The Socialist System of Education.
The late member of the German diet, Dr. Lasker, delivered a lecture in
Berlin, during the seventies, in which he arrived at the conclusion
that it is possible for all members of society to have an equal
standard of education. But Dr. Lasker was an anti-Socialist, a rigid
upholder of private property and capitalism, and the question of
education under present-day conditions is pre-eminently a question
of money. Therefore an equal standard of education for all is
~impossible~ at present. Some may attain a higher education even
under unfavorable circumstances, by overcoming many difficulties and
by applying an amount of energy that few possess. But the masses
can never attain it so long as they must live in a state of social
dependence and oppression.[256]
In the new society the conditions of existence will be the same
for all. The requirements and inclinations will differ and will
always continue to differ, since these differences are rooted in the
nature of man. But each individual will be able to develop under
conditions equally favorable to all. The uniform equality, imputed
to Socialism, is like so many other imputations, sheer nonsense. It
would be useless, indeed, if Socialism should strive for uniform
equality, for it would then come into conflict with human nature
itself and could not hope to see society develop in accordance with
its principles.[257] Indeed, if Socialism should succeed in forcing
society into unnatural conditions, these new conditions would soon
make themselves felt as shackles that would be torn asunder, and
Socialism would be doomed. Society develops by innate laws and acts
accordingly.[258]
A proper education of the young must be one of the chief tasks of the
new society. Every child that is born will be a welcome addition
to society. In the child society beholds the possibility of its own
continuity, its own further development. Therefore it will also
recognize the duty of amply providing for the new being. The first
object of its care must, accordingly, be the child-bearing woman,
the mother. Comfortable homes, pleasant environment, institutions
of all kinds suited to this stage of motherhood, considerate care
for her and for the child--these are the first requirements. It is
self-understood that women will be enabled to nurse their children
as long as necessary and desirable. Moleschott, Sonderegger, all
hygienists and physicians are agreed that no other nourishment can
fully substitute the mother’s milk. Those who, like Eugen Richter,
grow indignant at the suggestion that young mothers shall give
birth to their children in a lying-in-hospital, where they will be
surrounded by every care and comfort that only wealthy persons can
afford to-day, and that even they cannot obtain as perfectly as it
can be provided in institutions especially equipped for the purpose,
should remember that at present at least four-fifths of all children
who come into the world are born under the most primitive conditions
that mock civilization. Of the remaining one-fifth of our mothers
again only a small minority are able to enjoy the care and the
comforts that should be bestowed upon every woman in this condition.
Even to-day some cities have ~splendid provisions for child-bearing
women, and many women gladly make use of these institutions when
they feel their time approaching. But these institutions are so
expensive that only few women are able to make use of them~; others,
of course, are prevented by prejudice. ~Here again we have an example
how the bourgeois world everywhere contains the germs for future
transformation.~
Motherhood among women of wealth and fashion becomes rather peculiar
by the fact that these mothers transfer their maternal duties as
soon as possible to a ~proletarian wet-nurse~. It is well known that
the Lausitz (Spreewald) is the region that supplies the bourgeois
women of Berlin, who do not or cannot nurse their infants, with
nurses. “The breeding of nurses” is carried on as a trade, since
country girls do not hesitate to become pregnant, because they
find it profitable, after the birth of their babies, to hire out as
nurses to rich families in Berlin. It is not an unusual occurrence
that girls have three or four illegitimate children in order to hire
out as nurses, and if they earn enough money by this trade they
are regarded as desirable wives by the young men of the Spreewald.
Regarded from the view-point of bourgeois morality, such actions are
despicable; but regarded from the view-point of the family interests
of the bourgeoisie, they become praiseworthy and desirable.
