SOUL MURDER IN THE SCHOOLS
Any one who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a
penknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the
reformer feels when confronted with existing school systems. The latter
finds an impassable thicket of folly, prejudice, and mistakes, where
each point is open to attack, but where each attack fails because of the
inadequate means at the reformer's command.
The modern school has succeeded in doing something which, according to
the law of physics, is impossible: the annihilation of once existent
matter. The desire for knowledge, the capacity for acting by oneself,
the gift of observation, all qualities children bring with them to
school, have, as a rule, at the close of the school period disappeared.
They have not been transformed into actual knowledge or interests. This
is the result of children spending almost the whole of their life from
the sixth to the eighteenth year at the school desk, hour by hour,
month by month, term by term; taking doses of knowledge, first in
teaspoonfuls, then in dessert-spoonfuls, and finally in tablespoonfuls,
absorbing mixtures which the teacher often has compounded from fourth-
or fifth-hand recipes.
After the school, there often comes a further period of study in which
the only distinction in method is, that the mixture is administered by
the ladleful.
When young people have escaped from this régime, their mental appetite
and mental digestion are so destroyed that they for ever lack capacity
for taking real nourishment. Some, indeed, save themselves from all
these unrealities by getting in contact with realities; they throw their
books in the corner and devote themselves to some sphere of practical
life. In both cases the student years are practically squandered. Those
who go further acquire knowledge ordinarily at the cost of their
personality, at the price of such qualities as assimilation, reflection,
observation, and imagination. If any one succeeds in escaping these
results, it happens generally with a loss of thoroughness in knowledge.
A lower grade of intelligence, a lower capacity for work, or a lower
degree of assimilation, than that bestowed upon the scholar by nature,
is ordinarily the result of ten or twelve school years. There is much
common-sense in the French humourist's remark. "You say that you have
never gone to school and yet you are such an idiot."
The cases in which school studies are not injurious, but partially
useful, are those where no regular school period has been passed
through. In place of this there was a long period of rest, or times of
private instruction, or absolutely no instruction at all, simply study
by oneself. Nearly every eminent woman in the last fifty years has had
such self-instruction, or was an irregularly instructed girl. Knowledge
so acquired, therefore, has many serious gaps, but it has much more
freshness and breadth. One can study with far greater scope and apply
what one studies.
Yet it is still true to-day that, however vehemently families complain
about schools, they do not see that their demands in general education
must change, before a reasonable school system, a school system in all
respects different from the prevailing one, can come into existence. The
private schools, few in number, that differ to a certain extent from the
ordinary system are swallows that are very far from making a summer.
Rather they have met the fate of birds who have come too early on the
scene.
As long as schools represent an idea, stand for an abstract conception,
like the family and the state, so long will they, just as the family and
the state, oppress the individuals who belong to them. The school no
more than the family and the state represents a higher idea or something
greater than just the number of individuals out of which it is formed.
It, like the family and the state, has no other duty, right, or purpose
than to give to each separate individual as much development and
happiness as possible. To recognise these principles is to introduce
reason into the school question. The school should be nothing but the
mental dining-room in which parents and teachers prepare intellectual
bills-of-fare suitable for every child. The school must have the right
to determine what it can place on its bill-of-fare, but the parents have
the right to choose, from the mental nourishment supplied by it, the
food adapted to their children. The phantom of general culture must be
driven from school curricula and parents' brains; the training of the
individual must be a reality substituted in its place; otherwise reform
plans will be drawn up in vain.
But just as certain simple chemical elements are contained in all
nourishment, there are certain simple elements of knowledge that make up
the foundation of all higher forms of learning. Reading and writing
one's own language, the elements of numbers, geography, natural science,
and history, must be required by the schools, as the obligatory basis
for advanced independent study.
