only the new gospel of +drawing from the object, but also the whole gospel of education +through self-reliance and self-expression. But elsewhere there has +been but little improvement, except so far as it may be better to +draw from an object without guidance, or with quite ineffective +guidance, than to draw from a flat copy. In some schools the formula +or "tip" is beginning to take the place of the flat copy. There is a +formula for the tulip, a formula for the snowdrop, a formula for the +daffodil, and so on; and the children draw from these formulae while +the actual flowers are before them and they are making believe to +reproduce them. In other schools an object is placed before the +class, and the teacher draws this for them on the blackboard, +explaining to them in detail how it ought to be drawn; and when he +has finished, the children pretend to draw the object, but really +copy his blackboard copy of it. In this, as in other matters, the +teacher who has become a victim of routine will give a facile but +mainly "notional" assent to the suggestions that are placed before +him, will promise to try them, and will make an unintelligent and +half-hearted attempt to do so, but will as often as not slide back +into practices which do not materially differ from those which he +professes to have abandoned. The pressure of the whole system of +Western education--not to speak of Western civilisation--will be too +strong for him. The flat copy, with its demand for mechanical work +and servile obedience, fits into that system. Drawing from the +object, with its demand for initiative and self-reliance, does not. +Hence the attractive force of the former,--a secret attractive force +which will neutralise the efforts that the teacher consciously makes +to free himself from its influence, and will arm him, as with +a hidden shirt of mail, against the missionary zeal of his +inspector.[13] Even the zeal of the inspector will be affected by his +possible inability to harmonise his gospel of self-expression in +drawing with any general system of self-education. It is because the +educational reformer is fighting, in his sporadic attempts at reform, +against his own deepest conviction, that he achieves so little even +in the particular directions in which he sees clearly that reform is +needed. + +But how, it will be asked, is such a school as I have described to be +kept going? The whole _regime_ must be eminently distasteful to the +healthy child, and it can scarcely be attractive to his teacher. By +what motive force, then, is the school to be kept in motion,--in +motion, if not along the path of progress, at any rate along the +well-worn track of routine? By the only motive force which +the religion and the civilisation of the West recognise as +effective,--the hope of external reward, with its complement, the +fear of external punishment. From highest to lowest, from the head +teacher of the school to the youngest child in the bottom class, all +the teachers and all the children are subjected to the pressure of +this quasi-physical force. The teachers hope for advancement and +increase of salary, and fear degradation and loss of salary, or at +any rate loss of the hoped-for increment.[14] The children hope for +medals, books, high places in their respective classes, and other +rewards and distinctions, and fear corporal and other kinds of +punishment. The thoroughly efficient school is one in which this +motive force is duly transmitted to every part of the school +by means of a well-planned and carefully-elaborated machinery, +analogous to that by which water and gas are laid on at every +tap in every house in a well-governed town. Only those who are +intimately acquainted with the inside of the elementary school can +realise to what an extent the machinery of education has in recent +years encroached upon the vital interests of the school and the time +and thought of the teacher. In schools which are administered by +business-like and up-to-date Local Authorities, this encroachment is +becoming as serious as that of drifting sands on a fertile soil. +Time-tables, schemes of work, syllabuses, record books, progress +books, examination result books, and the rest,--hours and hours are +spent by the teachers on the clerical work which these mechanical +contrivances demand. And the hours so spent are too often wholly +wasted. The worst of this machinery is that, so long as it works +smoothly, all who are interested in the school are satisfied. But +it may all work with perfect smoothness, and yet achieve nothing +that really counts. I know of hundreds of schools which are to all +appearance thoroughly efficient,--schools in which the machinery of +education is as well contrived as it is well oiled and cleaned,--and +yet in which there is no vital movement, no growth, no life. From +highest to lowest, all the inmates of those schools are cheating +themselves with forms, figures, marks, and other such empty symbols. + +The application of the conventional motive force to the school +children goes by the name of _Discipline_. If the pressure at each +tap is steady, constant, and otherwise effective, the discipline is +good. If it is variable, intermittent, and otherwise ineffective, +the discipline is bad. The life of the routine-ridden school is so +irksome to the child, that if he is healthy and vigorous he will long +to find a congenial outlet for his vital energies, which are as a +rule either pent back (as when he sits still listening to a lecture), +or forced into uninteresting and unprofitable channels. When this +desire masters him during school hours, it goes by the name of +"naughtiness," and is regarded as a proof of the inborn sinfulness +of his "fallen" nature. To repress the desire, to keep the child in +a state either of absolute inaction or of mechanically regulated +activity, is the function of school discipline. Whatever in the +child's life is free, natural, spontaneous, wells up from an evil +source. If educational progress is to be made, that source must be +carefully sealed. As an educator, the teacher must do his best +to reduce the child to the level of a wire-pulled puppet. As a +disciplinarian, he must overcome the child's instinctive repugnance +to being subjected to such unworthy treatment. The better the +"discipline" of the school, the easier it will be for the mechanical +education given in it to achieve its deadly work. + +In making this sketch of what is still a common type of elementary +school, my object has been to provide myself with materials for +answering the question: Does elementary education, as at present +conducted in this country, tend to foster the growth of the child's +faculties? If my sketch is even approximately faithful to its +original, the answer to the question, so far at least as thousands of +schools are concerned, must be an emphatic No. For in the school, as +I have sketched it, the one end and aim of the teacher is to prevent +the child from doing anything whatever for himself; and where +independent effort is prohibited, the growth of faculty must needs be +arrested, the growth of every faculty, as of every limb and organ, +being dependent in large measure on its being duly and suitably +exercised by its owner. If this statement is true of faculty as such, +and of effort as such, still more is it true of the particular +faculties which school life is supposed to train, the faculties which +we speak of loosely as perceptive,--and of the particular effort by +which alone the growth of the perceptive faculties is effected, the +many-sided effort which we speak of loosely as self-expression. Far +perception and expression are, as I have endeavoured to prove, the +face and obverse of the same vital process; and the educational +policy which makes self-expression, or, in other words, sincere +expression, impossible, is therefore fatal to the outgrowth of the +whole range of the perceptive faculties. + +The education given in thousands of our elementary schools is, then, +in the highest degree anti-educational. The end which education +ought to aim at achieving is the very end which the teacher labours +unceasingly to defeat. The teacher may, indeed, contend that his +business is not to evoke faculty but to impart knowledge. The answer +to this argument is that the type of education which impedes the +outgrowth of faculty is necessarily fatal to the acquisition of +knowledge. For the teacher can no more impart knowledge to his pupils +than a nurse can impart flesh and blood to her charges. What the +teacher imparts is information, just as what the nurse imparts is +food; and until information has been converted into knowledge the +child is as far from being educated as the infant, whose food +remains unassimilated, is from being nourished. The teacher may pump +information into the child in a never-ending stream; but so long as +he compels the child to adopt an attitude of passive receptivity, and +forbids him to react, through the medium of self-expression, on the +food that he is receiving, so long will the food remain unassimilated +and even undigested, and the soul and mind of the child remain +uneducated and unfed. + +Whether, then, we concern ourselves, as educationalists, with the +growth of the child's whole nature, or with the growth of his master +faculties, or again with the growth of those special "senses" +which evolve themselves in response to the stimulus of special +environments, we see that in each case the effect of the teacher's +policy of distrust and repression is to arrest growth. When the +stern supernaturalist reminds us that the child's nature is +intrinsically evil, and that therefore in arresting its growth +education renders him a priceless service, we answer that, in +arresting the growth of the child's nature as a whole, education +arrests the growth of all the master faculties of his being, and +that there are some at least among these which, even in the judgment +of the supernaturalist, imperatively need to be trained. When the +strait-laced, result-hunting teacher reminds us that his sole +business is to teach certain subjects, and that therefore he cannot +concern himself with growth, we answer that, in neglecting to foster +growth, he makes it impossible for the child to put forth a special +"sense," a special faculty of direct perception, in response to each +new environment, and so (for reasons which have already been given) +incapacitates him for mastering any subject. There is always one +point of view, if no more, from which my primary assumption--that +the function of education is to foster growth--is seen to be a +truism. And from that point of view, if from no other, the failure +of the routine-ridden school to fulfil its destiny is seen to be +final and complete. + +Yet to say that elementary education, as it is given in such a +school, tends to arrest growth, is to under-estimate its capacity for +mischief. In the act of arresting growth it must needs distort +growth, and in doing this it must needs deaden and even destroy the +life which is ever struggling to evolve itself. It is well that from +time to time we should ask ourselves what compulsory education has +done for the people of England. How much it has done to civilise +and humanise the masses is beginning to be known to all who are +interested in social progress, and I for one am ready to second any +vote of thanks that may be proposed to it for this invaluable +service.[15] But when we ask ourselves what it has done to _vitalise_ +the nation, we may well hesitate for an answer. Twenty years ago, in +the days of "schedules" and "percentages," elementary education was, +on balance, an actively devitalising agency. The policy of the +Education Department made that inevitable. But things have changed +since then; and it is probable that the balance is now in favour of +the elementary school. But the balance, though growing from year to +year, is as yet very small compared with what it will be when the +teacher, relieved from the pressure of the still prevailing demand +for "results," is free to take thought for the vital interests of the +child. + +Whom shall we blame for the shortcomings of our elementary schools? +The Board of Education? Their Inspectors? The Teachers? The Training +Colleges? The Local Authorities? We will blame none of these. We will +blame the spirit of Western civilisation, with its false philosophy +of life and its false standard of reality. + +Shall we blame the Board because, in the days when they called +themselves the Department, they made the teachers of England the +serfs of their soul-destroying Code? For my own part I prefer to +honour the Board, not only because on a certain day they liberated +their serfs by a departmental edict, but also and more especially +because, in defiance of the protests and criticisms of Members of +Parliament, employers of labour, Chairmen of Education Committees, +and others, in defiance of the ubiquitous pressure of Western +externalism and materialism, in defiance of the trend of contemporary +opinion, in defiance of their own practice,--for they themselves are +an examining body whose nets are widely spread,--they refuse to +revoke the gift of freedom, which they gave, perhaps over-hastily, to +the teachers of England, and continue to exempt them, so far as their +own action is concerned, from the pressure of a formal examination on +a uniform scheme of work. + +Shall we blame the teachers as a body because too many of them are +machine-made creatures of routine? For my own part I honour the +teachers as a body, if only because here and there one of them has +dared, with splendid courage, to defy the despotism of custom, of +tradition, of officialdom, of the thousand deadening influences that +are brought to bear upon him, and to follow for himself the path of +inwardness and life. To blame the average teacher for being unable to +resist the pressure to which he is unceasingly exposed would be +almost as unfair as to blame a pebble on the seashore for being +unable to resist the grinding action of the waves, and would ill +become one who has special reason to remember how the Department, in +its misguided zeal for efficiency, strove for thirty years or more +to grind the teachers of England to one pattern in the mill of +"payment by results." It is to a certificated teacher that, as an +educationalist (if I may give myself so formidable a title), "I owe +my soul." And there are many other teachers to whom my debts, though +less weighty than this, are by no means light. Most of the failings +of the elementary teachers are wounds and strains which adverse Fate +has inflicted on them. Most of their virtues are their own. + +Shall we blame the Training Colleges because, with an unhappy past +behind them, they have yet many things to unlearn? + +Shall we blame the local Education Authorities because, with an +unknown future before them, they have yet many things to learn? + +No, I repeat, we will blame none of these. We will lay the blame on +broader shoulders. We will blame our materialistic philosophy of +life, which we complacently regard--orthodox and heretics alike--as +"_The_ truth"; and we will blame our materialised civilisation, which +we complacently regard--cultured and uncultured alike--as +civilisation, pure and simple, whatever lies beyond its confines +being lightly dismissed as "barbarism." These are the forces against +which every teacher, every manager, every inspector, who strives for +emancipation and enlightenment, has to fight unceasingly. If the +fight is an unequal one; if there are many would-be reformers who +have shrunk from it; if there are others who retired from it early in +the day; if there are others, again, who have been crushed in +it;--we will blame the forces of darkness for these disasters; we +will not blame their victims. On the contrary, we will honour all who +have fought and fallen; for when the cause is large and worthy of +devotion, failure in the service of it is only less triumphant than +success. But if there is honour for failure what shall be the guerdon +of success? What tribute shall we pay to those who have fought and +won? + +For there are some who have fought and won. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] It must be clearly understood that throughout this +chapter the school that I have in mind is one for "older children" +only. Whatever may be the defects of the elementary infant schools, +an excessive regard for outward and visible results is not one of +them. Exemption from the pressure of a formal external examination +has meant much more to them than to the schools for older children; +and the atmosphere of the good infant schools is, in consequence, +freer, happier, more recreative, and more truly educative than that +of the upper schools of equivalent merit. And when we compare grade +with grade, we find that the superiority of the elementary infant +schools is still more pronounced. The "Great Public Schools," and the +costly preparatory schools that lead up to them, may or may not be +worthy of their high reputation; but as regards facilities for the +education (in school) of their "infants," the "classes" are +unquestionably much less fortunate than the "masses." + +[7] Not long ago I happened to enter the Boys' Department of +an urban Church School at about 9.15 a.m. The Headmaster was sitting +at his desk, drawing up schemes of "secular" work. All the boys above +"Standard III"--94 in number--were grouped together, listening, or +pretending to listen, to a "chalk-and-talk" lecture on "Prayer" [of +which there are apparently five varieties, viz., (1) Invocation, (2) +Deprecation, (3) Obsecration, (4) Intercession, (5) Supplication]. +The Headmaster explained to me that "of course it was only during the +Scripture lesson" that this overgrouping went on. The lecture on +Prayer was given by a young Assistant-master, whose naive delight in +the long words that he rolled out _ore rotundo_ and then chalked up +on the blackboard, had blinded him to the obvious fact that he was +making no impression whatever on his audience. The boys, one and all, +reminded me forcibly of the "white-headed boy" in Dickens' village +school, who displayed "in the expression of his face a remarkable +capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which +his eyes were fixed." + +[8] There are many elementary schools which the Diocesan +Inspector does not enter. In the "Provided" or "Council" Schools +"undenominational Bible teaching" takes the place of the "definite +dogmatic instruction in religious knowledge" which is tested by +Diocesan Inspection. But even when undogmatic Bible teaching is +given, the shadow of an impending examination, external or internal +as the case may be, too often sterilises the efforts of the teacher. +Not that the efforts of the teacher would in any case be productive +so long as the attitude of popular thought towards the Bible remained +unchanged. To go into this burning question would involve me in an +unjustifiable digression; but I must be allowed to express my +conviction that the teaching of the Bible in our elementary schools +will never be anything but misguided and mischievous until those who +are responsible for it have realised that the Old Testament is the +inspired literature of a particular people, and have ceased to regard +it as the authentic biography of the Eternal God. It is to the +current misconception of the meaning and value of the Bible, and the +consequent misconception of the relation of God to Nature and to Man, +that the externalism of the West, which is the source of all the +graver defects of modern education, is (as I contend) largely due; +and it is useless to try to remedy those defects so long as we allow +our philosophy of life to be perennially poisoned at its highest +springs. + +[9] In far too many cases the teacher received a certain +proportion of the Grant; and in any case his value in the market +tended to vary directly with his ability to secure a large Grant for +his school by his success in the yearly examination. + +[10] _The Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ_, by Dr. +Emil Schuerer. + +[11] Here is another example of the mental blindness which +rule-worship in Arithmetic is apt to induce. The boys in a large +"Standard II," who had been spending the whole year in adding, +subtracting, multiplying, and dividing tens of thousands, were given +the following sum: A farmer had 126 sheep. He bought nine. How many +had he then? Out of 50 boys, one only worked the sum correctly. Of +the remaining 49, about a third _multiplied_ 126 by 9, another third +_divided_ 126 by 9, while the remaining third _subtracted_ 9 from +126. + +[12] Reinforced in many cases by suggestive words. I +recently found myself in an urban school while the "Fourth Standard" +boys were doing "Composition." The subject--Trees--had already been +dealt with in a preparatory "talk." In front of the class was a +blackboard, on which were written the following words: + + "fruit, flowers, + I. _Roots_ tough, strong, stretch, extend. + II. _Trunk_ thick, branches, bark. + III. _Branches_ strong, tough, leaves. + IV. _Leaves_ green, shapes, sizes, beautiful, clothe, autumn, brown." + +I am told that sometimes as many as twelve headings are given, each +with its own list of suggestive words. + +[13] I was recently present at a large gathering of teachers +who had assembled to discuss the teaching of Drawing and other +kindred topics. The district is one in which the gospel of self-help +in Drawing has been preached with diligence and with much apparent +success. One of the teachers, who was expected to support the Board +in their crusade against the "flat copy," played the part of Balaam +by reading out letters from certain distinguished R.A.'s, in which +the use of the flat copy in elementary schools was openly advocated. +It was evident that those distinguished R.A.'s knew as much about +elementary education as the man in the street knows about naval +tactics, for the arguments by which they supported their paradoxical +opinions were worth exactly nothing. But the salvos of applause, +renewed again and again, which greeted the extracts from their +letters showed clearly in which direction the current of subconscious +conviction was running in that evangelised and apparently converted +district. + +[14] There are few teachers who do not also work from higher +motives than these; but there are very few who are exempt from the +pressure of these. + +[15] It is pleasant to read that at Southend on Easter +Monday (1910) there were 65,000 excursionists and only two cases of +drunkenness. It is also pleasant to hear from an officer who has +served for many years in India that the modern English private +soldier in India is an infinitely superior being to his predecessors, +and that India could not now be held by the old type of British +soldier. We must not, however, forget that the "old type" conquered +India. + + + + +PART II + +WHAT MIGHT BE + +OR + +THE PATH OF SELF-REALISATION + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A SCHOOL IN UTOPIA + + +Having painted in gloomy colours some of the actualities of +elementary education, I will now try to set forth its possibilities. +In opposing the actual to the possible, I am perhaps running the risk +of being misunderstood. The possible, as I conceive it, is no mere +"fabric of a dream." What are possibilities for the elementary +school, as such, are already actualities in certain schools. Were it +not so, I should not speak of them as possibilities. I do not pretend +to be a prophet, in the vulgar sense of the word. The ends which I am +about to set before managers and teachers are ends which have been +achieved, and are being achieved, _under entirely normal conditions_, +in various parts of the country, and which are therefore not +impracticable. There are many elementary schools in England in which +bold and successful departures have been made from the beaten track; +and in each of these cases what is at present a mere possibility for +most schools has been actually realised. And there is one elementary +school at least in which the beaten track has been entirely +abandoned, with the result that possibilities (as I may now call +them) which I might perhaps have dismissed on _a priori_ grounds as +too fantastic for serious consideration, have become part of the +everyday life of the scholars. + + That school shall now become the theme of my book; for I feel that I +cannot serve the cause of education better than by trying to describe +and interpret the work that is being done in it. The school belongs +to a village which I will call Utopia. It is not an imaginary +village--a village of Nowhere--but a very real village, which can be +reached, as all other villages can, by rail and road. It nestles at +the foot of a long range of hills; and if you will climb the slope +that rises at the back of the village, and look over the level +country that you have left behind, you will see in the distance the +gleaming waters of one of the many seas that wash our shores. The +village is fairly large, as villages go in these days of rural +depopulation; and the school is attended by about 120 children. The +head teacher, whose genius has revolutionised the life, not of the +school only, but of the whole village, is a woman. I will call her +Egeria. She has certainly been my Egeria, in the sense that whatever +modicum of wisdom in matters educational I may happen to possess, I +owe in large measure to her. I have paid her school many visits, and +it has taken me many months of thought to get to what I believe to be +the bed-rock of her philosophy of education,--a philosophy which I +will now attempt to expound. + +Two things will strike the stranger who pays his first visit to this +school. One is the ceaseless activity of the children. The other is +the bright and happy look on every face. In too many elementary +schools the children are engaged either in laboriously doing +nothing,--in listening, for example, with ill-concealed yawns, to +_lectures_ on history, geography, nature-study, and the rest; or +in doing what is only one degree removed from nothing,--working +mechanical sums, transcribing lists of spellings or pieces of +composition, drawing diagrams which have no meaning for them, and +so forth. But in this school every child is, as a rule, actively +employed. And bearing in mind that "unimpeded energy" is a recognised +source of happiness, the visitor will probably conjecture that there +is a close connection between the activity of the children and the +brightness of their faces. + +That the latter feature of the school will arrest his attention is +almost certain. Utopia belongs to a county which is proverbial for +the dullness of its rustics, but there is no sign of dullness on the +face of any Utopian child. On the contrary, so radiantly bright are +the faces of the children that something akin to sunshine seems +always to fill the school. When he gets to know the school, the +visitor will realise that the brightness of the children is of two +kinds,--the brightness of energy and intelligence, and the brightness +of goodness and joy. And when he gets to know the school as well as I +do, he will realise that these two kinds of brightness are in their +essence one. + +Let me say something about each of them. + +The Utopian child is alive, alert, active, full of latent energy, +ready to act, to do things, to turn his mind to things, to turn his +hand to things, to turn his desire to things, to turn his whole being +to things. There is no trace in this school of the mental lethargy +which, in spite of the ceaseless activity of the teachers, pervades +the atmosphere of so many elementary schools; no trace of the fatal +inertness on the part of the child, which is the outcome of five or +six years of systematic repression and compulsory inaction. The air +of the school is electrical with energy. We are obviously in the +presence of an active and vigorous life. + +And the activity of the Utopian child is his own activity. It is +a fountain which springs up in himself. Unlike the ordinary +school-child, he can do things on his own account. He does not wait, +in the helplessness of passive obedience, for his teacher to tell him +what he is to do and how he is to do it. He does not even wait, in +the bewilderment of self-distrust, for his teacher to give him a +lead. If a new situation arises, he deals with it with promptitude +and decision. His solution of the problem which it involves may be +incorrect, but at any rate it will be a solution. He will have faced +a difficulty and grappled with it, instead of having waited inertly +for something to turn up. His initiative has evidently been developed +_pari passu_ with his intelligence; and the result of this is that he +can think things out for himself, that he can devise ways and means, +that he can purpose, that he can plan. + +In all these matters the Utopian child differs widely and deeply from +the less fortunate child who has to attend a more ordinary type of +elementary school. But when we turn to the other aspect of the +Utopian brightness, when we consider it as the reflected light of +goodness and joy, we find that the difference between the two +children is wider and deeper still. There are many schools outside +Utopia that pride themselves on the excellence of their discipline; +but I am inclined to think that in some at least of these the +self-satisfaction of the teacher is equivalent to a confession of +failure. There was a time when every elementary school received a +large grant for instruction and a small grant for discipline; and +inspectors were supposed to report separately on each of these +aspects of the school's life. A strange misconception of the meaning +and purpose of education underlay this artificial distinction; but on +that we need not dwell. Were an inspector called upon to report on +the discipline of the Utopian school, his report would be brief. +There is no discipline in the school. There is no need for any. The +function of the strict disciplinarian is to shut down, and, if +necessary, sit upon, the safety-valve of misconduct. But in Utopia, +where all the energies of the children are fully and happily +employed, that safety-valve has never to be used. Each child in turn +is so happy in his school life that the idea of being naughty never +enters his head. One cannot remain long in the school without +realising that in its atmosphere + + Love is an unerring light, + And joy its own security. + +It recently happened that on a certain day one of the +assistant-teachers had to go to a hospital, that another had to take +her there, that the third was ill in bed, and that Egeria--the only +available member of the staff--was detained by one of the managers +for half-an-hour on her way to school. The school was thus left +without a teacher. On entering it, Egeria found all the children in +their places and at work. They had looked at the time-table, had +chosen some of the older scholars to take the lower classes, and had +settled down happily and in perfect order. This incident proves to +demonstration that the _morale_ of the school has somehow or other +been carried far beyond the limits of what is usually understood by +discipline. I have seen historical scenes acted with much vigour by +some of the children in the first class, and applauded with equal +vigour by their class-mates, while all the time the children in the +second class, who were drawing flowers in the same room, never lifted +their eyes from their desks. Yet no children can laugh more merrily +or more unrestrainedly than these, or make a greater uproar when it +is fitting that they should do so. + +And if there is no need for punishment, or any other form of +repression, in this school, it is equally true that there is no need +for rewards. To one who has been taught to regard competition in +school as a sacred duty, and the winning of prizes as a laudable +object of the scholar's ambition, this may seem strange. But so it +is. No child has the slightest desire to outstrip his fellows or rise +to the top of his class. Joy in their work, pride in their school, +devotion to their teacher, are sufficient incentives to industry. +Were the stimulus of competition added to these, neither the zeal nor +the interest of the children would be quickened one whit, but a +discordant element would be introduced into their school life. Happy +as he obviously is in his own school life, it would add nothing to +the happiness of the Utopian to feel that he had outstripped his +class-mates and won a prize for his achievement. So far, indeed, are +these children from wishing to shine at the expense of others, that +if they think Egeria has done less than justice to the work of some +one child, the rest of the class will go out of their way to call her +attention to it. If some children are brighter, cleverer, and more +advanced than others, the reward of their progress is that they are +allowed to help on those who lag behind. This is especially +noticeable in Drawing, in which the pre-eminence of one or two +children has again and again had the effect of lifting the work of +the whole class to a higher level. But the laggards are as far from +being discouraged by their failure as are the more advanced scholars +from being puffed up by their success. From the highest to the +lowest, all are doing their best and all are happy together. + +From morals to manners the transition is obvious and direct. Be the +explanation what it may, the whole atmosphere of this school is +evidently fatal to selfishness and self-assertion; and in such an +atmosphere good manners will spring up spontaneously among the +children, and will scarcely need to be inculcated, for the essence of +courtesy is forgetfulness of self and consideration of others in the +smaller affairs of social life. The general bearing of the Utopian +children hits the happy mean between aggressive familiarity and +uncouth shyness,--each a form of self-conscious egoism,--just as +their bearing in school hits the happy mean between laxity and undue +constraint. They welcome the stranger as a friend, take his goodwill +for granted, take him into their confidence, and show him, tactfully +and unostentatiously, many pretty courtesies. And they do all this, +not because they have been drilled into doing it, but because it is +their nature to do it, because their overflowing sympathy and +goodwill must needs express themselves in and through the channels of +courtesy and kindness. There is no trace of sullen self-repression in +this school. Accustomed (as we shall presently see) to express +themselves in various ways, the children cannot entertain kindly +feelings without seeking some vent for them. But whether their kindly +feelings lead them to dance in a ring round their own inspector, +singing "For he's a jolly good fellow," or to escort another +visitor, on his departure, through the playground with their +arms in his, their tact,--which is the outcome, partly of their +self-forgetfulness, partly of the training which their perceptive +faculties are always receiving,--is unfailing, and they