consequence of this press demoralization has been a great loss of
influence for the daily paper. A diminishing number of people now
believe the news as it is given them, and fewer still take the unsigned
portions of the newspaper as written in good faith. And there has been a
consequent enhancement of the importance of signed journalism. Men of
manifest honesty, men with names to keep clean, have built up
reputations and influence upon the ruins of editorial prestige. The
exploitation of newspapers by the adventurers of "private enterprise" in
business, has carried with it this immense depreciation in the power and
honour of the newspaper.
I am inclined to think that this swamping of a large part of the world's
press by calculated falsehood and partisan propaganda is a temporary
phase in the development of the print nexus: nevertheless, it is a very
great inconvenience and danger to the world. It stands very much in the
way of that universal adult education which is our present concern.
Reality is horribly distorted. Men cannot see the world clearly and they
cannot, therefore, begin to think about it rightly.
We need a much better and more trustworthy press than we possess. We
cannot get on to a new and better world without it. The remedy is to be
found not, I believe, in any sort of Government control, but in a legal
campaign against the one thing harmful--the lie. It would be in the
interests of most big advertisers, for most big advertisement is honest;
it would be, in the long run, in the interests of the Press; and it
would mean an enormous step forward in the general mental clarity of the
world if a deliberate lie, whether in an advertisement or in the news or
other columns of the press, was punishable--punishable whether it did or
did not involve anything that is now an actionable damage. And it would
still further strengthen the print nexus and clear the mind of the world
if it were compulsory to correct untrue statements in the periodical
press, whether they had been made in good faith or not, at least as
conspicuously and lengthily as the original statement. I can see no
impossibility in the realization of either of these proposals, and no
objection that a really honest newspaper proprietor or advertiser could
offer to them. It would make everyone careful, of course, but I fail to
see any grievance in that. The sanitary effect upon the festering
disputes of our time would be incalculably great. It would be like
opening the windows upon a stuffy, overcrowded and unventilated room of
disputing people.
Given adequate laws to prevent the cornering of paper or the partisan
control of the means of distribution of books and printed matter, I
believe that the present freedoms and the unhampered individualism of
the world of thought, discussion and literary expression are and must
remain conditions essential to the proper growth and activity of a
common world mind. On the basis of that sounder education I have
sketched in a preceding paper, there is possible such an extension of
understanding, such an increase of intelligent co-operations and such a
clarification of wills as to dissolve away half the difficulties and
conflicts of the present time and to provide for the other half such a
power of solution as we, in the heats, entanglements and limitations of
our present ignorance, doubt and misinformation can scarcely begin to
imagine.
I do not know how far I have conveyed to you in the last two papers my
underlying idea of an education not merely intensive but extensive,
planned so economically and so ably as to reach every man and woman in
the world.
It is a dream not of _individuals educated_--we have thought too much of
the individual educated _for_ the individual--but of a _world educated_
to a pitch of understanding and co-operation far beyond anything we know
of to-day, for the sake of all mankind.
I have tried to show that, given organization, given the will for it,
such a world-wide education is possible.
I wish I had the gift of eloquence so that I could touch your wills in
this matter. I do not know how this world of to-day strikes upon you. I
am not ungrateful for the gift of life. While there is life and a human
mind, it seems to me there must always be excitements and beauty, even
if the excitements are fierce and the beauty terrible and tragic.
Nevertheless, this world of mankind to-day seems to me to be a very
sinister and dreadful world. It has come to this--that I open my
newspaper every morning with a sinking heart, and usually I find little
to console me. Every day there is a new tale of silly bloodshed. Every
day I read of anger and hate, oppression and misery and want--stupid
anger and oppression, needless misery and want--the insults and
suspicions of ignorant men, and the inane and horrible self-satisfaction
of the well-to-do. It is a vile world because it is an under-educated
world, unreasonable, suspicious, base and ferocious. The air of our
lives is a close and wrathful air; it has the closeness of a
prison--the indescribable offence of crowded and restricted humanity.
And yet I know that there is a way out.