The elementary school beginning with the age of nine to ten years, I
regard as the real general school. The system of instruction must assume
that the children have breadth, repose, comprehensiveness, and capacity
for individual action. All these qualities are destroyed by the present
"hare and hound" system and by its endless abstractions. Such are the
results of course readings, multiplicity of subjects, and formalism, all
defects that have passed from the boys' schools into the girls' schools,
from the elementary schools into the people's schools. They too are
burdened by all these faults, which, though deplored by most people, can
only be cured by radical reform.
The instruction must be arranged in groups, certain subjects placed
among the earlier stages of study while others are put aside for a
later period. And in this connection it is not sufficient to consider
the psychological development of the child. Certain subjects must be
assigned to certain times of the year.
The courses in these schools must come to an end at about the age of
fifteen or sixteen. From them our young people can pass either into
practical life, or go on to schools of continuation and application. It
would be desirable to adopt the plan recommended by Grundtvig, that one
or more vacation years should follow, before studies are taken up again.
Girls, especially, would then come back to their studies with
strengthened bodily powers and an increased desire for knowledge. It is
now a common experience that the desire to learn, even in the case of
talented young people, becomes quiescent, if they go on continuously
with their studies, as they often do, from the sixth to the twentieth
year and longer.
To mark out the courses of such a school would offer tremendous
difficulties. But these difficulties will not be found insuperable,
after people have agreed that the souls of children require more
consideration than a school programme.
Among objections coming from parents, may be heard the following: That
while the state refuses to take initiative in school reform, no one
would dare to embark on a road which makes the future of their children
so uncertain. In the meantime children must be allowed to learn what all
others learn. When the state has taken the first step, the parents would
be willing they say to follow with remarkable eagerness.
What, I ask, has been always the right way to carry out reforms? There
must be first an active revolt against existing evils. This particular
revolt is yet not sufficiently supported, especially on the part of
parents. The children themselves have begun to feel the need of protest,
and, if not earlier, I hope that when the present generation of school
children become fathers, mothers, and teachers, a reform will come
about.
No one can expect a system to be changed, until those who disapprove of
it show that they are in earnest, show that they are taking upon
themselves the sacrifices necessary to protect themselves from the
unhappy results of the system. Families complain of the excessive
aggregation of subjects, and yet they constantly burden the school with
new subjects, even when these subjects are things the family can
undertake itself. While families complain of overstrain, but make no use
of the elective system in schools, where it has been introduced, while
parents are willing to risk nothing to realise their principles, we
cannot wonder that the state does not embark on reforms of any kind.
There is an old pedagogical maxim, "Man learns for life not for school."
While, for a great part of their time, the sexes are separated from one
another, boys studying by themselves and the girls by themselves, the
training for their future life is a bad one--a life in which the common
work and co-operation between man and woman is, according to nature's
ordinance, the normal thing. So long as the general school is a school
for a special class, and not for everybody, it is no general school in
the high sense of the word, and besides no school in which people learn
for life.
I have therefore always warmly held that the school should be no boys',
no girls' school, no elementary and no people's school, but should be a
real general or public school as in America, where both sexes, the
children of all grades of society, will learn that mutual confidence,
respect, understanding, by which their efficient co-operation in the
family and state may be made possible. The common school, so arranged,
is perhaps the most important means to solve definitely the problem of
morality, the woman question, the marriage question, the labour
question, in less one-sided and more human ways. From this point of view
the establishment of the common school is much more than a pedagogical
question; it is the vital question of our social order.
Men and women, upper and lower classes, are walking on different sides
of a wall. They can stretch their hands over it; the important thing to
be done is to break the wall down. The school, as described above, is
the first breach in this wall.
A school like this would be like leaven. The many never reform the few;
it is the few who gradually introduce reforms for the many. Because the
few have strong enough dissatisfaction with present defects, courage
great enough to show their disgust, a belief in the new truths real
enough, they are ready to prepare the ground for the future.
