THE PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
_Importance of the Public Elementary School._--Of the various
schools, it is only the public elementary school with which we need
concern ourselves in this book. The State compels no one to attend
the higher school or the university. The children of the lower
classes of the population, whose relatives are not in a position to
provide instruction for them in their own homes, are all sent to the
public elementary school. Now, since in a manufacturing town nearly
three-fourths of all the children belong to the lower classes, since
for this reason, of the children attending the public elementary
schools, the enormous majority belong to the proletariat, since,
finally, only a minimal proportion of proletarian children attend
any other kind of school, it follows that the public elementary
school is primarily intended for the children of the proletariat,
and that practically the only school available for these children
is the public elementary school. To-day, the children of the lower
classes are educated almost exclusively in the public elementary
school, those of the middle classes chiefly in the public elementary
school, while those of the upper classes are educated almost without
exception in their own homes by tutors and governesses. [Obviously
the writer refers here to the conditions obtaining in his own
country.]
_Methods of Instruction._--Children at the present day can be
educated by any of the following methods: (_a_) The parents
themselves instruct their children; (_b_) they have their children
taught by a tutor or a governess in their own homes; (_c_) they
combine to carry on special schools for their own children (family
schools); (_d_) they send their children either to a governmental
or to a private school. In former days there existed no public
schools. Parents either educated their own children, or had them
educated by a tutor or governess. As time goes on the number of
parents increases who are competent to teach their children all
that they learn at the public elementary school; but most parents
have neither leisure nor desire to undertake this. Consider, for
example, the case of the father of a family whose whole day is spent
at work. Most fathers of families make a better use of their time by
devoting all their energies to their trade or profession, instead of
themselves attempting the education of their children. Thus here also
the principle of the division of labour comes more and more fully
into application. The parent gives his whole time to his work for
a livelihood, and the profession of teacher becomes more and more
exclusively that of a specialist. The children of the proletariat
are in need of education, and in their case, apart from the question
of leisure or desire, the parents lack the necessary aptitude to
instruct their own children. The public elementary schools of to-day
have come into existence for the children of these lower strata
of the population, and the curriculum of such schools has been
determined mainly by the decision of the upper classes as to what it
is expedient that the lower classes should be taught.
Education at home by a tutor or governess is in certain respects
superior, and in other respects inferior, to that obtainable at the
public elementary school. The advantages of home instruction are,
first, that it has a more individual character, since the tutor
or governess is more intimately acquainted with the child, and
each individual child receives a comparatively larger share of the
teacher’s attention; secondly, in the case of a large family, we
have the best possible type of co-education; thirdly, the unhygienic
influences of the public elementary school can be avoided. The
disadvantages are: a really good tutor or governess is by no means
easy to find, and in the absence of such a one, the education is most
inefficient; the domestic instructor is but a single person, whereas
in the public elementary school there are a number of teachers, and
the defects of one will be compensated by the good qualities of
another; we may even say that the defects of the teachers are more
than compensated by the other influences of the public elementary
school. Education by a domestic instructor can never make good for
the child the lack of the multiform life of the school, which affords
so admirable a preparation for later life. In the school there are
many children who compete with one another, but also form friendships
with one another. However questionable it may be, on grounds of
principle, whether for the purposes of instruction and education it
is proper to appeal to the ambition, competitive zeal, and envy of
children, yet we have to admit that so long as the present order of
society continues, based upon individualism and free competition,
it is absolutely essential that children should be prepared for
individualism and free competition. If the domestic instructor gets
on friendly terms with the child, his authority is apt thereby to be
undermined; but if he remains on purely formal terms, he risks the
repression of the child’s individuality. Friction between parents and
domestic instructors is almost inevitable. Education in the public
elementary school costs far less per child than domestic instruction,
and this saving is advantageous, not to the individual only, but from
the standpoint of public economy. It is altogether opposed to the
interest of public economy that each child should have a separate
teacher; that certain work, which can be properly performed by a
certain number of teachers, should be done in such a way as to need
ten times that number of teachers. To do this is to waste time and
energy which in the interest of public economy might be much better
employed. When some children are educated at home and others in the
public elementary school, the two classes of children have entirely
a different education, and this can only tend to accentuate class
contrasts, which are already excessive.
_The General Obligation of School Attendance._--The economic order
of to-day, based as it is upon free competition, should impose like
conditions upon all the competitors in the economic struggle. We
cannot speak of free competition unless all the competitors start
from scratch; in a system of free competition all should start with
the same educational opportunities. As time goes on the desire
becomes ever more general that every member of the community should
secure a certain minimum of education; and it is felt that the State
is not merely justified but obliged to secure this minimum for all.