Up certain steps there is a door to this dark prison of ignorance,
prejudice and passion in which we live--and that door is only locked on
the inside. It is within our power, given the will for it, given the
courage for it--it is within our power to go out. The key to all our
human disorder is organized education, comprehensive and universal. The
watchword of conduct that will clear up all our difficulties is, the
_plain truth_. Rely upon that watchword, use that key with courage and
we can go out of the prison in which we live; we can go right out of the
conditions of war, shortage, angry scrambling, mutual thwarting and
malaise and disease in which we live; we and our kind can go out into
sunlight, into a sweet air of understanding, into confident freedoms and
a full creative life--for ever.
I do not know--I do not dare to believe--that I shall live to hear that
key grating in the lock. It may be our children and our children's
children will still be living in this jail. But a day will surely come
when that door will open wide and all our race will pass out from this
magic prison of ignorance, suspicion and indiscipline in which we now
all suffer together.
VIII
THE ENVOY
In the preceding papers I have, with some repetition and much stumbling,
set out a fairly complete theory of what men and women have to do at the
present time if human life is to go on hopefully to any great happiness
and achievement in the days to come. Much of this material was first
prepared to be delivered to a lecture audience, and I regret that
ill-health has prevented a complete re-writing of these portions. There
is more of the uplifted forefinger and the reiterated point than I
should have allowed myself in an essay. But this is a loss of grace
rather than of clearness. And since I am stating a case and not offering
the reader anything professing to be a literary work, I shall not
apologise for finally summing up and underlining the chief points of
this book.
They are, firstly: that a great change in human conditions has been
brought about during the past century, and secondly that a vast task of
adaptation, which must be, initially and fundamentally, _mental_
adaptation, has to be undertaken by our race. It is a task which
politicians, who live from day to day, and statesmen, who live from
event to event, may hinder or aid very greatly, but which they cannot
be expected to conduct or control. Politicians and statesmen perforce
live and work in the scheme of ideas they find about them; the
conditions of their activities are made for them. They can be compelled
by the weight of public opinion to help it, but the driving force for
this great task must come not from official sources but from the
steadfast educational pressure of a great and growing multitude of
convinced people. In times of fluctuation and dissolving landmarks, the
importance of the teacher--using the word in its widest sense--rises
with the progressive dissolution of the established order.
The creative responsibility for the world to-day passes steadily into
the hands of writers and school teachers, students of social and
economic science, professors and poets, editors and journalists,
publishers and newspaper proprietors, preachers, every sort of
propagandist and every sort of disinterested person who can give time
and energy to the reconstruction of the social idea. Human life will
continue to be more and more dangerously chaotic until a world social
idea crystallizes out. That--and no existing institution and no current
issue--is the primary concern of the present age.
We need, therefore, before all other sorts of organization, educational
organizations; we need, before any other sort of work, work of education
and enlightenment; we need everywhere active societies pressing for a
better, more efficient conduct of public schooling, for a wider, more
enlightening school curriculum, for a world-wide linking-up of
educational systems, for a ruthless subordination of naval, military and
court expenditure to educational needs, and for a systematic
discouragement of mischief-making between nation and nation and race and
race and class and class. I could wish to see Educational Societies,
organized as such, springing up everywhere, watching local bodies in
order to divert economies from the educational starvation of a district
to other less harmful saving; watching for obscurantism and reaction and
mischievous nationalist teaching in the local schools and colleges and
in the local press; watching members of parliament and congressmen for
evidences of educational good-will or malignity; watching and getting
control of the administration of public libraries; assisting, when
necessary, in the supply of sound literature in their districts; raising
funds for invigorating educational propaganda in poor countries like
China and in atrociously educated countries like Ireland, and
corresponding with kindred societies throughout the world. I believe
such societies would speedily become much more influential than the
ordinary political party clubs and associations that now use up so much
human energy in the western communities. Subordinating all vulgar
political considerations to educational development as the supreme need
in the world's affairs, even quite small societies could exercise a
powerful decisive voice in a great number of political contests. And an
educational movement is more tenacious than any other sort of social or
political movement whatever. It trains its adherents. What it wins it
holds.