As soon as the child will have outgrown infancy it will join companions
of its age in common play under common care and direction. Everything
needful or desirable for the child’s physical and mental development
will be supplied. Every observer of children knows ~that they can
be most easily educated in the company of other children~. This
quality can be successfully applied to the system of education.[259]
The play-halls and the kindergarten will be succeeded by a playful
introduction into the rudiments of knowledge and the various industrial
tasks. They will be succeeded by appropriate mental and physical
work, combined with gymnastic exercises and unrestricted motion
on the playground and in the gymnasium, the skating-rink and the
swimming-pool. There will be exercises, drills and wrestling-matches
for both sexes, for the aim will be to bring up a healthy, hardy race
that will be normal both physically and mentally. Step by step the
children will be initiated into the various practical activities,
horticulture, agriculture, manufacture, the technics of the process
of production. Mental education in the various realms of knowledge
will not be neglected.
The system of education will be purified and improved, just like
the system of production. Many antiquated, superfluous methods and
subjects, which only serve to hamper the child’s mental and physical
development, will be dropped. The knowledge of natural things, adapted
to the child’s understanding, will incite a far greater desire for
study than a system of education where one subject conflicts with and
contradicts another; for instance, when, on the one hand, children
receive religious instruction as taught by the Bible, and, on the
other, are taught science and natural history. The equipment of the
schools and the methods and means of education will be in keeping with
the advanced stage of civilization of the new society. All the books
and objects required for education and study, food and clothing, will
be furnished by society; no pupil will be at a disadvantage with the
others.[260] This is another chapter that causes indignation among
our bourgeois “men of order.”[261] They claim that Socialists seek
to turn the school into barracks, and to deprive the parents of all
influence over their children. Socialists do not aim at anything of
the sort. In future society, parents will have far more time at their
disposal than the great majority of parents have to-day. We need but
point to the fact that at present many workingmen are employed ten
hours daily, and even longer, and that many employees in the postal
and railroad service, prison and police officials, etc., as well
as mechanics, small farmers, merchants, military men, physicians,
etc., must devote an equal length of time to their occupations. In
future parents will be able to devote themselves to their children
in a measure that is quite impossible to-day. Moreover, the parents
will control the educational system and will determine the measures
and methods that are to be adopted and introduced. For then society
will be thoroughly democratic. There will be boards of education
consisting of parents--men and women--and of the educators. Does
anyone presume that these will act contrary to their sentiments and
interests? That is done in present-day society, where the state
carries out its ideas of education contrary to the wishes of most
parents.
Our opponents pretend that it is one of the most agreeable things
to parents to have their children about them all day and to be
constantly occupied with their education. As a matter of fact, this
is not so. Every parent knows that the education of a child is no
easy task. Several children facilitate education, but they cause so
much work and worry, especially to the mother, that she is thankful
when they are old enough to attend school, and she is relieved of
their care for a part of the day. Moreover, most parents can educate
their children but insufficiently, because they have no time. The
fathers are engaged in their trades or professions and the mothers in
their household tasks, and sometimes the mothers are breadwinners,
also. But even those parents who have sufficient time usually lack
the ~ability~. How many parents are able to follow up the mental
development of their children at school and to assist them? Mighty
few. The mother, who, in most cases, might be best enabled to render
such assistance, rarely has the ability, because she has not been
properly trained herself. Moreover, the methods and subjects are
changed so often that they are foreign to most parents. For most
children the facilities at home are so insufficient that they have
no proper order, comfort or peace for doing their home-work, nor
are they helped by anyone. Often the home is small and overcrowded;
the entire family are huddled together in a few small rooms, the
furniture is scanty, and the child wishing to study lacks every
comfort and convenience. Not infrequently light, air and heat are
wanting. The books and school supplies are either wanting entirely
or are of the poorest quality. Frequently also the little ones
are tortured by hunger, which destroys all inclination for study.
Hundreds of thousands of children are put to work at all kinds of
domestic and industrial occupations that rob their childhood of its
joy and incapacitate them for mental work. Sometimes children must
contend with the opposition of narrow-minded parents, who object to
it that the children devote time to their studies or to play. In
short, there are so many obstacles that it is to be wondered at that
the young are so well educated. This is a proof of the health of
human nature and of its innate desire for progress and perfection.