Thus it becomes continually more important that every adult should
have this elementary minimum of education. The existing economic
order is based upon a general knowledge of writing and reading. One
unable to read or write is hardly in a position to safeguard his
most elementary interests. He should also know the first principles
of arithmetic, inasmuch as to-day the value of all commodities is
expressed in multiples of the monetary unit. The State is well aware
that compulsory education involves a limitation of personal freedom
and an interference with family life; but none the less the modern
State finds it necessary to insist that every child shall receive a
minimum of education.
The State imposes the duty upon those responsible for the care of the
child, of sending this child to the public elementary school from the
age of six to the age of fifteen, or, in default of this, of giving
the child an equivalent education at home. On the one hand, the State
itself institutes public elementary schools; and, on the other hand,
the State gives to the various religious organisations, to the local
authorities, and to private individuals, the right to found and
carry on elementary schools, with the proviso that in these schools
children shall receive the same education (neither more nor less)
as in the State schools. Thus, the State has no concern as to what
education the child’s relatives may think desirable, but exercises
compulsion to secure the adoption of its own educational standard,
either by inflicting penalties if the child does not attend school,
or even by removal of the child for compulsory education away from
home.
But the so-called general obligation of school attendance is not
really general, and applies exclusively, or almost exclusively, to
the lower classes of the population. The other classes can evade the
obligation of school attendance by having their children educated
at home. The proletarian parents are well aware that the elementary
school teaches neither in matter nor in manner in accordance with
proletarian conceptions; but at present they have to submit. The
duty of universal school attendance is not very strictly enforced.
Even in the most highly civilised countries, a certain proportion
of children of school age receive no elementary education. In many
countries the universal obligation of school attendance exists only
on paper. The conditions in this respect are especially bad, on the
one hand, in the country districts (where, therefore, the proportion
of illiterates is much greater than in the towns), and, secondly, in
districts where there is a great demand for labour. The principle
of universal compulsory school attendance is not accepted without
opposition. It is resisted by many proletarian parents who wish their
children to engage in wage-labour at an early age, and it is resisted
also by many capitalists who think they could make larger profits
with cheaper labour.
_The Purpose of the Elementary School._--To enable us to answer the
question, what is the purpose of the public elementary school, it is
necessary that we should first be able to decide what is the purpose
of education. This question is not educational merely, but also
social and political. The purpose of the public elementary school is
dependent at any particular period upon the general characteristics
of that period; for, first, one learns, not at school, but in life;
secondly, the dominant authority in the State in any epoch wishes to
instil in the minds of the young whatever “virtues” are considered
essential to the maintenance of the power of the dominant caste.
All political parties consider the public elementary school to
be extremely important, and each one of them wishes to use this
institution for its own purposes. They all recognise that the future
belongs to the young, that the public elementary school plays the
leading part in the education of the young; and each party sees that
its special aims can be attained only by the education of individuals
to consider that these aims are sacred and desirable. The adherents
of a particular political tendency therefore oppose the inculcation
in the public elementary schools of any tendency adverse to their
own, but they regard it as self-evident that their own views ought to
be inculcated in the elementary school.
_Instruction_ versus _Education_.--Many persons contend that the aim
of the school is not so much education as instruction. They consider
that the main factor in education is not the school, but the family.
But this is certain, that even in the school which thinks only of
instructing its pupils, education in the wider sense is effected.
In school life, in school friendships, in the sense of solidarity,
in the friendly competition between schoolfellows, in the necessity
to learn, are embodied powerful educative influences. It is, in
fact, essential that the school should educate as well as instruct.
The public elementary school of to-day makes therefore a very great
mistake if it insists on intellectual rather than on moral education,
and upon instruction rather than upon education.
_Moral Instruction._--According to the views of educationalists, it
is the aim of the public elementary school to educate children to be,
(_a_) religious, (_b_) patriotic, (_c_) obedient, (_d_) humble, (_e_)
subordinate citizens. The elementary school of to-day does in fact
mainly subserve these ends.
(_a_) Religious instruction and the inculcation of the fear of God
are no proper part of the work of the public elementary school.
Among all the factors of education, it is certainly not the public
elementary school which should undertake this branch of instruction.
(_b_) The public elementary school has to teach children to love
their country; but this should on no account be done in such a way as
to inspire hatred for other countries.
(_c_) The old elementary schools taught obedience and subordination.
