THE
ORIGIN AND IDEALS
OF THE
MODERN SCHOOL
BY
FRANCISCO FERRER
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH McCABE
[ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1913
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction vii
Chap.
I. The Birth of My Ideals 1
II. Mlle. Meunier 7
III. I Accept the Responsibility 12
IV. The Early Programme 18
V. The Co-Education of the Sexes 24
VI. Co-Education of the Social Classes 32
VII. School Hygiene 38
VIII. The Teachers 40
IX. The Reform of the School 43
X. No Reward or Punishment 55
XI. The General Public and the Library 60
XII. Sunday Lectures 71
XIII. The Results 75
XIV. A Defensive Chapter 80
XV. The Ingenuousness of the Child 88
XVI. The “Bulletin” 96
XVII. The Closing of the Modern School 102
Epilogue 109
INTRODUCTION
On October 12, 1909, Francisco Ferrer y Guardia was shot in the
trenches of the Montjuich Fortress at Barcelona. A Military Council had
found him guilty of being “head of the insurrection” which had, a few
months before, lit the flame of civil war in the city and province. The
clergy had openly petitioned the Spanish Premier, when Ferrer was
arrested, to look to the Modern School and its founder for the source
of the revolutionary feeling; and the Premier had, instead of rebuking
them, promised to do so. When Ferrer was arrested the prosecution spent
many weeks in collecting evidence against him, and granted a free
pardon to several men who were implicated in the riot, for testifying
against him. These three or four men were the only witnesses out of
fifty who would have been heard patiently in a civil court of justice,
and even their testimony would at once have crumbled under
cross-examination. But there was no cross-examination, and no witnesses
were brought before the court. Five weeks were occupied in compiling an
enormously lengthy indictment of Ferrer; then twenty-four hours were
given to an inexperienced officer, chosen at random, to analyse it and
prepare a defense. Evidence sent in Ferrer’s favour was confiscated by
the police; the witnesses who could have disproved the case against him
were kept in custody miles away from Barcelona; and documents which
would have tended to show his innocence were refused to the defending
officer. And after the mere hearing of the long and hopelessly
bewildering indictment (in which the evidence was even falsified), and
in spite of the impassioned protest of the defending officer against
the brutal injustice of the proceedings, the military judges found
Ferrer guilty, and he was shot.
Within a month of the judicial murder of Ferrer I put the whole
abominable story before the British public. I showed the deep
corruption of Church and politics in Spain, and proved that clergy and
politicians had conspired to use the gross and pliable machinery of
“military justice” to remove a man whose sole aim was to open the eyes
of the Spanish people. A prolonged and passionate controversy followed.
That controversy has not altered a line of my book. Mr. William Archer,
in a cold and impartial study of the matter, has fully supported my
indictment of the prosecution of Ferrer; and Professor Simarro, of
Madrid University, has, in a voluminous study of the trial (El Proceso
Ferrer—two large volumes), quoted whole chapters of my little work.
When, in 1912, the Supreme Military Council of Spain was forced to
declare that no single act of violence could be directly or indirectly
traced to Ferrer (whereas the chief witness for the prosecution had
sworn that he saw Ferrer leading a troop of rioters), and ordered the
restoration of his property, the case for his innocence was closed. It
remains only for Spain to wipe the foul stain from its annals by
removing the bones of the martyred teacher from the trenches of
Montjuich, and to declare, with real Spanish pride, that a grave
injustice had been done.
Meantime, the restoration of Ferrer’s property has enabled his trustees
to resume his work. Among his papers they found a manuscript account,
from his own pen, of the origin and ideals of the Modern School, and
their first act is to give it to the world. In 1906 Ferrer had been
arrested on the charge of complicity in the attempt of Morral to
assassinate the King. He was kept in jail for a year, and the most
scandalous efforts were made, in the court and the country, to secure a
judicial murder; but it was a civil (or civilised) trial, and the
charge was contemptuously rejected. Going to the Pyrenees in the early
summer of 1908 to recuperate, Ferrer determined to write the simple
story of his school, and it is this I now offer to English readers.
In this work Ferrer depicts himself more truly and vividly than any
friend of his has ever done. For my part, I had never seen Ferrer, and
never seen Spain; but I was acquainted with Spanish life and letters,
and knew that there had been committed in the twentieth century one of
those old-world crimes by which the children of darkness seek to arrest
the advance of man. I interpreted Ferrer from his work, his letters, a
few journalistic articles he had written—he had never published a book,
and the impressions of his friends and pupils. In this book the man
portrays himself, and describes his aims with a candour that all will
appreciate. The less foolish of his enemies have ceased to assert that
he organised or led the riot at Barcelona in 1909. It was, they say,
the tendency, the subtle aim, of his work which made him responsible.
It may be remembered that the Saturday Review and other journals
published the most unblushingly mendacious letters, from anonymous
correspondents, saying that they had seen posters on the walls of
Ferrer’s schools inciting children to violence. As the very zealous
police did not at the trial even mention Ferrer’s schools, or the
text-books used in them, these lies need no further exposure. But many
persist in thinking, since there is now nothing further to think to the
disadvantage of Ferrer, that his schools were really hot-beds of
rebellion and were very naturally suppressed.