I know that in thus putting all the importance upon educational needs at
the present time I shall seem to many readers to be ignoring quite
excessively the profound racial, social and economic conflicts that are
in progress. I do. I believe we shall never get on with human affairs
until we do ignore them. I offer no suggestion whatever as to what sides
people should take in such an issue as that between France and Germany
or between Sinn Fein and the British Government, or in the class war. I
offer no such suggestion because I believe that all these conflicts and
all such current conflicts are so irrational and destructive that it is
impossible for a sane man who wishes to serve the world to identify
himself with either side in any of them. These conflicts are mere
aspects of the gross and passionate stupidity and ignorance and
sectionalism of our present world. The class war, the push for and the
resistance to some vague reorganization called the Social
Revolution--such things are the natural inevitable result of the sordid
moral and intellectual muddle of our common ideas about property. The
capitalist, the employer, the property-owning class, as a class, have
neither the intelligence nor the conscience to comprehend any moral
limitations, any limitations whatever but the strong arm of the law,
upon what they do with their property. Their black and obstinate
ignorance, the clumsy adventurousness they call private enterprise,
their unconscious insolence to poor people, their stupidly conspicuous
self-indulgence, produce as a necessary result the black hatred of the
employed and the expropriated. On one side we have greed, insensibility
and incapacity, on the other envy and suffering stung to vindictive
revolt: on neither side light nor generosity nor creative will. Neither
side has any power to give us any reality we need. Neither side is more
than a hate and an aggression. How can one take sides between them?
The present system, _unless it can develop a better intelligence and a
better heart_, is manifestly destined to foster fresh wars and to
continue wasting what is left of the substance of mankind, until
absolute social disaster overtakes us all. And manifestly the
revolutionary communist, _at his present level of education_, has
neither the plans nor the capacity to substitute any more efficient
system for this crazy edifice of ill-disciplined private enterprise that
is now blundering to destruction. But at a higher level of intelligence,
at a level at which it is possible to define the limitations of private
property clearly and to ensure a really loyal and effectual co-operation
between individual and state, this issue--this wholly destructive
conflict between the property manipulator and the communist fanatic
which is now rapidly wrecking our world--disappears. It disappears as
completely as the causes of a murderous conflict between two drunken
men will disappear when they are separated and put under a stream of
clear cold water.
So it is that, in spite of their apparent urgency, I ask the reader to
detach himself from these present conflicts of national politics, of
political parties and of the class war as completely as he can; or, if
he cannot detach himself completely, then to play such a part in them,
regardless of any other consideration, as may be most conducive to a
wide-thinking, wide-ranging education upon which we can base a new world
order. A resolute push for quite a short period now might reconstruct
the entire basis of our collective human life.
In this book I have tried to show what form that push should take, to
show that it has a reasonable hope of an ultimate success, and that
unless it is made, the outlook for mankind is likely to become an
entirely dismal prospect. I put these theses before the reader for his
consideration. They are not discursive criticisms of life, not haphazard
grumblings at our present discontents, they are offered as the
fundamental propositions of an ordered constructive project in which he
can easily find a part to play commensurate with his ability and
opportunities.
