THE TEACHERS
The choice of teachers was another point of great difficulty. The
tracing of a programme of rational instruction once accomplished, it
remained to choose teachers who were competent to carry it out, and I
found that in fact no such persons existed. We were to illustrate once
more that a need creates its own organs.
Certainly there were plenty of teachers. Teaching, though not very
lucrative, is a profession by which a man can support himself. There is
not a universal truth in the popular proverb which says of an
unfortunate man: “He is hungrier than a schoolmaster.” [6] The truth is
that in many parts of Spain the schoolmaster forms part of the local
governing clique, with the priest, the doctor, the shopkeeper, and the
money-lender (who is often one of the richest men in the place, though
he contributes least to its welfare). The master receives a municipal
salary, and has a certain influence which may at times secure material
advantages. In larger towns the master, if he is not content with his
salary, may give lessons in private schools, where, in accord with the
provincial institute, he prepares young men for the University. Even if
he does not obtain a position of distinction, he lives as well as the
generality of his fellow townsmen.
There are, moreover, teachers in what are called “secular schools”—a
name imported from France, where it arose because the schooling was
formerly exclusively clerical and conducted by religious bodies. This
is not the case in Spain; however Christian the teaching is, it is
always given by lay masters. However, the Spanish lay teachers,
inspired by sentiments of freethought and political radicalism, were
rather anti-Catholic and anti-clerical than Rationalist, in the best
sense of the word.
Professional teachers have to undergo a special preparation for the
task of imparting scientific and rational instruction. This is
difficult in all cases, and is sometimes rendered impossible by the
difficulties caused by habits of routine. On the other hand, those who
had had no pædagogical experience, and offered themselves for the work
out of pure enthusiasm for the idea, stood in even greater need of
preparatory study. The solution of the problem was very difficult,
because there was no other place but the rational school itself for
making this preparation.
The excellence of the system saved us. Once the Modern School had been
established by private initiative, with a firm determination to be
guided by the ideal, the difficulties began to disappear. Every
dogmatic imposition was detected and rejected, every excursion or
deviation in the direction of metaphysics was at once abandoned, and
experience gradually formed a new and salutary pædagogical science.
This was due, not merely to my zeal and vigilance, but to my earliest
teachers, and to some extent to the naive expressions of the pupils
themselves. We may certainly say that if a need creates an organ, the
organ speedily meets the need.
Nevertheless, in order to complete my work, I established a Rationalist
Normal School for the education of teachers, under the direction of an
experienced master and with the co-operation of the teachers in the
Modern School. In this a number of young people of both sexes were
trained, and they worked excellently until the despotic authorities,
yielding to our obscure and powerful enemies, put a stop to our work,
and flattered themselves that they had destroyed it for ever.