But to-day, when the conditions are quite different from those of
the Middle Ages, the public elementary school should do nothing of
the kind, but should rather teach independent judgment, promptness
of action, and soundness of decision. The public elementary school
is a public institution like the (State) railway and the post
office, and compulsory school attendance is a civic duty analogous
to the duty of military service. But it is necessary to protest most
energetically against the inference sometimes drawn from the analogy
between the two last-named duties, that the elementary school should
be the preparatory school to the barrack, and the barrack a sort of
continuation school to the elementary school--against the doctrine
that children should be disciplined to a blind obedience. We must
carefully avoid overestimating the importance of discipline. The
school must and does use compulsion. Discipline is an important means
of elementary school education, and such education is unthinkable
without discipline. But children are sufficiently disciplined by mere
attendance at school for a certain time.
(_d_) The following idea is very generally diffused, that it is the
aim of the school to prepare children for the life they will have
to lead when they are grown up. Most of the children attending the
public elementary schools will become proletarians, wage-workers.
Since the proletarian must be diligent, thrifty, humble, disciplined,
it is regarded as the duty of the elementary school to inculcate
these virtues. But these so-called virtues are not virtues at all.
The greatest obstacle to any improvement in the lot of the average
wage-earner is that he should be content with things as they are. The
labourers’ wage represents the minimum that he finds requisite to the
satisfaction of his needs; when his needs increase, his wages rise.
Every friend of social progress should endeavour to secure that the
elementary school should arouse in the children certain needs and
desires.
(_e_) Many persons wish to utilise the public elementary school to
turn children away from socialist ideas. This is to be done by making
the children acquainted with the dangers which the realisation of
socialist theories would involve, and in addition by inculcating in
the children the afore-mentioned virtues. But the attainment of this
end is less easy than such persons imagine. The public elementary
school exercises a certain influence. The workman who has received at
school education and instruction of the suggested type will doubtless
less readily become an enthusiastic adherent of the socialist party
than the workman who has never attended an elementary school, and
who was an illiterate until he first came under the influence of his
trade union. But the notions inculcated in the public elementary
school in respect of obedience, humility, and the like are readily
eradicated by a short experience of socialist comradeship, and
replaced by social-democratic ideas.
_General Culture._--It is by no means one of the aims of the public
elementary school to provide general culture. Even less is this
the aim of education than it is the aim of the public elementary
school--and the provision of general culture by the latter would
appear to be entirely out of the question. During the few years a
child spends at the public elementary school, it is impossible to
attempt to impart all that is included in the wide field of general
culture.
_Individuality._--A large proportion of those pupils with a
well-marked individuality can develop their personality even in the
school. The tendency of the school is in many cases to rub off the
edges and corners of individuality. But it is impossible to approve
of the extent to which, in the public elementary school of to-day,
the children’s individuality is repressed. Our present elementary
schools do not individualise enough. Their principal aim is, not so
much to provide a sound education, as to force all the pupils through
the same rigid curriculum, without making any allowance for their
various special aptitudes. (For what good end is it that the modern
educational authority should regulate every detail of school-life,
down to the quality and price of the articles used in class, and
even to the colour of the manuscript books and the precise number of
pages they are to contain?) In the elementary school of to-day, owing
to the large size of the classes and the small number and defective
training of the teachers, individualisation is impossible.
_Beauty._--The school must not indeed attempt to make all the
children into artists; but the children must most certainly be taught
to understand and appreciate beauty--that is, the arts. Our present
public elementary schools are extremely defective from this point of
view.
_Knowledge._--Knowledge gives the individual power, and provides him
with a powerful weapon in the struggle for existence. The dominant
classes, for the protection of their own egoistic interests, keep
knowledge for themselves, and refuse to provide the lower classes
with the means and weapons for their liberation. The State insists
upon a minimal quantity of knowledge for every one of its members,
because this is to the interest of the community and of the upper
classes. But since to impart to the common people anything beyond
this minimum of knowledge would threaten the dominance of the upper
classes, or would at any rate involve pecuniary sacrifices on the
part of the latter, and since it might even lead to the liberation of
the lower classes, the functional activity of the public elementary
schools is kept at as low a level as possible, and is limited as much
as possible both intrinsically and extrinsically. The State and the
upper classes devote to popular education only such an amount as is
found to be absolutely essential. They are well aware that much more
could be done than is done in the way of popular education; but since
they know also that this would redound chiefly to the advantage of
the lower classes, they propose no advance upon the present system.
This affords a satisfactory explanation of the fact that the modern
State spends so much less upon elementary schools than upon middle
or high schools--that is, upon institutions for the upper classes,
and why the State spends so much less upon education in general than
upon other things. The budget of any modern State would exemplify the
fact that the individualist State spends at least five times as much
for military purposes as upon elementary education. The more complete
the division of labour, the more do employers tend to utilise the
services of unskilled labourers--that is, the services of those whose
work is of such a character that all they need know to enable them
to perform it is at most a little reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The capitalists have no use for workmen with more knowledge than
this, for the unskilled workers are cheaper. The owning class are not
inclined to make sacrifices to enable the children of workpeople to
learn more in the elementary school. They know very well that to do
this would merely be to do themselves harm, for the more the workman
knows the more readily does he think independently, the more critical
is he, and the more readily does he recognise the defects of the
existing social order.