INDEX
Adult learning, spread of, 167
Aircraft as a means of quick travel, 48
in future wars, 9
Air transport a problem for Europe, 58
possibilities of future, 66
"All-red air routes," 67
America and the League of Nations, 15, 28, 47
generalized history teaching in, 108
her part in European reconstruction, 62
locomotion in, 49, 52
political unity of, 60
(_see also_ United States)
American social system, comparisons, 2
Americans, patriotism of, 69
Anthology and a modernized Bible, 125
Apocrypha, the, and a modernized Bible, 119 _et seq._
Arithmetic, a wrong way of teaching, 149
Austria after the war, 44
Belloc, Hilaire, 178
Bible, the, a criticism of, 98 _et seq._
and the theory of origin, 103
English translation of, 107
its effect upon civilization, 101
redundancy in, 99
rules of health in, 111
why it has lost hold on the people, 101
Bible of Civilization, the, 95 _et seq._
need for frequent revision, 136
what it will contain, 105 _et seq._
Biology, Huxley's system of, 171
study of, 151, 152
Bolshevik propaganda, suppression of, 175
Bolshevism and the overthrow of Russia, 44
Books and mentality, 183
Boundary question in Europe, 54, 59, 61, 62
Bradlaugh, Charles, lectures of, 171
Breasted, Professor, works of, 108
Breeding, points required in, 140
Britain, national egotism of, 72
British Civil Air Transport Committee, 48, 66
British Empire, the, a prime necessity for security of, 65
a wrong conception of, 64
an ocean state, 65
its failure with reconstruction, 28-9
British monarchy, the, lost opportunities of, 29
Browning, Oscar, 108
Canonical books and the Bible of Civilization, 119
Chinese discovery of gunpowder, 6
Christianity, 23
spread of, in Western Europe, 78
Cinematograph, the, as an aid to teaching, 80, 161
Civilization, adjustment of political ideas necessary for, 46
effect of the Bible on, 101
impotence of, 1
the Bible of, 95 _et seq._
the war and, 43 _et seq._
College stage of education, 168
changed conditions of, 180
how it could be improved, 172
problem of its extension, 177
Comenius, political and educational ideas of, 95, 97, 138
Committees, good work by, 107
Communism and property, 115
Communists, Russian, and the Press, 186
Connecticut, State of, the Bible as its only law, 98
Conscience the basis of moral life, 20
Contemporary problems, complexity of, 3
Cosmogony of the Bible, the, 103-4
Customs, the, and European travel, 56
Declaration of Independence, 63, 107
Denmark, present-day conditions in, 45
Disarmament, ineffectual movements for, 13
Discovery, the age of, 6
Education a fundamental difficulty, 155
chief end of, 25
degradation of, 105
in the world state, 20, 90
necessary basis of, 103
neglect of language teaching, 145
past and present, 79, 104
primary obstacle to, 153
progressive character of, 166, 183
reorganization of, needed, 158, 165
Educational organization, a review of, 139
need of, 194
England before and after the war, 45
Epics and a modernized Bible, 125
Eugenic literature, 140, 141
Europe, and the League of Nations, 47
boundary question of, 54, 59, 61, 62
in the seventeenth century, 96
problem of air transport, 58
propaganda of patriotism in, 72
results of political disunion, 54
slow economic recovery of, 59
European travel, preparations needed for, 55
Evening continuation and technical schools, 169
Exchange, fluctuating nature of, 56, 57
Federal World State, an approaching reality, 80
Forecasts, a Book of, and the modernized Bible, 132
Foresight, need of, 133
France, national egotism of, 72
post-war decadence in, 45
Frontiers and the possibility of war, 59
Geography, improved method of teaching, 151
Germany, ebb in civilization in, 45
intensive nationalist education in, 72
Gladstone, Mr., a speech by, 171
Gramophones as aids to school teaching, 160
Gunpowder, discovery of, 6
Hamsun's _Growth of the Soil_, 124
Health and the citizen, 111
Hebrew Bible, the, 110
Henley, a poem by, 127
Herbert, Auberon, lectures by, 171
Higher education, a false conception of, 181
Historical books, value of illustrations and maps in, 110
History, and national egotism, 73
cardinal experiences in, 1
_History of the Ancient World_, 108
History teaching in schools, unsatisfactory nature of, 151
Holland, post-war condition of, 45
Human brotherhood, gospel of, 24
Human disorder, the key to, 192
Human outlook, the, 1
Human society, ancient and modern, 5
needs reconstruction, 11
Human unity and a world state, 75
Hungary, post-war desolation in, 44
Huxley, Professor, author's tribute to, 170
his system of teaching geography, 151
Illustrations, need of, in books, 110
Independent nationality, need for, 76
Individualists and property, 115