Here is the full story of the Modern School, told in transparently
simple language. Here is the whole man, with all his ideals, aims, and
resentments. It shows, as we well knew, and could have proved with
overwhelming force at his trial had we been permitted, that he was
absolutely opposed to violence ever since, in his youth, he had taken
part in an abortive revolution. It tells how he came to distrust
violence and those who used it; how he concluded that the moral and
intellectual training of children was to be the sole work of his
career; how, when he obtained the funds, he turned completely from
politics, and devoted himself to educating children in knowledge of
science and in sentiments of peace and brotherhood.
It tells also, with the same transparent plainness, why his
noble-minded work incurred such violent enmity. He naively boasts that
the education in the Modern School was free from dogmas. It was not,
and cannot be in any school, free from dogmas, for dogma means
“teaching,” and he gave teaching of a very definite character. Mr.
Belloc’s indictment of his schools is, like Mr. Belloc’s indictment of
his character and guilt, evidently based on complete ignorance of the
facts and a very extensive knowledge of the recklessly mendacious
literature of his opponents. Even Mr. Archer’s account of his school is
grossly misleading. The Modern School was “avowedly a nursery of
rebellious citizens” only in the same sense as is any Socialist
Sunday-school in England or Germany; and the Spanish Government has
never claimed, and could not claim, for a moment the right to close it,
except in so far as it falsely charged the founder with crime and
confiscated his property.
Ferrer’s school was thoroughly rationalistic, and this embittered the
clergy—for his system was spreading rapidly through Spain—without in
the least infringing Spanish law. Further, Ferrer’s school explicitly
taught children that militarism was a crime, that the unequal
distribution of wealth was a thing to be abhorred, that the capitalist
system was bad for the workers, and that political government is an
evil. He had a perfect right under Spanish law to found a school to
teach his ideas; as any man has under English or German law. The
prohibited and damnable thing would be even to hint to children that,
when they grew up, they might look forward to altering the industrial
and political system by violence. This Ferrer not only did not teach,
but strenuously opposed. We have overwhelming proof of this at every
step of his later career. But he was a child of the workers, and he had
a passionate and noble resentment of the ignorance, poverty, and
squalor of the lives of so large a proportion of the workers. He was
also an Anarchist, in the sense of Tolstoi; he believed that liberty
was essential to the development of man, and central government an
evil. But, as rigorously as Tolstoi, he relied on persuasion and
abhorred violence. I would call attention to Chapter VI of this book,
in which he pleads for “the co-education of the rich and poor”; and
there were children of middle-class parents, even of
university-professors, in his school. Most decidedly he preached no
class-hatred or violence. I do not share his academic and innocent
Anarchist ideal—which is far nearer to Conservatism than to
Socialism—but I share to the full that intense and passionate longing
for the uplifting and brightening of the poor, and for the destruction
of superstition, which was the supreme ideal of his life and of his
work. For that he was shot.
Finally, the reader must strictly bear in mind the Spanish atmosphere
of this tragedy. When Ferrer describes “existing schools” he means the
schools of Spain, which are, for the most part, a mockery and a shame.
When he talks of “ruling powers” he has in mind the politicians of
Spain, my indictment of whom, in their own language, has never been
questioned. When he talks of “superstition” he means primarily Spanish
superstition; he refers to a priesthood that still makes millions every
year by the sale of indulgences. If you remember these things, you
will, however you dissent from his teaching in parts, appreciate the
burning and unselfish idealism of the man, and understand why some of
us see the brand of Cain on the fair brow of Spain for extinguishing
that idealism in blood.
J. M.
February, 1913.
CHAPTER I.
THE BIRTH OF MY IDEALS
The share which I had in the political struggles of the last part of
the nineteenth century put my early convictions to a severe test. I was
a revolutionary in the cause of justice; I was convinced that liberty,
equality, and fraternity were the legitimate fruit to be expected of a
republic. Seeing, therefore, no other way to attain this ideal but a
political agitation for a change of the form of government, I devoted
myself entirely to the republican propaganda. [1]
My relations with D. Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, who was one of the leading
figures in the revolutionary movement, brought me into contact with a
number of the Spanish revolutionaries and some prominent French
agitators, and my intercourse with them led to a sharp disillusion. I
detected in many of them an egoism which they sought hypocritically to
conceal, while the ideals of others, who were more sincere, seemed to
me inadequate. In none of them did I perceive a design to bring about a
radical improvement—a reform which should go to the roots of disorder
and afford some security of a perfect social regeneration.
The experience I acquired during my fifteen years’ residence at Paris,
in which I witnessed the crises of Boulangism, Dreyfusism, and
Nationalism, and the menace they offered to the Republic, convinced me
that the problem of popular education was not solved; and, if it were
not solved in France, there was little hope of Spanish republicanism
settling it, especially as the party had always betrayed a lamentable
inappreciation of the need of a system of general education.