never allow +friendliness to degenerate into undue familiarity. + +There is one other feature of the school life which I cannot pass +over. I have never been in a school in which the love of what is +beautiful in Nature is so strong or so sincere as in this. The +aesthetic sense of the Utopian child has not been deliberately +trained, but it has been allowed, and even encouraged, to unfold +itself; and the appeal that beauty makes to the heart meets in +consequence with a ready response. Of the truth of this statement +I could, if necessary, give many proofs. One must suffice. The +children, who are adepts at drawing with brush and pencil, wander in +field and lane with sketch-books in their hands; and one of them at +least was so moved by the beauty of a winter sunrise, as seen from +his cottage window, that, in his own words, he felt he _must_ try to +paint it, the result being a water-colour sketch which I have shown +to a competent artist, who tells me that the _feeling_ in the sky is +quite wonderful. + +In this brief preliminary sketch of the more salient features of the +Utopian school, I have, I hope, said enough to show that its scholars +differ _toto coelo_ from those who attend that familiar type of +school which I have recently described. Yet the Utopian children are +made of the same clay as the children of other villages. If anything, +indeed, the clay is heavier and more stubborn in Utopia than +elsewhere. Some ten or twelve years ago, when Egeria took charge of +the school, the children were dull, lifeless, listless, resourceless. +Now they are bright, intelligent, happy, responsive, overflowing with +life, interested in many things, full of ability and resource. How +has this change been wrought? Not by veneering or even inoculating +the children with good qualities, but simply by allowing their better +and higher nature to evolve itself freely, naturally, and under +favourable conditions. + +That the child's better and higher nature is his real nature, is the +assumption--let me rather say, the profound conviction--on which +Egeria's whole system of education has been based. In basing it on +this assumption, she has made a bold departure from the highway which +has been blindly followed for many centuries. We have seen that the +basis of education in this country, as in Christendom generally, is +the doctrine of original sin. It is taken for granted by those who +train the child that his nature, if allowed to develop itself freely, +will grow in the wrong direction, and will therefore lead him astray; +and that it is the function of education to counteract this +tendency, to do violence to the child's nature, to compel it by main +force to grow (or make a pretence of growing) in the right direction, +to subject it to perpetual repression and constraint. The wild whoops +to which children so often give vent, when released from school, show +that a period of unnatural tension has come to an end; and in these, +and in the further conduct of the released child--in the roughness, +rudeness, and bad language, of which the passer-by (especially in +towns) not infrequently has to complain--we see a rebound from this +state of tension, an instinctive protest against the constraint to +which he has been subjected for so many hours. The result of all this +is that the child leads two lives, a life of unnatural repression and +constraint in school, and a life--also unnatural, though it is +supposed to be the expression of his nature--of reaction and protest +out of school. Such a dislocation of the child's daily life is not +likely to conduce to his well-being; while the teacher's assumption +that his _role_ in school is essentially active, and that of the +child essentially passive, will lead at last to his turning his back +on the root-idea of growth, to his forgetting that the child is a +living and therefore a growing organism, to his regarding the child +as clay in his hands, to be "remoulded" by him "to his heart's +desire," or even as a _tabula rasa_, on which he is to inscribe words +and other symbols at his will. + +In Utopia the training which the child receives may be said to be +based on the doctrine of original goodness. It is taken for granted +by Egeria that the child is neither a lump of clay nor a _tabula +rasa_, but a "living soul"; that growth is of the very essence of +his being; and that the normal child, if allowed to make natural +growth under reasonably favourable conditions, will grow happily and +well. It is taken for granted that the potencies of his nature are +well worth realising; that the end of his being--the ideal type +towards which the natural course of his development tends to take +him--is intrinsically good; in fine, that he is _by nature_ a "child +of God" rather than a "child of wrath." It is therefore taken for +granted that growth is in itself a good thing, a move in the right +direction; and that to foster growth, to make its conditions as +favourable as possible, to give it the food, the guidance, and the +stimulus that it needs, is the best thing that education can do for +the child. + +It is further taken for granted that the many-sided effort to grow +which is of the essence of the child's nature is the mainspring of, +and expresses itself in, certain typical instincts which no one who +studies the child with any degree of care can fail to observe; and +that by duly cultivating these instincts,--_expansive_ instincts, as +one may perhaps call them, since each of them tends to take the child +away from his petty self,--the teacher will make the best possible +provision for the growth of the child's nature as a whole. + +Above all, it is taken for granted that the growth which the child +makes must come from within himself; that no living thing can grow +vicariously; that the rings of soul-growth, like the rings of +tree-growth, must be evolved from an inner life; that the teacher +must therefore content himself with giving the child's expansive +instincts fair play and free play; and that, for the rest, he must as +far as possible efface himself, bearing in mind that not he, but the +child, is the real actor in the drama of school life. + +But though so much is left to the child in Utopia, and so much +demanded of him, it is not feared that the effort to grow will be +repugnant to him. On the contrary, it is taken for granted that in +growing, in developing his expansive instincts, the child will be +following the lines and obeying the laws of his own nature; that he +will be fulfilling the latent desires of his heart; that he will be +seeking his own pleasure; in fine, that he will be leading a happy +life. + +All this is taken for granted in Utopia, and the child's life is +therefore one of unimpeded, though duly guided and stimulated, +activity. Every instinct that makes for the expansion and elevation +(for growth is always upward as well as outward) of the child's +nature is given the freest possible play, and the whole organisation +of the school is subordinated to this central end. + +In order to find out what are the instincts which make for the +expansion and elevation of the child's nature, and which education +ought therefore to foster, we must do what Egeria has always done, we +must observe young children, and study their ways and works. Now +every healthy child wants to eat and drink, and to run about. Here +are two instincts--the instinctive desire for physical nourishment, +and the instinctive desire for physical exercise--through which +Nature provides for the growth of the body. How does she provide for +the growth of what we have agreed to call the soul? We need not +be very careful observers of young children in order to satisfy +ourselves that, apart from physical nourishment and exercise, there +are six things which the child instinctively desires, namely: + + (1) to talk and listen: + (2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word): + (3) to draw, paint, and model: + (4) to dance and sing: + (5) to know the why of things: + (6) to construct things. + +Let us consider each of these instincts, and try to determine its +meaning and purpose. + +(1) The child instinctively desires to enter into communion with +other persons,--his parents, his brothers and sisters, his nurse, his +governess, his little friends. He wants to talk to them, to tell them +what he has done, seen, felt, thought; and he wants to hear what they +have to tell him,--not only of what they themselves have done, but +also of what other persons and other living things have done, in +other times, in other countries, in other worlds. Later on, the +desire to talk and listen will develop into the desire to write and +read; but the desire will still be one for communion, for intercourse +with other lives. + +We will call this the _communicative instinct_. + +(2) The child desires, not only to enter into communion with other +persons and other living things, but also, in some sort, to identify +his life with theirs. Watch him when he is playing with other +children, or even when he is alone, except for the companionship of +his dolls and toys. He is pretty sure to be _acting_, playing at +make-believe, pretending to be something that he is not, some +grown-up person of his acquaintance, some hero of history or +romance, some traveller or other adventurer, some giant, dwarf, or +fairy, some animal, wild or tame. He plays the part of one or other +of these, and his playmates play other parts, and so a little drama +is enacted. If he has no playmates, his dolls have to play their +parts, or his toy animals have to be endowed with life, so that they +may become fellow-actors with him on the stage that he has selected. +No instinct is more inevitable, more sure to energise, than this. + +We will call it the _dramatic instinct_. + +In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, through the medium of sympathy +and imagination--twin aspects of the same vital tendency--into the +lives of other living beings. We will therefore call these the +_Sympathetic Instincts_, and place them in a class by themselves. + +(3) From his very babyhood the child delights in colour, and at a +very early age he learns to love and understand pictures. Then comes +the desire to make these for himself. Give him pencil and paper, give +him chalk, charcoal, a paint-box, and other suitable materials, and +he will set to work of his own accord to depict what he sees or has +seen, either with his outward or his inward eye. Give him a lump of +clay, and he will try to mould it into the likeness of something +that has either attracted his attention, or presented itself to his +imagination. In all these attempts he is trying, unknown to himself, +to express his perception of, and delight in, the visible beauty of +Nature. This instinct will expand, in the fullness of time, into a +strong and subtle feeling for visible beauty, and into a restless +desire to give expression to that feeling. + +We will call this the _artistic instinct_, the word _artistic_ being +used, for lack of a more suitable term, in its narrow and +conventional sense. + +(4) While the child is still a baby in arms, his mother will sing to +him, and dance him on her knee. This is her first attempt to initiate +him into the mystery of music; and the response that he makes to her +proves that she is a wise teacher, and is appealing to a genuinely +natural faculty. It will not be long before he begins to dance and +sing for himself. Watch the children in a London court or alley when +a barrel-organ appears on the scene. Without having any one to direct +or teach them, they will come together and dance in couples, often +with abundant grace and charm. Nature is their tutor. Her own rhythm, +of which the musician must have caught an echo, is passing through +their ears into their hearts and into their limbs. No instinct is +so spontaneous as this. A child will whistle or sing while his mind +is engaged on other things. If he is happy he will dance about as +naturally, and almost as inevitably, as the leaves dance when the +breeze passes through them. + +We will call this the _musical instinct_. So elemental is it that man +shares it, in some degree, with other living things. The birds are +accomplished musicians, and their movements, and those of many other +creatures, are full of rhythm and grace. + +In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, in response to the attractive +force of beauty, into that larger life which is at the heart of +Nature, but which is not ours until we have made it our own. We will +therefore call these the _AEsthetic Instincts_, and place them in a +class by themselves. + +(5) From a very early age the child desires to know the why and +wherefore of things, to understand how effects are produced, to +discover new facts, and pass on, if possible, to their causes. In +response to the pressure of this instinct, the child breaks his toys +in order that he may find out how they work, and asks innumerable +questions which make him the terror and despair of his parents and +the other "Olympians." No instinct is more insistent in the early +days of the child's life. No instinct is more ruthlessly repressed by +those to whom the education of the child is entrusted. No instinct +dies out so completely (except so far as it is kept alive by purely +utilitarian considerations) when education of the conventional type +has done its deadly work. It has been said that children go to school +ignorant but curious, and leave school ignorant and incurious. This +gibe is the plain statement of a patent truth. + +We will call this the _inquisitive instinct_. + +(6) After analysis comes synthesis. The child pulls his toys to +pieces in order that he may, if possible, reconstruct them, and so be +the better able to control the working of them. The ends that he sets +before himself are those which Comte set before the human +race,--"savoir pour prevoir, afin de pouvoir: induire pour deduire, +afin de construire." The desire to make things, to build things up, +to control ways and means, to master the resources of Nature, to put +his knowledge of her laws and facts to a practical use, is strong in +his soul. Give him a box of bricks, and he will spend hours in +building and rebuilding houses, churches, towers, and the like. Set +him on a sandy shore, with a spade and a pail, and he will spend +hours in constructing fortified castles with deep, encircling moats +into which the sea may be duly admitted. Or he will make harness and +whips of plaited rushes, armour of tea-paper, swords of tin-plate, +boxes and other articles of cardboard, waggons, engines, and other +implements of wood. + +We will call this the _constructive instinct_. + +In both these instincts the child is struggling to grow, to expand +his being, by going out of himself, through the correlated channels +of theory and practice, into what I may call the machinery of +Nature's life,--an aspect of that life which reveals its mysteries to +reason rather than to emotion, or (to use the language of Eastern +philosophy) to the faculties that try to find order in the Many, +rather than to those which try to hold intercourse with the One.[16] +Whichever channel he may use,--and indeed they are not so much two +channels as one, for each in turn is for ever leading into and then +passing out of the other,--his concern is always for "facts," for the +actualities of things, for "objective truth." We will therefore call +these the _Scientific Instincts_, and place them in a class by +themselves. + +There are six instincts, then,--six formative and expansive +instincts--which Nature has implanted in every normal child, and +which education, so far as it aims at being loyal to Nature, should +take account of and try to foster. Two of these are _sympathetic_; +two are _aesthetic_; two are _scientific_. In and through the +sympathetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of _love_. In +and through the aesthetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of +_beauty_. In and through the scientific instincts the soul grows in +the direction of _truth_. It is towards this triune goal that Nature +herself is ever directing the growth of the growing child. The +significance of this conclusion will unfold itself as we proceed. + +These instincts manifest themselves in various ways, but chiefly in +the direction that they give to that very serious occupation of young +children which we call play. It is clear, then, that if these +instincts are to be duly cultivated, the work of the school must be +modelled, as far as possible, on the lines which children, when at +play, spontaneously follow. This Egeria, with her inspired sagacity, +has clearly seen; and she has taken her measures accordingly. In +Utopia the school life of the child is all play,--play taken very +seriously, play systematised, organised, provided with ample +materials and ample opportunities, encouraged and stimulated in +every possible way. Each of the fundamental instincts that manifest +themselves in the child's play, and in doing so give a clear +indication of Nature's aims in the child's life, and of the +directions in which she wishes him to grow, is duly ministered to in +this school, the current that wells up in and through it being +skilfully guided into a suitable channel, and every obstacle to its +free development being carefully removed. But the guidance which +Egeria gives tends, as we shall see, to foster rather than fetter the +freedom of the child. When the current has been led into a suitable +channel, it is expected to shape its own further course, and even to +impose on itself the limits--the containing walls--which are needed +if its depth and strength are to be maintained. + +Let us now consider each of the six instincts in turn, and see what +special steps Egeria takes to foster its growth. + + +(1) _The Communicative Instinct_. + +Through this instinct the child goes out of himself into the lives of +other persons and other living things. The desire is in its essence +one for intercourse, for communion, for the interchange of thoughts, +of feelings, of experiences. The normal child is, as we all know, an +inveterate chatterbox; but he is also a rapt listener. If he desires, +as he certainly does, to tell others about himself, he desires, in no +less a degree, to hear about others, either from themselves, or from +those who are best able to tell him about them. The balance between +the two desires is well maintained by Nature; and it should be +carefully maintained by those who train the young, if the +communicative instinct as a whole is to make healthy growth. + +In too many elementary schools the instinct is systematically +starved, the scholars being strictly forbidden to talk among +themselves, while their conversational intercourse with their teacher +is limited to receiving a certain amount of dry information, and +giving this back, collectively or individually, when they are +expressly directed to do so. The child's instinctive desire to +converse, being deprived by education of its natural outlets, must +needs force for itself the subterranean and illicit outlet of +whispering in class, either under the teacher's nose, if he happens +to be unobservant or indolent, or behind his back, if he happens to +be vigilant and strict. And as the child is forbidden to talk about +things which are wholesome and interesting, it is but natural that in +his surreptitious conversations he should talk about things which +are less edifying, things which are trivial and vulgar, or even +unwholesome and unclean. Children are naturally obedient and +truthful; but in their attempts to find outlets for healthy +activities which are wantonly repressed, they will go far down the +inclined plane of disobedience and deceit. + +In Utopia free conversation is systematically encouraged. No +elementary school is supposed to open before 9 a.m.; but Egeria is in +the habit of coming to school at 8.45 or earlier, so that the +children who wish to do so may come and talk to her freely about the +things that interest them,--what they have observed on their walks to +or from school, what they have heard or read at home, what they think +about things in general, and so on. The school has a good library of +books which are worth reading, both in prose and verse. These the +children read in school and out of school, and are thus brought into +communication with other minds, with other times, with other lands. +They are also accustomed to talk freely to one another about the +books that they are reading. Whatever lesson may be going on, they +are encouraged to ask questions about the matter in hand, and even to +express their own views about it. They go out into the playground in +groups and make up games and plays, discussing things freely among +themselves. When they are preparing to act an historical scene or a +passage from some dramatic author, they hold a sort of informal +parliament, in which the actors are selected and various important +questions are provisionally settled. They write letters in school to +real people. The older girls take the little ones in hand, and talk +to them and draw them out. When an interesting phenomenon is noticed, +_e.g._ in a Nature ramble, the children are accustomed to discuss it +in groups, and to try to think out among themselves its cause and +its meaning. Gossip is of course discouraged; but it is scarcely +necessary for Egeria to proscribe it; for idle talk has no attraction +for children who are allowed to talk freely and frankly, at all times +and in all places, about things that are really worth discussing. +Life is full of interest for children who are allowed, as these are, +to take an active interest in it; and subjects of conversation are +therefore ever presenting themselves, in school and out of school, +to the happy children of Utopia. This means that the life of each +individual child is overflowing through many channels, an overflow +which will carry the out-welling life into the lives of other living +beings--human and infra-human, actual and imaginary--and even beyond +these, when it has been met and reinforced by other surging currents, +into the impersonal life of Humanity and of Nature. + + +(2) _The Dramatic Instinct_. + +Whatever else young children may be, they are all born actors; and in +a school which bases its scheme of education on the actualities of +child life, it is but natural that the dramatic instinct should be +fostered in every possible way. "Work while you work, and play +while you play," is one of those trite maxims which have been +unintelligently repeated till they have lost whatever value they may +once have possessed. "Work while you play, and play while you work," +seems to be Egeria's substitute for it; and she would, I think, do +well to write those words over the porch of her school. + +In the ordinary elementary school a fair amount of acting goes on +in the infant department, and an occasional attempt is made, in +one of the higher classes of the upper department, to act a scene +from Shakespeare or an episode in English history. But during +the five years or so of school life which intervene between the +infant department and "Standard VI," the dramatic instinct is +as a rule entirely neglected; and the consequent outgrowth of +self-consciousness in the children is too often a fatal obstacle to +the success of the spasmodic attempts at dramatisation which are +made in the higher classes. + +In Utopia "acting" is a vital part of the school life of every class, +and every subject that admits of dramatic treatment is systematically +dramatised. In History, for example, when the course of their study +brings them to a suitable episode, the children set to work to +dramatise it. With this end in view, they consult some advanced +text-book or historical novel or other book of reference, and +having studied with care the particular chapter in which they are +interested, and having decided among themselves who are to play what +parts, they proceed to make up their own dialogues, and their own +costumes and other accessories. They then act the scene, putting +their own interpretation on the various parts, and receiving +the stimulus and guidance of Egeria's sympathetic and moeutic +criticism. Their class-mates and the rest of the children in the main +room look on, with their history books open in front of them, and +applaud; and, by gradually familiarising themselves with the various +parts, qualify themselves half-unconsciously to act as under-studies +in the particular scene, and in due course to play their own parts as +interpreters of some other historical episode. I know of no treatment +of history which is so effective as this for young children. The +actual knowledge of the facts of history which a child carries away +with him from an elementary school cannot well be large, and is, in +many cases, a negligible quantity. But the child who has once acted +history will always be interested in it, and being interested in it +will be able, without making a formal study of it, to absorb its +spirit, its atmosphere, and the more significant of its facts. Nor +do the advantages of the dramatic treatment of history end with the +subject itself. The actors in these historical scenes are, as I have +said, expressing their own interpretation of the various parts, and +their own perception of the meaning of each episode as a whole. This +means that they are training their imaginative sympathy,--a +sovereign faculty which of all faculties is perhaps the most +emancipative and expansive,--and training it, as I can testify, with +striking success; for the dramatic power which they display is +remarkable, and can have been generated by nothing less than +sympathetic insight into the feelings of the various historical +personages and the possibilities of the various situations. + +It is probable that History lends itself more readily to dramatic +treatment than any other subject, but it is by no means the only +subject that is dramatised in Utopia. An interest in Geography is +awakened by scenes in foreign lands and episodes from books of travel +being acted by the children. An interest in Arithmetic, by a shop +being opened, which is well equipped with weights, measures, and +cardboard money, and in which a salesman stands behind the counter +and sells goods to a succession of customers. An interest in +Literature by the acting, with improvised costumes, of passages from +Shakespeare's plays, or scenes from Scott's and Dickens' novels. +Simple plays to illustrate Nature-study are acted by the younger +children; while the Folk Songs, which, as we shall see, play a +prominent part in the musical life of the children, are acted as +well as sung. + +However rude and simple the histrionic efforts of the children may +be, they are doing two things for the actors. They are giving them a +living interest in the various subjects that are dramatised; and, by +teaching them to identify themselves, if only for a moment, with +other human beings, they are leading them into the path of tolerance, +of compassion, of charity, of sympathy,--the ever-widening path +which makes at last for Nirvanic oneness with the One Life.[17] + + +(3) _The Artistic Instinct_. + +The desire to reproduce with pencil, paint, or clay the form and +colour of the outward world will, if duly cultivated, gradually +transform itself into the desire to feel, to understand, to +interpret, to express, not the form and colour only of the outward +world, but also that less palpable but more spiritual quality which +we call beauty. But in order that this transformation may take place, +the child must always endeavour to reproduce with due fidelity the +more palpable qualities of colour and form. In this endeavour he +must bring many faculties into play. He must observe closely and +attentively. He must reflect on what he observes. He must reflect on +what he himself is doing. He must compare his work with the original, +and try to discover how far he has succeeded, and where he has gone +astray. The more faithfully he tries to reproduce what he has seen, +the clearer and surer will be his insight into the less palpable +properties of things,--into those details, those aspects, those +qualities, which do not reveal themselves to the first careless +glance, but which will gradually reveal themselves to those who will +take the trouble to discover them. When he is asked to reproduce +things which are intrinsically beautiful--flowers, branches, buds, +shells, butterflies, and the like--he begins to realise that if his +work is to be successful, he must do justice to many impalpable, +though not imperceptible, details which go to the making up of +beauty. So the sense of beauty, the feeling for it, the desire to +bring it into his work, grows up in his heart; and a new kind of +fidelity--fidelity to _feeling_ rather than to _fact_ (if I may speak +for the moment in the delusive language of dualism)--begins to weave +itself into his artistic consciousness. + +If there is any school in England in which fidelity to feeling has +evolved itself out of fidelity to fact, that school is in the village +of Utopia. Some ten or twelve years ago a decree went out from +Whitehall that Drawing was to be taught in all the elementary schools +in England. Egeria at once took the children into her confidence, and +said to them: "You have now got to learn to draw: you don't know how +to draw, and I don't know how to draw, but we must all set to work +and see what we can do." A few years later the school was visited by +the inspector to whose zeal as a prophet, and skill as an expositor +and teacher, the transformation in the teaching of drawing which is +gradually taking effect in all parts of the country, has been largely +due. Here is the report[18] that he wrote after his visit-- + +"In this school the teaching of Drawing reaches the highest +educational level I have hitherto met with in our elementary schools, +and the results are the genuine expression of the children's own +thoughts. Flat copies are not used, and the scholars evolve their +own technique, for the Head Teacher is not strong herself in this +respect. The development of thought carries with it the development +of skill, and this is clearly seen in the children's drawings, which +show good form and proportion, some knowledge of light and shade, a +delicate and refined perception of colour, and a wonderful power of +dealing with the difficulties of foreshortening. The central law is +self-effort,--confidence and self-reliance follow. The spontaneous +activities of the children are duly recognised, and the latter decide +what to draw, how to draw it, and the materials to be used. One +cannot remain long in the school without observing the absence of +that timidity, that haunting fear of making a mistake, which +paralyses the minds and bodies of so many of our children. Under the +influence of the Head Teacher the children become acute critics. +Her methods coincide so exactly with those which I have long been +advocating, that I give them in her own words-- + +"'I gave each child an ivy-leaf and said, "Now look well at it." We +talked about its peculiarities, looking at it all the time, and then +I told them to draw one, still looking back to the leaf from time to +time. Then I examined their drawings. A good many were, of course, +faulty. In those cases I did not say, "No, you are wrong; this is the +way," and go to the blackboard. I said, "In such and such a part is +yours the same as the leaf? What is different? How can you alter +it?" etc., etc. I make _them tell me_ their faults. There was no +blackboard demonstration.' + +"From a careful examination of their work it is clear that the +children have not only been taught to draw, but that they love and +enjoy their drawing. Form and colour are not only seen, but +understood and felt. The children are impelled by an irresistible +desire to reach and express the truth, and are thus carried along +an ever-moving path of educative action." + +I have already spoken of the love of visible beauty which is a +characteristic feature of the life of this school. It is in the +drawing lesson that this love of beauty has in the main evolved +itself. Other influences have no doubt been at work. Nature-study and +literature, for example, have, as taught in this school, done much to +foster the children's latent love of beauty; but had drawing never +been taught, the influence of those subjects would have been much +less effective than it has been. It is in the struggle to express +what he perceives that the Utopian child has gradually strengthened +and deepened his perceptive powers, till his sight has transformed +itself into insight, and form and colour have come to be interpreted +by him through the medium of the beauty which is behind them,--his +feeling of beauty having, little by little, been awakened and evolved +by his unceasing efforts to interpret the _vraie verite_ of form and +colour, which, as he now begins to learn, are beauty's outward self. + + +(4) _The Musical Instinct_. + +In the development of the artistic sense the path of imitation is +followed until it leads at last to heights which it cannot scale. The +development of the musical sense takes from the first a widely +different path. Nature has a beautiful music of her own, but the +child seldom attempts to imitate this. Music belongs to the soul even +more than to the outward world. So at least one feels disposed to +think. But perhaps it is more correct to say that in the presence +of music the provisional distinction between inward and outward, +between the soul and the surrounding world, becomes wholly effaced. +Expression is always the counterpart of perception; and we may rest +assured that the deep, subtle, and elusive feelings to which music +gives utterance have reality for their counterpart. The musician does +not often reproduce in his compositions the audible sounds of the +outward world,--the voices of animals, the songs of birds, the rustle +of leaves, the murmur of the sea, the sighing of the breeze, the +thunder of the storm. What he does reproduce is the music that awakes +in his soul when the emotions which these sounds kindle begin to +struggle for expression,--the music that is behind all the audible +sounds, and perhaps also behind all the inaudible vibrations of +Nature,--the music that is in his heart because it is also at the +heart of Nature,--_the rhythm of the Universe_, as one may perhaps +call it for lack of a fitter phrase. It is the sense of this rhythm +which inspires the great Composer when he builds up his masterpieces. +It is the sense of this rhythm which inspires the child when, in the +joy of his heart, he breaks spontaneously into dance and song. To +bring the rhythm of the Universe into the daily life of the child, +to give free play to his instinctive sense of its all-pervading +presence, is one of the highest functions of the teacher. And the +more carefully the sense of rhythm is cultivated, the more does it +tend to spiritualise itself, and the more profound and more vital is +the life which it struggles to interpret and evolve. There is no +instinct which is so deeply seated as the musical. It is