Bourgeois society itself recognizes a number of these evils and
facilitates the education of the young by introducing free public
instruction and, here and there, by also furnishing the school
supplies. As late as the middle of the eighties the then Minister
of Education of Saxony, designated both these institutions as
“~Socialistic demands~.” In France, where public education had long
been neglected and then progressed all the more rapidly, progress
has advanced still further; at least, this is the case in Paris.
Here ~the public-school meal, at the expense of the municipality,
has been introduced~. Poor children are given the meals free of
charge, and the children of parents who are in better circumstances
must pay a nominal sum into the municipal treasury. Here we behold
a communistic institution that has proved entirely satisfactory to
parents and children.
The insufficiency of our present educational system--it often fails to
accomplish the moderate aims it has set for itself--becomes evident
from the fact that ~thousands upon thousands of children are unable
to get along at school on account of insufficient nourishment~.
~Every winter there are thousands of children in our cities who
come to school without breakfast. Hundreds of thousands of others
are chronically underfed.~ To all these children public feeding and
clothing would be a blessing. In a community that will, by proper
care and nourishment, teach them what it means to be human, they
will not become acquainted with a house of “correction.” Bourgeois
society cannot deny the existence of this misery, and so compassionate
souls unite to found free-lunch establishments and soup-kitchens,
to perform, as a ~charity~, what ought to be performed by society
as a ~duty~. Recently a few municipalities have undertaken to feed
poor children at public expense. But all this is insufficient and
must be accepted as a charitable gift, while it should be demanded
as a right.[262]
It is well that the amount of home-work is being reduced in our
schools, since the insufficiency of home facilities has been
recognized. The child of wealthy parents is at an advantage over
his poorer schoolmate, not only because he is privileged by outward
circumstances, but also because he is helped at home by a governess
or a tutor. On the other hand, laziness and carelessness are fostered
in the child of wealthy parents, because their wealth makes study
appear superfluous to him, and because demoralizing examples are
frequently placed before him and he is approached by many temptations.
He who learns daily and hourly that rank, position and wealth count
for everything, acquires a peculiar conception of human duties and
of the institutions of state and society.
When we examine this question more closely we find that bourgeois
society has no reason to become indignant over the communistic
methods of education aimed at by Socialists, for it has itself
introduced such methods for privileged classes, but ~in a distorted
manner~. We need but point to the cadet schools, the seminaries and
colleges for the clergy. Here thousands of children, some of them
belonging to the upper classes, are trained in the most ~absurd~
and ~one-sided~ way and in ~strict monastic seclusion~ for certain
occupations. Many members of the better classes, like physicians,
clergymen, officials, manufacturers, large farmers, etc., who live
in small towns where there are no higher institutions of learning,
send their children to boarding-schools in large cities, and do not
see them during the entire year, except at vacation time. It is a
contradiction, then, when our opponents decry a communistic system
of education and estrangement between parents and children, and at
the same time introduce a similar system of education, only ~in a
wrong, insufficient and distorted manner, for their own children~.
Only too frequently are the children of the rich not educated by
their parents at all, but by nurses, governesses and tutors. A
special chapter might be written on this subject that would not cast
a favorable light on the family relations of these classes. Here,
too, hypocrisy prevails and conditions are anything but ideal, both
for the educated and the educators.
In accordance with the entirely altered system of education that aims
at the physical and mental development and culture of the young,
the teaching force must be increased. The training of the rising
generation should be provided for in the same way as the training of
the soldiers is provided for in the German army. Here one officer
has charge of from 8 to 10 men. If in future a similar number of
pupils will be placed under the guidance of one teacher, the desired
aims will be attained. Introduction into mechanical activities
in the splendidly equipped workshops, and into horticultural and
agricultural activities, will also constitute an important factor in
the future education of the young. Everything will be taught with a
proper variation of occupations and without over-exertion, in order
to educate harmoniously developed human beings.
