Are greater than personal works. A pupil from the old, individualistic
school would object:
--And what do you think of the work of Ibsen?
_I:_ I think it is incomparably smaller than the ancient Scandinavian
legends.
_He:_ Do you not grant that Alfred the Great was the real creator of the
English Kingdom?
_I:_ Never. Millions and millions of human creatures are built into this
building that we call England, or English history, or English
civilisation.
_He:_ And what about the man who built St. Paul's Cathedral?
_I:_ It is a collective work, as are all the great works that have been
done. The architecture of St. Paul's is one of the ancient styles, and
no style in architecture was ever invented or created by one person, but
by generations and generations.
_He:_ And what about Victor Hugo and Milton? Are they not great poets?
_I:_ Yes, they are if compared with certain minor poets, but they are
not great if compared with the popular poetry of India or Greece.
Mahabarata, the Koran, and Zend-Avesta, and the Bible, are products of
collective efforts--therefore they are superior to every personal
effort.
_He:_ Do you not appreciate the great economists and what they did for
the household, and common-wealth in general?
_I:_ Certainly I do; but their work is too much overestimated. Not a
handful of economic writers, like Adam Smith and Marx, but the common
genius of generations and generations arranged the house, set the
furniture, created the cooking, constructed towns, invented plays and
enjoyments, customs, language, and so forth.
_He:_ You agree, I think, that Shaljapin and Caruso have wonderful
voices, don't you?
_I:_ Yes, I agree. But don't you agree that a choir of millions of human
voices would be something much more striking and wonderful than any solo
singer since the beginning of time?
_He:_ Don't you believe in the wisdom of wise men like Kant and Spencer?
_I:_ No, I don't. I think there is incomparably more healthy and more
applicable wisdom in the popular sayings, proverbs, parables, and tales
of the nations, cultivated and uncultivated, in Macedonia, Armenia,
Ceylon, New Zealand, Japan, &c., than in some dozen of the greatest
thinkers of Europe.
_He:_ Who is then in your opinion a great man?
_I:_ Only a good man is a great man to me, who is conscious that he is a
cell in the panhuman organism, or a brick in the building of human
history. Such a man is more a man of truth and of the future than any
conqueror, who thinks that a hundred millions of people and hundreds of
years have waited just for him and his guidance, his work, or his
wisdom.
That is what I would say to a pupil of individualism in education. And
at the end I would remind him of Christ and His call after the children,
and of the new ideal of education, of panhumanism which stands over
individualism, and of the collective work of people which stands over
every individual work and merit.