possible for +a child, it is possible for a whole class of children, to sing out of +the depths of the soul; and when this happens we may be sure that a +fountain of spiritual joy has been unsealed, and that a great and +sacred mystery has been unveiled. There is a school in one of the +poorest slums of a large town, in which, some two or three years ago, +the children were taught to sing, and the teachers to teach singing, +by an inspired "master" who believes that to lift the sluices of +spiritual feeling is to quicken into ever-increasing activity its +hidden springs; and neither the teachers nor the children have yet +forgotten their lesson. The children are poor, pale, thin, unkempt, +ill-clad, unlovely; but I am told that when they sing their faces are +transfigured, and they all become beautiful. + +Egeria is an accomplished musician, and though Utopia belongs to one +of the unmusical counties of England, she has found it easy to awaken +the musical instinct in the hearts of its children. A few years ago +she introduced the old English Folk Songs and Morris Dances into the +school. The children took to them at once as ducklings take to the +water; and within a year they were able to give an admirably +successful performance of some two dozen songs and dances in the +village hall. Some of these had been rehearsed only once; but the +children, thanks to their having been systematically trained to +educate themselves, are so versatile and resourceful that every item +on their programme was a complete success. The Folk Songs and Morris +Dances are still the delight of the children. They are ever adding to +their repertory of songs; and when they go into the playground for +recreation, they at once form into small groups for Morris Dancing, +the older children taking the little ones in hand, and initiating +them into the pleasures of rhythmical movement. + +There is another way in which Egeria brings music into the lives of +the children. In her own words, she "sets many of their lessons to +music." For example, when they are doing needlework or drawing or any +other quiet lesson, she plays high-class music to them, which forms a +background to their efforts and their thoughts, and which gradually +weaves itself, on the one hand into the outward and visible work that +they are doing, and on the other hand into the mysterious tissue of +their inward life. + + +(5) _The Inquisitive Instinct_. + +As the inquisitive instinct makes the child an intolerable nuisance +to his ignorant and indolent elders, it is but natural that in the +unenlightened school, as in the unenlightened home, it should be +forcibly exterminated. It is through the agency of the formula "Don't +speak till you are spoken to," that its destruction is usually +effected. But under Egeria's aegis conversation in school hours is, +as we have seen, freely encouraged, and the child's right to ask +questions fully recognised; and one may therefore conjecture that +this proscribed and outlawed instinct will find a safe asylum in her +school. Whatever lesson may be in progress, the Utopian children are +allowed, and even expected, to seek for illumination whenever they +find themselves in the dark, to pause inquiringly at every obstacle +to their understanding what they have seen or heard or read. + +The encouragement which is given in Utopia to the child who seeks to +gratify his desire for knowledge, is positive as well as negative. +When the obstacles which education usually places in his path have +been removed, it is found that the whole atmosphere of the school is +favourable to the growth of his inquisitive instinct. At every turn +he is called upon to plan and contrive, and is thus made to realise +his own limitations, and to try to escape from them. Whatever he may +have in hand,--be it the preparation for acting a new scene, or the +interpretation of a new Folk Song or Morris Dance, or the invention +of a new school game, or the thinking out some new way of treating a +"subject,"--he is sure to find that knowledge is needed if he is +to achieve success; and his desire for knowledge is therefore +continually stimulated by the demands that his own initiative and +activity are ever making upon him. + +But it is in the "Nature lesson" that the inquisitive instinct finds +in Utopia its freest scope and its fullest opportunity. To one who +had persuaded himself of the innate stupidity of the average English +child, a Nature lesson in Utopia would come as a revelation. He would +learn for the first time that, far from being innately stupid, the +average English child has it in him to reach a very high level of +keenness, acuteness, and intellectual activity. Whenever a lesson is +given on a natural object, _e.g._ a flower or a leaf, every child has +a specimen and a lens. The object is then closely and carefully +observed, in the hope of discovering features in it which might +escape the unobservant. Whenever such features are discovered the +children try to account for them. In these attempts they display much +ingenuity and intelligence, and are led on by Egeria in the direction +of the true explanation of each phenomenon, and the relation of this +to what they know of the object as a whole, and of its meaning and +function. The eagerness of the children to volunteer explanations of +the facts that they observe is only equalled by the intelligence with +which they grasp the general bearing of the problems that confront +them, and the resourcefulness and quickness of wit with which they +make repeated attempts to solve them. + +And these are not the only qualities to which the Nature lesson gives +free play. It is interesting to note that as on the one hand the +inquisitive instinct is obviously near of kin to the communicative, +so on the other hand it is ever tending to link itself to the +artistic. The closeness of observation which is the basis of success +in Nature-study, and by means of which the inquisitive instinct is +fed and strengthened, is also the basis of success in drawing; and +in each case it leads beyond itself into a region in which it has to +be supplemented by, and even transfigured into, imagination, the +faculty by means of which we observe what is at once impalpable and +real.[19] And in that region the distinction between truth and beauty +is ever tending to efface itself. The master sculptor is always an +accomplished anatomist; and the genuine naturalist is a lover and +admirer, as well as a student, of Nature. It has been well said that +"to see things in their beauty is to see them in their truth"; and it +is perhaps equally, though more remotely, true that to see things in +their truth is to see them in their beauty. That being so, we need +not wonder that among the Utopian children the love of what is +beautiful in Nature has grown continuously with the growth of their +interest in Nature-study, and that the inquisitive instinct is ever +Reinforcing and being reinforced by the artistic. + + +(6) _The Constructive Instinct_. + +Active, intelligent, resourceful, self-helpful, the Utopian child +takes to handwork of various kinds as readily and almost as +spontaneously as the birds in spring-time take to the work of +nest-building. It must indeed be admitted that the systematic +instruction in Gardening, Cookery, and Woodwork which warrants the +payment of special grants for these "subjects" is not given. But +informal gardening, informal cookery, and informal woodwork are +vital features of the school life. Nor are the children's essays in +handwork limited to these subjects. Whatever implement, instrument, +or other contrivance may be needed in order to illustrate or +otherwise help forward the general work of the school will be made by +the children, so far as their technical ability and the resources of +the school permit. For example, they will make fences, seats, frames, +and sheds for their gardens, and "properties" and dresses for their +dramatic performances. They will illustrate their games and lessons +by means of simple modelling and paper-cutting. The older girls will +dress dolls for the little ones to their own fancy, using their own +discretion as regards material, style of dress, and method of +dress-making. And so on. + +But ready as the Utopian children are to use their hands, and clever +as they are at using them, it is not through manual activity only +that the development of their constructive instinct is carried on. +One of the characteristic features of the school is the largeness +of the scale on which the constructive powers of the children are +encouraged to energise, and the frequency and variety of the demands +that are made upon them. The Utopian child is expected to educate +himself, not merely in the sense of doing by and for himself whatever +task may be set him, but also in the sense of devising new tasks for +himself, in thinking out new ways of treating the different subjects +that appear on the school time-table, in taking thought for the whole +scheme of his education. As the years go by, Egeria makes more and +greater demands on the initiative and the intelligence of the +children, her aim being apparently to transform the school by slow +degrees into a self-governing community which, under her presidency, +shall order its own life and work out its own salvation. This means, +as I have lately pointed out, that at every turn the Utopian child is +being called upon to plan and contrive; and this, again, means that +his constructive instinct, with his inquisitive instinct as its other +self, is being continually exercised on the widest possible field +and under the most stimulating of all influences. The result of +this is that reciprocal action is ever going on in his mind between +the faculties that acquire knowledge and the faculties that apply +it,--action which makes for the rapid and healthy growth of both sets +of faculties, and which is therefore ever tending to strengthen the +child's capacity for thinking and to raise the plane of its activity. + +What is the culture of the child's expansive instincts likely to do +for him? + +I will weave into my answer to this question my knowledge of what has +been done and is being done in Utopia. + +It is through the medium of his own exertions that the evolution of +the child's instincts is carried on by Egeria. It may be possible to +lay veneers of information on the surface of a child's mind, but +it is not possible to lay on veneers of growth; and growth, not +information, is the end at which Egeria has always aimed. If a child +is to grow, he must exercise his own limbs, his own organs, his own +faculties. No one else can do this for him; and unless he does it +himself, it will never be done. The school life in Utopia is +therefore one of constant activity. The habit of doing things, of +doing things for himself, of doing things by himself, is gradually +built up in each child. There is no forced inertness in Utopia, +no slackness, no boredom, no yawning. And the activity which is +characteristic of the school is always the child's own activity. The +child himself is behind everything that he does. The child himself +is expressing himself in his every action. Mechanical activity, the +doing of things, not merely at the bidding of another, but also under +his minutely detailed direction, is as foreign to the genius of +the school as is the passivity of the helpless victims of the +unenlightened teacher's "chalk and talk." + +The first consequence, then, of the training of the expansive +instincts which is given in Utopia is the building up in each scholar +of what I may call the habit of rational activity. In many schools +the energies of the child are systematically dammed back, till at +last the springs of his activity, finding that no demand is made upon +them, cease to flow. In Utopia the sluices, though always regulated, +are permanently lifted, and the energies of the child are ever +moving, with a strong and steady current, in whatever channel they +may have chanced to enter. So strong, indeed, and so steady is the +current that it maintains its movement long after the child has left +school. The employers of labour in the neighbourhood of Utopia will +tell you that there are no slackers or loafers in the yearly output +of the school. Egeria recently received a visit from one of her +ex-pupils, a girl of fourteen who is at home keeping house for her +father, and who said to her in the course of their conversation: "I +do just love washing days; I get up before six and start. Then, when +all the washing is done, I scrub everything bright in the copper +while I have the hot soapsuds." Accustomed as he (or she) is from his +(or her) earliest days to sincere and fearless self-expression, the +Utopian child is entirely incapable of indulging in cant; and the +genuineness of the sentiment which dictated those words is therefore +above suspicion. To work vigorously, to do well whatever he (or she) +has to do, is a real pleasure to the Utopian child. Indeed his whole +being is a living response to the familiar precept: "Whatsoever thy +hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." + +And what he does with his might is always well worth doing. His +constant effort to express himself has, as its necessary counterpart, +a constant effort to find out what is worth expressing, to get to the +truth of things, to see things as they are. The consequent growth +of his perceptive powers may be looked at from two points of view. +On the one hand his growing capacity for getting on terms with +things--for feeling his way among them, for "getting, the hang" of +them, for making himself at home with them, for learning their ins +and outs, for understanding their ways and works--will give him the +power of putting forth an appropriate _sense_ in response to the +demands of each new environment, and, through the medium of this +sense, of converting information into knowledge. For this reason new +"subjects" have no terror for Egeria and her pupils. Though she has +never thought in subjects, she is ready to extend her curriculum in +any direction in which she thinks that her children are likely to +find interest or profit. The versatility, the mental agility, of the +children is as remarkable as their activity. The current of their +energy is ready to adapt itself to every modifying influence, to +every change of geological formation, that it may encounter in its +course, and to shape its channel or channels accordingly. + +On the other hand, as healthy vigorous growth is always upward (and +downward) as well as outward, the lateral extension of the child's +perceptive powers must needs be balanced in Utopia by the gradual +elevation of his standpoint, with a corresponding widening of his +outlook, and the proportionate deepening of his insight. When the +school life of the child is one of continuous self-expression, +opportunities for "putting his soul" into what he says and does will +often present themselves to him; and if only a few of these are made +use of, his outlook on life will widen, and his imaginative sympathy +with life will deepen, to an extent which to one who had never +visited Utopia might well seem incredible. I have spoken of the +Utopian child's love of the beautiful. This is one aspect of the +spiritual growth that he is always making. Other aspects of it are +his strong sympathy with life in all its forms, and a certain large +and free way of looking at things, which, as far as my experience of +school children goes, is all his own. + +There is yet another aspect of his spiritual growth which is perhaps +the most vital and the most typical of all. When we say that the +child is growing both laterally and vertically (like a shapely tree), +we mean that he is growing as a whole, as a living soul. Now the +growth of the soul as such must needs take the form of outgrowth, of +escape from "self." Growth is, in its essence, an emancipative +process; and though it sometimes intensifies selfishness and widens +the sphere of its activity, that is invariably due to its being +one-sided and therefore inharmonious and unhealthy. When the child +or the man is growing as a living whole, with a happy, harmonious, +many-sided growth, his growth is of necessity outgrowth, and he must +needs be escaping from the thraldom of his lower and lesser self. +This conclusion is no mere inference from accepted or postulated +premises. What I have seen in Utopia has forced it upon me. The +unselfishness, the natural, easy, spontaneous self-forgetfulness, of +the Utopian child, is the central feature of his moral life,--so +marked and withal so unique a feature that its presence proves to +demonstration, first, that growth of the right sort is necessarily +emancipative, and, next, that the growth made in Utopia is growth +of the right sort. I have already commented on the singular charm +of manner which distinguishes the children of Utopia. Their +self-forgetfulness, their entire lack of self-consciousness, is +one source of this charm. The tactfulness which their life of +self-expression, and therefore of trained perception, tends to +engender, is another. But the moral aspect of Utopianism is one of +such surpassing interest, and also of such profound significance +from the point of view of my fundamental "truism," that I must limit +myself for the moment to this passing reference to it, and reserve +it for fuller treatment in the remaining chapters. + +I could easily make a long list of Utopian virtues and graces, but I +must content myself with touching on one more typical product of +Egeria's philosophy of education,--the joy which the children wear in +their faces and bear in their hearts. The sense of well-being which +must needs accompany healthy and harmonious growth is realised by him +who experiences it as joy. The Utopian children are by many degrees +the happiest that I have met with in an elementary school, and I +must therefore conclude that all is well with them, that their +well-being--the true end of all education--has been, and is being, +achieved. If you look at any of them with more than a mere passing +glance, you will be sure to win from him the quick response of a +sunny smile,--a smile which is half gladness, half goodwill. And the +joy of their hearts goes with them when their schooldays are over and +they begin to work for their bread. Last year one of the boys, on +leaving school, found employment in a large field on the lower slopes +of the hills, where he had to collect flints and pile them in heaps, +his wage for this dull and tiresome work being no more than fivepence +a day. But he found the work neither dull nor tiresome; for as he +marched up and down the field, collecting and piling the flints with +cheery goodwill, he sang his Folk Songs with all the spontaneous +happiness of a soaring lark. + +Activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a wide and free outlook, +self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy of heart,--these are +qualities which might be expected to unfold themselves under the +influence of the Utopian training, and which do, in point of fact, +flourish vigorously in the soil and atmosphere of Utopia. They are +the outcome of a type of education which differs radically from that +which has hitherto been accepted as orthodox,--differing from it with +the unfathomable difference between vital and mechanical obedience, +between life and machinery. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] The child is struggling to do this, and more than this. +The search for order resolves itself into the search for cause; and +the search for cause will resolve itself, in the last resort, into +the greatest of all adventures,--the search for that pure essence of +things on which all the deeper desires of the soul converge, which +imagination dreams of as absolute beauty, and reason as a beacon-lamp +of all-illuminating light, flashing forth alternately as absolute +reality and absolute truth. + +[17] I shall perhaps be told that my extravagant idealism is +out of place in a book on elementary education. To this possible +reproach I can but answer, in Mrs. Browning's words, that-- + + It takes the ideal to blow a hair's breadth off + The dust of the actual. + +My experience of Utopia has convinced me that in taking thought for +the education of the young it is impossible to be too idealistic, and +that the more "commonsensical" and "utilitarian" one's philosophy of +education, the shallower and falser it will prove to be. + +[18] An informal report to me, not a formal report to the +Board of Education. + +[19] Real, in the sense that the beauty of form and colour +is more real than either form or colour, and that a law of Nature is +more real than an isolated fact. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +EDUCATION THROUGH SELF-REALISATION + + +Activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, a large and free +outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy of heart,--are +there many schools in England in which the soil and atmosphere are +favourable to the vigorous growth of all these qualities? I doubt it. +In the secondary schools, of all grades and types, the education +given is so one-sided, thanks to the inexorable pressure of the +scholarship system, that the harmonious development of the child's +nature is not to be looked for. In the elementary schools, from which +the chilling shadow cast by thirty years of "payment by results" is +passing slowly--very slowly--away, the instinct of the teacher is to +distrust the child and do everything, or nearly everything, for him, +the result being that the whole _regime_ is still unfavourable to the +spontaneous outgrowth of the child's higher qualities. There are of +course schools, both secondary and elementary, in which one or more +of the Utopian qualities flourish with considerable vigour. There are +elementary schools, for example, in which the children, being allowed +by enterprising teachers to walk in new paths without leading +strings, have become unexpectedly active and versatile. And there are +others--mostly in the slum regions of great towns--in which the +devotion, the sympathetic kindness, and the gracious bearing of the +teachers have won from the children the response of unselfish +affection, attractive manners, and happy faces.[20] Yet even in these +exceptional cases it may be doubted if the development of the +particular quality or qualities for which the school is distinguished +reaches the high-water mark which is reached in each and all of the +seven qualities in Utopia. As for the elementary schools which remain +faithful, as so many still do, to the traditions of the old +regime,--if in these any of the seven qualities manage to resist the +adverse influences to which they are all exposed, they have at best +but a starved and stunted life. + +I have spoken much and with unsparing frankness of the shortcomings +of our elementary schools. The time has come for me to say with +emphasis that however grave and however numerous may be the defects +of elementary education in England, they are defects which it shares +with all other branches of education, and which England shares with +all other Western lands. The plain truth is that education as such is +a failure in the West, a failure in the sense that the very qualities +which it ought to foster--the cardinal virtues, mental, moral, and +spiritual, which are present in embryo in every child, waiting to be +realised--are not merely neglected by it, in its insane ardour for +"results," but are also exposed, in most of its schools, to strongly +adverse influences. And the reason why education as such is a failure +in the West is that from its earliest days it has been a house +divided against itself, those who were and are responsible for +it having been under the influence of two mutually destructive +assumptions, which they have vainly tried to reconcile with one +another. + +The first of these assumptions is my initial "truism,"--that the +function of education is to foster growth. This is admitted, +implicitly if not directly, by all who think and speak about +education, and even, in their unguarded moments, by most of those +who teach. It is generally admitted, for example, that such mental +qualities as attention, memory, judgment, intelligence, reason, +such moral qualities as loyalty, courage, truthfulness, kindness, +unselfishness, such semi-moral qualities as cleanliness, orderliness, +carefulness, alertness, industry, punctuality, are capable of being +developed by education. It is further admitted that such special +qualities as literary or artistic taste, the mathematical or the +historical sense, an aptitude for business or finance, are ready +to evolve themselves, in response to the fostering influence of +practical experience directed by skilful teaching. It is admitted, +in other words, that there is much in human nature, apart from what +is purely or mainly physical, which is both capable and worthy of +cultivation, and which education ought therefore to try to cultivate. + +So far, so good. These admissions, with the fundamental admission +which underlies them all, might form the basis of a sound philosophy +of education, if they were not liable to be stultified and even +nullified by the counter assumption that human nature is innately +evil and corrupt. For from the latter assumption has followed, both +logically and naturally, a theory of education which is not merely +unfavourable but fatal to growth. If human nature is innately evil, +if it has no inborn capacity for goodness or truth, what is there in +it that is worth training? So far as the "great matters" of life are +concerned, the child must be educated by being told in minute detail +what to do, and by being alternately bribed and bullied into doing +it. As he can neither think, nor believe, nor desire, nor do what +is right, he must be told what to think, what to believe, what to +desire, what to do; and as it is assumed that the tasks set him by +his teacher will not be intrinsically attractive, he must be induced +to perform them by the threat of external punishments and the promise +of external rewards. In other words, in the spheres of religion and +morals, so far as these can be walled off from the rest of human +life, he must be educated, not by being helped to grow, but by being +compelled to obey; and as the spheres of religion and morals cannot +possibly be walled off from the rest of human life, the idea of +educating the child through the medium of passive and mechanical +obedience will gradually extend its influence over all the other +departments and aspects of his home and school life, his innate +sinfulness finding its equivalent, in secular matters, in his innate +helplessness and stupidity, while in the place of the creeds, codes, +and catechisms by which his spiritual welfare is provided for, he +will be fed during the hours of secular instruction on rations of +information, formulated rules, and minute directions of various +kinds. Under this _regime_ of wire-pulling on the part of the teacher +and puppet-like dancing on the part of the child, the growth of +the child's faculties,--of the whole range of his faculties, for +they will all come under the blighting influence of the current +misconception of the bent of his nature and the consequent +under-estimate of his powers,--far from being fostered, will be +systematically thwarted and starved. This is the fate which might be +expected to befall the child if the doctrine of his innate sinfulness +were allowed to dominate his education; and this is the fate which +has befallen and is befalling him in all grades of society and in all +the countries of the West. + +It is the doctrine of original sin, of the congenital depravity of +man's nature, which blocks the way to the reform of education,--blocks +the way to it by compelling education to become the destroying angel +instead of the foster-nurse of the child's expanding life. In +criticising the defects of our educational system, we have too long +mistaken symptoms for causes, and believed that we were removing the +latter when we were only palliating or at best excising the former. +To pinch off a withered bud, to lop off a withered limb, of the +diseased tree of education, to train in this or that direction a +branch which is as yet unaffected, is but lost labour so long as +the tree is being slowly poisoned at its roots by a fundamental +misconception of the character and capacity of the child. It is time +that we should reconsider our whole attitude towards human nature. +The widespread belief that sundry faculties, physical, mental, and +moral, admit of being cultivated and ought to be cultivated in the +schoolroom--a belief which is ever affirming itself against the +educational systems and practices that are ever giving it the +lie--may surely be construed into an admission that my primary truism +is at least a truth. If this is so, if the business of the teacher +is, as I contend, to help the child to grow, healthily, vigorously, +and symmetrically, on all the planes of his being, the inference is +irresistible that education will achieve nothing but failure until +its foundations have been entirely relaid. For faith in the inherent +soundness, in the natural goodness, of the seed or sapling, or +whatever else he may undertake to rear, is the first condition of +success on the part of the grower. And to ask education to bring to +sane and healthy maturity the plant which we call human nature, and +in the same breath to tell it that human nature is intrinsically +corrupt and evil, is to set it an obviously impracticable task. One +might as well supply a farmer with the seeds of wild grasses and +poisonous weeds, and ask him to grow a crop of wheat. Growth can and +does transform potential into actual good, but no process of growth +can transform what is innately evil into what is finally good. A +poisonous seed will ripen of inner necessity into a poisonous plant; +and the more carefully it is fed and tended, the larger and stronger +will the poisonous plant become. + +The time has come, then, for us to throw to the winds the +time-honoured, but otherwise dishonoured and discredited, belief that +the child is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity, and that +therefore his nature, if allowed to obey its own laws and follow its +own tendencies, will ripen into death, instead of into a larger +and richer life. I shall perhaps be told that if this belief is +abandoned, other religious beliefs will go with it. Let them go. They +have kept bad company, and if they cannot dissociate themselves from +it, they had better share its fate. What is real and vital in our +religious beliefs will gain incalculably by being disengaged from +what may once have had a life and a meaning of its own but is now +nothing better than a morbid growth. To tell a man that, apart from a +miracle, he is predestined to perdition, is the surest way to send +him there; and it is probable that the doctrine of his own innate +depravity is the deadliest instrument for achieving his ruin, that +Man, in his groping endeavours to explain to himself the dominant +facts of his existence, has ever devised. + +Nor is the practical failure of the doctrine--its failure to achieve +any lasting result but the strangulation of Man's expanding life--the +only proof that it is inherently unsound. There is positive proof +that the counter doctrine, the doctrine of Man's potential goodness, +is inherently true. We have seen that the great arterial instincts +which manifest themselves in the undirected play of young children, +are making for three supreme ends,--the sympathetic instincts for the +goal of _Love_, the artistic instincts for the goal of _Beauty_, the +scientific instincts for the goal of _Truth_. We have seen, in other +words, that the push of Nature's forces in the inner life of the +young child is ever tending to take him out of himself in the +direction of a triune goal which I may surely be allowed to call +_Divine_. If we follow towards "infinity" the lines of love, of +beauty, and of truth, we shall begin at last to dream of an ideal +point--the meeting-point of all and the vanishing-point of each--for +which no name will suffice less pregnant with meaning or less +suggestive of reality than that of God. It is towards God, then, not +towards the Devil, that the ripening, expansive forces of Nature +which are at work in the child, are directing the process of his +growth. We are taught that Man is by nature a "child of wrath." The +more closely we study his ways and works when, as a young child, he +is left (more or less) to his own devices, the stronger does our +conviction become that he is by nature a "child of God." Those who +are in a position to speak tell us that the normal child is born +physically healthy. If the men of science would study the other sides +of his being as carefully as they have studied his physique, they +would, I feel sure, be able to tell us that he is also born mentally, +morally, and spiritually healthy, and that on these sides, as well as +on the physical side, his growth might be and ought to be a natural +movement towards perfection. For some of my readers such arguments as +these are perhaps too much in the air to be convincing. Well, then, +let us appeal to experience. Let us see what the systematic +cultivation of his natural faculties has done for the child in +Utopia. I have already pointed out that the unselfishness of the +children--the complete absence of self-seeking and self-assertion--is +one of the most noticeable features of the life of their school. Now +there is no place for moral teaching on the time-table of the +school: and I can say without hesitation that the direct inculcation +of morality is wholly foreign to Egeria's conception of education. +How, then, has the emancipation of the child from the first enemy of +Man's well-being--from all those narrowing, hardening, and +demoralising influences which we speak of collectively as egoistic or +selfish--been effected in Utopia? By no other means than that of +allowing the child's nature to unfold itself, on many sides of its +being and under thoroughly favourable conditions. The twofold desire +which we all experience,--to accept and rest in the ordinary +undeveloped self, and at the same time to exalt and magnify it,--is +the surest and most fruitful source of moral evil. Indeed, it may be +doubted if there is any source of moral evil, apart from those which +are purely sensual, which has not at least an underground connection +with this. If we are to "cap" this deadly fountain, and so prevent it +from desolating human life, we must realise, once and for all, that +the two desires which master us cannot be simultaneously gratified; +that we cannot both rest in the ordinary self and magnify it; that we +can magnify it only by _making it great_, by helping it to grow. When +we have realised this, we shall be ready to receive the further +lesson that in proportion as the self magnifies itself by the natural +process of growth, so does its desire to magnify itself gradually die +away,--die away with the dawning consciousness that in and through +the