THE BULLETIN
The Modern School needed and found its organ in the Press. The
political and ordinary press, which at one time favoured us and at
another time denounced us as dangerous, cannot maintain an impartial
attitude. It either gives exaggerated or unmerited praise, or
calumnious censures. The only remedy for this was the sincerity and
clearness of our own indications. To allow these libels to pass without
correction would have done us considerable harm, and the Bulletin
enabled us to meet them.
The directors published in it the programme of the school, interesting
notes about it, statistical details, original pædagogical articles by
the teachers, accounts of the progress of rational education in our own
and other countries, translations of important articles from foreign
reviews and periodicals which were in harmony with the main character
of our work, reports of the Sunday lectures, and announcements of the
public competitions for the engagement of teachers and of our library.
One of the most successful sections of the Bulletin was that devoted to
the publication of the ideas of the pupils. Besides showing their
individual ideas it revealed the spontaneous manifestation of common
sense. Girls and boys, with no appreciable difference in intellect
according to sex, in contact with the realities of life as indicated by
the teachers, expressed themselves in simple essays which, though
sometimes immature in judgment, more often showed the clear logic with
which they conceived philosophical, political, or social questions of
some importance. The journal was at first distributed without charge
among the pupils, and was exchanged with other periodicals; but there
was soon a demand for it, and a public subscription had to be opened.
When this was done, the Bulletin became a philosophical review, as well
as organ of the Modern School; and it retained this character until the
persecution began and the school was closed. An instance of the
important mission of the Bulletin will be found in the following
article, which I wrote in No. 5 of the fourth year, in order to correct
certain secular teachers who had gone astray:—
A certain Workers’ School has introduced the novelty of
establishing a savings-bank, administered by the pupils. This piece
of information, reproduced in terms of great praise by the press as
a thing to be imitated, induces us to express our opinion on the
subject. While others have their own right to decide and act, we
have the same right to criticise, and thus to create a rational
public opinion.
In the first place we would observe that the word economy is very
different from, if not the opposite of, the idea of saving. One may
teach children the knowledge and practice of economy without
necessarily teaching them to save. Economy means a prudent and
methodical use of one’s goods: saving means a restriction of one’s
use of one’s goods. By economising, we avoid waste; by saving, the
man who has nothing superfluous deprives himself of what is
necessary.
Have the children who are taught to save any superfluous property?
The very name of the society in question assures us that they have
not. The workers who send their children to this school live on
their wages, the minimum sum, determined by the laws of supply and
demand, which is paid for their work by the employers; and as this
wage gives them nothing superfluous, and the social wealth is
monopolised by the privileged classes, the workers are far from
obtaining enough to live a life in harmony with the progress of
civilisation. Hence, when these children of workers, and future
workers themselves, are taught to save—which is a voluntary
privation under the appearance of interest—they are taught to
prepare themselves to submit to privilege. While the intention is
to initiate them to the practice of economy, what is really done is
to convert them into victims and accomplices of the present unjust
order.
The working-class child is a human child, and, as such, it has a
right to the development of all its faculties, the satisfaction of
all its needs, moral and physical. For that purpose society was
instituted. It is not its function to repress or subject the
individual, as is selfishly pretended by the privileged and
reactionary class, and all who enjoy what others produce; it has to
hold the balance justly between the rights and duties of all
members of the commonwealth.
As it is, the individual is asked to sacrifice his rights, needs,
and pleasures to society; and, as this disorder demands patience,
suffering, and sophistical reasoning, let us commend economy and
blame saving. We do not think it right to teach children to look
forward to being workers in a social order in which the average
mortality of the poor, who live without freedom, instruction, or
joy, reaches an appalling figure in comparison with that of the
class which lives in triumph on their labour. Those who, from
sociolatry, would derogate in the least from the rights of man,
should read the fine and vigorous words of Pi y Margall: “Who art
thou to prevent my use of my human rights? Perfidious and
tyrannical society, thou wert created to defend, not to coerce us.
Go back to the abyss whence thou came.”
Starting from these principles, and applying them to pædagogy, we
think it necessary to teach children that to waste any class of
objects is contrary to the general welfare; that if a child spoils
paper, loses pens, or destroys books, it does an injustice to its
parents and the school. Assuredly one may impress on the child the
need of prudence in order to avoid getting imperfect things, and
remind it of lack of employment, illness, or age; but it is not
right to insist that a provision be made out of a salary which does
not suffice to meet the needs of life. That is bad arithmetic.
The workers have no university training; they do not go to the
theatre or to concerts; they never go into ecstasies before the
marvels of art, industry, or nature; they have no holiday in which
to fill their lungs with life-giving oxygen; they are never
uplifted by reading books or reviews. On the contrary, they suffer
all kinds of privations, and may have to endure crises due to
excessive production. It is not the place of teachers to hide these
sad truths from the children, and to tell them that a smaller
quantity is equal to, if not better than, a larger. In order that
the power of science and industry be shared by all, and all be
invited to partake of the banquet of life, we must not teach in the
school, in the interest of privilege, that the poor should organise
the advantages of crumbs and leavings. We must not prostitute
education.
On another occasion I had to censure a different departure from our
principles:—
We were distressed and indignant on reading the list of
contributions voted by the Council of Barcelona for certain popular
societies which are interested in education. We read of sums
offered to Republican Fraternities and similar societies; and we
find that, instead of rejecting them, they forwarded votes of
thanks to the Council.
The meaning of these things in a Catholic and ultra-conservative
nation is clear. The Church and the capitalist system only maintain
their ascendency by a judicious system of charity and protection.
With this they gratify the disinherited class, and continue to
enjoy its respect. But we cannot see republicans acting as if they
were humble Christians without raising a cry of alarm.
Beware, we repeat, beware! You are educating your children badly,
and taking the wrong path towards reform, in accepting alms. You
will neither emancipate yourselves nor your children if you trust
in the strength of others, and rely on official or private support.
Let the Catholics, ignorant of the realities of life, expect
everything of God, or St. Joseph, or some similar being, and, as
they have no security that their prayers will be heard in this
life, trust to receive a reward after death. Let gamblers in the
lottery fail to see that they are morally and materially victimised
by their rulers, and trust to receive by chance what they do not
earn by energy. But it is sad to see men hold out the hand of a
beggar who are united in a revolutionary protest against the
present system; to see them admitting and giving thanks for
humiliating gifts, instead of trusting their own energy, intellect,
and ability.
Beware, then, all men of good faith! That is not the way to set up
a true education of children, but the way to enslave them.