_Science._--The modern public elementary school professes to teach
children science. But they must first of all give their pupils desire
and capacity for the acquirement of science. It should not be their
aim to impart to the child the elements of any particular science,
but rather to develop a capacity for a speedy acquisition of the
knowledge it will find necessary in the course of its life. The
procedure of the older elementary school which laid stress only upon
memory is almost completely a thing of the past. But even to-day the
elementary schools of Europe lay most emphasis upon the exhibition by
their pupils of extensive knowledge, and this involves an overtaxing
of the memory at the expense of the powers of thought. The elementary
schools of the United States of America, on the other hand, do not so
much endeavour to secure that a certain quantity of knowledge should
be imparted, they do not so much insist upon thorough instruction,
and strict concentration in the narrower sense of the term, as
endeavour to effect a stimulated interest and a certain degree of
orientation in all departments of knowledge. The latter system is the
sounder. But a certain foundation of positive knowledge is absolutely
essential, for upon this foundation is based the acquirement of all
the knowledge subsequently gained, and necessary for the purposes
of life. The modern elementary school teaches much and many things,
including much that is altogether superfluous, but what the children
will really need in life is either not taught at all, or taught
defectively and inefficiently. Great emphasis is laid upon religion,
grammar, and history; modern science is comparatively ignored;
technical instruction, drawing, natural history, the principles of
morals, political economy, and legislation, are neglected. (It is
through the neglect of the last-mentioned that it results that man is
perhaps able to understand his responsibilities towards his Heavenly
Judge, but certainly not towards any earthly one.) When we examine
the teaching of history in the modern elementary school, we find that
the pupils, instead of acquiring some general ideas upon universal
history, and the history of civilisation, have their minds crammed
with a jingo record of wars and dynasties, a mass of dates of battles
and other trivial incidents, patriotic anniversaries, and a biassed
selection of anecdotes--all this having no other object than to bring
the children up as jingoes and anti-socialists.
_Home Work._--The idea that children must have no home work to do,
and that they should do all their work at school, is an exaggerated
one. But the fact remains that the tendency of the modern elementary
school is to overburden children with home work. This is all the
worse because the work at school is often too much for the pupils,
and to add home work is then sheer cruelty. The domestic arrangements
in the majority of proletarian homes are so exiguous, that it is
impossible for children to find the necessary conveniences and the
necessary order and quiet for any considerable amount of home work.
_The Exclusion of Certain Children._--In the public elementary
schools we find many children who ought not to be there--children,
for example, with arrested development, abnormal, neglected, &c.
If in any class there are many children suffering from arrest of
mental development, one of two things may happen--the teacher may
devote special attention to them, or he may not. In the former case,
the progress of the whole class is hindered; in the latter case,
the unfortunate backward children fall yet farther behind. Morally
neglected children, and children with criminal tendencies, should be
removed from the school, or they will corrupt the other children.
But if they are excluded, we have to fear that we are depriving them
of their last chance of improvement, and that they will become more
neglected than ever. To-day we find that there is a most deplorable
increase, above all in the large towns and manufacturing centres,
in the number of children who habitually evade school attendance
or play truant from school, idle about through the days, and then,
after school hours, and in fear of punishment, keep also away from
home. It has been proved that the great majority of these habitual
truants are feeble-minded to a degree, and for this reason tend to
adopt a vagabond life. If such a child is excluded from school, it
legally attains the condition of liberation from the obligation
of school attendance which it had previously attained illegally
though in actual fact. Chiefly in consequence of the inadequate
psychological training of the teachers, feeble-mindedness and other
mental and moral abnormalities in children are apt to be overlooked.
It is desirable that all teachers should receive a far more thorough
training in the psychology of education than has hitherto been
customary. It is necessary that for weak-minded children, or for
those who are in other respects backward or abnormal, special
schools, or in great educational institutions, special classes
(disciplinary classes), should be founded. Of late years a start has
been made in this direction.
_Rewards and Punishments._--In the public elementary school of
to-day, sound methods and principles in the matter of rewards and
punishments find but little application. Corporal punishment is
freely used, and in many cases the children are grossly ill-treated.
In the United States of America, the general experience has been that
in schools in which corporal punishment is unknown, better results
are obtained and a higher general level is reached than in schools
in which corporal punishment is customary. The mere knowledge that
they are liable to such degrading punishment suffices to lower the
children’s morale, whereas, when they feel themselves absolutely
secure from the risk of such punishment, they feel themselves from
the first to be honoured and respected. In the better elementary
schools of the United States corporal punishment is in fact unknown.