process of its growth it is outgrowing itself, forgetting itself, +escaping from itself, that the thing which so ardently desired to be +magnified is in fact ceasing to be. This vital truth,--which my +visits to Utopia have borne in upon me,--that healthy and harmonious +growth is in its very essence _out_growth or escape from self, has +depths of meaning which are waiting to be fathomed. For one thing, it +means, if it has any meaning, that what is central in human nature +is, not its inborn wickedness but its infinite capacity for good, not +its rebellious instincts and backsliding tendencies but its +many-sided effort to achieve perfection. + +We must now make our choice between two alternatives. We must decide, +once and for all, whether the function of education is to foster +growth or to exact mechanical obedience. If we choose the latter +alternative, we shall enter a path which leads in the direction of +spiritual death. If we choose the former, we must cease to halt +between two opinions, and must henceforth base our system of +education, boldly and confidently, on the conviction that growth is +in its essence a movement towards perfection, and therefore that +self-realisation is the first and last duty of Man. + +It is by answering possible objections to Utopianism that I shall +best be able to unfold Egeria's philosophy of education. I shall +perhaps be told that in my advocacy of that philosophy _I am +preaching dangerous doctrines; that the only alternative for +obedience is the lawlessness of unbridled licence; and that anarchy, +social, moral, and spiritual, is the ultimate goal of the path which +I am urging the teacher to enter._ Let me point out, in answer to +this protest, that it is mechanical obedience which I condemn, not +obedience as such. If I condemn mechanical obedience, I do so +because it is unworthy of the name of obedience, because the higher +faculties of Man's being, the faculties which are distinctively +human--reason, imagination, aspiration, spiritual intuition, and the +like--take no part in it, because it is the obedience of an +automaton, not of a living soul. What I wish to oppose to it is +_vital obedience_, obedience to the master laws of Man's being, +obedience to the laws which assert themselves as central and supreme, +obedience more particularly to those larger and obscurer laws which +obedience itself helps us to discover, obedience in fine to that +hierarchy of laws--(the superior law always claiming the fuller +measure and the higher kind of obedience)--which, if we are to use +the Divine Name, we must needs identify with the will of God. +Obedience, in this sense of the word, is a sustained and soul-deep +effort in which all the higher faculties of Man's being take part, +an effort which is in some sort a voyage of discovery, the doing of +the more obvious duty being always rewarded by the deepening of the +doer's insight and the widening of his outlook, and by the consequent +unveiling to him of the way in which he is to walk and the goal at +which he is to aim. That the path of soul-growth is the path of vital +obedience can scarcely be doubted. The effort to grow is always +successful just so far as it implies knowledge of the laws of the +nature that is unfolding itself, and readiness to obey those laws; +and so far as it is successful, it carries with it the outgrowth of +the very faculties by which knowledge--the higher knowledge which +makes further growth possible--is to be gained. Here, as +elsewhere, there is an unceasing interaction between perception and +expression, between knowledge of law and obedience to law, what is +given as obedience being received back as enlightenment, and what is +received as enlightenment being given back as larger, fuller, and +more significant obedience. + +And, be it carefully observed, it is obedience to the laws of human +nature, not obedience to the idiosyncrasies of the individual nature, +which the process of soul-growth at once implies and makes possible. +Growth is, in its essence, a movement towards that perfect type which +is the real self of each individual in turn, and the approach to +which involves the gradual surrender of individuality, and the +gradual escape from the ordinary self. A man is to cling to and +affirm his individuality, not in order that he may rest in it and +make much of it, but in order that he may outgrow it and pass far +beyond it in that one way--the best way for him--which it, and it +alone, is able to mark out for him. In other words, he is to assert +his individual self in order that he may universalise himself in his +own way, and not in obedience to the ruling of custom and authority, +in order that he may escape from himself through the real outlet of +sincere self-expression, and not through the sham outlet of hypocrisy +and cant. + +What I may call the Utopian scheme of education, far from making for +antinomianism and anarchy, is the sworn enemy of individualism and +therefore, _a fortiori_, of everything that savours of licence. It is +the conventional type of education, with its demands for mechanical +obedience to external authority, which leads through despotism to +social and political chaos. The whole _regime_ of mechanical +obedience is favourable, in the long run, to the development of +anarchy. Let us take the case of a church or an autocracy which +demands implicit obedience from its subjects, and is prepared to +exact such obedience by the application of physical force or its +moral equivalent. What will happen to it when its subjects begin to +ask it for its credentials? The fact that it has always demanded from +them literal rather than spiritual obedience, and that, in its +application of motive force, it has appealed to their baser desires +and baser fears, makes it impossible for it to justify itself to +their higher faculties, rational or emotional, and makes it necessary +for it to meet their incipient criticism with renewed threats of +punishment and renewed promises of reward. But the very fact that it +is being asked for its credentials means that the force on which it +has hitherto relied is weakening, that its power to punish and +reward, which has always been resolvable into the power to make +people believe that it can punish and reward, is being called in +question and is therefore crumbling away. And behind that power there +is nothing but chaos. For the _regime_ of mechanical obedience, by +arresting the spontaneous growth of Man's higher nature, and by +making its chief appeal to his baser desires and baser fears, becomes +of necessity the foster-mother of egoism; and when egoism, which +makes each man a law to himself and the potential enemy of his kind, +is unrestrained by authority, the door is thrown wide open to +anarchy, and through anarchy to chaos. This is what is happening in +the West, in our self-conscious and critical age. In every field of +human action, in religion, in politics, in social life, in art, in +letters, authority is being asked for its credentials; and as this +demand, besides being a disintegrating influence, is a sign that the +force on which authority relies is weakening, it is not to be +wondered at that there is a steady drift in many Western countries in +the direction of anarchy,--religious, political, social, artistic, +literary,--or that this _regime_ of incipient anarchy is taking the +form of an ignoble scramble for wealth, for power, for position, for +fame, for notoriety, for anything in fine which may serve to exalt a +man above his fellows, and so minister to the aggrandizement of his +lower self. + +In this drift towards anarchy the school is playing its part. I do +not wish to suggest that the boys and girls of this or any other +Western country are beginning to ask their teachers for their +credentials, or are likely to rise in rebellion against them. The +preparation for anarchy that is going on in the school is not only +quite compatible with what is known as "strict discipline," but is +also, in part at least, the effect of it. What is happening is that +in an acutely critical age the _regime_ of mechanical obedience to +external authority which has been in force in the West for nearly +2000 years, and which is now taking its victims straight towards +anarchy, is being carefully rehearsed in our schools of all types and +grades. During the years when human nature is most pliable (owing to +its richness in sap), most easily trained, and most amenable to +influence, good or evil, the child's spontaneous effort to outgrow +himself and so escape from his lower self,--an end which is not to be +reached except by the path of free self-expression,--is persistently +thwarted till at last it dies away; blind and literal obedience to +external authority, for which the consent of his higher faculties +is not asked, and in the giving of which they are not allowed to +take part, is persistently exacted from him till at last his +higher faculties cease to energise, and his lower nature begins to +monopolise the rising sap of his life; in order to enforce the blind +obedience that is asked for, an appeal is made, by an elaborate +system of external rewards and external punishments, to his selfish +desires and ignoble fears; while the examination system, with +its inevitable accompaniments of prizes and class-lists, makes a +special appeal to his competitive instincts,--instincts which are +anti-social, and may even, in extreme cases, become anti-human in +their tendency. And when authority has thus been presented to him, in +a form which he has never been expected to welcome, and when, by the +same process, the growth of his higher self has been arrested, and +his anarchical instincts--his selfishness and self-assertion--have +been systematically cultivated, the critical spirit and temper will +be deliberately aroused in him, especially if he happens to attend +one of those secondary schools which are regarded as highly efficient +because their lists of University distinctions and other "successes" +are inordinately long; for the education given to him in such a +school by his scholarship-hunting teachers is of necessity so bookish +and so one-sided that his intellectual, dialectically critical +faculties are apt to become hypertrophied, while other faculties +which might have kept these in check are neglected and starved. The +product of such a system of education,--benumbed or paralysed on many +sides of his being by the repressive _regime_ to which he has so long +been subjected, but vigorously alive on the sides of egoism and +intellectual criticism,--will be an anarchist _in posse_ (unless, +indeed, his vitality has been depressed by his school-life below the +point at which reaction becomes possible);--an anarchist _in posse_, +even though, in his terror of anarchism in others, he should become a +pillar of the Established Church of his country, a J.P. of his town +or county, and an active member of the nearest Conservative +Association. + +In Utopia, on the other hand, where selfishness is outgrown and +forgotten, and where the spirit of comradeship and brotherhood +pervades the school, there can be no preparation for anarchy, if only +for the reason that there is no authority--no despotic authority, +forcibly imposing its will on the school _ab extra_--to be +potentially dethroned. For all her scholars, Egeria is the very +symbol and embodiment of love, the centre whence all happy, +harmonious, life-giving, peace-diffusing influences radiate, and to +which, when they have vitalised the souls of the children and +transformed themselves into sentiments of loyalty and devotion, they +all return. I am not exaggerating a whit when I say that the Utopian +school is an ideal community, a community whose social system, +instead of being inspired by that spirit of "competitive selfishness" +which makes "each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost" its +motto, seems to have realised the Socialistic dream of "Each for all, +and all for each." + +I shall perhaps be asked _what provision is made in Utopia for +enabling the children to go through the drudgery of school-life, to +master the "3 R's," to "get up" the various subjects which the Code +prescribes, and so forth_. To this question there is but one answer: +the best possible provision. "Qui veut la fin veut les moyens." In +the life of organised play which the children lead, attractive ends +are ever being set before them. If they are to achieve these ends, +they must take the appropriate means. What children in other schools +might regard as drudgery, the Utopian takes in his stride. Reading, +writing, and arithmetic are means to ends beyond themselves, ends +which are constantly presenting themselves to the Utopian. If he is +to gratify his communicative instinct, he must learn to read and +write. If he is to gratify his dramatic instinct, he must, _inter +alia_, read with intelligence books of reference which would be +considered too advanced for the ordinary school-child. If he is to +gratify his inquisitive and constructive instincts, he must learn +to count, measure, and calculate. For whatever means may have to +be taken, must be taken by him. Egeria, as he knows well, will +do nothing for him which he can reasonably be expected to do for +himself. There are subjects, such as drawing, dancing, and singing, +which are, or at any rate ought to be, intrinsically delightful, +as being natural channels of self-expression. There are other +subjects, such as history, geography, and English, which can be made +delightful by being treated dramatically. The word "drudgery" has no +meaning for the Utopian child. A group of children in the highest +class recently committed to memory the whole "Trial Scene" of the +_Merchant of Venice_--some 300 lines or so of blank verse--in order +that they might give themselves the pleasure of acting it. They +accomplished this feat in a little more than a month. In the ordinary +elementary school the child who has committed 150 lines to memory +in the course of a year has done all that is required of him. The +getting up of a subject is drudgery only when the child can see no +meaning in what he is doing, only when the getting up of the subject +is regarded as an end in itself. In Utopia no subject, apart from +those which I have spoken of as intrinsically delightful, is taught +for its own sake. Subjects are taught there either as the means to +desired ends, or because they afford opportunities for the training +of the expansive instincts, the gratification of which is a pure +pleasure to every healthy child. + +But not only does the Utopian child, with his eyes always fixed on +desirable ends, find a pleasure in doing things which other children +are wont to regard as drudgery, but he has the further advantage of +being able to master with comparative facility what other children +find difficult as well as distasteful. From first to last, the +training given in Utopia makes, as we have seen, for the development +of faculty. In my last chapter I set forth in detail some of the ways +and means by which Egeria tries to cultivate the expansive instincts +of her pupils. Behind all these ways and means stands the master +method--or shall I say the master principle?--of self-expression. +Recognising, as she does, that each of the expansive instincts is a +definite expression of the soul's spontaneous effort to grow, and a +clear indication of a particular direction in which Nature wishes the +soul to grow,--and recognising, as she also does, that the business +of growing must be done by the growing organism and cannot be +delegated to any one else,--Egeria entrusts the work of +self-realisation to the child himself, and makes no attempt to +relieve him of an obligation which no one but himself can discharge. + +Now self-realisation is a twofold process. In the absence of a fitter +and more adequate word, I have applied the term _perceptive_ to those +faculties by means of which we lay hold upon the world that surrounds +us, and draw it into ourselves and make it our own. And I have +contended that this group of faculties has, as its counterpart +and correlate, another group of faculties which I have called +_expressive_,--the faculties by means of which we go out of ourselves +into the world that surrounds us, and give ourselves to it and try to +identify ourselves with it,--and that the relation between these two +groups is so vital and so intimate that each in turn may be regarded +as the very life and soul of the other. In words which I have already +used, the perceptive faculties, at any rate in childhood, grow +through the interpretation which expression gives them, and in no +other way, and the expressive faculties grow by interpreting +perception, and in no other way. That these two groups of faculties +are, as it were, the reciprocating engines by means of which the +vital movement which we call self-realisation is effected, is the +conviction on which Egeria's whole scheme of education may be said to +be pivoted. In Utopia self-expression is the medium through which the +expansive instincts are encouraged to unfold themselves. And this +life of self-expression has as its necessary counterpart the +continuous development of the perceptive faculties along the whole +range of the child's nature. + +Hence the all-round capacity of the Utopian child. The development of +his perceptive faculties which his life of self-expression tends to +produce, takes many forms. One of these, and one which in some sort +underlies and interpenetrates all the rest, is the outgrowth of what +I may call the _intuitional_ faculty,--a general capacity for getting +into touch with any new environment in which the child may find +himself, of subconsciously apprehending its laws and properties, of +feeling his way through its unexplored land. It is by means of this +capacity for putting forth a new _sense_ in response to the stimulus +of each new environment, that the Utopian child is able to master +with comparative ease the various subjects which he is expected to +learn. And not with ease only, but with effect. It is, as we have +seen, through the action of an appropriate sense, and in no other +way, that the information which is supplied to the scholar, when he +is learning this or that subject, is converted into _knowledge_, and +is so made available both for the further understanding of the given +subject and for the nutrition of the scholar's own inner life. + +From every point of view, then, the Utopian scholar has a marked +advantage, in respect of the things with which education is supposed +to be mainly concerned--the mastery of subjects and the acquisition +of knowledge--over the product of the conventional type of school. +Whatever the Utopian may have to learn, is a pleasure to him either +for its own sake or as a means to some desirable end. Whatever he may +have to learn, he learns with comparative ease, because his +perceptive faculties have been systematically trained, and he is +therefore at home, in greater or lesser degree, in any new +environment. And whatever he may have to learn, he learns with +effect, because he is able to digest the information that he +receives, and convert it into knowledge, and so retain it in the form +in which it will best conduce both to his further progress in that +particular branch of study and to the general building up of his +mind. + +In the ordinary result-hunting school the scholar fares very +differently from this. As a rule, he takes but little pleasure in his +work, for subjects which have their chief value as means to desirable +ends are presented to him as ends in themselves, and as such are +rightly regarded by him as meaningless and therefore as intolerably +dull; while subjects which are either intrinsically attractive, as +being natural channels of self-expression, or potentially attractive +as providing opportunities for self-expression, have no attraction +for him, as in neither case is self-expression on his part permitted. +Again, he finds great difficulty in mastering the subjects on his +time-table, or even in making the first step towards mastering them, +for, owing to his perceptive faculties as a whole having been +starved by the repressive _regime_ which denied them the outlet +of expression, he has not evolved the power of putting forth an +appropriate sense in response to the stimulus of a new environment, +and is therefore helpless in the presence of what is unfamiliar or +unexpected. One of his faculties, his memory, has indeed been +hypertrophied by being unduly exercised, and his capacity for +receiving information is in consequence unhealthily great; but +because he lacks, in this case or in that, the _sense_ which might +enable him to digest the information received and convert it into +knowledge, the food with which he has been crammed speedily passes +through him, undigested and unassimilated, and the hours which he has +spent in acquiring information will have done as little for his +progress in the given subject as for the general growth of his mind. + +The difference between the two schemes of education--that which +exacts mechanical obedience, and that which seeks to foster +growth--may be looked at from another point of view. Under the +former, interference with what I may call the subconscious processes +of Nature is at its maximum. Under the latter, at its minimum. In +order to realise what this means let us suppose that such +interference were possible where fortunately it is and must ever be +impossible,--in the first and second years of the child's life. +Fortunately for the child, it is impossible for us to educate him, +in any formal sense of the word, until he has mastered his mother +tongue. Were it otherwise, his mother tongue would never be mastered. +Before he reaches the age of two the child accomplishes the +marvellous feat of acquiring an entirely new language. While he is +learning it Nature is his only teacher, and under her tuition he +masters the new language without the least strain and with complete +success. But let us suppose that it was possible for a teacher of the +conventional type to give minute directions to a child by some other +medium of expression than that of language. And let us suppose that +such a teacher made up her mind that she, and not Nature, was to +teach the child his mother tongue. One can readily imagine what would +happen. The teacher would probably have a theory that no child should +begin to talk till he was two or even two and a half years old; and +if so, the child would be kept in a state of enforced dumbness till +he reached that age. In any case, he would be strictly forbidden +to speak till his teacher gave him formal permission to do so. +Half-an-hour in the morning, and half-an-hour in the afternoon would +probably be set aside for the language lesson. For so many weeks or +months the child would be strictly limited to words of two or three +letters. For so many more weeks or months, to words of four or five +letters. Things which had names of more than the prescribed number +of letters would be kept away from the child; or, if that was +impossible, he would not be allowed to talk about them. For half a +year perhaps he would be limited to the use of nouns and verbs. +Prepositions might then be introduced into his vocabulary; and, +later, adjectives and adverbs. And so on; and so on. And the outcome +of all this elaborate training would be that the child would never +learn to talk his mother tongue. + +It is by methods analogous in all respects to this that many of the +subjects on the time-table are taught in thousands of our schools. +The teacher seems to imagine that he knows, fully and precisely, how +each subject ought to be taught; and instead of standing aside, and +trying to learn how Nature wishes this or that subject to be taught +(if Nature can be said to take any interest in "subjects"), and then +trying to co-operate with her subconscious tendencies, he makes out +his elaborate scheme of instruction, sets before the child as the +goal of his efforts the production of certain formal results, and +drives him towards these with whip and bridle, satisfied that if he +succeeds in producing them, the subject will have been duly mastered. +And all the time he will not have given a thought to what is +happening to the child's inner life. Yet it is more than probable +that the teacher's disregard of, and therefore incessant interference +with, the subconscious processes of Nature has quite as disastrous +results in the teaching of composition, let us say, or drawing, as it +would certainly have in the hypothetical case of the teaching of the +child's mother tongue. + +But in truth the Utopian conception of what constitutes efficiency +differs so radically from the current conception, that little is to +be gained by comparing them. If I am asked by those who value outward +and visible results for their own sake, whether the training given in +Utopia is "efficient," I can but answer: "Yes, but efficient in a +sense which you cannot even begin to understand,--efficient in the +sense of developing faculty and fostering life, whereas the price +paid for your boasted efficiency is the starvation of faculty and the +destruction of life." + + * * * * * + +"_But how_," it will be asked, "_are the Utopian children, one and +all, induced to exert themselves? The standard of activity in the +school is, on your own showing, exceptionally high. Much is expected +of the children. Yet there are no rewards for them to hope for, and +no punishments for them to fear. How, then, are those who are by +nature less energetic or less persevering than the rest to be induced +to rise to the level of the teacher's expectation?_" By implication +this question has been answered again and again. But it deserves a +direct answer, and I will try to give it one. + +To begin with, it is incorrect to say that there are no rewards or +punishments in Utopia. Outward rewards and outward punishments are +entirely unknown there; but there are inward rewards to be had for +the seeking, and there are inward punishments to be feared, though it +must be admitted that the fear of them seldom overshadows, even for +a passing moment, the sunlit life of the Utopian child. What induces +the Utopian child to work is, in brief, delight in his work. He is +allowed and even encouraged to energise along the lines which his +nature seems to have marked out for him, and in response to the +stress of forces which seem to be welling up from the depths of his +inner life. Exertion of this kind is in itself a delight. Nature has +taken care to make all the exercises by which growth is fostered, at +any rate in the days of childhood when growth is most rapid and +vigorous, intrinsically attractive. Had she done otherwise she would +have failed to make due provision for the growth of Man's being +during the years which precede the outgrowth of self-consciousness, +and the possibility of self-discipline, of the narrower and sterner +kind. + +And not only are the exercises by which healthy and harmonious growth +is secured intrinsically attractive, but also the sense of well-being +which accompanies such growth is an unfailing source of happiness. In +Utopia the end for which the children are working is not an external +reward or prize to be conferred on them if they achieve certain +prescribed results, but rather the actual goal to which the path that +they have entered is taking them,--a goal which is ever lighting the +path with its foreglow, and which is therefore at once an infinitely +distant lodestar and an ever present delight. For the consummation of +any process of growth is always the perfection, the final well-being, +of the thing that grows; and therefore in each successive stage of +the process there is a truer prefigurement of the perfection which +is being gradually achieved, and a fuller sense of that well-being +which, at its highest level, is perfection's other self. + +For the Utopian, then, to walk in the path of self-realisation is its +own reward; and to wander from that path is its own punishment. But +as the forces of Nature are all co-operating to keep the child in +the path of self-realisation, and as Egeria has allied herself with +those forces and is working with them in every possible way, the +rewards which the Utopian wins for himself are very many, while the +punishments which he inflicts on himself are very few. In other +words, the pressure on him to exert himself is so strong, his +opportunities for exerting himself (under Egeria's sympathetic rule) +are so many, and the pleasure of exerting himself is found to be so +great, that the temptation to be idle or rebellious can scarcely be +said to exist. + +It is indeed in respect of the motives to exertion which they +respectively supply, that the superiority of the Utopian to the +conventional type of education is perhaps most pronounced. I have +said that Egeria allies herself with the expansive forces of Nature. +The teacher of the conventional type has to fight against those +forces. Let us assume that the two teachers are on a level in respect +of their capacity for influencing and stimulating their pupils, +and let us indicate that level by the algebraical symbol _x_. Then +the difference between the motive force which Egeria exerts, and +the motive force which her rival exerts, is the difference between +_x_ + _y_, and _x_ - _y_, _y_ being used to symbolise the aggregate +motive force of the expansive tendencies of the child's inner nature. +Such a difference is incalculable. The scheme of education which is +based on distrust of the child's nature and belief in its intrinsic +sinfulness and stupidity, necessarily arrays against itself the +hidden forces of that maligned and despised nature, and must needs +overcome their resistance before it can hope to achieve its proposed +end. While Egeria is helping Nature to provide suitable channels for +the various expansive tendencies that are at work in the child, and +to guide them all into the central channel of self-realisation, her +rival is engaged in digging a canal (to be filled, when finished, +with dead, stagnant water) which is so designed that not only will no +use be made by it of the life stream of the child's latent energies, +but also costly culverts and other works will have to be constructed +for it in order to divert and send to waste that troublesome +current. + +The waste of motive force which goes on under any scheme of education +through mechanical obedience, is indeed enormous. And what is most +lamentable is that the energies of the teacher are being largely +wasted in the effort to neutralise the latent energies of the child. +No wonder that, in order to produce his meagre and illusory, +"results," the teacher should have to resort to motive forces which, +by appealing to the lower side of the child's nature, will enable +him to bear down the resistance, and, in doing so, to impede the +outgrowth of the higher,--to the hope of external rewards and the +threat of external punishments. And no wonder that, owing to the +teacher having to work unceasingly against the grain of the +child's nature, of these two demoralising forces, the fear of +punishment--which, if not the more demoralising, is certainly the +more wasteful of energy--should bulk the more largely in the eyes +of the child. + +In fine, then, whereas the conventional type of education is so +wasteful of motive force that it dissipates the greater part of the +teachers' and the scholars' energies in needless friction,--in +Utopia, on the other hand, there is such an economy of motive force +that the very joy which, under its scheme of education, always +accompanies the child's expenditure of energy, and which might be +regarded as merely a waste by-product, becomes in its turn a powerful +incentive to further exertion. + + * * * * * + +"_But is there not too much joy in Utopia? Is not the sky too +cloudless? Is not the atmosphere too clear? Does the Utopian never +act from a sense of duty? Has he never to do anything that is +distasteful to him?