Industrialism, modern, 114
Intellectuals, their estimate of man, 14
International mind, an, 73
International problem of to-day, 46
Ireland, after-effects of war in, 45
condition of (1640-1650), 96
Islam, lasting unity of, 79
spread of, in seventh century, 23
Italy, after the war, 45
forbids export of works of art, 117
Judd, Professor, 171
Kipling, Rudyard, 15
Komensky (_see_ Comenius)
Labour problems, the Bible and, 114
Labour trouble, and from what it springs, 116, 117
Language teaching, a necessary part of education, 145
suggested use of gramophones for, 160
twofold object of, 147
League of Nations, the, 13, 17
and the boundary question, 62
educational value of its propaganda, 75
ineffectiveness of, 5, 37, 41, 47, 76
President Wilson and, 15, 28
Lectures as basis of instruction, 178
Lenin and Russia, 44
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, 126
Locomotion and methods of communication, 48, 52, 53
Machinery, in a world state, 91
Magna Carta, 107
Man, his plain duty, 38
social nature of, 19
Mankind, influence of surroundings on, 18
probable future of, 1 _et seq._
Mathematics, teaching of, 149
_Mediaeval and Modern History_, 108
_Mediaeval and Modern Times_, 108
Mental life, schooling and the, 142
Mesopotamia, irrigation system of, 6
Military class, mischief of a, 29
Milton's defence of free speech, 128
Missouri, establishment of, 49
Money, Sir Leo, his _Triumph of Nationalization_, 187
Morris, William, lectures by, 171
Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, 48
National independence, meaning of, 59
Newspapers, 183
evolution of, 184
journalistic demoralization, 187, 188
Novels, and a modernized Bible, 123
Ocean transport, importance of, 65
Organized education, the key to human disorder, 192
Organized solidarity and modern communities, 102
Original Sin, the factor of, 105
_Outline of History_, Wells's, 107, 108
Passports, delays attendant on, 55
Patriotism, a unity-destroying propaganda of, 72
aggressive, dangers of, 39
American, 69
true and false conceptions of, 68, 69
Peace Ministry, functions of a, 87
Philosophical works and a modernized Bible, 124
Physiography, Huxley and, 151
Physiology, value of study of, 151
Pilgrim Fathers, the, and the Bible, 110
Plays and a modernized Bible, 123
Political reconstruction, accompaniments of, 25
Politicians, their need of foresight, 133
Politics in a world state, 81, 93
Prayer Book, the, 107
Press, the, demoralization of, 187-8
freedom of, 185
Government control of, 186, 187
Printing and the community, 7
Progress, arrest of, 1
Property, class war and, 196
labour trouble and, 116, 117
problems of, 114
rights and duties of, 115
Puritanism in the seventeenth century, 97
Quakers, the, foundation of, 97
Radiogram, the, and its results, 6
Railways, American, 49 _et seq._, 65
Readjustment of political ideas, 46 _et seq._, 68
Religion and the political and social outlook, 23, 79
universalist in theory, 81
Religious instruction and discussion barred by colleges, 175
Revolutions and how produced, 27
Robinson, Professor, 108
Roman Empire, the, rise and fall of, 53
Russia, Bolshevism in, 44
the Press in, 186
vexatious delays in a journey to, 56 _et seq._
St. Petersburg before and after the war, 43, 44
Schoolhouse, an ordinary, and an ideal, 158-9
Schooling of the world, the, 139 _et seq._
and what should be taught, 143
why so often a failure, 153
Schools and the development of education, 25
of a world state, 90
Science teaching under difficulties and a suggested remedy, 161
Scotland after the war, 45
Sea power and the submarine, 66
Semaphores, 48
Sexual morality, need for, 112
Shakespear and the Bible of Civilization, 122
Social nature of man, 19
Sovereign states, incoherent nature of, 31
Steamboats, American, 49, 65
Stopes, Dr. Marie, 113
Submarine, the, and sea power, 66
Sweden, before and after the war, 45
Teachers, lack of, and the reason, 153
Teaching and the future of mankind, 37
Teaching power and how it might be economized, 156 _et seq._
Technical study, specialized, 182
Telegraphy, development of, 6, 48
Thirty Years War, the, 96
Tolstoi's _War and Peace_, 124
Trade problems, the Bible and, 114
Transport and the international problem, 46
Travel, inconveniences of European, 55 _et seq._
United States, the government of, 47, 83
growth of, 49-50
political system of, 27
(_see also_ America)
University, the, and adult learning, 168
Vienna threatened by the Turk, 96
Wales, Prince of, world tour of, 29, 84
War, a ruling and constructive idea, 4
abolition of, and what it means, 5
frequent recurrence of, 3
military science in, 8
Washington, George, and his successors, 83