NO REWARD OR PUNISHMENT
Rational education is, above all things, a means of defence against
error and ignorance. To ignore truth and accept absurdities is,
unhappily, a common feature in our social order; to that we owe the
distinction of classes and the persistent antagonism of interests.
Having admitted and practised the co-education of boys and girls, of
rich and poor—having, that is to say, started from the principle of
solidarity and equality—we are not prepared to create a new inequality.
Hence in the Modern School there will be no rewards and no punishments;
there will be no examinations to puff up some children with the
flattering title of “excellent,” to give others the vulgar title of
“good,” and make others unhappy with a consciousness of incapacity and
failure.
These features of the existing official and religious schools, which
are quite in accord with their reactionary environment and aim, cannot,
for the reasons I have given, be admitted into the Modern School. Since
we are not educating for a specific purpose, we cannot determine the
capacity or incapacity of the child. When we teach a science, or art,
or trade, or some subject requiring special conditions, an examination
may be useful, and there may be reason to give a diploma or refuse one;
I neither affirm nor deny it. But there is no such specialism in the
Modern School. The characteristic note of the school, distinguishing it
even from some which pass as progressive models, is that in it the
faculties of the children shall develop freely without subjection to
any dogmatic patron, not even to what it may consider the body of
convictions of the founder and teachers; every pupil shall go forth
from it into social life with the ability to be his own master and
guide his own life in all things.
Hence, if we were rationally prevented from giving prizes, we could not
impose penalties, and no one would have dreamed of doing so in our
school if the idea had not been suggested from without. Sometimes
parents came to me with the rank proverb, “Letters go in with blood,”
on their lips, and begged me to punish their children. Others who were
charmed with the precocious talent of their children wanted to see them
shine in examinations and exhibit medals. We refused to admit either
prizes or punishments, and sent the parents away. If any child were
conspicuous for merit, application, laziness, or bad conduct, we
pointed out to it the need of accord, or the unhappiness of lack of
accord, with its own welfare and that of others, and the teacher might
give a lecture on the subject. Nothing more was done, and the parents
were gradually reconciled to the system, though they often had to be
corrected in their errors and prejudices by their own children.
Nevertheless, the old prejudice was constantly recurring, and I saw
that I had to repeat my arguments with the parents of new pupils. I
therefore wrote the following article in the Bulletin:—
The conventional examinations which we usually find held at the end
of a scholastic year, to which our fathers attached so much
importance, have had no result at all; or, if any result, a bad
one. These functions and their accompanying solemnities seem to
have been instituted for the sole purpose of satisfying the vanity
of parents and the selfish interests of many teachers, and in order
to put the children to torture before the examination and make them
ill afterwards. Each father wants his child to be presented in
public as one of the prodigies of the college, and regards him with
pride as a learned man in miniature. He does not notice that for a
fortnight or so the child suffers exquisite torture. As things are
judged by external appearances, it is not thought that there is any
real torture, as there is not the least scratch visible on the
skin....
The parent’s lack of acquaintance with the natural disposition of
the child, and the iniquity of putting it in false conditions so
that its intellectual powers, especially in the sphere of memory,
are artificially stimulated, prevent the parent from seeing that
this measure of personal gratification may, as has happened in many
cases, lead to illness and to the moral, if not the physical, death
of the child.
On the other hand, the majority of teachers, being mere
stereotypers of ready-made phrases and mechanical inoculators,
rather than moral fathers of their pupils, are concerned in these
examinations with their own personality and their economic
interests. Their object is to let the parents and the others who
are present at the public display see that, under their guidance,
the child has learned a good deal, that its knowledge is greater in
quantity and quality than could have been expected of its tender
years and in view of the short time that it has been under the
charge of this very skilful teacher.
In addition to this wretched vanity, which is satisfied at the cost
of the moral and physical life of the child, the teachers are
anxious to elicit compliments from the parents and the rest of the
audience, who know nothing of the real state of things, as a kind
of advertisement of the prestige of their particular school.
Briefly, we are inexorably opposed to holding public examinations.
In our school everything must be done for the advantage of the
pupil. Everything that does not conduce to this end must be
recognised as opposed to the natural spirit of positive education.
Examinations do no good, and they do much harm to the child.
Besides the illness of which we have already spoken, the nervous
system of the child suffers, and a kind of temporary paralysis is
inflicted on its conscience by the immoral features of the
examination; the vanity provoked in those who are placed highest,
envy and humiliation, grave obstacles to sound growth, in those who
have failed, and in all of them the germs of most of the sentiments
which go to the making of egoism.
In a later number of the Bulletin I found it necessary to return to the
subject:—
We frequently receive letters from Workers’ Educational Societies
and Republican Fraternities asking that the teachers shall chastise
the children in our schools. We ourselves have been disgusted,
during our brief excursions, to find material proofs of the fact
which is at the base of this request; we have seen children on
their knees, or in other attitudes of punishment.
These irrational and atavistic practices must disappear. Modern
pædagogy entirely discredits them. The teachers who offer their
services to the Modern School, or ask our recommendation to teach
in similar schools, must refrain from any moral or material
punishment, under penalty of being disqualified permanently.
Scolding, impatience, and anger ought to disappear with the ancient
title of “master.” In free schools all should be peace, gladness,
and fraternity. We trust that this will suffice to put an end to
these practices, which are most improper in people whose sole ideal
is the training of a generation fitted to establish a really
fraternal, harmonious, and just state of society.