THE EARLY PROGRAMME
The time had come to think of the inauguration of the Modern School.
Some time previously I had invited a number of gentlemen of great
distinction and of progressive sentiments to assist me with their
advice and form a kind of Committee of Consultation. My intercourse
with them at Barcelona was of great value to me, and many of them
remained in permanent relation with me, for which I may express my
gratitude. They were of opinion that the Modern School should be opened
with some display—invitation-cards, a circular to the press, a large
hall, music, and oratorical addresses by distinguished Liberal
politicians. It would have been easy to do this, and we would have
attracted an audience of hundreds of people who would have applauded
with that momentary enthusiasm which characterises our public
functions. But I was not seduced by the idea. As a Positivist and an
idealist I was convinced that a simple modesty best befitted the
inauguration of a work of reform. Any other method seemed to me
disingenuous, a concession to enervating conventions and to the very
evil which I was setting out to reform. The proposal of the Committee
was, therefore, repugnant to my conscience and my sentiments, and I
was, in that and all other things relating to the Modern School, the
executive power.
In the first number of the Bulletin of the Modern School, issued on
October 30, 1901, I gave a general exposition of the fundamental
principles of the School, which I may repeat here:—
Those imaginary products of the mind, a priori ideas, and all the
absurd and fantastical fictions hitherto regarded as truth and
imposed as directive principles of human conduct, have for some
time past incurred the condemnation of reason and the resentment of
conscience. The sun no longer merely touches the tips of the
mountains; it floods the valleys, and we enjoy the light of noon.
Science is no longer the patrimony of a small group of privileged
individuals; its beneficent rays more or less consciously penetrate
every rank of society. On all sides traditional errors are being
dispelled by it; by the confident procedure of experience and
observation it enables us to attain accurate knowledge and criteria
in regard to natural objects and the laws which govern them. With
indisputable authority it bids men lay aside for ever their
exclusivisms and privileges, and it offers itself as the
controlling principle of human life, seeking to imbue all with a
common sentiment of humanity.
Relying on modest resources, but with a robust and rational faith
and a spirit that will not easily be intimidated, whatever
obstacles arise in our path, we have founded the Modern School. Its
aim is to convey, without concession to traditional methods, an
education based on the natural sciences. This new method, though
the only sound and positive method, has spread throughout the
civilised world, and has innumerable supporters of intellectual
distinction and lofty principles.
We are aware how many enemies there are about us. We are conscious
of the innumerable prejudices which oppress the social conscience
of our country. This is the outcome of a medieval, subjective,
dogmatic education, which makes ridiculous pretensions to the
possession of an infallible criterion. We are further aware that,
in virtue of the law of heredity, strengthened by the influences of
the environment, the tendencies which are connatural and
spontaneous in the young child are still more pronounced in
adolescence. The struggle will be severe, the work difficult; but
with a constant and unwavering will, the sole providence of the
moral world, we are confident that we will win the victory to which
we aspire. We will develop living brains, capable of reacting on
our instruction. We will take care that the minds of our pupils
will sustain, when they leave the control of their teachers, a
stern hostility to prejudice; that they will be solid minds,
capable of forming their own rational convictions on every subject.
This does not mean that we will leave the child, at the very outset
of its education, to form its own ideas. The Socratic procedure is
wrong, if it is taken too literally. The very constitution of the
mind, at the commencement of its development, demands that at this
stage the child shall be receptive. The teacher must implant the
germs of ideas. These will, when age and strength invigorate the
brain, bring forth corresponding flowers and fruit, in accordance
with the degree of initiative and the characteristic features of
the pupil’s mind.
On the other hand, we may say that we regard as absurd the
widespread notion that an education based on natural science stunts
the organ of the idealist faculty. We are convinced that the
contrary is true. What science does is to correct and direct it,
and give it a wholesome sense of reality. The work of man’s
cerebral energy is to create the ideal, with the aid of art and
philosophy. But in order that the ideal shall not degenerate into
fables, or mystic and unsubstantial dreams, and the structure be
not built on sand, it is absolutely necessary to give it a secure
and unshakable foundation in the exact and positive teaching of the
natural sciences.
Moreover, the education of a man does not consist merely in the
training of his intelligence, without having regard to the heart
and the will. Man is a complete and unified whole, in spite of the
variety of his functions. He presents various facets, but is at the
bottom a single energy, which sees, loves, and applies a will to
the prosecution of what he has conceived or affected. It is a
morbid condition, an infringement of the laws of the human
organism, to establish an abyss where there ought to be a sane and
harmonious continuity. The divorce between thought and will is an
unhappy feature of our time. To what fatal consequences it has led!
We need only refer to our political leaders and to the various
orders of social life; they are deeply infected with this
pernicious dualism. Many of them are assuredly powerful enough in
respect of their mental faculties, and have an abundance of ideas;
but they lack a sound orientation and the fine thoughts which
science applies to the life of individuals and of peoples. Their
restless egoism and the wish to accommodate their relatives,
together with their leaven of traditional sentiments, form an
impermeable barrier round their hearts and prevent the infiltration
of progressive ideas and the formation of that sap of sentiment
which is the impelling and determining power in the conduct of man.
Hence the attempt to obstruct progress and put obstacles in the way
of new ideas; hence, as a result of these attempts, the scepticism
of multitudes, the death of nations, and the inevitable despair of
the oppressed.
We regard it as one of the first principles of our pædagogical
mission that there is no such duality of character in any
individual—one which sees and appreciates truth and goodness, and
one which follows evil. And, since we take natural science as our
guide in education, a further consequence will be recognised; we
shall endeavour to secure that the intellectual impressions which
science conveys to the pupil shall be converted into the sap of
sentiment and shall be intensely loved. When sentiment is strong it
penetrates and diffuses itself through the deepest recesses of a
man’s being, pervading and giving a special colour to his
character.
And as a man’s conduct must revolve within the circle of his
character, it follows that a youth educated in the manner we have
indicated will, when he comes to rule himself, recognise science as
the one helpful master of his life.
The school was opened on September 8, 1901, with thirty pupils—twelve
girls and eighteen boys. These sufficed for the purpose of our
experiment, and we had no intention of increasing the number for a
time, so that we might keep a more effective watch on the pupils. The
enemies of the new school would take the first opportunity to criticise
our work in co-educating boys and girls.
The people present at the opening were partly attracted by the notices
of our work published in the press, and partly consisted of the parents
of the pupils and delegates of various working-class societies who had
been invited on account of their assistance to me. I was supported in
the chair by the teachers and the Committee of Consultation, two of
whom expounded the system and aim of the school. In this quiet fashion
we inaugurated a work that was destined to last. We created the Modern,
Scientific, and Rational School, the fame of which soon spread in
Europe and America. Time may witness a change of its name—the “Modern”
School—but the description “scientific and rational” will be more and
more fully vindicated.