Education must be the same for both sexes and must be given in
common to both. Separation of the sexes is justifiable only in
cases where the differences of sex make it absolutely necessary.
In this manner of education the United States is far advanced over
Europe. Here education has been introduced from the primary school
to the university. Not only is education furnished free, but the
school supplies also, inclusive of the tools for manual training,
lessons in cooking, and articles used by the pupils in the study of
chemistry and physics. Many schools are equipped with gymnasiums,
swimming-pools and playgrounds. In the higher schools the girls are
trained in gymnastics, swimming, rowing, running, etc., as well as
the young men.[263]...
The Socialistic system of education will attain still higher results.
Properly regulated and ordered and placed under able control, it will
continue until the age at which society declares its young men and
women to be of age. Then the members of both sexes will be fully
prepared to perform all duties and to enjoy all rights. Then society
will be certain of having educated capable, fully developed members,
human beings to whom nothing human is foreign, who are as familiar
with their own nature as they are with the nature and condition of
society, into which they forthwith enter, enjoying full equality.
So the excesses of our modern youth that are daily increasing, and
that are a natural product of our disintegrating social conditions,
will disappear. Unruliness, lack of self-control, immorality and
brutal sensuality, which characterize the modern young men at our
higher institutions of learning, our colleges and universities, and
that are the result of domestic demoralization and unrest and of
the baneful influences of social life, will not mark the young men
of the future. The evil influences of the factory system and the
congested dwellings, that cause young people to be self-assertive and
unbridled at an age when human beings are in the greatest need of
education and of being trained to exercise self-control, will also
disappear. Future society will avoid all these evils without being
obliged to resort to compulsory measures. The social institutions
and the resulting intellectual atmosphere that will dominate society
will simply make the existence of such evils impossible. In society,
as in nature, diseases and the destruction of organisms take place
only where a process of decay has set in.
None will deny that our present system of education is afflicted
with great and serious defects, and, as a matter of fact, these
defects are more marked with the higher schools and institutions of
learning than with the lower ones. A village school is a model of
moral healthfulness compared with a college; a sewing school for poor
girls, a model of morality compared with a number of fashionable
boarding schools. It is not hard to find the reason for this. Among
the upper classes of society every striving after higher aims has
been smothered; ~they are devoid of ideals. Owing to the lack of
ideals and loftier aspirations, the unbounded love of enjoyment and
the inclination to excesses are disseminated, with their resulting
physical and moral deterioration.~ How can young persons, growing up
in such an atmosphere, be different? A purely material enjoyment
of life, carried to extremes, is all they see and know. Why should
they strive after higher aims when the wealth of their parents
makes every endeavor appear superfluous? The maximum education of
the great majority of sons of the German bourgeoisie, consists in
their passing the examination for one year’s voluntary service in
the army. When they have attained this aim, they believe that they
have absorbed all knowledge worth knowing and regard themselves as
demi-gods. If they have obtained a reserve-officer’s certificate,
their conceit and arrogance knows no bounds. The influence exercised
by this generation, most of whose members are weak in character and
knowledge, but strong in servility, characterize the present period
as the “age of reserve officers.” Its peculiarities are: Ignorance,
lack of character, and a servile disposition. Men fawn on their
superiors, and are arrogant and brutal to their inferiors. Most of
the daughters of the upper classes are trained to be society ladies,
walking fashion plates and silly dolls. They rush from one enjoyment
to another, until they grow weary with the boredom of their empty
lives, and fall victims to many real and imaginary diseases. When
they grow old they become religious fanatics, spiritualists and
faith healers, who turn up their eyes at the wickedness of the world
and preach asceticism. In regard to the lower classes, efforts are
being made to further diminish their standard of education. The
fear prevails that the proletarian might become too wise, that he
might tire of his subjection and rebel against his earthly gods. The
more ignorant the masses are, the more easily can they be governed
and controlled. Large landowners from the East-Elbe province have
repeatedly declared in their meetings: “The most stupid workingman
is the one most welcome to us.” An entire program is contained in
this one sentence.
