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
æsthetic 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 _Æsthetic 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 _æsthetic_; two are _scientific_. In and through the
sympathetic instincts the soul grows in the direction of _love_. In
and through the æsthetic 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 ægis 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.