Such a school must be guided by the same principle which has humanised
morality and law in other spheres. It must consider individual
peculiarities. Personal freedom will thus have as few hindrances as
possible to obstruct it. The rights of others must not be approached
too close. The limits, where the rights of others can be affected, must
be maintained, even enlarged.
This humanising process will be introduced into the schools, when
scholars are no longer regarded as classes, but each individual for
himself. The schools will then commence to fulfil one of the many
conditions necessary to give young people real nourishment and so
develop them and make them happy.
Such a school life will make its first aim to discover in early years
uncommon talent, to direct such talent to special studies.
Secondly, for those who lack definite talent, a plan of study will be
arranged, in which their individuality too can be developed, and their
intellectual tension increased. This condition is, if possible, more
important than the first, for unusual talents are accompanied by greater
power of self-conservation. Ordinary or lesser talented people, _i.e._,
the larger majority, are rather confused by a plurality of studies and
are much easier impaired, as personalities, by the uniformity of the
prevailing system.
The rights of unusually gifted people, and those of other classes too,
can be considered when, as mentioned above, the school curriculum is so
arranged, that certain subjects are studied during part of the school
year, another class of subjects during another part. Moreover, certain
subjects are to be studied at different times, not finished once for
all.
The instruction must be so arranged that real independent study, under
the direction of the teacher, will be the ordinary method. The
presentation of the subject by the teacher will be the exception, a
treat for holidays, not for every day.
The instruction too must take the scholar to the real thing, as far as
possible, not direct him to report about the thing. Such a school must
break up absolutely the whole system of lecturing, arranged in
concentric circles. In certain cases, it must return to the methods of
the old-fashioned school, which concentrated its attention on humanistic
study. But dead languages should not be the subjects around which its
studies should centre.
Early specialisation must be allowed, where there are distinct
individual tendencies for such work;
Concentration on certain subjects at certain points of time;
Independent work during the whole period of school;
Contact with reality in the whole school curriculum;--these must be the
four corner-stones of the new school.
But the time is far distant still, when government schools will begin to
build on this basis. What follows is meant, therefore, to apply, not to
the great revolutions of school systems indicated above, but deals with
improvements to take place at present.
Learning lessons should be assigned to school hours as in France.
Children should have an entirely free day in the week; study at home
should be confined to the reading of literary works, tales of travel,
and the like, which teachers can recommend in combination with the
studies pursued at school.
Tasks done at home are inconvenient; they do not increase the
independence of the scholar; they are prepared as a rule with
excessively free and often unwise help from the parents. At school such
work would be done as a rule without help; besides, it is individual and
quickly finished.
In the school, time can be taken for study selected at the scholar's
free choice. It can be arranged for in the following way. Take a class
of about twelve scholars; in larger classes no reasonable or personal
method of instruction is possible. There may be three scholars with
distinct tastes, one for history, one for languages, one for
mathematics. There may be two without any distinct talent for
mathematics or languages. The other seven may have ordinary capacities.
The first three must, during the whole term, apply themselves specially
in certain hours, set aside for independent study, each in his chosen
subject. The first will read some historical work on the periods taken
up in the history class; the second will devote this time to
mathematics; the third will read the books in foreign languages,
mentioned in the language course. The other seven with ordinary gifts
can devote this time to ordinary reading and handwork. In this way all
will get some portion of history, mathematics, and languages, but those
who are specially interested will have the opportunity of going deeper
into the subject. If one of the three gifted scholars shows a great
inclination for and a ready comprehension of all three subjects, he
should study by himself at home, provided the more thorough study of one
subject does not impair work on the other. The two who have special
difficulty in mathematics or languages could either substitute one
subject wholly for the other, or in those periods remain away from
school, or, finally, the hours used by gifted scholars for individual
study beyond the requirements of the common course could be devoted by
these to work, under the teacher's supervision, in the course common to
the whole class.
To carry out this plan, there is need of such concentration of subjects
as I have mentioned; there should be never more than one or at most two
main subjects--history, geography, natural science--studied at once.