_" This objection raises an interesting question. +Is the function of the sense of duty to enable us to do distasteful +things? And if so, are we to regard it as the highest of motives to +moral action? In the days when Kant's idea of the "moral imperative" +was in the ascendant, the belief got abroad that the essence of +virtue was to do what you hated doing. Looking back to my Oxford +days, I recall some doggerel lines, of German origin, in which this +belief finds apt expression. A disciple who is in trouble about his +soul says to his master: + + "Willing serve I my friends, but do it, alas! with affection, + And so gnaws me my heart, that I'm not virtuous yet." + +To this the master replies: + + "Help except this there is none: you must strive with + might to contemn them, + And with horror perform then what the law may enjoin." + +If this conception of morality is correct, if it is true that the +atmosphere of the virtuous life should be one of horror and even of +hatred, then it must be admitted that the Utopian children are +receiving a seriously defective education. But the "if" is a large +one; and for my part I incline to the belief that love, as a motive +to action, is better than hatred, joy than horror, sunshine than +gloom. + +The day will indeed come when the Utopian--a child no longer--will +have to do things, either for his own sake or in order to discharge +obligations to others, which will be, or will seem to be, against the +grain even of his happy nature; and the sense of duty will then have +to come to his aid. But there is no reason why he, or his teachers, +should anticipate that day. To compel him, while still a child, to +work against the grain of his nature, when there was no real need for +this, would not be the best preparation for the trials that await +him. To compel him to spend the greater part of his school-life in +doing what was distasteful to him, would be the worst possible +preparation for them. + +For, to begin with, the sense of duty is not the highest motive to +action. A far higher motive is love. If the sense of duty to God, for +example, had not devotion to God and love of God behind it, the +object of one's worship would be a malignant rather than a beneficent +deity, a devil rather than a God. Or let us take the case of a child +who is dangerously ill, and who needs to be carefully and even +devotedly nursed. By whom will he be the more effectively nursed,--by +his mother who loves him passionately, or by a hired nurse who cannot +be expected to love him but who has a strong sense of duty to her +employers? (I am assuming that as regards professional skill, and +the sense of duty to God, the two women are on a level.) Surely the +mother, sustained by love in the endurance of sleeplessness and +fatigue, and in the exercise of that unceasing vigilance which lets +no symptom escape it, will be the better nurse. Love, as a motive to +moral action, has the immense advantage over the sense of duty of +being able to rob the hour of trial of its gloom, by strengthening +the lover to make light of labour and difficulty till at last the +sense of effort is lost in the sense of joy. But if love is the +highest of all motives, is it not well that the child's life should +as far as possible, and for as long as possible, be kept under its +influence, to the exclusion of other motives. We have seen that the +Utopian child takes many things in his stride which other children +would regard as distasteful. If they are not distasteful to him, the +reason is that he does them, not from a sense of duty, but under the +inspiration of love,--love of life, love of Egeria, love of his +schoolmates, love of his school. And the longer he can remain on the +high plane of love, the better it will be for his after life. + +And when the time comes for him to yield himself to the "saving arms" +of duty, he will have had the best of all preparations for that hour +of trial, for he will have been braced and strengthened for it by the +most moralising of all disciplines, that of growth. What is the sense +of duty? We too seldom ask ourselves this question. Is it not a +feeling of obligation, of being in debt, to some person, or persons, +or institution, or society, or even to some invisible Power;--to +a friend, for example, a relative, a dependent, an employer, a +"contracting party," a commanding officer,--or, again, to one's trade +or profession, to one's political party, to one's church, to one's +country,--or, in the last resort, to God? And is not this feeling +accompanied by the secret conviction that until the debt has been +liquidated, to the best of the debtor's ability, justice will not +have been done? The sense of duty is, I think, a derivative sense, +an offshoot from the more primitive sense of justice,--a sense so +primitive that it may almost be said to have made possible our social +life. If this is so, if the sense of duty is resolvable into the +sense of justice, then the training which is given in Utopia--a +training which makes for healthy and harmonious growth, and therefore +(as we have seen) for outgrowth or escape from self--is the best +preparation for a life of duty, that can possibly be given. For under +its influence the sense of justice, which is essentially a social +instinct, knowing no distinction between oneself and one's neighbour, +will be relieved of the hostile pressure of its arch-enemy, the +anti-social instinct of selfishness,[21] and will therefore make +rapid and vigorous growth. The sense of justice is, as might be +expected, strongly developed in the selfless atmosphere of Utopia, +where indeed it has helped, in no small degree, to evolve the +wonderful social life of the school; and, that being so, there is no +fear but what the Utopian will be sustained by the sense of duty when +the time comes for him to work against the grain of his nature. But +however strong may be his sense of duty, he will always have the +great advantage of being seldom called upon to do what he dislikes, +and therefore of being able to keep the fibre of his sense of duty +from being either unduly relaxed or unduly hardened by overwork; for +he has been accustomed from his earliest days to make light of, and +even find a pleasure in, what is usually accounted drudgery, and he +has been accustomed to work, in school and out of school, under the +inspiration of joy and love. + +_But is the education given in Utopia useful?_ I wish I knew who was +asking this question, for I cannot hope to answer it to his +satisfaction until I know what is his standard of values. What end +does he set before the teachers of our elementary schools? If he +would tell me this, I might be able to say Yes or No to his question. + +At present there seems to be no agreement among educationalists, +professional or amateur, as to what constitutes usefulness in +education. Those who belong to the "upper classes" are apt to assume +that the "lower orders" will have been adequately educated when they +have been taught reading, writing, arithmetic, needlework, and +"religion," subjected to a certain amount of repressive discipline, +and compelled to go to church or chapel. If, after having passed +through this mill, the children of the "lower orders" do not develop +into good men and women and useful citizens, it is not their +education which is to blame, but the inborn sinfulness of their +corrupt and fallen natures. Such an education is regarded by those +who advocate it as pre-eminently _useful_. There is no nonsense about +it, no cant of idealism, no taint of socialism. It keeps the "lower +orders" in their places, and forbids them to dream of rising above +"that state of life unto which it" has pleased "God to call them." As +it is a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the conventional type of education, +my objection to it is that it makes the best possible provision for +securing the end which the conventional type seems to have set +before itself,--in other words, for depressing the vitality of the +child, for starving his faculties, for arresting his growth. As +such, it has not even the merit of being sordidly useful; for +unless stupidity is a better thing than intelligence, slowness than +alertness, helplessness than initiative, lifelessness than vital +activity, the child who has passed through that dreary mill will be +far less effective, even as a day-labourer, than the child whose +school-life has been one of continuous and many-sided growth. It is +strange that the reactionary members of the "upper classes" should be +too short-sighted to discern this obvious truth. But perhaps they +have a secret conviction that by so educating the "lower orders" as +to make them slow and stupid, helpless and lifeless, they will be the +better able to keep them in a state of subservience to and dependence +on themselves.[22] If this is so, there is method in the madness of +the "upper classes"; and their conception of the course that +education ought to take has the merit of being entirely true to their +basely selfish conception of the end that education ought to serve. + +I have alluded to this pseudo-utilitarian theory, not because it is +intrinsically worthy of serious attention, but because there is +undoubtedly a strong and influential current of opinion which sets in +its direction. There are other advocates of a "useful" education who +seem to regard the elementary school, not as a training ground for +good men and women, but as a kind of technical institute in which the +children are to be trained for the various callings by which, when +they grow up, they will have to earn their daily bread. This theory +need not be seriously considered, for its inherent absurdity has +caused it to be tacitly abandoned by all whose opinion carries +weight; and the more reasonable theory that the education given in +the elementary school should be as far as possible adapted to the +environment of the school--that it should be given a rural bias, for +example, or a marine bias, or even an urban bias--has begun to take +its place. That it should ever have found advocates is interesting as +showing how easy it is for unenlightened public opinion to +misinterpret the word "useful."[23] + +There is a third class of critics, composed for the most part of +members of Local Education Committees, who seem to think that ability +to pass a "leaving" examination is the only valid proof of the +usefulness of elementary education. If these influential critics, who +are showing in various ways that they care more for machinery than +for life, could have their will, they would probably revert to the +"good old days" of cut-and-dried syllabuses, formal examinations of +individual scholars, percentages of passes, and the like. As I have +already taken pains to explain what the _regime_ of the "good old +days" really meant, I need not waste my time in exposing the +fallacies which underlie this conception of "usefulness." + +Here, then, are three distinct standards of usefulness in elementary +education. According to the first, education is useful in proportion +as it tends, by repressing the activities and atrophying the +faculties of the scholars, to keep the "lower orders" in their +places, and in so doing to provide the "upper classes" with a +sufficiency of labourers and servants. According to the second, it is +useful in proportion as it is able to prepare the scholars for their +various callings in after life.[24] According to the third, in +proportion as it enables the scholars to pass with credit certain +"leaving" and other examinations of a formal type. + +I will now assume that the end of education is to produce, or at any +rate contribute to the production of, good men and women; and that +the education given in elementary schools is useful in exact +proportion as it serves this end. I am not using the word "good" in +its Sunday School sense. Nor does the word suggest to my mind that +blend of stupidity, patience, and submissiveness which sometimes +passes for "goodness" when the "upper classes" are taking thought for +the welfare of the "lower orders." The good man, as I understand the +phrase, is a good son, a good brother, a good husband, a good father, +a good citizen, a good townsman, a good workman, a good servant, a +good master. In fine, he is a good specimen of his kind, well +grown and well developed, efficient on all the planes of his +being,--physical, mental, moral, spiritual. This conception of what +constitutes useful education differs radically from those which I +have just been considering; but I believe that when it has been +adequately expounded, and submitted to the judgment of those whose +opinion is worth having, it will not be seriously gainsaid. + +If education is useful in proportion as it tends to produce good men +and women, the education given in Utopia is useful to the highest +degree. For a child cannot become a good man (or woman) except by +_growing_ good; and if he is to grow good, his nature must be allowed +to develop itself freely and harmoniously (for just so far as it is +normal and healthy it is necessarily making for its own perfection), +and the one end and aim of the teacher must be to stimulate and +direct this process of spontaneous growth. This, as we have seen, is +the one end and aim of Egeria; and it is therefore clear that she +is taking effective steps--the most effective that can possibly +be taken--to produce good men and women. We have but to name the +qualities which are characteristic, as we have already seen, of her +pupils and ex-pupils,--activity, versatility, imaginative sympathy, +a large and free outlook, self-forgetfulness, charm of manner, joy +of heart,--in order to convince ourselves that those who have passed +through the Utopian school are on the high road which leads to +"goodness." So obvious is all this, that in defining the word +"useful" I may be said to have decided the question in favour of +Utopia; and what is now in dispute is not whether Utopianism is +"useful," in any sense of the word, but whether my sense of the word +is the right one. + +I cannot go much further into this question without exceeding the +limits of the theme which I am handling in this chapter. For in +considering the after life of the Utopian child, I am entering a +region in which the idea of _education_ begins to merge itself in the +larger idea of _salvation_; and though education, as begun in Utopia, +is in its essence a life-long process, I must pay some heed to the +limits which tradition and custom have imposed on the meaning of the +word. + +But before I close this chapter I must be allowed to give one +illustration in support of my contention that the education given in +Utopia is useful. Of the many complaints that are brought against the +output of our elementary schools, one of the most serious is that the +boys and girls who have recently left school are voracious readers of +a vicious and demoralising literature which seems to be provided for +their special benefit. The reason why they take so readily to this +garbage is that they have lost their appetite for wholesome food. +They are not interested in healthy literature, in Nature-study, in +music, in art, in handicraft,--in any pursuit which might take them +out of themselves into a larger and freer life; and so they fall +victims to the allurements of a literature which appeals to their +baser, more sensual, and more selfish instincts,--the very instincts +which growth (in the true sense of the word) spontaneously relegates +to a subordinate position and places under effective control. It is +the inertness, the apathy, the low vitality of the average child of +fourteen, which is the cause of his undoing. His taste for false and +meretricious excitement--a taste which may lead him far along the +downward path--is the outcome of his very instinct to live, an +instinct which, though repressed by the influences that have choked +its natural channels, cannot resign itself to extinction, and at +last, in its despairing effort to energise, forces for itself the +artificial outlet of an imaginative interest in vice and crime. + +The "young person" who, on leaving school, becomes a voracious +devourer of unwholesome literature, cannot be said to have received +a "useful" education. That vice and crime--whether practised or +imagined--are in the first instance artificial outlets, outlets which +the soul would not use if its expansive instincts were duly fostered, +is proved by the absence of "naughtiness" in the Utopian school, +and the absence of any taste for morbid excitement amongst Utopian +ex-scholars. The unwholesome literature which gives so much concern +to those who are interested in the welfare of the young, is unknown +in Utopia. And in this, as in other matter, the "goodness" of the +children and "young persons" is due, not to any lack of life and +spirit, but to the very abundance of their vitality. Apart from the +fact that vigorous growth, whether in plant or animal or human soul, +is in itself a sure prophylactic against the various evils to which +growing life is exposed, the Utopians are guarded against the danger +of demoralising books and demoralising amusements by their many-sided +interest in life. Their instinct to live, finding natural and +adequate outlets in many directions, has no need to force for itself +the artificial outlet of morbid excitement,--an outlet for imprisoned +energies, which has too often proved an opening to a life of vice and +crime. There is a Shakespeare in every cottage in Utopia; but the +advocates of a repressive and restrictive education for the "lower +orders" need not be alarmed at this, for the Utopians, who have found +the secret of true happiness, are freer than most villagers from +social discontent. Nor are Egeria's ex-pupils less efficient as +labourers or domestic servants because they are interested in good +literature, in Nature-study, in acting, or because they can still +dance the Morris Dances and sing the Folk Songs which they learned in +school. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] I am thinking more particularly of some of the Roman +Catholic schools in the Irish quarter of Liverpool, where the +singularly kind and gracious bearing of the teaching "sisters" +towards their poor, ill-fed, and ill-clad pupils is an educative +influence of incalculable value. + +[21] The sense of justice, which would give to each his due, +and therefore not more than his due to oneself, seems to hold the +balance between selfishness and love, being as it were, equidistant +from the greed and self-indulgence of the former and the lavishness +and self-devotion of the latter. If this is so, and if the sense of +duty is, as I have suggested, an offshoot from the sense of justice, +one can understand why, on the one hand, the sense of duty should be +needed to hold the self-seeking instincts in check, and why, on the +other hand, it should be an altogether lower and weaker motive than +love, by which indeed, _in its own interest_, it should always be +ready to be superseded. + +[22] I was once present when the Utopian children were going +through a programme of Folk Songs and Morris Dances in the village +hall. A lady who was looking on remarked to me: "This is all very +fine; but if this sort of thing goes on, where are we going to find +our servants?" The selfishness of this remark is obvious. What is +less obvious, but more significant, is its purblindness. In point of +fact the Utopian girls make excellent domestic servants, and are well +content to "go into service." + +[23] Some two or three years ago it was seriously proposed +that _marine navigation_ should be taught in all the elementary +schools of a certain maritime county! + +[24] The parent who wrote to a schoolmaster, "Please do not +teach my boy any more poetry, as he is going to be a grocer," must +have been under the influence of this conception of usefulness. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SALVATION THROUGH SELF-REALISATION + + +In Utopia the transition from _education_ to _salvation_, both in +theory and practice, is obvious and direct. The difference between +education and salvation is, indeed, purely nominal: in their essence +the two processes are one. As the education given in Utopia is, in +the main, self-education, there is no reason why it should not be +continued indefinitely after the child has left school; and as its +function is to foster the growth of the child's many-sided nature +(with its vast potentialities), there is every reason why it should +be continued as long as he lives. In other words, the path of +salvation is the path of self-realisation, the most important part of +which is traversed in childhood; and to attain to salvation (which is +in a sense unattainable) is to remain faithful to that path till it +passes beyond our thought. + +Outside Utopia there is a widely different conception of the meaning +and purpose of education, and a correspondingly different conception +of the nature of salvation and the means by which it is to be +achieved. The idea of salvation, with the complementary idea of +perdition, may be regarded as the crown and completion of that scheme +of external rewards and punishments which plays so prominent a +part in Western education. Salvation, which is the highest of all +external rewards, just as perdition is the severest of all external +punishments, is not a path to be followed, but a state of happiness +to be won and enjoyed. It follows that the relation between education +and salvation is, in the main, one of analogy, rather than of +identity (as in Utopia), or even of vital connection. Or shall we say +that education is not so much the first act in the drama of salvation +as the first rehearsal of the play? + +There are, of course, two conceptions of salvation in the West, just +as there are two worlds to be lived in,--the Supernatural world and +the world of Nature. + +In what are called religious circles, to be saved is to have gained +admission to Heaven, and, in doing so, to have escaped the torment +and misery of Hell. There was a time when Hell was taken very +seriously; but the idea of never-ending torment and misery is found, +when steadily faced, to be so intolerable that popular thought, even +in religious circles, is now turning away from it; and so loosely do +men sit, in these "degenerate days," to the old doctrine of eternal +punishment, that "to die" and "to go to heaven" are becoming +interchangeable terms. But if all men are to be admitted to Heaven +(or to its ante-room, Purgatory) at the end of this, their one +earth-life, it is clear that there can be no causal connection +between conduct and salvation. For though there may be degrees of +happiness in Heaven to reward the varying degrees of virtue on +earth, all these are dwarfed to nothing by the unimaginable abyss +of difference which yawns between Heaven and Hell; and the +practical upshot of the current eschatology is that all men--the +self-sacrificing equally with the self-indulgent, the kind and +compassionate equally with the hard-hearted, the spiritually-minded +equally with the worldly, the aspiring equally with the +indifferent--are to reap the same reward. If a man is a notoriously +evil liver, those who have suffered at his hands or been violently +scandalised by his conduct may perhaps find a sombre pleasure in +consigning him to Hell, which, indeed, might otherwise have to put +up its shutters. But though the doors of Heaven may be closed against +a few exceptional scoundrels, they are nowadays thrown open to all +the rest of Mankind; and the maxim, "Live anyhow, and you will be +saved somehow," seems to sum up with tolerable accuracy the popular +attitude towards the twofold problem of duty and destiny. + +I do not for a moment suggest that this happy-go-lucky eschatology is +formally countenanced by the Churches and Sects. They would doubtless +repudiate it with indignation; but the fact remains that their +own teaching is largely responsible for it. For not only is the +idea of _natural_ retribution wholly foreign to the genius of +supernaturalism, but also, in the two great schools of Western +theology, there is, and always has been, a strong tendency to +undervalue conduct (in the broad, human sense of the word), and to +make the means of salvation mechanical rather than vital. At any rate +the sacramental teaching of the Catholic Church, and the Calvinistic +doctrine of salvation through faith in the finished work of Christ, +readily lend themselves to such an interpretation. + +So ineffective is the current eschatology, in its bearing on +conduct, that the latent energy of Man's nature--his latent desire to +have a central purpose in life--is compelling him to work out for +himself another and a more mundane conception of salvation, to set +before himself as the end of life the winning of certain temporal +prizes, and to keep this end steadily in view from day to day and +from year to year. Such a conception of salvation has always had a +strong attraction for him, though in his more orthodox days he found +it desirable to subordinate it to, or if possible harmonise it with, +the conception which his religion dictated to him; and of late its +attractiveness has been increased by the fact that he is beginning to +throw his eschatology (even in its present emasculated form) to the +winds. + +So far, I have had in my mind those quarters of Western thought in +which the belief in the reality of the soul and the kindred belief +in immortality still survive. But in point of fact both beliefs +are dying before our eyes,--dying as a dumb protest against the +inadequacy of the popular philosophy, against the intrinsic +incredibility of its premises, against its fundamental misconception +of the meaning of life and the nature and conditions of salvation, +above all against the way in which the beliefs themselves have been +persistently misinterpreted and travestied. And where the beliefs are +dying, the latent externalism and materialism of Western thought and +Western life are able to assert themselves without let or hindrance. +"To be saved," as the phrase is now widely understood, means to get +on in life, to succeed in business or in a profession, to make money, +to rise in the social scale (if necessary, on the shoulders of +others), to force one's way to the front (if necessary, by trampling +down others), to be talked about in the daily papers, to make a +"splash" in some circle or coterie,--in these and in other ways to +achieve some measure of what is called "success." + +And in proportion as this mundane conception of salvation tends to +establish itself, so does the drift towards social and political +anarchy, which is now beginning to alarm all the lovers of order and +"progress," tend to widen its range and accelerate its movement. For +though the current idea of achieving salvation through "success" is a +comfortable doctrine for the successful few, it is the reverse of +comfortable for the unsuccessful many, among whom the idea is gaining +ground that as salvation is the reward, not of virtue, but of a +judicious blend of cleverness, unscrupulousness, selfishness, and +greed, there is no reason, in the moral order of things, why it +should not be wrested from those who are enjoying it, either by +organised social warfare or by open violence and crime. And even if +an anarchical outbreak should result in perdition all round instead +of salvation all round, it would at least be some consolation to the +"lost" to feel that they had dragged the "saved" down into their own +bottomless pit. This would not be a lofty sentiment; yet I do not +see who is in a position to condemn it,--not the supporter of the +existing social order, which legalises a general scramble, first for +the "prizes" of life and then for the bare means of subsistence, and +is well content that in that scramble the weak, the ignorant, and +the unfortunate should go to the wall,--not the exponent of the +conventional theology, which has taught men to dream of a Heaven in +which the happiness of the "elect" will be unruffled by the knowledge +that an eternity of misery is the doom of perhaps a majority of their +fellow-men. + +In the West, then, there are two conceptions of salvation,--a +selfish, worldly conception which is daily becoming more effective, +and a selfish other-worldly conception which is daily becoming more +ineffective, and is therefore less and less able to compete with or +control its rival. Out of the attempts that are made to realise +both these conceptions and to keep them on friendly terms with one +another, there is emerging a state of chaos--political, social, +moral, spiritual,--a weltering chaos of new and old ideals, new and +old theories of life, new and old standards of values, new and old +centres of authority, new and old ambitions and dreams. And in this +chaos there are only two principles of order, the first (which is +also the ultimate cause of all our disorder) being the pathetic fact +that nearly all the actors in the bewildering drama are still seeking +for happiness outside themselves, the second being the fundamental +goodness of man's heart. + +I will now go back to Utopia. There a new conception of salvation is +implicit in the new theory of education which has revolutionised the +life of the school. Humble as is the sphere and small as is the scale +of Egeria's labours, her work is, I firmly believe, of world-wide +importance and lasting value, for she has provided an experimental +basis for the idea that salvation is to be achieved by growth, and +growth alone. + +I will now try to interpret that idea. + +The education of the child in school begins when he is four or five +years old, and lasts till he is thirteen or fourteen. But he enters +the path of salvation the day he is born. He comes into the world a +weak, helpless baby; but, like every other seedling, he has in him +all the potencies of perfection,--the perfection of his kind. +To realise those potencies, so far as they can be realised within +the limits of one earth-life, is to achieve salvation. Are those +potencies worth realising? To this question I can but answer: "Such +as they are, they are our all." We might ask the same question with +regard to an acorn or a grain of wheat; and in each case the answer +would be the same. There are, indeed, plants and animals which are +noxious _from our point of view_. But that is not the view which they +take of themselves. Each of them regards his own potencies in the +light of a sacred trust, and strives with untiring energy to realise +them. If the potencies of our nature are not worth realising we had +better give up the business of living. If they are, we had better +fall into line with other living things. + +An unceasing pressure is being put upon us to do so. The perfect +manhood which is present in embryo in the new-born infant, just as +the oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn, will struggle +unceasingly to evolve itself. With the dawn of self-consciousness, we +shall gradually acquire the power of either co-operating with, or +thwarting, the spontaneous energies that are welling up in us and +making for our growth. In this respect we stand, in some sort, apart +from the rest of living things. But the power to co-operate with +our own spontaneous energies is to the full as natural as are the +energies themselves. To fathom the mystery of self-consciousness is +beyond my power and beside my present purpose; but we may perhaps +regard our power of interfering, for good or ill, with the +spontaneous energies of our nature, as the outcome of a successful +effort which our nature has made both to widen the sphere of its own +life and to accelerate the process of its own growth. But just +because we possess that power, it is essential that we, above all +other living things, should believe in ourselves, should believe in +the intrinsic value of our natural potencies, with a whole-hearted +faith. For if we do not, we shall hinder instead of helping the +forces that are at work in us, and we shall retard instead of +accelerating the process of our growth. + +We have seen that education in the West has hitherto been a failure +because, owing to the ascendency of the doctrine of original sin, it +has been based on distrust of human nature; and we have seen that in +Utopia, where Egeria's faith in human nature is so profound that she +has allowed the children to go far towards educating themselves, the +results achieved have gone beyond my wildest dream of what was +practicable, at any rate within the limits of the school life of +village children. What is true of education is true _a fortiori_ of +salvation. If it is impossible to construct a satisfactory scheme of +education on the basis of distrust of human nature, it is even more +impossible (if there are degrees in impossibility) to construct on +the same basis a satisfactory scheme of salvation. I have already +contended that if education is to be reformed, the doctrine of +original sin must go; and I now contend that if our philosophy of +life is to be reformed, we must abandon, not that doctrine only, but +the whole dualistic philosophy which centres in the opposition of +Nature to the Supernatural. For trust in human nature--the +microcosm--is impossible, so long as Nature--the macrocosm--is liable +to be disparaged and discredited (in our minds) by the visionary +splendours of the Supernatural world; and to devise a harmonious +scheme of life is impossible so long as an inharmonious conception +of the Universe dominates our thought,--a conception so inharmonious +that it divides the Universe, the All of Being, into two hostile +camps, and in doing so introduces the "war of the worlds" into each +individual life. + +When a fruit-grower plants a fruit-tree, he does three things for it. +By choosing an appropriate soil and aspect, he brings adequate +supplies of _nourishment_ within reach of it. By manuring it at the +right season, he both adds to its store of nourishment and gives +it the _stimulus_ which will help it to absorb and assimilate the +nourishment that is immediately available for its use. And, by +pruning and training it judiciously, he gives it the _guidance_ which +will enable it to develop itself to the best advantage from the +fruit-bearing point of view (fruit-bearing being the end which he +sets it). He does these three things for it, but he does no more than +these. He realises that in all these operations he is only taking +advantage of the innate powers and tendencies of the tree, and +enabling these to deploy themselves under as favourable conditions +as possible; and he is therefore well content to leave the rest to +the tree itself, feeling sure that its own spontaneous effort to +achieve perfection will do all that is needed. His trust in the +ability and willingness of the tree to work out its salvation is +complete. + +These are the lines on which the farmer and the fruit-grower conduct +their business,--lines, the neglect of which would involve them in +early disaster and in ultimate ruin. And these are the lines on which +human nature ought to be trained, in school and out of school, from +the day of birth to the day of death. But they are lines on which it +will never be trained so long as the doctrine of the depravity of +Nature in general and human nature in particular controls our +philosophy of life. + +The doctrine of natural depravity, or original sin, is the outcome of +Man's attempt to explain to himself the glaring fact of his own +imperfection. The doctrine grew up in an age when men were ignorant +of the fundamental laws of Nature, and among a people who, though +otherwise richly gifted, had no turn for sustained thought. So long +as men were ignorant of Nature's master law of evolution, it was but +natural that they should account for their own imperfection by +looking back to a Golden Age,--a state of innocence and bliss from +which they had somehow fallen, and to which they could not, by any +effort or process of their corrupted nature, hope to return. While +this idea--half myth and half doctrine--was growing up in the mind +of Israel, the counter idea of the evolution or growth of the soul, +of its ascent from "weak beginnings" towards a state of spiritual +perfection, was growing up among the thinkers of India, and the +derivative doctrine of salvation through the natural process of +soul-growth was being gradually elaborated. But though the philosophy +of India produced some impression on the conscious thought, and a +far deeper impression on the subconscious thought, of the West, its +master idea of spiritual evolution--_through a long sequence of +lives_--was wholly foreign to the genius of Christendom, which had +borrowed its _ideas_ from the commonplace philosophy of Israel; and +it was not till the nineteenth century of our era that the idea of +evolution began to make its way, from the quarter of physical +science, into Western thought. + +The doctrine of original sin must once have had a meaning and a +purpose. For one thing, it must have been generated by a sudden rise +in Man's moral standard; and as such it must have had a salutary +influence on his conduct and inward life. But it is now outstaying +its welcome. The Biblical story of the Fall, in virtue of which it +was once authoritatively taught, is ceasing to be regarded as serious +history; and the doctrine must therefore either justify itself to +critical thought or resign itself to rejection as inadequate and +unsound. But there is only one line of defence which its supporters +can take. As the doctrine was the outcome of Man's premature attempt +to explain the fact of his own imperfection, if it is to survive in +the world of ideas it must be able to show, first and foremost, that +the fact in question cannot be accounted for on other grounds. Will +it be able to do this, at a time when the idea of evolution is +beginning to impregnate our mental atmosphere, and in doing so is +making us realise that we are near of kin to all other living things, +and that our lives, like theirs, are dominated by the master-law of +_growth_? + +That there is much moral evil in the world is undeniable. Are we +therefore to predicate original depravity of man's heart and soul? +But there is also much physical evil in the world,--pain, weakness, +disease, decay, and death. Are we therefore to predicate original +depravity of man's body? And this physical evil, this liability to +disease, is not confined to man, but also affects all other living +things. Are we therefore to predicate original depravity of a +new-born lamb, of a new-laid egg, of an acorn, of a grain of wheat? + +Let us consider certain typical forms of moral evil, and see if we +can account for them, without having recourse to the hypothesis of +original sin. The vicious propensities which manifest themselves in +children and "young persons" may be divided into two main classes, +_apparent_ and _actual_.