_The Constitutional Element._--In the order of the modern school no
constitutional element is recognised; the teacher is an absolute
ruler, and the pupils are subjects without rights. But this
system is not one fitted to prepare the children for democratic
social and political life. In the United States of America some
of the elementary schools have a method of government which is
quasi-parliamentary in character. It is desirable to introduce
this system into Europe, although certain modifications may be
necessary. The relationship between teacher and pupil should be as
follows. The teacher does not work solely by authority. He explains
in all cases the reasons for his commands and prohibitions; he
recognises and admits his own mistakes, treats his pupils as equals,
and makes common cause with the well-behaved children to keep the
ill-behaved in order; just as in the education of the individual we
counteract the morbid elements in the disposition by cultivating
the healthy elements, so in his school the teacher uses the good
elements to counteract the bad ones. By making common cause with
the well-behaved children against the ill-behaved, he induces the
former to become unconsciously the instructors and educators of the
latter. He endeavours to effect the growth among the children of a
public opinion, which shall warn transgressors and prescribe their
punishment. He must also utilise free discussion among his pupils as
a means of stimulation and instruction. (Parents should employ much
the same methods in the upbringing of their own children.)
_Parents and the School._--The view that the teacher need concern
himself about the child only so long as the latter is within the
four walls of the school, and that he is justified in completely
ignoring all that happens to the child outside the school, is utterly
false, and must be abandoned. To-day a question which attracts much
attention is how parents may be induced to support the teacher.
In this respect the conditions in Europe are worse than those in
the United States of America. In Europe parents commonly rejoice
when the school takes the burden of children off their hands. Many
teachers, on the other hand, are instinctive bureaucrats, who regard
it as wrong for the parents to exert any influence whatever upon the
teacher’s relationship to his pupils. Quite recently the following
view has begun to prevail--that it is the duty of the parents to send
their children to the lowest class of the elementary school with such
a grounding that the teacher may readily proceed to build thereon;
the parents should remain throughout in contact with the teachers.
This contact may be of a manifold kind: the teachers keep the
parents acquainted with all the important details of the course of
instruction, and at voluntary evening reunions explain to the parents
the concrete problems of education. We can approve the conduct
neither of those parents who always uphold the teacher against their
children, nor of those, on the other hand, who always abuse the
teacher to the child. The former procedure brings the children up as
slaves, the latter undermines the foundations of the respect which
every teacher should inspire in his pupils.
_Sexual Education._--A thorough reform of sexual education is
absolutely essential. 1. The question of co-education does not
properly belong to this work, and can be touched on merely in
passing. In the public elementary schools almost all over the world
co-education is the rule; elementary schools for one sex only are
exceptional.[5] 2. The Church regards the sexual life as something
essentially immoral, of which the child is to know nothing whatever.
Its motto is: Silence. The earlier elementary schools, owing to their
intimate dependence on the Church, shared this view. The sexual
enlightenment of children is recommended especially by the advocates
of the emancipation of women. The question is even more important
to women than it is to men, since the right solution of the sexual
problem will entail for women greater advantages than for men.
The sexual enlightenment of children is absolutely necessary for the
following reasons. (_a_) The sexual life conceals many dangers for
the child, and the latter will better be able to guard against those
dangers if he is aware of their existence. No one has the right to
put a sharp knife in a child’s hand without pointing out the dangers
of the weapon. But the forces of the sexual life, when ill-understood
and ill-controlled, are far more powerful and far more dangerous
than the sharpest knife. He who will learn to walk and to run must
risk stumbling and falling, and no one can learn to swim without
swallowing a little water. (_b_) That which is half-concealed is
far more stimulating than that which is revealed. If children are
not properly enlightened concerning the sexual life, they become
accustomed to regard matters of sex solely from the standpoint of
personal desire and personal enjoyment, and to regard the sexual
life and the other sex as something hateful and despicable. (_c_)
If the child receives no enlightenment concerning the sexual life,
its confidence in its teacher and its relatives is necessarily
undermined. How shall a child retain confidence in those who give
it no advice in a matter in which the need of advice is so urgently
felt? Can the child be expected to follow their advice in other
departments of life, when in this department it receives bad advice
or none at all? Can a child give confidence to its elders in other
matters, when in this matter it is fobbed off with lies and fables?
The following arguments are adduced against the sexual enlightenment
of children. (_a_) It is better, supposing that the sexual impulse
has not yet awakened in a child, that nothing should be done to
direct its attention to the sexual life. (_b_) The enlightenment
of children is a very difficult matter, and is, in fact, hardly
practicable.