Moreover no more than one language should be studied at the same time;
practice in those already learnt is to be acquired by literary readings,
written résumés, and conversation.
Another kind of concentration is necessary. Not every subject should be
split up into subdivisions but history should be made to include
literary history, church history, etc. In geography at the early stage,
a part of natural science should be included, and the history of art
combined with both. Another not less important method implied in
concentration is in all general courses to direct one's attention to the
main questions, and to sacrifice the mass of details. Detailed work
should not have been incorporated, as indispensable for general culture
(from generation to generation), during the constant growth of the
contents of knowledge.
In regard to instruction, methods now popular should be forced out of
the field. The two obligatory features, the careful hearing of lessons
by the teacher, and the equally careful preparation of the next lesson,
must be changed for other methods according to the age of the scholar,
the special character of the subject, and of the scholar himself; or
according to the particular stage of the subject. At one time the
teacher should give an attractive, comprehensive account of a period, a
character, a land, a natural phenomenon. Another time it will be enough
to give a simple, introductory reference to the reading of one or more
works on the subject, best of all an original authority. Sometimes he
should require an oral account of what he has said, or what has been
read; sometimes this should be done in writing. When the lesson is
filled with many facts the scholar should write them down in the hour;
another time he should summarise them from memory. An assigned amount
too can be gone through along with the teacher's explanation; on another
occasion, the assignment need not be gone over at all, but the scholars
could show their capacity to understand it and comprehend it without
assistance. Occasionally the task might be done in a short time from one
day to another, sometimes it might take a longer period.
But this work would, as has been said, take place ordinarily in the
school. Purely literary readings and books of a similar type must be
assigned for work at home, to be done during a considerable length of
time. For we all know that the reading which has made a deep impression
on us was only what was read freely; reading for which we ourselves
could set the time, place, and inclination. And since, in this case, the
important thing is the impression, not the knowledge, freedom is more
important than in other subjects. Individual initiative can be furthered
by having the teacher, as is done in France, explain in passing all
words and subjects in a poem difficult to understand. The teacher too
should now and then, by reading poetry aloud, stimulate the desire of
the scholar to learn more of the same poet. A poem has the greatest
effect when it is presented unexpectedly. When a history lesson is ended
there should be read aloud a passage from an historical poem. Scholars
do not forget either the poem, or the episode handled in it, even if
they forget everything else. But test questions, used in the period of
literature-study, go in at one ear and out at the other.
A teacher who wishes to use this concentrated system in detail, that
rests on the intelligent co-operation of the scholar, will naturally
find that the method is to be derived from the personality of the
teacher himself. I think the teacher of history should not take up the
prehistoric period, but should give the scholar some good popular work
on it and let him go to a museum; he should then require a written
essay, to be illustrated by the scholar with drawings of characteristic
types of archæological specimens. In the same way, he could give a
comparative view of the same period among other people. Then, if there
were a scholar especially anxious to learn, he could put in his hands a
work about the primitive condition of man. Every teacher, man or woman,
can easily think out, for the subjects they teach, analogous methods.
The teacher of geography who is talking about Siberia can give some good
general description of it to all the scholars for their private study.
Those particularly interested would be recommended to read a narrative
of travels in Siberia, Dostojewsky's _Out of the Dead House_, and so
on. If the teacher of history were taking up Napoleon, he could read in
the French hour a work like Vigny's _Servitude et Grandeur Militaire_.
For the Dutch War of Independence, Motley's history, Goethe's _Egmont_,
and Schiller's _Don Carlos_ could be read. A whole book could be written
on plans like these, with indications how the different fields of
knowledge could supplement one another, how history, geography,
literature, and art could be intertwined just as on the other side
geography and natural science. Similarly it would show how different
teachers could be of use to one another in communicating to their
scholars a fuller knowledge.