So present-day society is as helpless and aimless in regard to the
question of education as it is in regard to all other questions.
What methods, then, does it resort to? It calls for punishment and
preaches religion; that is, it preaches submissiveness and contentment
to those who are far too submissive and contented already; it
teaches abstinence, where poverty compels people to abstain from
the very necessities of life. They who brutally rebel against this
state of affairs are placed in so-called “reformatories” that are
generally controlled by religious influences. That is the limit of the
pedagogical wisdom of our society. The vicious methods of education
applied to neglected and demoralized proletarian children become
manifest by the frequent cases of abuse and ill-treatment committed
by the directors, overseers, etc., in these “homes”(!) Here it has
been shown time and again how religious fanatics of the deepest dye
have, with a perverted pleasure, ill-treated poor, helpless children
with unspeakable brutality; and how many of these horrors may never
become known!
[256] “A certain degree of culture and well-being is a necessary
external condition for the development of the philosophic spirit....
We, therefore, find that only such nations begin to philosophize
who had attained a considerable degree of well-being and culture.”
Tenneman, quoted by Buckle.--“Material and intellectual interests
go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other. There is a
connection between them as between body and mind. To separate them
means destruction.” v. Thuenen, “The Isolated State.”--“The best
life, both for the individual in particular and for the state in
general, is one in which virtue is sufficiently endowed with external
possessions, that participation in good and virtuous deeds becomes
possible,” Aristotle, “Politics.”
[257] Mr. Eugen Richter, in his “False Doctrines,” reiterates the
worn-out phrase: the Socialists wish a coercive state. That there
will eventually be no state ought to be clear to the readers of our
book. He assumes that society would introduce a state or a social
order that would be _averse to its own interests_. But no new social
order or state differing fundamentally from the preceding one could
be _arbitrarily created_. That would be in opposition to all the
laws according to which state and society develop. Mr. Eugen Richter
and those who share his views may find consolation in this: if
Socialism really pursues the foolish aims that they impute to it, it
will die off without any effort on their part.--Equally untenable
is Richter’s remark that for a social condition like the one aimed
at by Socialists, men must be angels. To begin with, there are no
angels, and we do not need any. Man is influenced by circumstances,
but circumstances are also influenced by man, and the latter will
be the case more and more, as men become better acquainted with
the nature of society, _which they constitute_, and apply their
experiences _consciously to their social organization_. We do not
need different human beings, but we do need _more intelligent and
rational human beings than the majority are to-day_, and to make
them more intelligent and rational, we agitate and publish books
like this one.
[258] When we consider the boundless stupidity of our opponents, it
seems marvelous that no one has as yet asserted that under Socialism
all would be given the same quantity of food and underwear and
clothing of the same size to crown the system of “uniform equality.”
[259] Fourier has accomplished this brilliantly, even though in
carrying out his ideas, he approached the utopia. Bebel, Chas. Fourier,
His Life and His Theories, 3d ed. Stuttgart, 1907.
[260] Condorcet postulates in his educational plan: “Education must be
general, free of charge, equal to all, physical, mental, industrial
and political, and must aim at true equality.” Likewise Rousseau
in his “Political Economy:” “Especially must education be public,
equal and common, to educate human beings and citizens.” Aristotle
also demands: “Since the state has but one object, it must give all
its members one and the same education, and the care for them must
be a public, not a private, matter.”
[261] Thus Eugen Richter in his “False Doctrines.”
[262] “At present 20 districts of Paris have established
school-kitchens, where the children are given a noon-day meal
consisting of meat and vegetables. Only this meal is obligatory,
but in several districts the children can obtain breakfast and
afternoon-tea also.” Helene Simon--School and Bread. Hamburg, 1907.
It is due to the initiative of the Labor Party that a bill providing
for the feeding of school children in England was turned over to a
committee in 1906.
[263] Professor Dr. Emil Hausknecht--“The American Educational
System.”