Consider what the condition of the present generation would be if the
Spanish republican party had, after the banishment of Ruiz Zorrilla
[1885], devoted itself to the establishment of Rationalist schools in
connection with each committee, each group of Freethinkers, or each
Masonic lodge; if, instead of the presidents, secretaries, and members
of the committees thinking only of the office they were to hold in the
future republic, they had entered upon a vigorous campaign for the
instruction of the people. In the thirty years that have elapsed
considerable progress would have been made in founding day-schools for
children and night-schools for adults.
Would the general public, educated in this way, be content to send
members to Parliament who would accept an Associations Law presented by
the monarchists? Would the people confine itself to holding meetings to
demand a reduction of the price of bread, instead of resenting the
privations imposed on the worker by the superfluous luxuries of the
wealthy? Would they waste their time in futile indignation meetings,
instead of organising their forces for the removal of all unjust
privileges?
My position as professor of Spanish at the Philotechnic Association and
in the Grand Orient of France brought me into touch with people of
every class, both in regard to character and social position; and, when
I considered them from the point of view of their possible influence on
the race, I found that they were all bent upon making the best they
could of life in a purely individualist sense. Some studied Spanish
with a view to advancing in their profession, others in order to master
Spanish literature and promote their careers, and others for the
purpose of obtaining further pleasure by travelling in countries where
Spanish was spoken.
No one felt the absurdity of the contradictions between belief and
knowledge; hardly one cared to give a just and rational form to human
society, in order that all the members of each generation might have a
proportionate share in the advantages created by earlier generations.
Progress was conceived as a kind of fatalism, independent of the
knowledge and the goodwill of men, subject to vacillations and
accidents in which the conscience and energy of man had no part. The
individual, reared in a family circle, with its inveterate atavism and
its traditional illusions maintained by ignorant mothers, and in the
school with something worse than error—the sacramental untruth imposed
by men who spoke in the name of a divine revelation—was deformed and
degenerate at his entrance into society; and, if there is any logical
relation between cause and effect, nothing could be expected of him but
irrational and pernicious results.
I spoke constantly to those whom I met with a view to proselytism,
seeking to ascertain the use of each of them for the purpose of my
ideal, and soon realised that nothing was to be expected of the
politicians who surrounded Ruiz Zorrilla; they were, in my opinion,
with a few honourable exceptions, impenitent adventurers. This gave
rise to a certain expression which the judicial authorities sought to
use to my disadvantage in circumstances of great gravity and peril.
Zorrilla, a man of lofty views and not sufficiently on his guard
against human malice, used to call me an “anarchist” when he heard me
put forward a logical solution of a problem; at all times he regarded
me as a deep radical, opposed to the opportunist views and the showy
radicalism of the Spanish revolutionaries who surrounded and even
exploited him, as well as the French republicans, who held a policy of
middle-class government and avoided what might benefit the disinherited
proletariate, on the pretext of distrusting Utopias.
In a word, during the early years of the restoration there were men
conspiring with Ruiz Zorrilla who have since declared themselves
convinced monarchists and conservatives; and that worthy man, who
protested earnestly against the coup d’État of January 3, 1874,
confided in his false friends, with the result, not uncommon in the
political world, that most of them abandoned the republican party for
the sake of some office. In the end he could count only on the support
of those who were too honourable to sell themselves, though they lacked
the logic to develop his ideas and the energy to carry out his work.
In consequence of this I restricted myself to my pupils, and selected
for my purposes those whom I thought more appropriate and better
disposed. Having now a clear idea of the aim which I proposed to myself
and a certain prestige from my position as teacher and my expansive
character, I discussed various subjects with my pupils when the lessons
were over; sometimes we spoke of Spanish customs, sometimes of
politics, religion, art, or philosophy. I sought always to correct the
exaggerations of their judgments, and to show clearly how mischievous
it is to subordinate one’s own judgment to the dogma of a sect, school,
or party, as is so frequently done. In this way I succeeded in bringing
about a certain agreement among men who differed in their creeds and
views, and induced them to master the beliefs which they had hitherto
held unquestioningly by faith, obedience, or sheer indolence. My
friends and pupils found themselves happy in thus abandoning some
ancient error and opening their minds to truths which uplifted and
ennobled them.
A rigorous logic, applied with discretion, removed fanatical
bitterness, established intellectual harmony, and gave, to some extent
at least, a progressive disposition to their wills. Freethinkers who
opposed the Church and rejected the legends of Genesis, the imperfect
morality of the gospels, and the ecclesiastical ceremonies; more or
less opportunist republicans or radicals who were content with the
futile equality conferred by the title of citizen, without in the least
affecting class distinctions; philosophers who fancied they had
discovered the first cause of things in their metaphysical labyrinths
and established truth in their empty phrases—all were enabled to see
the errors of others as well as their own, and they leaned more and
more to the side of common sense.
When the further course of my life separated me from these friends and
brought on me an unmerited imprisonment, I received many expressions of
confidence and friendship from them. From all of them I anticipate
useful work in the cause of progress, and I congratulate myself that I
had some share in the direction of their thoughts and endeavours.