I should like to propose an hypothesis for discussion and examination
that I have formulated, after a wide experience in story-telling, both
as a listener and as a narrator. If I might put together in a statement,
without intending to prove it, the result of my experience in the
subject named, I should say that the mental food which is most
attractive for the child, also gives the most nourishment. This is the
fact that the physiology of our day has proved in the case of the
organic existence of the child. Pedagogy is beginning, consciously or
unconsciously, to apply it to the mental sphere, yet without daring to
hold that nature is so simple, that need and inclination can be so
nearly related. Naturally, it cannot be maintained that what is most
attractive for children's stories should constitute their whole
training, as physiology maintains that what tastes most agreeable to the
child, for example sugar, should form his sole nourishment.
What every story-teller finds as specially attractive to children, is
the epic smoothness, the clear comprehensiveness of the tale, its
consistent objectivity. Every narrative which will win the attention of
the child, whether it be from Scandinavian, classical, or biblical
history, must have these characteristics of the tale. There are hardly
any story-tellers who so completely absorb children as old nurses. They
never forget any picturesque trait in the tale, they always give the
same broad, full narrative. They tell their stories without explanations
and without applications, with the real direct feeling of the child for
grasping the subject. Everything which disturbs the smooth flow of the
narrative, above all, when the narrator puts himself outside of it by
indulging in a joke, strikes the child as a profound incongruity.
Children are always more or less artistic in their nature, in the sense
that they desire to receive an impression in its purity, not as a means
to something else. They wish through the story to go through a real
experience; at the same time they will say "No," if they are asked
whether they would prefer to hear a real history to a story. This
apparent contradiction can be explained in this way: the tale presents
reality, as reality is conceived of by the naïve fancy of early ages,
and is in just the form in which the imagination of the child can
receive it.
In telling stories, we find, besides, that what attracts children is the
narrative of actions; in this roundabout way they get hold of emotions
and sentiments. The development of the child--this is a truth which has
to be worked out before it can really be taken in--answers in miniature
to the development of mankind as a whole. And it follows from this that
children combine idealism and realism, as epic national poetry does.
Great, good, heroic, supernatural traits affect them most; but only in a
concrete shape sensibly perceived, with the richness of the power which
comes from life, without any adaptation to our present conceptions.
We can test this by telling a real folk-lore tale, and Anderson's
version of it. With a few exceptions children are unanimous in calling
the first type the most beautiful.
Besides what is attractive for lively children, with sound appetites, is
quantity, but in no way multiplicity.
First of all they ask whether the story is long after they have begun to
hope that it is beautiful. They are glad to hear the same story
innumerable times; they have an unconscious need for thorough
assimilation, just as soon as what is given to them harmonises with
their stage of development. This is true of all subjects. I know
children who detest the "choice stories" from the Bible, with which
their morning prayers are commenced, but who read the New Testament as a
story-book. In this respect, all small children are like great ones, the
artists. The imagination of children requires full, entire, deep
impressions, as material for their energies that are incessantly
creating and reconstructing. And if their sound feeling has not been
disturbed by a dualism foreign to them it brings them with remarkably
sure instinct to choose the sound, pure, and beautiful, and to reject
the unsound, hateful, and crude. Finally, we find in story-telling that
children much prefer continuity of impressions though they are said to
express preference for change. We never hear children say, "Now tell a
funny story, the one before was too gloomy." But if we commence telling
gloomy stories they want one after another of the same type. If we had
begun telling amusing stories, they never tire of laughing. The
changeableness of children in playing, reading, and working is not so
general a characteristic of childish nature as is believed. It is true
only of children whose readings and games are not adapted to their
nature and inclinations. Changeableness is, in a certain way, nature's
self-defence against what is unconsciously injurious.
