THE REFORM OF THE SCHOOL
There are two ways open to those who seek to reform the education of
children. They may seek to transform the school by studying the child
and proving scientifically that the actual scheme of instruction is
defective, and must be modified; or they may found new schools in which
principles may be directly applied in the service of that ideal which
is formed by all who reject the conventions, the cruelty, the trickery,
and the untruth which enter into the bases of modern society.
The first method offers great advantages, and is in harmony with the
evolutionary conception which men of science regard as the only
effective way of attaining the end. They are right in theory, as we
fully admit. It is evident that the progress of psychology and
physiology must lead to important changes in educational methods; that
the teachers, being now in a better position to understand the child,
will make their teaching more in conformity with natural laws. I
further grant that this evolution will proceed in the direction of
greater liberty, as I am convinced that violence is the method of
ignorance, and that the educator who is really worthy of the name will
gain everything by spontaneity; he will know the child’s needs, and
will be able to promote its development by giving it the greatest
possible satisfaction.
In point of fact, however, I do not think that those who are working
for the regeneration of humanity have much to hope from this side.
Rulers have always taken care to control the education of the people;
they know better than any that their power is based entirely on the
school, and they therefore insist on retaining their monopoly of it.
The time has gone by when rulers could oppose the spread of instruction
and put limits to the education of the masses. Such a policy was
possible formerly because economic life was consistent with general
ignorance, and this ignorance facilitated despotism. The circumstances
have changed, however. The progress of science and our repeated
discoveries have revolutionised the conditions of labour and
production. It is no longer possible for the people to remain ignorant;
education is absolutely necessary for a nation to maintain itself and
make headway against its economic competitors. Recognising this, the
rulers have sought to give a more and more complete organisation to the
school, not because they look to education to regenerate society, but
because they need more competent workers to sustain industrial
enterprises and enrich their cities. Even the most reactionary rulers
have learned this lesson; they clearly understand that the old policy
was dangerous to the economic life of nations, and that it was
necessary to adapt popular education to the new conditions.
It would be a serious mistake to think that the ruling classes have not
foreseen the danger to themselves of the intellectual development of
the people, and have not understood that it was necessary to change
their methods. In fact, their methods have been adapted to the new
conditions of life; they have sought to gain control of the ideas which
are in course of evolution. They have endeavoured to preserve the
beliefs on which social discipline had been grounded, and to give to
the results of scientific research and the ideas involved in them a
meaning which will not be to the disadvantage of existing institutions;
and it is this that has induced them to assume control of the school.
In every country the governing classes, which formerly left the
education of the people to the clergy, as these were quite willing to
educate in a sense of obedience to authority, have now themselves
undertaken the direction of the schools.
The danger to them consists in the stimulation of the human mind by the
new spectacle of life and the possible rise of thoughts of emancipation
in the depths of their hearts. It would have been folly to struggle
against the evolving forces; the effect would be only to inflame them,
and, instead of adhering to earlier methods of government, they would
adopt new and more effective methods. It did not require any
extraordinary genius to discover the solution. The course of events
itself suggested to those who were in power the way in which they were
to meet the difficulties which threatened; they built schools, they
sought generously to extend the sphere of education, and if there were
at one point a few who resisted this impulse—as certain tendencies
favoured one or other of the political parties—all soon understood that
it was better to yield, and that the best policy was to find some new
way of defending their interests and principles. There were then sharp
struggles for the control of the schools, and these struggles continue
to-day in every civilised country; sometimes the republican
middle-class triumphs, sometimes the clergy. All parties appreciate the
importance of the issue, and they shrink from no sacrifice to win the
victory. “The school” is the cry of every party. The public good must
be recognised in this zeal. Everybody seeks to raise himself and
improve his condition by education. In former times it might have been
said: “Those people want to keep thee in ignorance in order the better
to exploit thee: we want to see thee educated and free.” That is no
longer possible; schools of all kinds rise on every side.
In regard to this general change of ideas among the governing classes
as to the need of schools, I may state certain reasons for distrusting
their intentions and doubting the efficacy of the means of reform which
are advocated by certain writers. As a rule, these reformers care
little about the social significance of education; they are men who
eagerly embrace scientific truth, but eliminate all that is foreign to
the object of their studies. They are patiently endeavouring to
understand the child, and are eager to know—though their science is
young, it must be remembered—what are the best methods to promote its
intellectual development.