[25] Of the former class the chief cause is, +in a word, _immaturity_. Of the latter, _environment_. + +Analogies drawn from plant life may help us to understand how these +causes operate. + +_Immaturity._ If an Englishman who had never before tasted an apple +were to eat one in July, he would probably come to the conclusion +that it was a hard, sour, indigestible fruit, "conceived in sin and +shapen in iniquity," and fit only to be consigned to perdition (on a +dustheap, or elsewhere). But if the same man were to wait till +October and then eat an apple from the same tree, he would form a +wholly different conception of its value. He would find that the +sourness had ripened into wholesome and refreshing acidity; the +hardness into that firmness of fibre which, besides being pleasant to +the palate, makes the apple "keep" better than any other fruit; the +indigestibility into certain valuable dietetic qualities; and so on. +It is the same with the growing child. _Most of his vices are virtues +in the making_. During the first year or so of his life he is a +monster of selfishness; and selfishness is the most comprehensive and +far-reaching of all vicious tendencies. Does this mean that he has +been conceived in sin? Not in the least. It means that he is making a +whole-hearted effort to guard and unfold the potencies of life--in +the first instance, of physical life--which have been entrusted to +him. It means that he has entered the path of self-realisation, and +that if he will be as faithful to that path during the rest of his +life as he has been during those early months of uncompromising +selfishness, he will be able at last to scale the loftiest heights of +self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice. + +_Environment._ The influences which environment exerts seem to fall +under three heads-- + +(1) General influences of a more or less permanent character, such as +home, neighbourhood, social grade, etc. + +(2) General influences of a more or less variable character, such as +education, employment, friendship, etc. + + (3) Particular influences, such as companionship (good or bad), +literature (wholesome or pernicious), places of amusement (elevating +or debasing), special opportunities for self-sacrifice or +self-indulgence, etc. + +Corresponding to these in plant-life we have-- + + (1) Soil, situation, and climate: + (2) Cultivation and weather: + (3) The various insects and micro-organisms which are ready to + assail or protect growing life. + +(1) If two acorns from the same tree were sown, the one in a deep +clay soil and a favourable situation, the other in a light sandy soil +and an unfavourable situation, the former would in time develop into +a large and shapely, the latter into a puny and misshapen oak-tree. +It would be the same, _mutatis mutandis_, with two human beings who +were exposed from their earliest days to widely different permanent +influences. + +(2) If wheat of a certain strain were sown on the same day in two +adjoining fields, one of which was well farmed and the other badly +farmed, the resulting crops would differ widely in yield and value. +It would be the same with two human beings, one of whom (to take a +pertinent example) attended a school of Utopian tendencies, and the +other a school of a more conventional type. Of all moralising (or +demoralising) influences education is by far the most important, +owing to the fact that it can do more, and is in a position to do +more, than any other influence either to foster or to hinder growth. + +The influence of weather on plant-life is, of course, enormous. In +one year the fruit-crop in a given neighbourhood is a failure: in +another year it gluts the market. One explanation of this fact, +which has its exact analogies in human life, will be given in the +next paragraph. + +(3) All forms of life are exposed to the attacks of enemies of +various kinds. Whether they shall beat off those attacks or succumb +to them depends in large measure on the nature of the growth that +they are making; and this again depends, largely if not wholly, on +the nature of the general influences to which they have been exposed. +For many years I lived in a district in which hops were grown on a +large scale; and I naturally took an interest in the staple industry +of my adopted county. I noticed that whenever (during the summer +months) there came a spell of cold winds from the north-east--winds +which tend to arrest plant-growth--the hop-bines were at once +assailed by blight and other pests, and the safety of the growing +crop was imperilled. And I noticed further that when the wind got +round to the south-west, and warm showers began to stimulate the +growth of the flagging plants, the pests that had assailed them +disappeared as if by magic, and the anxieties of the growers were +relieved. As it is with plants, so it is with human beings. They too +have their enemies,--temptations of various kinds and other evil +influences that "war against the soul." And they too will be able to +beat off their assailants just so far as their own growth is vigorous +and healthy; and will succumb to their attacks, to their own serious +detriment, just so far as their own growth is feeble and sickly. + +The bearing of this fact on the problem of the origin of moral evil +is obvious. That the evils which assail the organism, be it a plant +or a human being, are not inherent in its nature, is proved by the +fact that when the growth of the organism is normal and unimpeded, +the assailants are always beaten off. As it is the growth of the +organism--the development of its own nature--which enables it to +resist the evils that threaten it, we must assume that its nature is +good. Indeed the evils that threaten it are called evils for no other +reason than that they imperil its well-being; and it follows that in +calling them evils we imply that the organism is intrinsically good. + +When we have eliminated from human nature the vicious tendencies +which are due either to immaturity or to the numberless influences +that come under the general head of environment, we shall find that a +very small percentage remain to be accounted for. We need not have +recourse to the doctrine of original sin in order to account for +these. So far I have said nothing about heredity, partly because its +influence on the moral development of the individual is, I think, +very small compared with that of environment, and partly because it +is impossible to consider the extent and character of its influence, +without going deeply into certain large and complicated problems. For +example, it would be impossible for me to say much about the current, +though gradually waning, belief in the force of heredity, without +saying something about its Far Eastern equivalent, the belief in +re-incarnation,--in other words, without asking whether a man +inherits from his parents and other ancestors, or from his former +selves. That different persona are born with widely different moral +tendencies and propensities, is as certain as that some strains of +wheat are hardier and more productive than others. And it is +possible, and even probable, that there are exceptional cases of +moral evil which point to congenital depravity, and cannot otherwise +be accounted for. But in these admissions I am making no concession +to the believer in original sin; for he regards human nature as such +as congenitally depraved, and therefore can take no cognisance of +exceptional cases of congenital depravity, cases which by breaking +the rule that the new-born child is morally and spiritually healthy, +may be said to prove it. + +In fine, then, all moral evil can be accounted for on grounds which +are quite compatible with the assumption that the normal child is +healthy, on all the planes of his being, at the moment of his birth. +That he carries with him into the world the capacity for being +affected by adverse influences of various kinds, is undeniable; but +so does every other living thing; and if congenital depravity is to +be predicated of him for that reason, it must also be predicated of +every new-born animal and plant. + +But the final proof that Man is by nature a child of God, is one +which has already been hinted at, and will presently be further +developed,--namely, that growth--the healthy, vigorous growth of the +whole human being, the harmonious development of his whole nature--is +in its essence a movement towards moral and spiritual perfection. And +the final proof that the doctrine of Man's congenital depravity is +false is the practical one that the doctrine is ever tending to +fulfil its own gloomy predictions, and to justify its own low +estimate of human nature,--in other words, that by making education +repressive and devitalising, by introducing externalism, with its +endless train of attendant evils, into Man's daily life, and by +making him disbelieve in and even despair of himself, it has done +more perhaps than all other influences added together to deprave his +heart and to wreck his life. + +To one who has convinced himself that human nature is fundamentally +good, in the sense that the new-born child is as a rule sound and +healthy on all the planes of his being, it must be clear that the +path of soul-growth or self-realisation is the only way of salvation. +What salvation means, what the path of self-realisation will do for +him who enters it, is a theme to which I could not hope to do justice +within the limits of this work. I will therefore content myself +with indicating certain typical aspects of the process which I +have called self-realisation, and saying something about each of +these. Four aspects suggest themselves to me as worthy of special +consideration,--the _mental_, the _moral_, the _social_, and the +_religious_.[26] + + +_The Mental Aspect of Self-realisation._ + +There are two features of the process of self-realisation, on the +importance of which I cannot insist too often or too strongly. The +first is that the growth which the life of self-realisation fosters +is, in its essence, harmonious and many-sided. The second is that +the life of self-realisation is, from first to last, a life of +self-expression, and that self-expression and perception are the face +and obverse of the same mental effort. + +If the life of self-realisation did not provide for the growth of the +self in its totality, the self as a living whole, it would not be +worthy of its name. One-sided growth, inharmonious growth, growth in +which some faculties are hypertrophied and others atrophied, is not +self-realisation. When trees are planted close together, as in the +beech-forests of the Continent, they climb to great heights in their +struggle for air and light, but they make no lateral growth. When +trees are pollarded, they make abundant lateral growth, but they +cease to climb upward. When trees are exposed to the prevailing winds +of an open sea-coast, they are blown over away from the sea, and make +all their growth, such as it is, on the landward side. When trees +are on the border of a thick plantation, they make all their growth +towards the open air, and are bare and leafless on the opposite side. +In each of these cases the growth made is inharmonious and one-sided: +the balance between the two intersecting planes of growth, or between +the two opposite sides, has been lost. But when a tree is planted in +the open, and when all the other conditions of growth are favourable, +it grows harmoniously in all directions,--upward, outward, and all +around. In other words, it is growing as a whole, growing, as it +ought to grow, through every fibre of its being, and yet maintaining +a perfect symmetry of form and the harmony of true proportion among +its various parts. + +This is the kind of growth which the soul makes in the life of +self-realisation; and if it falls appreciably short of this standard, +if it develops itself on this side or that, to the neglect of all +other sides, then we must say of it that, though it is realising this +or that faculty or group of faculties, it is not realising itself. I +have spoken of the six great expansive instincts which indicate the +main lines of the child's natural growth, and I have shown that in +Utopia the cultivation of all those instincts is duly provided for. +In the life of self-realisation the soul would continue to grow on +the lines which those instincts had marked out for it. I do not mean +that when the child goes out into the work-a-day world, he must give +to all six instincts the systematic training which they received, or +ought to have received, in school. The exigencies of the daily round +of life are such as to make that impossible, in all but the most +exceptional cases. But that is all the more reason why the expansive +instincts should be carefully and skilfully trained in school. For +where they are so trained, an impetus is given to each of them which +will keep it alive and active long after the direct influence of +the school has ceased, and will enable it to absorb and assimilate +whatever nutriment may come in its way. If the Utopian training +cannot be followed up, in its entirety, in the child's after-life, it +can at least initiate a movement which need never be arrested,--a +movement in the direction of the triune goal of Man's being, the goal +towards which his expansive instincts are ever tending to take him, +the goal of Love, Beauty, and Truth. + +The life of many-sided growth is also a life of self-expression. This +means that the self-expression, like the growth which it fosters, is +many-sided; and this again means that the perceptive faculties, which +unfold themselves through the medium of self-expression, are not so +much separate faculties as a general capacity for getting on terms +with one's environment and gaining an insight into its laws and +properties. In a school which lays itself out to teach one or two +subjects thoroughly, to the neglect of others, a sense, or special +perceptive faculty, will gradually be evolved by the study of each +subject, provided, of course, that the path of self-expression is +followed,--a literary sense, a historical sense, a mathematical +sense, and so on. But while these special senses are being developed, +the remaining perceptive faculties are being starved, and no attempt +is being made to cultivate that general capacity of which I have just +spoken. The consequent loss to the child, both in his school-life and +in his after-life, is very great. For not only is his mental growth +one-sided and inharmonious, but even in the subjects in which he +specialises he will lose appreciably, owing to his special perceptive +faculties not having as their background any general capacity for +seeing things as they are. + +I will try to explain what I mean. In what is known as "Society" +there is a valuable quality called "tact," in virtue of which the +man or woman who is endowed with it always says and does "the right +thing." This quality is compounded partly of sympathetic insight +into the feelings, actual and possible, of others, and partly of +a keen and subtle sense for all the _nuances_ of social propriety. +Like every other perceptive faculty, it is the outcome of +self-expression,--of years of self-expression on the plane of social +intercourse. That general perceptive faculty, or perceptive capacity, +which is the outcome of years of self-expression on many sides of +one's being, has so much in common with the _tact_ of the man of +society, that the epithet _tactful_ may perhaps be applied to it. The +larger, like the lesser, faculty is compounded, partly of sympathetic +insight into latent possibilities, and partly of a delicate sense for +_nuances_ of all kinds. But even this formula does less than justice +to its complex nature. Generated as it is by a life of many-sided +self-expression, it reflects its origin in its internal constitution. +Many elements of thought and feeling have woven themselves into it; +and it is ready to take a colour from each new environment or even +from each new situation. It can become emotional, for example, when +the matter in hand appeals, in any sort or degree, to the emotions; +and there are occasions when its latent sense of humour becomes an +invaluable antidote to that over-seriousness which so often leads men +astray. Above all, it is in its essence, imaginative, for it is ever +learning to picture things to itself as they are or as they might be; +and the higher the level and the wider the sphere of its activity, +the more boldly imaginative it becomes. A faculty so subtle and so +sympathetic must needs play a vitally important _role_, not only when +its possessor is studying "subjects" or handling concrete problems, +but also, and more especially, when he is dealing with the "affairs +of life"; and we can understand that when it is wholly or largely +lacking, each of the special faculties which specialising is supposed +to foster will suffer from not being tempered and yet vitalised by +its all-penetrating influence. + +That we may the better understand this, and the better understand +what the path of self-realisation does for the mental development +of him who walks in it, let us ask ourselves what type of mind the +conventional type of education is likely to produce. And let us study +the conventional type of education on what is supposed to be its +highest level. Let us consider the education given to the sons of +the "upper classes." And let us take this highest level at its own +highest level. Let us take the case of those who go through that +tri-partite course of education which begins in a high-class +"Preparatory School," is continued in one of the "Great Public +Schools," and is completed at Oxford or Cambridge. A boy enters +a Preparatory School at the age of eight or nine, and is there +prepared, in general for entrance into one of the Great Public +Schools, and in particular for one of the competitive examinations on +the results of which the entrance scholarships of the Great Public +Schools are awarded. He enters one of the Great Public Schools at +the age of thirteen or fourteen, and is there prepared, in general +for admission to Oxford or Cambridge, and in particular for the +scholarship examinations of the various Oxford and Cambridge +Colleges. He enters Oxford or Cambridge at the age of eighteen +or nineteen, and is there prepared, directly for his degree +examination--"Pass" or "Honours" as the case may be--and indirectly +for the public examination which admits to the Indian and Colonial, +and the higher grades of the Home, Civil Service. This course of +education lasts about fourteen years, and costs from L1,500 to +L4,500. + +What will it do for the boy who goes through it? The education given +in the Preparatory School is completely dominated by the scholarship +and entrance examinations at the Great Public Schools. The lines on +which those examinations are conducted are the lines on which the +Preparatory Schoolmaster must educate his pupils. He has no choice in +the matter. The title "Preparatory" seals his doom. His business is, +not to give his pupils the education that is best suited to their +capacities and their years, but to prepare them for admission to a +more advanced school. The more scholarships he can win at Eton, +Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, and the rest, the higher will be the +repute of his school; and as the competition between school and +school is fierce and unintermittent, he cannot afford to throw away a +single chance. In other words, he cannot afford to make a single +serious experiment. The education given in the Great Public Schools +is similarly dominated by the scholarship and entrance examinations +held by the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The lines on which those +examinations are conducted are in the main the lines on which the +boys must be educated. It is possible that the Great Public Schools +are freer to go their own ways than are the Preparatory Schools; but +if they are, they make but little use of their freedom. + +So far as the rank and file of the boys are concerned, it may be +doubted if the word "educative" is applicable, in any sense or +degree, to the daily round of their work. Of the six great expansive +instincts which are struggling to evolve themselves in every healthy +child, not one can be said to find a congenial soil or a stimulating +atmosphere in the ordinary classroom either of the Preparatory or of +the Public School. Four of the six--the _dramatic_, the _artistic_, +the _musical_, and the _constructive_--are entirely or almost +entirely neglected. Music and Handwork[27] are "extras" (a fatally +significant word); the teaching of Drawing is, as a rule, quite +perfunctory; and Acting is not a recognised part of the school +curriculum. The truth is that marks are not given for these +"subjects"--for in the eyes of the schoolmaster they are all +"subjects"--in any entrance or scholarship examination, and that +therefore it does not _pay_ to teach them. There remain two +instincts,--the _communicative_ and the _inquisitive_. The study of +the "Humanities"--History and Literature, ancient and modern--ought +to train the former; and the study of Science ought to train the +latter. But in the case of the average boy, the study of the +Humanities resolves itself, in the main, into a prolonged and +unsuccessful tussle with the difficulties of the Greek and Latin +languages, the mastering of which is regarded as an end in itself +instead of as the gateway to the wonder-worlds of ancient life and +thought; and the study of Science is, as a rule, a pure farce.[28] +Not one, then, of the expansive instincts of the average boy receives +any training during the nine or ten years of his school life; and as, +in his struggle for the "Pass" degree of his University, he will +follow the lines on which he has been accustomed to work in both his +schools, he will go out into the world at the age of twenty-two or +twenty-three, the victim of a course of education which has lasted +for fourteen years and cost thousands of pounds, and which has done +nothing whatever to foster his mental or spiritual growth. It is true +that in all the Public Schools a certain amount of informal education +is done through the medium of Musical Societies, Natural History +Societies, Debating Societies, School Magazines, and the like; that +the discipline of a Public School, with its system of School and +House prefects, has considerable educational value; that the playing +fields do something towards the formation of character; that the +boys, by exchanging experiences and discussing things freely among +themselves, help to educate one another; and that during the four +months of each year which the schoolboy spends away from school, he +is, or may be, exposed to educative influences of various kinds.[29] +But the broad fact remains that the _studies_ of the youthful +graduate, whether in school classroom or college lecture-room, have +been wholly unformative and therefore wholly uneducative. + +But let us consider the education given in our Public Schools and +Universities, at what is presumably the highest of all its levels. +Let us see what is done for the boys who have sufficient ability to +win Scholarships and read for Honours at Oxford and Cambridge. It is +to the supposed interests of these brighter boys that the vital +interests of their duller schoolfellows are perforce sacrificed. Are +the results worth the sacrifice? The brighter boys fall into two main +groups,--those who have a turn for the "Humanities," and those who +have a turn for Mathematics and Science. Where the "Humanities" are +effectively taught,--where, for example, the scholar is allowed to +pass through the portals of Latin and Greek grammar and composition +into the wonder-world that lies beyond them,--the _communicative_ +instinct receives a valuable training. It is, unfortunately, quite +possible for a boy, or even for a man, to be what is called a "good +scholar," and yet to take no interest whatever in the history or +literature of Greece and Rome; and the examination system undoubtedly +tends to foster this bastard type of humanism. But when, as a result +of his school and University training, a scholar has passed the +linguistic portals and found pleasure in the worlds beyond, we may +say of him that his education has fostered the growth of one of his +expansive instincts,--perhaps the most important of all, but still +only one. When Science is effectively taught, the growth of the +_inquisitive_ instinct is similarly fostered; but the inquisitive +instinct, though of great value, when trained in conjunction with +other instincts, has but little value as a "formative" when trained +by itself. From this point of view it compares unfavourably with the +communicative instinct, being as much less formative than the latter, +as the mysteries of the material world are less significant and less +able to inspire and vitalise their interpreter than the mysteries of +human life; and a purely (or mainly) scientific training is therefore +worth far less as an instrument of education than a purely (or +mainly) humanistic training. + +But why should the boys at our Great Public Schools and the young +men at our Universities have to choose between a scientific and a +humanistic training? Why should these ancient and famous institutions +be content to train one only of the six expansive instincts instead +of at least _two_? Here, as elsewhere, the scholarship system blocks +the way. Some scholarships are given for Classics, others for +History, others for Mathematics, others for Natural Science. Not +a single scholarship is given, at either University, for general +capacity, as measured by the results of a many-sided examination. +Why should this be? The answer is that under any system of formal +examination many-sidedness in education necessarily means +_smattering_; and that against smattering the Universities have, very +properly, set their faces. But, after all, there is no necessary +connection between many-sidedness and smattering. In Utopia, where +the concentric rings of growth are formed by the gradual evolution of +an inner life, whatever feeds that inner life is a contribution, +however humble, to the growth of the whole tree; and many-sidedness, +far from being a defect, is one of the first conditions of success +in education. But in the Great Public Schools, where veneers of +information are being assiduously laid on the surface of the boy's +mind with a view to his passing some impending examination, the +greater the number and variety of such veneers, the more certain they +all are to split and waste and perish. Indeed the real reason why +specialising has to be resorted to in the case of the brighter boys, +is that in no other way can provision be made for the fatal process +of veneering being dispensed with, and for faculty being evolved by +growth from within. + +But a heavy price has to be paid for the growth of these specialised +faculties. If Science is to be seriously studied the student must +give the whole of his time to it. This means that he must give up the +idea of educating himself. It is only by turning his back on history, +on literature, on philosophy, on music, on art, that he can hope to +meet the exacting and ever-growing demands which Science makes on +those who desire to be initiated into its mysteries. To say that when +he has "taken his degree" he is only half-educated, is greatly to +over-estimate the formative influence of his highly specialised +training. A sense has undoubtedly been developed in him, an instinct +has been awakened, one or two of his mental faculties have been +vigorously cultivated; but his training has been the reverse of +humanising; and as his studies and his consequent attitude towards +Nature have been essentially _analytical_, he may, in the absence of +those correctives which his compulsory specialising has withheld from +him, have learned to regard the dead side of things as the real +side,--a conception which, if it mastered him, would materialise his +whole outlook on life. + +The case of the "humanist" is different. The subjects which he +studies appeal to many sides of his being; and if he could respond +to their appeal, they might do much for his mental and spiritual +development. That he should be able to respond to their appeal is of +vital importance. When he has become a decent "scholar," a chance +is given to him, which if he neglects he will probably lose for +ever,--the chance of making good, in part at least, the deficiencies +of his early education. Had he lived in Utopia, his life of +many-sided self-expression would have given a general training to his +perceptive faculties, in which the twin faculties of imagination and +sympathy would have had their share. But neither in his Preparatory +School nor in the lower classes of his Public School has any serious +attempt been made during school hours to ripen either of those mighty +faculties, whereas much has been done in both schools to retard their +growth. He is doomed, then, to begin his study of the history and +literature of the Ancient World with a considerable knowledge of +the Latin and Greek languages, but (in too many cases) with an +unimaginative mind and an unsympathetic heart. There is, however, +much in that history and that literature,--not to speak of +the history and the literature of his own and other modern +countries,--which, if it could but have its way, would appeal +strongly to his imagination and his sympathy, dormant and undeveloped +as these faculties are,--appeal to them so strongly as to awaken them +at last from their slumber and quicken them into active life. But +alas! the shadow of an impending examination is always falling on his +humanistic studies, nullifying the appeal that they make to him, and +compelling him to look at them from a sordidly utilitarian point of +view. For to give marks for the response that he might make to their +appeal, or even to set questions which would afford free scope for +the play of his imagination or the flow of his sympathy, is beyond +the power of any examiner. There are two things, and two only, which +"pay" on the examination day,--the possession of information and the +power to make use of it; and the humanist who would win prizes at his +school or gain high honours at his University, must therefore regard +the memorable doings and the imperishable sayings of his fellow-men, +not as things to be imagined and felt, admired and loved, wondered at +and pondered over, but as things to be pigeon-holed in his memory, to +be taken out and arranged under headings, to be dissected and +commented on and criticised.[30] + +Of the part that memory plays in the education of our humanist, I +need not speak. An undue burden is probably laid upon it; but that is +a matter of minor importance. What is of supreme importance is that +in cultivating his critical faculty with an almost intensive culture, +while they starve, or at any rate leave untended, his more vital and +more emancipative faculties of imagination and sympathy, our Great +Public Schools and Universities are doing him a serious and lasting +injury. Let us take the case of a young man of energy and ability who +has just left Oxford or Cambridge, having won high honours in one of +the humanistic "schools." Let us assume that, like so many of his +kind, he has a keenly critical mind, but is deficient in imagination +and sympathy; and let us then try to forecast his future. That the +faith of his childhood, undermined by his criticism, has already +fallen to pieces or will shortly do so, is more than probable. That +he will be too unimaginative to attempt to construct a new faith out +of the ruins of the old, is practically certain. His lack of faith, +in the broader sense of the word, will incapacitate him for high +seriousness (which he will regard as "bad form"), and _a fortiori_ +for enthusiasm (which he will shun like the plague), and will +therefore predispose him to frivolity. Being fully persuaded, owing +to his lack of imaginative sympathy, that his own outlook on life is +alone compatible with mental sanity, and yet being too clear-sighted +to accept that outlook as satisfactory, he will mingle with his +frivolity a strain of bitterness and discontent,--the bitterness of +self-corroding scepticism, and the discontent which grows apace +through its very effort to ignore its own existence. In a word, his +attitude towards life will be one of _cynicism_,--that blend of +hardness and bitterness with frivolity which exactly inverts the +ideal of the modern poet, when he dreams of an age in the far-off +future, + + Which without hardness will be sage, + And gay without frivolity.