As to comic narratives, it is found in story-telling that the child has
the most keen sense for the humour of a situation. On the other hand
they have hardly a trace of feeling for the humour that rests on deep
intellectual contrasts, least of all for humour of the ironical type. If
a narrative out of their own world is really to make impression on them,
it must be like a tale, full of life, with action and surprises, broad
and naïve in its style, without any noticeable aim. All the children's
books which children through their life recollect and by which they are
impressed, are those that at least in one way or another fulfil these
conditions. The rest give other impressions, but even so they become no
more harmless than arsenic wall-paper covered by fresh undyed layers. As
to the humour of children, it can be easily tested. We can tell them the
most comic psychological children's stories; ninety-nine out of a
hundred they will declare to be terribly stupid, while a simple history
presenting a funny situation doubles them up with laughter.
Children do not feel drawn to abstract things; this is an old truth,
whose correctness is established best by story-telling. All virtues and
qualities, no matter how well concealed they may be, are very quickly
pronounced stupid by children. For fables, children have seldom any
taste, least of all for essays. The introduction of a fox or a bear into
the story or in a real adventure makes the story-teller the dearest
friend of children. But the most lively and childish essay on the bear
or the fox leaves them cold, unless it is made real by some personal
experience in the country or by a visit to a zoölogical garden. This
truth is so recognised and proved from so many points of view, that I
will simply say here that experience in story-telling gives additional
evidence of it. Children show, in listening to stories, a finely
developed sensitiveness to all attempts to descend to, or to adopt, the
standpoint of the child, to everything that is artificial in the
narrative. In intercourse with children, especially with those who
represent progressive methods, can be seen how the reaction against the
old lesson and hidebound methods has produced an artificial naïveté, a
richness of illustrations, and a liveliness that children soon feel as
something specially prepared for them, something not quite real. This
way of partially giving to children their own imaginative power puts
them to sleep, even when it succeeds at first in giving them a good
entertainment in their lessons. For the illustrations and comparisons,
as well as the consequences which another has thought out for them,
obstruct the initiative of the child; besides they are all soon
forgotten. It is the same with playthings; those they make themselves
give inexhaustible pleasure, while those that are ready made only confer
joy once or twice. They are shown and then broken in pieces in order to
extract the clockwork, for this is the only possible way for the child
to do something with it himself. Instruction is beginning to resemble
children's playthings and children's books; it is too complete, too
richly illustrated. It hinders individual free voyages of discovery of
the imagination. Even good illustrations are often injurious; but we do
not intend to speak at length on this subject. As a matter of fact
children often feel themselves deceived by illustrations.
The reserve in a story is also a property that attracts the child. Its
pictures are indicated with a few definite but repeated details. The
imagination is allowed to fill the picture with colours. The uniformity,
the rhythm, and the symmetry, all qualities belonging to the folk-lore
tale, are for the child extremely absorbing. They enjoy such repetitions
as "the first, second, and third year" and so on, quite like the refrain
in rhyme and poetry.
But all these observations lead to a final result. The present
reading-book system is neither the most attractive for children, nor
does it best supply them with what they want. Instead of epic smoothness
and unity, reading-books bring a confused mixture of all kinds, nursery
rhymes, religious teaching, poetry, natural history, and history.
Occasionally there comes a tale or a real poem, standing apart
distinctly from its neighbours, in tone and in comprehensiveness.
Instead of clear impressions, children get through the reading-book a
disturbing jumble; instead of objectivity, they get instructive
children's stories; instead of poetry, edifying versification; instead
of action, reflection; instead of much of one thing, a little of
everything; instead of continuity of impressions, constant change;
instead of concrete impressions of life, essays; instead of naïve tales,
things written down to their level.
I ask what is the result of this reading-book system on the development
of the child from six to sixteen years old?
What, in general, is the result on the development of character when one
flits from impression to impression, nipping in flight at different
things, letting one picture after another slip away, making no halt
anywhere?