This kind of professional indifference is, in my opinion, very
prejudicial to the cause they seek to serve. I do not in the least
think them insensible of the realities of the social world, and I know
that they believe that the public welfare will be greatly furthered by
their labours. “Seeking to penetrate the secrets of the life of man,”
they reflect, “and unravelling the normal process of his physical and
psychic development, we shall direct education into a channel which
will be favourable to the liberation of energy. We are not immediately
concerned with the reform of the school, and indeed we are unable to
say exactly what lines it should follow. We will proceed slowly,
knowing that, from the very nature of things, the reform of the school
will result from our research. If you ask us what are our hopes, we
will grant that, like you, we foresee a revolution in the sense of a
placing of the child and humanity under the direction of science; yet
even in this case we are persuaded that our work makes for that object,
and will be the speediest and surest means of promoting it.”
This reasoning is evidently logical. No one could deny this, yet there
is a considerable degree of fallacy in it, and we must make this clear.
If the ruling classes have the same ideas as the reformers, if they are
really impelled by a zeal for the continuous reorganisation of society
until poverty is at last eliminated, we might recognise that the power
of science is enough to improve the lot of peoples. Instead of this,
however, we see clearly that the sole aim of those who strive to attain
power is the defence of their own interests, their own advantage, and
the satisfaction of their personal desires. For some time now we have
ceased to accept the phrases with which they disguise their ambitions.
It is true that there are some in whom we may find a certain amount of
sincerity, and who imagine at times that they are impelled by a zeal
for the good of their fellows. But these become rarer and rarer, and
the positivism of the age is very severe in raising doubts as to the
real intentions of those who govern us.
And just as they contrived to adapt themselves when the necessity
arose, and prevented education from becoming a danger, they also
succeeded in organising the school in accord with the new scientific
ideas in such a way that nothing should endanger their supremacy. These
ideas are difficult to accept, and one needs to keep a sharp look-out
for successful methods and see how things are arranged so as to avoid
verbal traps. How much has been, and is, expected of education! Most
progressive people expect everything of it, and, until recent years,
many did not understand that instruction alone leads to illusions. Much
of the knowledge actually imparted in schools is useless; and the hope
of reformers has been void because the organisation of the school,
instead of serving an ideal purpose, has become one of the most
powerful instruments of servitude in the hands of the ruling class. The
teachers are merely conscious or unconscious organs of their will, and
have been trained on their principles. From their tenderest years, and
more drastically than anybody, they have endured the discipline of
authority. Very few have escaped this despotic domination; they are
generally powerless against it, because they are oppressed by the
scholastic organisation to such an extent that they have nothing to do
but obey. It is unnecessary here to describe that organisation. One
word will suffice to characterise it—Violence. The school dominates the
children physically, morally, and intellectually, in order to control
the development of their faculties in the way desired, and deprives
them of contact with nature in order to modify them as required. This
is the explanation of the failure; the eagerness of the ruling class to
control education and the bankruptcy of the hopes of reformers.
“Education” means in practice domination or domestication. I do not
imagine that these systems have been put together with the deliberate
aim of securing the desired results. That would be a work of genius.
But things have happened just as if the actual scheme of education
corresponded to some vast and deliberate conception; it could not have
been done better. To attain it teachers have inspired themselves solely
with the principles of discipline and authority, which always appeal to
social organisers; such men have only one clear idea and one will—the
children must learn to obey, to believe, and to think according to the
prevailing social dogmas. If this were the aim, education could not be
other than we find it to-day. There is no question of promoting the
spontaneous development of the child’s faculties, or encouraging it to
seek freely the satisfaction of its physical, intellectual, and moral
needs. There is question only of imposing ready-made ideas on it, of
preventing it from ever thinking otherwise than is required for the
maintenance of existing social institutions—of making it, in a word, an
individual rigorously adapted to the social mechanism.