[31] + +And the bitterness of his cynicism will be made bitterer still by +the fact that, owing to his being (in all probability) unmusical, +inartistic, and unable to amuse himself with any form of handwork, he +will have no taste or hobby to distract him from himself. For a time, +indeed, the "genial sense of youth" will keep his sinister tendencies +in check; and in the middle period of life, his struggle to achieve +"success"--for of course he will be an externalist to the core--will +tend to keep them in the background. But in his later years, when he +will have either failed to achieve "success" or discovered--too +late--that it was not worth achieving, his cynicism will assert +itself without let or hindrance, and, with his growing incapacity for +frivolity, will become harder and bitterer, till at last the dark +shadow of incurable pessimism will fall on him and involve his +declining years in ever deepening gloom. I do not say that many of +our University humanists will conform to this type; but I do say that +the type is easily recognisable and is becoming increasingly +familiar. + +Even the intellectual development of our humanist, who is nothing if +not intellectual, will be adversely affected by the one-sidedness of +his education. Well-informed and acutely critical he will probably +be; but he will lack the saving grace of that "tactful" faculty which +years of many-sided self-expression can alone evolve,--a faculty +which (as we have seen) is subtly adaptive when it deals with small +matters, boldly imaginative when it deals with great matters, and +delicately sympathetic along the whole range of its activity. +This sinuous and penetrative sense is to the more logically +critical faculty what equity is to law; and in its absence the +intellectuality of our young "intellectual" will be as incomplete as +would be the legal system of a country which knew nothing of equity +and tried to bring all legal problems under the direct control of +positive law. For it will be his business, as he goes through life, +to deal in and with words and phrases; and as words and phrases are +ever tending to change their force, and even their meaning, under our +hands, and as his use and treatment of them will be logical and +"legal" rather than tactful and "equitable," he will again and again +misinterpret and misuse them, and will so do badly the very thing +which he is expected to do well. The man who, though endowed with an +acute and vigorous intellect, can neither think imaginatively nor +reason tactfully, has grave intellectual defects; and the blinder he +is to the existence of these defects the more pronounced will they +become. + +The pity of it is that when these unimaginative "intellectuals" go +out into the world, they will fill posts in which they will have +unrivalled opportunities for establishing and disseminating their +unwholesome influence. A section of them will go into the teaching +profession, the higher grades of which are almost entirely recruited +from Oxford and Cambridge. Another section will go into the legal +profession, and through it will enter Parliament in considerable +numbers, where, being trained advocates, they will exercise an +influence out of all proportion to their numerical strength. And a +third section will man the higher grades of the Home, Colonial, and +Indian Civil Services. Teachers, legislators, administrators,--if +there are any walks in life in which cynicism and a capacity for +merely destructive criticism are out of place, and in which +imagination and sympathy are imperatively demanded, they are these +three; and it is nothing short of a national calamity that these +great and commanding professions should be manned, in part at least, +by men whose mission in life is to paralyse rather than to vitalise, +to fetter rather than to set free. + +The further pity of it is that the training of these "intellectuals" +might easily have taken an entirely different course. Much of the +specialising which goes on in our Great Public Schools and +Universities, and which is so destructive of mental and spiritual +vitality, is wholly unnecessary. The course of education which the +sons of the "upper classes" go through has this in common with +elementary education, that in neither case need "utilitarian" +considerations weigh with the teachers. The parents of a large +proportion of our Public School boys can afford to give their sons a +_liberal_ education (in the truest and fullest sense of the word) up +to the age of twenty-two or twenty-three; and in the case of these +boys, at any rate, the excessive specialisation which makes their +education so illiberal is done, not in response to the demands +of professions (such as the medical or the engineering) which +necessitate early specialising, but solely in response to the demands +of an examination system which we adopted before we had begun to ask +ourselves what education meant, and which, partly from the force of +habit and partly because it is in keeping with our general attitude +towards life, we still bow down before with a devotion as ardent and +as irrational as that which inspired the cry of "Great is Diana of +the Ephesians."[32] + +At its best, then, the education given by the Great Public Schools +and Universities fosters the growth of one of the expansive +instincts,--the _communicative_, a mighty instinct which opens up to +imagination and sympathy the whole wide world of human life; but +because it leaves all the other expansive instincts untended, it +gives that one instinct an inadequate and unsymmetrical training, a +training which checks the growth of the very faculties--imagination +and sympathy--of which the instinct is largely compounded and for the +sake of which it may almost be said to exist. At its second best, +this costly education fosters the growth of the _inquisitive_ +instinct,--a grandly expansive instinct when trained in conjunction +with the others, but one which is constrictive rather than expansive +when trained by itself and for its own sake. At its ordinary level, +it trains no instinct whatever, and is therefore unworthy of the name +of education. Why should this be so? Why should a course of education +which lasts so long and costs so much do so little for its victims, +and do that little so badly or, at any rate, so inadequately? Because +from first to last it has looked outward instead of inward; because +it has laboured unceasingly to produce "results," and has never given +a thought to growth.[33] + + Let us now go to the other end of the social scale. What the path of +self-realisation might do for the children of the "upper classes" if +they were allowed to follow it, we may roughly calculate, partly by +measuring what the alternative scheme of education has failed to do +for them, partly by reminding ourselves of what the path has done for +the village children of Utopia. The children of the "upper classes" +have such an advantage over the children of Utopia in the matter of +environment,--to say nothing of inherited capacity,--that one would +expect the path to do much more for their mental development than +it has done for the mental development of the Utopians, especially +as they could afford to remain much longer in the first and most +important of its stages, the stage of self-education (in the more +limited sense of the word). The gain to the whole nation if the +mental development of the highest social stratum could be raised as +much above its normal level as the mental development of youthful +Utopia has been raised above the normal level of an English rural +village, would be incalculably great. But greater still--incalculably +greater--would be the gain to the nation if the rank and file of its +children could be led into the path of self-realisation, and therein +rise to the high level of brightness, intelligence, and +resourcefulness which has been reached in Utopia. + +Nor is this dream so wildly impracticable as some might imagine. So +far as the natural capacity of the average child is concerned, there +is no bar to its realisation. Egeria has taught me that the mental +capacity of the average child, even in a rustic village belonging to +a county which is proverbial for the slow wits of its rustics, is +very great. It is sometimes said that of the children who have been +trained in our elementary schools, not one in twenty is fit to profit +by the education given in a secondary school: and if by this is +meant that in nineteen cases out of twenty the elementary scholar, +_educated as he has probably been_, is unlikely to profit by the +education given in a secondary school, _conducted as those schools +usually are_, I am not prepared to say offhand that the statement +is untrue. But if it means that the average mental capacity of the +children of our "lower orders" is hopelessly inferior to that of +the children of our middle and upper classes, I can say without +hesitation that it is a slander and a lie. Whether there is any +difference, in respect of innate mental capacity, between level +and level of our social scale, may be doubted; but the Utopian +experiment has proved to demonstration that in the lowest level of +all the innate mental capacity is so great that we cannot well expect +to find any considerable advance on it even in the highest level of +all. + +But where, it will be asked, are we to find Egerias to man our +elementary schools? For the moment this problem does not admit of a +practical solution. But that need not discourage us. I admit that in +far too many of our schools the teachers, through no fault of their +own, are what I may call machine-made, and that they are engaged in +turning out machine-made scholars, some of whom in the fullness of +time will develop into machine-made teachers. But there is a way of +escape from this vicious circle,--the path of self-realisation. +That path has transformed the children of a rustic village in a +slow-witted county into Utopians. Why should it not transform some +at least among the boys and girls who are thinking of entering the +teaching profession into Egerias, or at any rate into teachers +of Egeria's type? Even as it is, replicas of Egeria,--not exact +replicas, for she is too original to be easily replicated, +but teachers who, like her, preach and practise the gospel of +self-education,--are beginning to spring up in various parts of the +country; and each of their schools, besides being a centre of light, +may well become a nursery for teachers who will follow in the +footsteps of those who have trained them, and will in their turn do +pioneer work in other schools. The thin end of the wedge is even now +being driven into the close-grained mass of tradition and routine; +and each successive blow that is struck by a teacher of intelligence +and initiative will widen the incipient cleft. + +The dream, then, of leading the children of England--the children of +the "masses" as well as of the "classes"--into the path of +self-realisation, is not so widely impracticable as to convict the +dreamer of insanity. And if we could realise the dream, if we could +go but a little way towards realising it, how immense would be the +gain to our country! If the average level of mental development in +England were as high as it is in Utopia, to what height would not the +men and women of exceptional ability be able to rise? The mountain +peaks that spring from an upland plateau soar higher towards the sky +than the peaks, of the same apparent height, that spring from a +low-lying plain. And "the great mountains lift the lowlands on to +their sides." + +But this is not the only reason why the gospel of self-realisation +should be preached in all parts of the land. There is another reason +which is becoming more and more urgent. If the Utopian scheme of +education were widely adopted, an antidote would be found to a grave +and growing evil which is beginning to imperil the mental health of +every civilised community, and of this more than any other. The more +civilised (in the Western sense of the word) a country becomes, the +less educative does life--the rough-and-tumble life of the work-a-day +world--tend to become. In a thoroughly "civilised" country, where the +material conditions of life are highly organised, and where industry +is highly specialised, so much is done for the individual by those +who organise his life and labour, that it ceases to be necessary for +him, except within narrow limits, to shift for himself. In a less +civilised community men have to use their wits as well as their hands +at every turn; and resourcefulness and versatility are therefore in +constant demand. The industrial life of a Russian peasant, who is of +necessity a Jack-of-many-trades, is incomparably more educative than +that of the Lancashire cotton operative, most of whose thinking and +much of whose operating may be said to be done for him by the +complicated machinery which he controls; who does, indeed, learn to +do one thing surpassingly well, but in doing that one thing becomes, +as he progresses, more and more automatic, so that the highest praise +we can give him is to say that he does his work with the sureness and +accuracy of a machine. It follows that the more civilised a country +becomes, the more important is the part that the elementary school +plays in the life of the nation,--and that not merely because the +ability to read, write, and cipher is, in the conditions which modern +civilisation imposes, almost as much a "necessary of life" as the +ability to walk or talk, but also and more especially because it +devolves upon the school to do for the citizen in his childhood what +life will not do for him in his manhood, or will do for him but in +scant measure, to stimulate his vital powers into healthful activity, +to foster the growth of his soul. And the more the people in a +civilised country are withdrawn from the soil and herded into mines +and mills and offices, the more imperative is it that the school +should quicken rather than deaden the child's innate faculties, +should bring sunshine rather than frost into his adolescent life. In +such a country as ours the responsibilities of the teacher are only +equalled by his opportunities; for the child is in his hands during +the most impressionable years of life; and those years will have been +wasted, and worse than wasted, unless they have fitted the child to +face the world with resourcefulness, intelligence, and vital energy, +ready to wrest from his environment, by enlarging and otherwise +transforming it, those educative influences which are still to be had +for the seeking, but are no longer automatically supplied. + + +_The Moral Aspect of Self-Realisation._ + +If Man, if each man in turn, is born _good_, the process of growth, +or self-realisation, which is presumably taking him towards the +perfection of which his nature admits, must needs make him +continuously _better_. In other words, growth, provided that it is +healthy, harmonious, and many-sided, provided that it is growth of +the whole being, is in itself and of inner necessity the most +moralising of all processes. Nay, it is the only moralising process, +for in no other way can what is naturally good be transformed into +what is ideally best. + +This argument, apart from its being open to the possible objection +that it plays on the meaning of the word "good," is perhaps too +conclusive to be really convincing. I will therefore try to make my +way to its conclusion by another line of thought. + +The desire to grow, to advance towards maturity, to realise his true +self--the self that is his in embryo from the very beginning--is +strong in every living thing, and is therefore strong in every child +of man. But the desire, which necessarily takes its share in the +general process of growth, must needs pass through many stages on its +way to its own highest form. In infancy, it is a desire for physical +life, for the preservation and expansion of the physical self; and in +this stage it is, as I have already pointed out, uncompromisingly +selfish. The new-born baby is the incarnation of selfishness; and it +is quite right that he should be so. It is his way of trying to +realise himself. As the child grows older, the desire to grow becomes +a desire for self-aggrandisement,--a desire to shine in various ways, +to surpass others, to be admired, to be praised; and though in this +stage it may give rise to much vanity and selfishness, still, so long +as it has vigorous growth behind it and is in its essence a desire +for further growth, it is in the main a healthy tendency, and to call +it sinful or vicious would be a misuse of words. + +But when, in the course of time, the average, ordinary, surface +self--the self with which we are all only too familiar--has been +fully evolved and firmly established, the day may come when, owing to +various adverse conditions, the growth of the soul will be arrested, +and the ordinary self will come to be regarded as the true self, as +the self which the man may henceforth accept and rest in, as the +self in virtue of which he is what he is. Should the desire for +self-aggrandisement survive that day, the door would be thrown open +to selfishness of a malignant type and to general demoralisation. And +this is what would assuredly come to pass. In the first place, the +desire for self-aggrandisement, which always has the push of Nature's +expansive forces behind it, would certainly survive that ill-omened +day. Indeed, it were well that it should do so; for "while there is +life, there is hope," and when the soul is ceasing to grow, it is +through the desire for self-aggrandisement that Nature makes her last +effort to keep it alive, by compelling it to energise on one or two +at least of the many sides of its being. In the second place, the +desire would gradually cease to be resolvable into the desire for +continued growth, and would gradually transform itself into the +desire to glorify and make much of the ordinary self, to minister to +its selfish demands, to give it possessions, riches, honour, power, +social rank, and whatever else might serve to feed its self-esteem, +and make it think well of itself because it was well thought of by +"the world." And in the third place, in its effort to glorify and +make much of the ordinary self, the desire would, without a moment's +compunction, see other persons pushed to the wall, trampled under +foot, slighted and humiliated, robbed of what they valued most, +outraged and wounded in their tenderest feelings. It is my firm +conviction that at the present day three-fourths of the moral evil in +the world, or at any rate in the Western world, are the direct or +indirect outcome of egoism,--egoism which, as a rule, is mean, petty, +and small-minded, but is often cruel and ruthless, and can on +occasion become heroic and even titanic in its capacity for evil and +in the havoc that it works,--egoism which in ninety-nine cases out of +a hundred is generated by the desire for self-aggrandisement having +outlived its better self, the desire to grow. + +If arrested growth is the chief source of malignant egoism, there is +an obvious remedy for the deadly malady. The egoist must re-enter the +path of self-realisation. His great enemy is his lower self;[34] and +the surest way to conquer this enemy is to outgrow it, to leave it +far behind. When the path of self-realisation has been re-entered, +when the soul has resumed the interrupted process of its growth, the +desire for self-aggrandisement will spontaneously transform itself, +first into the desire for further growth, and then into the desire +for outgrowth or escape from self, and will cease to minister to the +selfish demands of the lower self; and as the lower self is all the +while being gradually left behind by the growing soul, and is +therefore ceasing to assert itself, and ceasing to clamour, like a +spoilt child, for this thing and for that,--it will not be long +before the antidote to the poison of egoism will have taken due +effect, and the health of the soul will have been restored. + +But let me say again--for I can scarcely say it too often--that the +growth which emancipates from self is many-sided growth, the growth, +not of any one faculty, or group of faculties, but of the soul as +such. Were it not so, the life of self-realisation might easily +become a life of glorified and therefore intensified selfishness. It +is quite possible, as we know from experience, for a high degree of +"culture" to co-exist with a high degree of egoism. It is possible, +for example, for the aesthetic instincts, when not kept aglow by the +sympathetic, or hardened with an alloy of the scientific, to evolve +a peculiar form of selfishness which leads at last to looseness +of life and general demoralisation. And it is possible for the +scientific instincts, when developed at the expense of the aesthetic +and the sympathetic, to evolve a hard, unemotional type of character +which is self-centred and selfish owing to its positiveness and lack +of imagination. But these are instances of inharmonious growth. When +growth is harmonious and many-sided, it leads of necessity to +out-growth, to escape from self. For the expansive instincts are so +many ways of escape from self which Nature opens up to the soul;--the +sympathetic instincts, a way of escape into the boundless aether of +love; the aesthetic instincts, a way of escape into the wonder-world +of beauty; the scientific instincts, a way of escape into the world +of mysteries which is lighted by the "high white star of truth." It +is only when one of the expansive instincts is allowed to aggrandise +itself at the expense of the others, that the consequent outgrowth of +selfishness in what I may call the internal economy of one's nature +begins to reflect itself in a general selfishness of character. An +instinct may readily become egoistic in its effort to affirm or +over-affirm itself, to grasp at its share or more than its share of +the child's rising life: and if it does, it may gradually suck down +into the vortex of its egoism the whole character of the child as he +ripens into the man. But growth, as such, is anti-egoistic just +because it is growth, because it is a movement towards a larger, +fuller, and freer life: and it is restricted, even more than +one-sided growth,--it is the apathy, the helplessness, the deadness +of soul that overtakes, first the child and then the man, when his +expansive instincts are systematically starved and thwarted,--which +is the chief cause of his incarceration in his petty self. + +If three-fourths of the moral evil in the world are due to +malignant egoism, the source of the remaining fourth is, in a word, +_sensuality_. By sensuality I mean the undue or perverted development +of the desires and passions of the animal self,--the desire for +food and drink, the sexual desires, the desire for physical or +semi-physical excitement, the animal passion of anger, and the rest. +As an enemy of the soul, sensuality is less dangerous, because more +open and less insidious, than egoism. The egoist, who mistakes his +ordinary for his real self, may well lead a life of systematic +selfishness without in the least realising that he is living amiss. +But the animal self is never mistaken for the real self; and the +sensualist always has an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind that, +in indulging his animal desires and passions to excess, he is doing +wrong. This feeling may, indeed, die out when he "grows hard" in his +"viciousness"; but in the earlier stages of the sensual life it is +sure to "give pause"; and there are, I think, few persons who do not +feel that the sensual desires and passions are so remote from the +headquarters of human life, that in yielding to them beyond due +measure they are acting unworthily of their higher selves. At any +rate we may regard the temptations to sensual indulgence that lie in +our path as evil influences which are assailing us from without +rather than from within; and we may therefore liken them to the +blight, rust, mites, mildew, and other pests that assail hops, +fruit, wheat, and other growing plants. + +And, like the pests that assail growing plants, the sensual pests +that war against the soul must be beaten off by vigorous and +continuous growth. No other prophylactic is so sure or so effective +as this. When I was asked whether the Utopian education was useful +or not, I adduced, as an instance of its usefulness, its power of +protecting the young from the allurements of a pernicious literature, +to which the victims of the conventional type of education, with +their lowered vitality and their lack of interest in life, too +readily succumb. This is a typical example of the way in which the +rising sap of life strengthens the soul to resist the temptations to +undue sensual indulgence by which it is always liable to be assailed. +The victim of a repressive, growth-arresting type of education, +having few if any interests in life, not infrequently takes to the +meretricious excitements of sensuality in order to relieve the +intolerable monotony of his days. But the training which makes for +many-sided growth, by filling the life of the "adolescent" with many +and various interests, removes temptations of this particular type +from his path. And it does more for him than this. It generates in +him a state of health and well-being, in which the very vigour and +elasticity of his spiritual fibre automatically shields him from +temptation by refusing to allow the germs of moral disease to effect +a lodgment in his soul. It would be well if our moralists could +realise that the chief causes of weakness in the presence of sensual +temptation are, on the one hand, boredom and _ennui_, and on the other +hand flabbiness and degeneracy of spiritual fibre, and that the +remedy for both these defects is to give the young the type of +education which will foster rather than hinder growth. + +We are now in a position to estimate the respective values, as +moralising influences, of the path of self-realisation and the path +that leads to "results." Whatever tends to arrest growth tends also +and in an equal degree to demoralise Man's life; for, on the one +hand, by transforming the healthy desire for continued growth into +the unhealthy desire for mere self-aggrandisement, it generates +malignant egoism, with its endless train of attendant evils; and, on +the other hand, by depressing the vitality of the soul and so +weakening its powers of resistance, it exposes it to the attacks of +those powers and desires which we speak of in the aggregate as +sensuality. If this is so, the inference is irresistible that the +externalism of "civilised" life, with the repressive and devitalising +system of education which it necessitates, is responsible for the +greater part of the immorality--I am using the word in its widest +sense--of the present age. Contrariwise, whatever tends to foster +growth tends also, and in an equal degree, to moralise Man's +life; for, on the one hand, by transforming the desire for +self-aggrandisement into the desire, first for continued growth +and then for out-growth, it gives the soul strength to eliminate +the poison of egoism from its system; and, on the other hand, by +vitalising the soul and so strengthening its powers of resistance, it +enables it to beat off the attacks of those enemies of its well-being +which serve under the banner of sensuality. If this is so, the +inference is irresistible that self-realisation is the only effective +remedy for the immorality of the present age. + +The comparison between the two schemes of life may be carried a stage +further. If egoism and sensuality are the two primary vices, the +secondary vices will be the various ways and means by which egoism +and sensuality try to compass their respective ends. Let us select +for consideration one group of these vices,--the important group +which fall under the general head of _untruthfulness_. Insincerity, +disingenuousness, shiftiness, trickery, duplicity, chicanery, +evasion, intrigue, _suppressio veri_, _suggestio falsi_, fraud, +mendacity, treachery, hypocrisy, cant,--their name is Legion. That +externalism, whether in school or out of school, is the foster-mother +of the whole brood, is almost too obvious to need demonstration. +In school the child lives in an atmosphere of unreality and +make-believe. The demand for mechanical obedience which is always +pressing upon him is a demand that he shall be untrue to himself. +Sincerity of expression, which is the fountain-head of all +truthfulness, is not merely slighted by his teacher, but is +systematically proscribed. He is always (under compulsion) pretending +to be what he is not,--to know what he does not know, to see what he +does not see, to think what he does not think, to believe what he +does not believe. And he lives, from hour to hour, under the dark +shadow of severity and distrust,--severity which is too often +answered by servility, and distrust which is too often answered by +deceit. When he goes out into the world, he finds that though there +are many sins for which there is forgiveness, there is one for which +there is no forgiveness,--the sin of being found out; and he orders +his life accordingly. He finds that he must give account of himself +to public opinion, which necessarily judges according to the +appearance of things, and is only too ready to be hoodwinked and +gulled. He finds that to "succeed" is to achieve certain outward and +visible results,--results which are out of relation to the _vraie +verite_ of things, which are in no way symbolical of merit, and for +the winning of which any means may be resorted to provided that +scandals are avoided and the letter of the law is obeyed. He finds +that the system of advertising which plays so large a part in modern +life, and without which it is so hard to "succeed," is in the main a +system of organised mendacity. Finally, and above all, he finds that +the examination system, with its implicit demands for trickery and +shiftiness, and its almost open invitation to cram and cheat, is not +confined to the school but has its equivalent in "the world," and is +in fact the basis of civilisation as well as of education in the +West. + +This is the provision that externalism makes for the practical +inculcation of truthfulness,--a virtue which its religion and +its ethics profess to honour above all others. The life of +self-realisation, on the other hand, is a life of genuine +self-expression; and a life of genuine self-expression is obviously +a life of fearless sincerity. In such a life there is no place for +untruthfulness or any member of its impish brood. The one concern of +the child, as of the man, is to be loyal to intrinsic reality, to be +true to his true self. His standard is always inward, not outward. +He knows that he is what he is, not what he is reputed to be. +_Quantum unusquisque est in oculis Tuis, tantum est et non amplius._ + +Here, then, as elsewhere, we see that the difference between the +morality of externalism and the morality of self-realisation is a +difference, not of degree but of direct antagonism,--the difference +between a poison and its antidote, between the cause of a malady and +the cure. + +While the path of self-realisation is emancipating us from egoism and +sensuality, in what general direction is it leading us? Is its +ethical ideal positive or merely negative? And if it is positive, +what is its character, and how is it to be realised? The answer to +this question will be given in the remaining sections. + + +_The Social Aspect of Self-realisation._ + +He must either be richly endowed with "the good things of life" or be +of an exceptionally optimistic disposition, who can view the existing +social order with complete satisfaction. Even among those who are +richly endowed with "the good things of life" there must be many who +realise that the "Have-nots" have some cause for complaint. And even +among those who are of an exceptionally optimistic disposition there +must be some who realise that the grounds of their optimism are +personal to themselves, and that they cannot expect many others to +share their satisfaction with things as they are. + +The phrase "the good things of life" is significant, and explains +much. It means that an outward standard of reality has fully +established itself in the community, that money and the possessions +of various kinds which money can buy are regarded as the good things +of life,--things which are intrinsically good, and therefore +legitimate ends of Man's ambition and endeavour, things to pursue +which is to fulfil one's destiny and to win which is to achieve +salvation. It means, in other words, that the life of the community +is a scramble for material possessions and outward and visible +"results"--a scramble which on its lowest level becomes a struggle +for bare existence, and on the next level a struggle for the +"necessaries of life"--and that this legalised scramble is the basis +of the whole social order. In such a scramble the great prizes are +necessarily few, and the number of complete failures is always +considerable; for the wealthier a country, the higher is its standard +of comfort, so that the _proportion_ of failures--the percentage of +men who are submerged and outcast, who are in want and misery--is at +least as great in the wealthiest as in the poorest community, while +the extremes of wealth and poverty are as a rule greatest where the +pursuit of riches is carried on with the keenest vigour and the most +complete success. + +There are many persons, rich as well as poor, who, viewing the +legalised scramble from an entirely impersonal standpoint, are filled +with disgust and dismay, and who dream of making an end of it, by +substituting what they call _collectivism_ for the individualism +which they regard as the source of all our troubles. These persons +are known as _Socialists_. Their ruling idea is that the "State" +should become the sole owner of property, and that this radical +change should be effected by a series of legislative measures. With +their social ideal, regarded as an ideal, one has of course the +deepest sympathy. Their motto is, I believe, "Each for all, and all +for each"; and if this ideal could be realised, the social millennium +would indeed have begun. But in trying to compass their ends by +legislation, _before the standard of reality has been changed_, they +are making a disastrous mistake. For, to go no further, our schools +are hotbeds of individualism, the spirit of "competitive selfishness" +being actively and systematically fostered in all of them, with a few +exceptions; and so long as this is so, so long as our highly +individualised society is recruited, year by year, by a large +contingent of individualists of all ranks, drawn from schools of +all grades, for so long will the Socialistic ideal remain an +impracticable dream. An impracticable and a mischievous dream; for +in the attempt to realise it, the community will almost inevitably +be brought to the verge of civil war. When the seeds of socialistic +legislation, or even of socialistic agitation, are sown in a soil +which is highly charged with the poison of individualism, the +resulting crop will be class hatred and social strife. + +No, we must change our standard of reality before we can hope to +reform society. Where the outward standard prevails, where material +possessions are regarded as "the good things of life," the basis of +society must needs be competitive rather than communal, for there +will never be enough of those "good things" to satisfy the desires of +_all_ the members of any community. And even if the socialistic +dream of state-ownership could be universally realised, the +change--so long as the outward standard of reality prevailed--would +not necessarily be for the better, and might well be for the worse. +Competition for "the good things of life" would probably go on as +fiercely as ever; but it would be a scramble among nations rather +than individuals, and it might conceivably take the form of open +warfare waged on a titanic scale.