As to the effect on adults, immediate answers can be given. These
answers are so unfavourable that they do not need to be repeated. But,
should a principle which applies to the adult be less suitable for the
child? It really applies much more to the child. Adults generally have
some work, some occupation, some one centre around which they can
arrange manifold events, change may often be advantageous for them; but
the whole school day of the child is change; the way the child absorbs
knowledge is by the teaspoonful. Is not this condition enough to urge us
to work with all our might against the system of diffusion wherever it
is unnecessary?
In reading-books diffusion is not necessary; in foreign languages, as in
his own tongue, the interest of the child is much more stimulated by a
book than by a reader; his vocabulary is increased. But even if this
were not the case, what the child gains through reading-books, in quick
readiness in the mother tongue or in foreign languages, does not
compensate for the loss their use signifies in development in the way
already mentioned.
The schools deal improperly with the mental powers of youth, through
their lack of specialising, of concentration, in their depreciation of
initiative, in their being out of touch with reality.
High schools and colleges are absolutely destructive to personality.
Here, where only oral examinations should take place from time to time,
where all studies should tend to be individual, the hunger of the
scholar for reality is hardly satisfied in any direction. Nothing is
done to help his longing to see for himself, to read, to judge, to get
impressions at first-hand, not from second-hand reports.
Certainly here, too, the direction of the teacher is necessary. He can
economise superfluous work by clarifying generalisations; he can
criticise a one-sided account in order to complete the picture fully
himself. Often the teacher must excite interest by a vigorous account
from his own point of view; by a fine psychological study, he can
illustrate a complex historical picture. He will help the scholar to
find laws, governing the phenomena which he has come to know by his own
experiments, or he can suggest comparisons which lead to such
experiments. Here, also, oral and written exercise must have great
weight.
But the end of all instruction in college, as in the school, should not
consist in examinations and diplomas; these must be obliterated from the
face of the earth. The aim should be that the scholars themselves, at
first hand, should acquire their knowledge, should get their
impressions, should form their opinions, should work their way through
to intellectual tastes, not as they now do, taking no trouble
themselves, but being supposed to acquire these gifts through
interesting lectures given by the teacher on five different subjects,
heard every morning while the students are dozing, and soon forgotten.
Facts slip away from every one's memory, quickest from the memory of
those who have learned according to the dose and teaspoonful system. But
education happily is not simply the knowledge of facts, it is, as an
admirable paradox has put it, what is left over after we have forgotten
all we have learnt.
The richer one is in such permanent acquisitions, the greater the profit
of study. The more subjective pictures we have; the more numerous our
vibrating emotions and associations of ideas are; the more we are filled
with suggestively active impressions;--so much the more development we
have, won by study for our personality. The fact that our students
acquire so little, even if they have passed through every school with
excellent marks, is a serious injustice they feel during their whole
life. The beautifully systematised, ticketed, checkerboard knowledge
given by examinations soon disappears. The person who has kept his
desire for knowledge and his capacity for work by his free choice and by
his independent labor can easily fill out the gaps left by this method
of study in the knowledge he has acquired.
Only the person who by knowledge has obtained a view of the great
connected system of existence, the connection between nature and man's
life, between the present and the past, between peoples and ideas,
cannot lose his education. Only the person who, through the mental
nourishment he has received, sees more clearly, feels more ardently, has
absorbed completely the wealth of life, has been really educated. This
education can be gained in the most irregular way, perhaps around the
hearth or in the field, on the seashore or in the wood; it can be
acquired from old tattered books or from nature itself. It can be
terribly incomplete, very one-sided, but how real, personal, and rich it
appears to those who for the period of fifteen years in school have
ground out the wheat on strange fields, like oxen with muzzled mouths!
Our age cries for personality; but it will ask in vain, until we let our
children live and learn as personalities, until we allow them to have
their own will, think their own thoughts, work out their own knowledge,
form their own judgments; or, to put the matter briefly, until we cease
to suppress the raw material of personality in schools, vainly hoping
later on in life to revive it again.