The former of these arguments is not altogether groundless. But in
present conditions silence is impossible, and it is better that the
child should obtain its information from a pure and trustworthy
source. With regard to the alleged difficulty of effecting the
sexual enlightenment, recent experience shows that the requisite
instruction can be suitably and inconspicuously introduced into the
natural history lessons, and adapted to the age and intelligence of
the child, without any excessive detail being attempted. The stress
has to be laid, not upon enlightenment as to the processes of sexual
conjugation, nor upon detailed instruction as to the development of
the human embryo, but rather upon a mainly hygienic enlightenment
concerning the dangers attendant upon sexual intercourse.
Should the sexual enlightenment of children be the work of the
school, or should it be, as many insist, the duty either of the
parents or the medical adviser? The co-operation of parents and
medical adviser is certainly indispensable, but the principal part
in the work of enlightenment belongs to the school. One of the main
difficulties in sexual enlightenment by the parents depends upon the
fact that the majority of parents lack the requisite ability and the
requisite biological knowledge. Of late the schools have actually
begun to undertake this work of the sexual enlightenment of children.
It is unquestionably the tendency of evolution that the sexual
enlightenment of children up to a certain point should be effected in
the school.
_Religious and Moral Instruction._--It remains undecided whether the
public elementary school of to-day was of ecclesiastical origin.
But it is an unquestionable fact that from the first the Church
exercised a great influence upon the public elementary school, and
that the Church continues to struggle for the spread of its own
ideas through the intermediation of the schools. The influence of
the Church secures, not merely that religion shall be taught in the
schools, but, in addition, that in the teaching of other matters,
the ecclesiastical spirit shall have free play. This explains the
fact that the teaching of natural science has been neglected in the
schools, on the ground that it is antagonistic to religion. The
alleged necessity of religious teaching is based upon the assertion
that by such teaching children are guided in the paths of morality.
But as religious instruction as at present administered, it is by no
means adapted to produce this effect. To teach children difficult
ethical concepts in an abstract form, and to make them commit these
abstract formulations to memory, is a mode of ill-usage. We cannot
teach a child to be moral by preaching to it a great deal, and by
telling it many moral and religious stories and drawing for it many
moral and religious conclusions, unless we take pains at the same
time to find associations within the child’s own circle of interests
for the ideas we are endeavouring to impart. It is impossible to
induce in a child the habit of moral conduct by purely intellectual
demonstrations, in connection with which the child’s interest in
the processes and situations of the relation is perhaps wilfully
mistaken for a desire to imitate the actions that are described.
Moreover, in the religions that are taught in the modern public
elementary schools, we find reflected the moral conceptions of days
long past--conceptions whose interest is now historical merely. These
religions deal only with the morals of adult persons--their examples
relate only to adults; whereas the sound moral instruction of young
people must pay attention above all to the numerous little needs
and passions of the child. Religion and morality are two altogether
different things. A knowledge of Bible history and of religious
dogmas cannot make anyone more moral. There are many countries in
which we find that the extent of immorality is directly proportional
to the extent to which, in the various areas, a religious spirit
prevails. Our general conclusion, therefore, is that the public
elementary school should not be founded upon a religious basis, and
that it should not undertake to give religious instruction. The
standpoint of France, formerly so religious a country, is thoroughly
sound. The principle of religious liberty allows everyone to profess
whatever religion he pleases. It is a logical corollary of this
principle that the public elementary school, which is open to all,
should be neither religious nor anti-religious; that is to say, that
it should be a secular, lay, neutral school, and that religious
instruction should be left to the parents.
But, in view of these considerations, it is all the more necessary
to provide for special moral instruction in the public elementary
school. It is not a valid objection to say that ethics are too
difficult for children; in this matter everything depends upon how
they are taught. Evidently moral teaching will be effective only if
the right educational methods are employed, and it cannot be said
that this has hitherto been the case to any considerable extent.
Moral instruction must not consist in mere repetition of ethical
principles, but must be a lesson of a very practical order; it must
not be a dry enumeration of duties, but an introduction to the
realities of social life, the aim of moral instruction being to
teach the pupil sound views of life, and to lead him to regulate
all his thoughts and all his activities with reference to their
“social reaction.” The introduction of ethical problems and moral
outlooks into the instruction given in other branches of study
is also necessary, and may indeed begin at once, for this offers
no difficulties. But it is also absolutely essential that moral
questions should receive a comprehensive and connected consideration
in a special course of lessons. For more than a quarter of a century
moral instruction has been given in the elementary schools of the
United States and of France. In France this course of lessons is
used, not merely as an instrument in the campaign against clericalism
and monarchism, but also, quite wrongly, as a means for the
cultivation of jingoism.