[35] Even now there are indications +that such a struggle, or series of struggles, if not actually +approaching, is at any rate not beyond the bounds of possibility. And +on the way to the realisation of the collectivist ideal, we should +probably have in each community a similar struggle for wealth and +power among political parties,--a struggle which would generate many +social evils, of which civil war might not be the most malignant. + +But if we are to change our standard of reality we must change it, +first and foremost, in the school. The way to do this is quite +simple. We need not give lessons on altruism. We need not teach or +preach a new philosophy of life. All that we need do is to foster the +growth of the child's soul. When the growth of the soul is healthy +and harmonious, the cultivation of all the expansive instincts having +been fully provided for, the _communal_ instinct will evolve itself +in its own season; and when the communal instinct has been fully +evolved, the social order will begin to reform itself. This is what +has happened in Utopia. There, where competition is unknown, where +prizes are undreamed of, where the growth of the child's natural +faculties, and the consequent well-being of his soul, is "its own +exceeding great reward," the communal instinct has grown with the +growth of the child's whole nature, and has generated an ideal social +life. + +At the end of the last section I asked myself what was the ethical +ideal of the life of self-realisation,--the positive ideal as +distinguished from the more negative ideal of emancipating from +egoism and sensuality. I will now try to answer this question. +Emancipation from egoism and sensuality is effected by the outgrowth +of a larger and truer self. This larger and truer self, as it unfolds +itself, directs our eyes towards the ideal self--the goal of the +whole process of growth--which is to the ordinary self what the +full-grown tree, embodying in itself the perfection of oakhood, is to +the sapling oak, or what the ripe peach, embodying in itself the +perfection of peachhood, is to the green unripened fruit. The ideal +self is, in brief, perfect Manhood. What perfect Manhood may be, we +need not pause to inquire. Whatever it may be, it is the true self of +each of us. It follows that the nearer each of us gets to it, the +nearer he is to the true self of each of his fellow-men; that the +more closely he is able to identify himself with it, the more closely +he is able to identify himself with each of his fellow-men; that in +realising it, he is realising, he is entering into, he is becoming +one with, the real life of each of his fellow-men. And not of each +of his fellow-men only. He is also entering into the life of the +whole community of men--(for it is the presence of the ideal self in +each of us which makes communal life possible)--and, through this, of +each of the lesser communities to which he may happen to belong. In +other words, he is losing himself in the lives of others, and is +finding his well-being, and therefore his happiness, in doing so. +But self-loss, with joy in the loss of self, is, in a word, love. + +The path of self-realisation is, then, in its higher stages, a life +of love. He who walks in that path must needs lead a life of love. +He will love and serve his fellow-men, both as individuals and as +members of this or that community, not because he is consciously +trying to live up to a high ideal, but because he has reached a stage +in his development beyond which he cannot develop himself except by +leading a life of love, because the path of self-realisation has led +him into the sunshine of love, and if he will not henceforth walk in +that sunshine he will cease to follow his path. He has indeed long +walked in the foreglow of the sunshine of love. The dawn of the orb +of love is heralded by a gradual twilight, which lights the path of +self-realisation, even in its earlier stages. In Utopia the joy on +the faces of the children is the joy of goodwill not less than of +well-being. Or rather it is the joy of goodwill because it is the joy +of well-being, because well-being would not be well-being if it did +not ceaselessly generate goodwill. + +That love is "the fulfilling of the law," and therefore the keystone +of every sound system of ethics, is a truth on which I need scarcely +insist. The final proof that the ethics of self-realisation are +sound to the core lies in the fact that the path of self-realisation, +besides emancipating from egoism and sensuality, leads all who walk +in it, first into the foreglow and then into the sunshine of love. +But it is with the social rather than the ethical aspect of +self-realisation that I am now concerned. And the social aspect of +the fact which has just been stated is obviously of vital importance. +Love, which is commensurate with life, has innumerable phases. One of +these is what I have called the communal instinct,--the sense of +belonging to a community, of being a vital part of it, of sharing +in its life, of being what one is (in part at least) because one +shares in its life. If Socialism is to realise its noble dream, this +instinct, strongly developed and directed towards the well-being of +the whole social order, must become part of the normal equipment of +every citizen. And if this is to come to pass, self-realisation must +be made the basis of education in all our schools. What it has done +for the children of Utopia, in the way of developing their communal +instinct and making their school an ideal community, it is capable of +doing for every school in England,--I might almost say for every +school on the face of the earth. + +There are faddists who advocate the teaching of _patriotism_ in our +elementary schools. There are Local Education Committees which insist +on _citizenship_ being taught in the schools under their control. By +teaching patriotism, and citizenship is meant treating them as +"subjects," finding places for them on the "time-table," and giving +formal lessons on them. Where this is done, the time of the +teachers and the children is wasted. The teaching of patriotism +and citizenship, if it is to produce any effect, must be entirely +informal and indirect. Let the child be so educated that he will +develop himself freely on all the sides of his being, and his +communal instinct will, as I have said, evolve itself in its own +season. Until it has evolved itself, patriotism and citizenship will +be mere names to him, and what he is taught about them will make no +impression on him. When it has evolved itself, he will be a patriot +and a good citizen in _posse_, and will be ready on occasion to prove +his patriotism and his good citizenship by his deeds, or, better +still, by his life.[36] + +While the communal instinct is evolving itself, first in the school +and then in the community at large, the standard of reality will, by +a parallel or perhaps identical process, be transforming itself in +all the grades of society. The inward will be taking the place of the +outward standard; and men will be learning to form a different +conception of "the good things of life" from that which now dominates +our social life. The Socialist will then have his opportunity. +That any member of the community should be in physical want or +irremediable misery, will begin to be felt, partly as a personal +grief, partly as a reflection on himself, by each member of the +community in turn; and steps will begin to be taken--what steps I +cannot pretend to forecast--to make physical want and irremediable +misery impossible. Meanwhile, with the gradual substitution of the +inward for the outward standard of reality, the mad scramble for +wealth and possessions and distinctions will gradually cease, the +conception of what constitutes "comfort" and of what are the real +"necessaries of life" will be correspondingly changed, and men will +begin to realise that of the genuine "good things of life"--the good +things which the children of Utopia carry with them into the world, +and which make them exceedingly rich in spite of their apparent +poverty--there are enough and more than enough "to go round." + + +_The Religious Aspect of Self-realisation._ + +The oak-tree is present in embryo in the acorn. What is it that is +present in embryo in the new-born child? To achieve salvation is to +realise one's true self. But what is one's true self? The "perfection +of manhood" is an obvious answer to this question; but it explains so +little that we cannot accept it as final. We may, however, accept it +as a resting-place in our search for the final answer. + +It is on the religious aspect of self-realisation that I now propose +to dwell. The function of Religion is to bring a central aim into +man's life, to direct his eyes towards the true end of his being +and to help him to reach it. The true end of Man's being is the +perfection of his nature; and the way to this end is the process +which we call growth. When I speak of Man's nature I am thinking of +his universal nature, of the nature which is common to all men, the +nature of Man as Man. Each of us has his own particular nature, his +individuality, as it is sometimes called. The nature of Man as Man is +no mere common measure of these particular natures, but is rather +what I may call their organised totality, the many-sided nature which +includes, explains, and even justifies them all. + +What perfection may mean when we predicate the term of our common +nature, we cannot even imagine. The potentialities of our nature seem +to be infinite, and our knowledge of them is limited and shallow. +When we compare an untutored savage or a brutal, ignorant European +with a Christ or a Buddha, or again with a Shakespeare or a Goethe, +we realise how vast is the range--the lineal even more than the +lateral range--of Man's nature, and we find it easy to believe that +in any ordinary man there are whole tracts, whole aspects of human +nature, in which his consciousness has not yet been awakened, and +which therefore seem to be nonexistent in him, though in reality they +are only dormant or inert. These, however, are matters with which we +need not at present concern ourselves. Let the potentialities of our +common nature be what they may. Our business is to realise them as, +little by little, they present themselves to us for realisation. Let +the end of the process of growth be what it may. Our business is to +grow. + +In the effort to grow we are not left without guidance. The stimulus +to grow, the forces and the tendencies that make for growth, all come +from within ourselves. Yet it is only to a limited extent that they +come under our direct control. So, too, the goal of growth, the +ideal perfection of our nature, is our own; and yet on the way to it +we must needs outgrow ourselves. What part do we play in this mighty +drama? The mystery of selfhood is unfathomable. The word _self_ +changes its meaning the moment we begin to think about it. So does +the word _nature_. The range of meaning is in each case unlimited. +Yet there are limits beyond which we cannot use either word without +some risk of being misunderstood. When we are meditating on our +origin and our destiny, some other word seems to be needed to enable +us to complete the span of our thoughts. + +Is not that word _God_? The source of our life, the ideal end of our +being,--how shall we think about these if we may not speak of them as +_divine_? And in using the word "divine," do we not set ourselves +free to stretch the respective meanings of the words "self" and +"nature" beyond what would otherwise have been the breaking point of +each? The true self is worthier of the name of "self" than the +apparent self. The true nature is worthier of the name of "nature" +than the lower nature. But the true self is the Divine Self; and the +highest nature is the Nature of God. If this is so, we serve God best +and obey God best by trying to perfect our nature in response to a +stimulus, a pressure, and a guidance which is at once natural and +divine. + +In other words, we serve God best by following the path of +self-realisation. And the better we serve God, the more truly and +fully do we learn to know him. If to know him, and to live up to our +knowledge of him, is to be truly religious, then the life of +self-realisation is, in the truest and deepest sense of the word, a +_religious_ life. Or rather it is the only religious life, for in no +other way can knowledge of God be won. + +Let me try to make good this statement. Knowledge of God is the +outcome, not of definite dogmatic instruction in theology, but of +spiritual growth. Knowledge, whatever may be its object, is always +the outcome of growth. Even knowledge of _number_ is the outcome, not +of definite dogmatic instruction in the arithmetical rules and +tables, but of the growth of the arithmetical sense. It is the same +with literature, the same with history, the same with chemistry, the +same with "business," the same with navigation, the same with the +driving of vehicles in crowded streets, the same with every art, +craft, sport, game, and pursuit. In evolving a special sense, the +soul is growing in one particular direction, a direction which is +marked out for it by the environment in which it finds it needful or +desirable to energise. The soul has, as we have seen, a general power +of adapting itself to its environment, of permeating it, of feeling +its way through it, of getting to understand it, of dealing with it +at last with skill and success. As is the particular environment, so +is the subtle, tactful, adaptive, directly perceptive, subconsciously +cognitive faculty,--the "sense," as I have called it--by means of +which the soul acquires the particular knowledge that it needs. The +more highly specialised (whether by subdivision or by abstraction) +the environment, the more highly specialised the sense. The larger +and more comprehensive the environment, the larger and more "massive" +the sense. The acquired aptitude which enables an omnibus driver to +steer his bulky vehicle through the traffic of London is a highly +specialised sense. At the other end of the scale we have the +"massive" spiritual faculties which deal with whole aspects of life +or Nature, such as the sense of beauty or of moral worth. + +But there is a sense which is larger and more "massive" even than +these. When the environment is all-embracing, when it covers the +whole circle of which the soul is or can be the centre, the growth +made in response to it is the growth of the soul as such, and the +knowledge which rewards that growth is the knowledge of supreme +reality, or, in the language of religion, the knowledge of God. The +highest of all senses is the religious sense, the sense which gives +us knowledge of God. But the religious sense is not, as we are apt +to imagine, one of many senses. No one individual sense, however +"massive" or subtle it might be, could enable its possessor to get +on terms, so to speak, with the totality of things, with the +all-vitalising Life, with the all-embracing Whole. _The religious +sense is the well-being of the soul._ For the soul as such grows in +and through the growth of its various senses,--its own growth being +reinforced by the growth of each of these when Nature's balance is +kept, and retarded by the growth of one or more of them when Nature's +balance is lost,--and in proportion as its own vital, central growth +is vigorous and healthy, its power of apprehending reality unfolds +itself little by little. That power is of its inmost essence. When +reality, in the full sense of the word, is its object, it sees with +the whole of its being; it is itself, when it is at the centre of +its universe, its own supreme perceptive faculty, its own religious +sense. + +If this is so, if the soul in its totality, the soul acting through +its whole "apperceptive mass," is its own religious sense, it is +abundantly clear that the path of self-realisation is the only path +which leads to knowledge of God, and through knowledge of God to +salvation. For self-realisation is the only scheme of life which +provides for the growth of the soul in its totality, for the +harmonious, many-sided development of the soul as such. I have often +dwelt on this point. If we have never before realised its importance +we must surely do so now. A one-sided training, even when its +one-sidedness takes the form of specialising in theology, is a +non-religious, and may well become an irreligious training, for it +does not lead to, and may well lead away from, knowledge of God. + +And if we have never before realised how great are the opportunities +and responsibilities of the teacher, we must surely do so now. For a +certain number of years--the number varies with the social standing +of the child, and the financial resources of his parents--the teacher +can afford to disregard utilitarian considerations and think only of +what is best for the child. What use will he make of those years? +Will he lead the child into the path of self-realisation, and so give +a lifelong impetus to the growth of his soul? Or will he, in his +thirst for "results," lead him into the path of mechanical obedience, +or, at best, of one-sided development, and so blight his budding +faculties and arrest the growth of his soul? On the practical answer +that he gives to this question will depend the fate of the child. +For to the child the difference between the two paths will be the +difference between fulfilling and missing his destiny, between +knowledge and ignorance of God. + +If any of my readers have imagined that I am an advocate of what is +called "secular education," they will, I hope, now realise that they +have misread this book. Far from wishing to secularise education, I +hold that it cannot be too religious. And, far from wishing to limit +its religious activities to the first forty minutes of the morning +sessions, I hold that it should be actively religious through every +minute of every school session, that whatever it does it should do to +the glory of God. + +But how does knowledge of God show itself? Knowledge, so far as it is +real, always shows itself in right bearing, and (if action is called +for) in right action. Knowledge of arithmetic and of other more or +less abstract subjects, shows itself in the successful working of the +corresponding problems, theoretical or practical as the case may be. +Knowledge of the laws of physical nature shows itself in practical +mastery of the forces and resources of physical nature. Knowledge of +history and geography, in a right attitude towards the problems and +sub-problems of these complex and comprehensive subjects, an attitude +which may on occasion translate itself into right action. And so on. +Knowledge of God, being a state or attitude of the soul as such, must +show itself in the right bearing and the right action of the soul as +such, in other words, of Man as Man,--not as mathematician, not as +financier, not as sculptor, not as cricketer, but simply as Man. Now +Man as Man has to bear himself aright towards the world in which he +finds himself, and in particular towards the world which touches him +most closely and envelops him most completely,--the world of human +life. Therefore knowledge of God will show itself, principally and +chiefly, though by no means wholly, in dealing aright with one's +fellow-men, in being rightly disposed towards them, and in doing the +right things to them. I have found it convenient to disconnect the +moral from the religious aspect of self-realisation. We can now see +that in the last resort the two aspects are one. + +From every point of view, then, and above all from that of Religion, +the path of self-realisation is seen to be the path of salvation. +For it is the only scheme of life which enables him who follows it +to attain to knowledge of God; and knowledge of God has, as its +necessary counterpart, a right attitude, in general towards the world +which surrounds him, and in particular towards his fellow-men. + +But is it possible, within the limits of one earth-life, to follow +the path of self-realisation to its appointed goal? And if not, will +the path be continued beyond that abrupt turn in it which we call +death? The respective attitudes of the two great schools of popular +thought towards the problem of the grave, are in brief as follows. +The Materialists (or Naturalists, as they miscall themselves) believe +that death is the end of life. The Supernaturalists believe that one +earth-life (or even a few years or months) of mechanical obedience to +supernatural direction will be rewarded by an eternity of happiness +in "Heaven." But those who walk in the path of self-realisation, and +whose unswerving loyalty to Nature is rewarded by some measure of +insight into her deeper laws, know that the goal of the path is +infinitely far away, and in their heart of hearts they laugh both the +current eschatologies to scorn. And the higher they ascend, as they +follow the path, the more vividly do they realise how unimaginably +high above them is the summit of the mountain which the path is +ascending in spiral coils. + +The Utopian experiment, humble as it is, can, I think, throw some +light on these mighty problems. The relations between the type and +the various sub-types, between the type and the individual, between +the sub-type and the individual--whether in plant or beast or +man--are matters which could not be handled within the limits of this +book, and which I have therefore as far as possible ignored. Nor have +I attempted to deal with the difficult problems that are presented by +the existence of races, such as the Negro, which seem to be far below +the normal level of human development. There is, however, in the vast +region of thought which these and kindred problems open out to us, +one by-way which I must be allowed to follow for a while. + +The wild _bullace_ is, I believe, the ancestor of many of our yellow +_plums_. In other words, bullacehood can develop into plumhood, and +even into the perfection of plumhood. Similarly human nature can +develop into something so high above the normal level of human nature +that it might almost seem to belong to another _genus_. But there is +a difference between the two cases. The bullace ideal is in the +individual bullace tree. So, in a sense, is the plum ideal. But the +latter cannot be realised, or even approached, by the individual +bullace tree. It cannot be realised, or even approached, by the +bullace species except through a long course of culture and breeding. +Is it the same with Man? Let us take English rusticity as a +particular type of human nature,--the equivalent of bullacehood for +the purpose of argument. This is a distinct type, and may be said +to have its own ideal.[37] Emerging from this, and gradually +transforming it, is the ideal of human nature, the ideal for Man as +Man. As the bullace ideal is to the plum ideal, so is the ideal of +English rusticity to the ideal of human nature. But whereas the plum +ideal cannot be realised in any appreciable degree by the individual +bullace, the human ideal can be realised in a quite appreciable +degree by the individual English rustic. There have always been and +will always be isolated cases to prove that this is so,--cases of men +of quite humble origin who have attained to high degrees of mental +and spiritual development. These have hitherto been regarded as +exceptional cases. But Egeria has convinced me that under favourable +conditions the _average_ child can become the rare exception, and +attain to what is usually regarded as a remarkably high degree of +mental and spiritual development. Innocent joy, self-forgetfulness, +communal devotion, heartfelt goodwill, gracious manners--to speak of +spiritual development only--are characteristics of _every_ Utopian +child. What are we to infer from this? The bullace ideal is +realisable (under favourable conditions) by each individual bullace +tree,--but the plum ideal is not. The English rustic ideal is +realisable by each individual rustic child. _But so is the human +ideal in Utopia._ + +But what of the children who do not belong to Utopia? What would have +happened to the Utopian children if there had been no Egeria to lead +them into the path of self-realisation? They would have lived and +died ordinary English rustics,--healthy bullaces, but in no respect +or degree plums. Egeria has convinced me that the average child, +besides being born mentally and spiritually healthy, has immense +capacity on every side of his being. The plum ideal is the true +nature of the plum, but is not the true nature of the bullace. But +Egeria has convinced me that the human ideal--the divine self--is the +true nature of each of us, even of the average rustic child; and she +has also convinced me that each of us can go a long way towards +realising that ideal. Had there been no Egeria in Utopia, the +Utopians would have lived and died undeveloped, having arrived at a +maturity of a kind, the maturity of the bullace as distinguished from +that of the plum, but having failed to realise in any appreciable +degree what the Utopian experiment has proved to be their true +nature. What then? Is this the end of the average man? Will Nature +admit final defeat? The curve of a man's life, as it sweeps round +from birth to death, passes through the point of apparent maturity; +but the real nature of the man has never ripened, and when he +descends into the grave he is still the embryo of his true self. +Will the true self never be realised? Never, if death is indeed the +end of life. But in that case the man will have failed to fulfil the +central purpose of Nature, and, alone among her children, will have +escaped from the control of her all-pervading law of growth. + +It is in their desire to keep Man in line with the rest of Nature's +children that so many thinkers and scientists in the West forbid him +to look beyond the horizon of the grave. But in truth it is only by +being allowed to look beyond that horizon that Man can be kept in +line with the rest of Nature's children; for if death means +extinction to him, as it means (or seems to mean) to the beetle or +the fly, he will have lived to no purpose, having failed to realise +in any appreciable degree what every other living thing realises +within its appointed limits,--the central tendencies of his being. +That a living thing, an average specimen of its kind, should within +the limits of a normal life fail completely to realise those +potentialities which are distinctive of its real nature,--fail so +completely that the very existence of those potentialities might, but +for an occasional and quite exceptional revelation, have remained +unsuspected,--is entirely at variance with what we know of the ways +and works of Nature. Yet failure to realise his true manhood is, +outside the confines of Utopia, the apparent lot of nine men out of +ten. An entire range of qualities, spiritual and mental, which +blossom freely in the stimulating atmosphere of Utopia, and which +must therefore exist in embryo in every normal child, fail to +germinate (or at best only just begin to germinate) within the +lifetime of the average non-Utopian.[38] The inference to be drawn +from these significant facts is that the apparent limits of Man's +life are not the real limits; that the one earth-life of which each +of us is conscious, far from being the whole of one's life, is but a +tiny fragment of it,--one term of its ascending "series," one day in +its cycle of years. In other words, the spiritual fertility of the +average Utopian child, taken in conjunction with the spiritual +sterility of the average non-Utopian child (and man), points to the +conclusion which the thinkers of the Far East reached thousands of +years ago,--that for the full development of human nature a plurality +of lives is needed, which will do for the individual soul what +generations of scientific breeding and culture will do for the +bullace that is to be transformed into a plum. + +This is one lesson which Utopia has taught me. There is another which +had also been anticipated by the thinkers of the Far East. If under +exceptionally favourable conditions certain spiritual and mental +qualities are able to blossom freely in the space of a few years, +which under normal conditions would remain undeveloped during a +lifetime of seventy or eighty years, may we not infer that there is a +directer path to spiritual maturity than that which is ordinarily +followed? May we not infer that there are ways of living, ways into +which parents and teachers can lead the young, which, if faithfully +followed, will allow the potencies of Man's higher nature to evolve +themselves with what we, with our limited experience, must regard as +abnormal celerity, and which will therefore shorten appreciably Man's +journey to his goal?[39] And if there is a directer path to spiritual +maturity than that which is ordinarily followed, is not the name for +it _Self-realisation_? + +I will not pursue these speculations further. But, speaking for +myself, I will say that the vista which the idea of self-realisation +opens up to me goes far beyond the limits of any one earth-life or +sequence of earth-lives, and far, immeasurably far, beyond the limits +of the sham eternity of the conventional Heaven and Hell. + +But even if there is the fullest provision in Nature (whether by a +spiral ascent through a long chain of lives, or by some directer +path) for the final development in each individual man of the +potencies of perfect manhood, for the final realisation of the divine +or true self,--what then? What does it all mean? Why are we to follow +the path of self-realisation? What is the purpose of the cycle of +existence? There is an answer to this obstinate question,--an answer +which explains nothing, and yet is final, in that it leaves nothing +to be explained. The expansive energies and desires, to yield to +which is our wisdom and our happiness, are ever transforming +themselves, as we yield to them, into the might and the ardour of +Love. And for love there is no final resting-place but the sea of +Divine Love from which it came. "_Amor ex Deo natus est, nec potest +nisi in Deo requiescere._" + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] There is of course an intermediate class of vicious +tendencies, which may be described as apparent rather than actual, +and which are caused partly by immaturity, partly by environment. +Many of the "naughtinesses" of school children belong to this class. + +[26] The _physical_ aspect is, of course, of incalculable +importance. My only reason for ignoring it is that I am not competent +to deal with it. The _aesthetic_ aspect is also of incalculable +importance; but I know so little about music or art, that I must +limit my treatment of this aspect to pointing out that until the +musical and artistic instincts of the masses are systematically +trained in our elementary schools, through the medium of free +self-expression on the part of the children, we shall have neither a +national music nor a national art. + +[27] Workshops, for the use of the engineering classes, are, +I believe, attached to the "Modern Side" of some of our Great Public +Schools; but I doubt if there is one among the Great Public Schools, +or even among the Preparatory Schools which lead up to them, in which +"hand-work" is part of the _normal_ curriculum. + +[28] I know a youth who recently attended Science lectures +for two years at one of the most famous of our Great Public Schools, +and at the end of that time had not the faintest idea what branch of +Science he had been studying. Science is, I believe, seriously taught +in the Great Public Schools to those who wish to take it seriously; +but, if taught at all, it is certainly not taught seriously to the +rank and file of the boys who belong to the "Classical side" of their +respective schools. + +[29] See also footnote 2 to page 270. + +[30] When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, there was one at +least of my friends who took a genuine delight in the literary +masterpieces of Greece and Rome,--the delight, not of a fastidious +scholar but of a born lover of good literature. He got a "Third" in +Classical "Mods," and was "gulfed" in "Greats." "Serve him right," +his "dons" must have said, for I am afraid he cut their lectures. +[Greek: hos apoloito kai allos hotis toiauta ge rhezoi.] + +[31] _Stanzas on the Grande Chartreuse_, by Matthew Arnold. + +[32] When I apply the epithet "irrational" to the outcry at +Ephesus, I am thinking of the mob, not of the silversmiths. The +latter knew what they were about. + +[33] Having said so much in disparagement of the mental +training given in the great Public Schools and the older +Universities, let me now try to make my peace with my old school and +my University by expressing my conviction that those who are studying +the "Humanities," whether at school or college, _and finding pleasure +in their studies_, are receiving the best education that is at +present procurable in England. An old Oxonian may perhaps be allowed +to make public profession of his faith in the special efficacy of +that course of study which is known familiarly as "Greats," the +examination in which is, of all examinations, the most difficult to +cram for and the most profitable to read for. + +It is scarcely necessary for me to add that in the older +Universities, as in the great Public Schools, many valuable educative +influences are at work outside the lecture-room. For one thing, the +undergraduates, who come from all parts of the world, are always +educating one another. For another thing, the "atmosphere" of Oxford +and Cambridge does much for the mental and spiritual development of +those who are able to respond to its stimulus. Even the _genius loci_ +is educative, in its own quiet, subtle way. But it would be an +impertinence on my part to labour this point. It is because Oxford +and Cambridge educate their _alumni_ in a thousand ways, the worth of +which no formal examination can test or measure, that they stand +apart from all other Universities. + +[34] I mean by the "lower self," not the animal base of +one's existence, but the ordinary self _claiming to be the true +self_, and so rising in rebellion against its lawful lord. + +[35] In other words, it might conceivably take the form of +_clan_ warfare, highly organised and waged on a world-wide field; and +we learn from the history of the Highlands of Scotland and of Old +Japan that of all forms of warfare the most cruel and relentless, +with the exception of that which is waged in the name of religion, is +the warfare between clan and clan. + +[36] There is such a thing as communal egoism, when a man +regards the community or society to which he belongs as a kind of +"possession," to be paraded and bragged about, just as in personal +love there is such a thing as egoism _a deux_. But the communal +instinct which is generated by self-realisation readily purges itself +of every egoistic taint. + +[37] I mean by the "ideal" the true nature of the given +species and the true self of each individual specimen. + +[38] When I compare the average Utopian with the average +non-Utopian, I am of course thinking of the "masses," not of the +"classes." If the comparison is to have any value, the conditions in +the two cases must be fairly equal. Mentally, the "classes" are, on +the whole, more highly developed (thanks to their more favourable +environment) than the "masses." Spiritually and morally, they are +perhaps on a par with them. + +[39] This was the idea which inspired the Founder of +Buddhism, and led him to formulate a scheme of life, in virtue +of which he takes rank (as it seems to me) as the greatest +educationalist, as well as the greatest moralist, that the world +has ever known. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS AND WHAT MIGHT BE *** + +***** This file should be named 20555.txt or 20555.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/5/5/20555/ + +Produced by R. 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