It cannot be expected that this kind of education will have any
influence on the progress of humanity. I repeat that it is merely an
instrument of domination in the hands of the ruling classes, who have
never sought to uplift the individual, and it is quite useless to
expect any good from the schools of the present day. What they have
done up to the present they will continue to do in the future. There is
no reason whatever why they should adopt a different system; they have
resolved to use education for their purposes, and they will take
advantage of every improvement of it. If only they preserve the spirit
of the school and the authoritative discipline which rules it, every
innovation will tend to their advantage. For this they will keep a
constant watch, and take care that their interests are secured.
I would fix the attention of my readers on this point: the whole value
of education consists in respect for the physical, intellectual, and
moral faculties of the child. As in science, the only possible
demonstration is demonstration by facts; education is not worthy of the
name unless it be stripped of all dogmatism, and unless it leaves to
the child the direction of its powers and is content to support them in
their manifestations. But nothing is easier than to alter this meaning
of education, and nothing more difficult than to respect it. The
teacher is always imposing, compelling, and using violence; the true
educator is the man who does not impose his own ideas and will on the
child, but appeals to its own energies.
From this we can understand how easily education is conducted, and how
light is the task of those who seek to dominate the individual. The
best conceivable methods become in their hands so many new and more
effective means of despotism. Our ideal is that of science; we appeal
to it in demanding the power to educate the child by fostering its
development and procuring a satisfaction of its needs as they manifest
themselves.
We are convinced that the education of the future will be entirely
spontaneous. It is plain that we cannot wholly realise this, but the
evolution of methods in the direction of a broader comprehension of
life and the fact that all improvement involves the suppression of
violence indicate that we are on solid ground when we look to science
for the liberation of the child.
Is this the ideal of those who actually control the scholastic system?
Is this what they propose to bring about? Are they eager to abandon
violence? Only in the sense that they employ new and more effective
methods to attain the same end—that is to say, the formation of
individuals who will accept all the conventions, all the prejudices,
and all the untruths on which society is based.
We do not hesitate to say that we want men who will continue
unceasingly to develop; men who are capable of constantly destroying
and renewing their surroundings and renewing themselves; men whose
intellectual independence is their supreme power, which they will yield
to none; men always disposed for things that are better, eager for the
triumph of new ideas, anxious to crowd many lives into the one life
they have. Society fears such men; you cannot expect it to set up a
system of education which will produce them.
What, then, is our mission? What is the policy we must adopt in order
to contribute to the reform of the school?
Let us follow closely the work of the experts who are engaged in the
study of the child, and let us endeavour to find a way of applying
their principles to the education we seek to establish, aiming at an
increasingly complete emancipation of the individual. But how are we to
do this? By putting our hand energetically to the work, by promoting
the establishment of new schools in which, as far as possible, there
shall rule this spirit of freedom which, we feel, will colour the whole
education of the future.
We have already had proof that it leads to excellent results. We can
destroy whatever there is in the actual school that savours of
violence, all the artificial devices by which the children are
estranged from nature and life, the intellectual and moral discipline
which has been used to impose ready-made thoughts, all beliefs which
deprave and enervate the will. Without fear of injury we may place the
child in a proper and natural environment, in which it will find itself
in contact with all that it loves, and where vital impressions will be
substituted for the wearisome reading of books. If we do no more than
this, we shall have done much towards the emancipation of the child.
In such an environment we may freely make use of the data of science
and work with profit. It is true that we could not realise all our
hopes; that often we shall find ourselves compelled, from lack of
knowledge, to use the wrong means. But we shall be sustained by the
confident feeling that, without having achieved our entire aim, we
shall have done a great deal more than is being done by the actual
school. I would rather have the free spontaneity of a child who knows
nothing than the verbal knowledge and intellectual deformation of one
that has experienced the existing system of education.
What we have sought to do in Barcelona is being done by others in
various places. All of us saw that the work was possible. Dedicate
yourself to it at once. We do not hope that the studies of children
will be suspended that we may regenerate the school. Let us apply what
we know, and go on learning and applying. A scheme of rational
education is already possible, and in such schools as we advocate the
children may develop freely according to their aspirations. Let us
endeavour to improve and extend the work.
Those are our aims. We know well the difficulties we have to face; but
we have made a beginning in the conviction that we shall be assisted in
our task by those who work in their various spheres to deliver men from
the dogmas and conventions which secure the prolongation of the present
unjust arrangement of society.