_Physical Education._--The modern public elementary school, in
pursuit of mental education, neglects not moral education only,
but physical education also, by condemning the child to prolonged
physical inactivity. As soon as a child is barely six years of age,
it is forced to sit, day by day for many hours, stiff and quiet, on
the narrow benches in the class-rooms, although such repression of
the childish instinct towards incessant activity is injurious to the
health. The child is overburdened mentally, the school curriculum
being overloaded with subjects, and a bad system of instruction
being employed. The gymnastic lesson of to-day consists mainly of
the comparatively useless exercises of the parade-ground type, and
in the country schools even these are neglected. Well-grounded
complaints about all these defects are incessantly heard. The results
are disastrous. Imbecility and mental hebetude may ensue; there even
exist special diseases of school life, such as nervous debility,
headache, lateral curvature of the spine, short-sightedness,
jaundice, &c. Bad air, dust in the class-rooms, interference
with free breathing consequent upon long-continued sitting, and
catching cold on the way home from school, favour the acquisition of
tuberculosis.
Of late satisfactory efforts for the reform of school hygiene have
been initiated. On the one hand, the attempt is made to secure that
school life should not entail any dangers to the child’s health; on
the other hand, efforts are made to provide proper treatment for the
various disorders that prevail among the children, and especially
among the younger ones; the physical energies and adroitness of the
children are stimulated by technical instruction, gymnastics, and
free movement in the open air. It is recognised that the education
of children should take place mainly in the open; that not natural
history only, but most other subjects, should be taught in connection
with open-air walks and excursions. More and more stress is laid upon
the provision of playgrounds, school gardens, and the like. School
gardens are already to be found in many towns, where the children can
do bodily work in the fresh air--dig, for instance, tend flowers,
&c., occupations which have an excellent influence upon their
health. Quite recently baths have been provided in many schools,
and sometimes even the use of these baths is compulsory. This is
especially valuable where the school children are very poor, for in
the case of the very poor, as is well known, not much attention is
paid to cleanliness in the children’s homes.
In every progressive State, school doctors have now been appointed.
It is a sound principle that the school doctor should not be engaged
in private practice, but that he should also be physician to the
poor-law authority. The institution of the school physician is,
however, of value only if a skilled and detailed examination of the
individual children is undertaken, and if steps are taken to secure
that the medical advice given in individual cases is actually carried
out. In many German schools provision is made that sick children
without means shall be sent by the school authorities directly to
the town physicians for treatment. In some of these schools, school
nurses have been appointed, who supervise the carrying out of medical
instructions, and, when necessary, accompany the children in their
visits to the doctor. The tendency of evolution is that necessary
treatment should be carried out by the school doctor. For some years
past, in many towns in Germany, dental clinics have been instituted
in connection with the schools. They are necessary in view of the
fact that a very large proportion of children attending the public
elementary schools have diseased teeth; those whose parents are poor
would otherwise receive no dental treatment, and the proper treatment
of these disorders of the teeth constitutes an important adjuvant in
the campaign against the infectious diseases and in the prevention of
tuberculosis. Very recently the question has been discussed whether
tubercular children ought not to be excluded from the schools.
Among more recent movements tending towards the destruction of the
hegemony of the towns, we find an attempt to remove the schools from
the towns, and to give them the form of boarding-schools, with an
attempt to provide a sort of family life, much stress being laid upon
the physical education of the children. Such schools are to be found
in England and in the United States of America and here and there
in Germany. They are more costly than the others, and the attempt
to reproduce in them a kind of family life is apt to be a failure.
For children suffering from physical debility they are extremely
useful, and they offer a valuable field of experiment for teachers
who wish to apply exceptional educational ideas. Of late, also, the
attempt has been made to utilise the school in the campaign against
tuberculosis, alcoholism, and the venereal diseases. It is declared
to be absolutely necessary that the children should receive far more
hygienic instruction than has hitherto been customary--of course,
merely as an adjunct to the other branches of education.
_Manual Training._--Loud complaints are heard to the effect that
the elementary school fails to secure a general and harmonious
development of the bodily and mental capacities of the child--that
it merely crams the child with certain information, without
endeavouring to secure that it shall acquire knowledge by its own
experience. It is recognised that that knowledge only is permanent
and possesses serious moral influence which constitutes an
indispensable constituent of general culture; and it is understood
that the recognised defects of our school children cannot be avoided
unless we include as a part of the school curriculum a sufficiency
of manual training. At first sight it may seem quite impossible for
the educationalist, by training the child to perform certain suitable
bodily movements, constituting the elements of some particular
handicraft, to influence that child’s mental or moral development;
it seems impossible, that is to say, that to teach the child a
handicraft can subserve a profoundly important educational end.
The impulse to physical activity is deep-seated in human nature,
and is irresistible. It is present in every healthy child. It is
an aim of education to cultivate the proper manifestations of this
impulse; otherwise it is very apt to take the form of some bad
habit, of passionate outbursts, or of destructiveness. In earliest
childhood the impulse to activity finds complete satisfaction in the
games of which young children are so fond. The irregular and mutable
activity of games must gradually, and without obvious compulsion, be
transformed into a regular and orderly activity. (Many physicians
insist that children should not begin to learn to read and write
until they are nine or ten years old, and that below this age their
only instruction should be manual. The reason they give for this
demand is that it is during the first seven years of life that the
human brain grows most rapidly, that this organ should receive very
gentle treatment during this period of life, and that all risk of
its overstrain by one-sided stimulation of the intelligence must be
carefully avoided.)
Manual work invariably represents an attempt to gain some particular
end. Every such end is made up of various components; we see this
composite character most clearly when the aim of the work is to
achieve some definite physical result, such as the putting together
of some complex body made up of numerous parts. Such work as this,
children usually undertake with pleasure. Since the final aim and
the constituent aims are all obvious, the child sees at once that
it is continually approaching more nearly to the attainment of the
ultimate aim, and notes with delight the progressive steps achieved
towards this end. (Self-esteem is essentially nothing more than the
consciousness on the part of the individual of his capacity for
producing some tangible result.) Manual work is interesting even
to the naughtiest and most impatient of children. It arouses and
increases will power and desire for work; satisfies the impulse
to activity; forces the child to think independently, to use its
perceptive faculties, to be practical. It is for this reason that
manual work plays so great a part in the education of intellectually
backward and neglected children. Manual training gives the child
opportunity for productive work, and thus prepares it for its
subsequent life. Manual training develops in the child precisely
those faculties which it will most need in later life, namely,
conscientiousness, precision, pleasure in its work, enterprise. It
develops the hand and the eye, the two most important organs of the
human body, to a fuller degree than can be effected by writing,
drawing, or gymnastics; and in this way it provides the child with
something which will be found valuable whatever trade or profession
may ultimately be adopted. It thus gives the child the necessary
preparatory training for every subsequent occupation. The idea
that the growth of machine industry has rendered manual training
superfluous is utterly erroneous. Manual training is good for the
health and the physical strength of the child. At the period of the
puberal development, manual training is of especial importance to
children. It has a quieting influence upon the brain and the senses,
and distracts the child from morbid and sensual impulses. Through
bringing into play the physiological influence of fatigue, it hinders
and delays the awakening of the sexual impulse, and does nothing to
direct the child’s attention towards the sexual life.
To-day much stress is laid upon training the perceptive faculties by
means of object-lessons. Manual training affords the best training of
the perceptive faculties, being even more valuable in this respect
than the actual object-lesson. We learn to know an object fully not
merely by looking at it, not even, in addition, by handling it,
smelling it, tasting it, and listening to it. If we wish to know an
object through and through, we must work upon it.
The child is always glad to engage in physical work. Both child and
teacher soon learn to recognise for what the child has inclination
and talent. The child will then choose for its life’s occupation
that which it has already learned to understand, and which best
corresponds to its own inclinations. In this way the mistakes,
which are so common to-day, in the choice of an occupation will be
avoided, and the almost morbid desire of children for a clerical or
professional career will be mitigated. Opportunity is given for the
recognition and cultivation of any special artistic faculty the child
may possess. The aim of education, namely, to awaken and cultivate
the child’s natural capacities and inclinations, can only be attained
when the teacher recognises their existence, and is able to form a
correct picture of the child’s mental life. But the teacher will
not be able to do this unless he sees his pupil engaged in physical
work as well as in mental. If at school young people are exclusively
occupied in mental work, they acquire an antipathy to physical work.
Manual training, on the other hand, teaches children to esteem
physical labour and the proletariat. Anyone who has received a
thorough manual training necessarily possesses mechanical knowledge
and skill. Since such knowledge and skill are the first requisites of
so many skilled handicrafts, one who possesses them is unlikely to
become an unskilled labourer.
Whereas in former times various kinds of productive work formed part
of the economy of domestic life, so that the child had opportunities
for seeing and learning such occupations in its own home, to-day we
find that not even children’s toys are made at home, but are bought
ready-made. Manual training is also advocated, on the ground that
it is necessary to ensure that there shall be an adequate supply of
skilled manual workers. This, we are told, may contribute to keep
alive the lesser industries which tend to disappear before the great
manufacturing industry. But the replacement of handwork by the work
of machines is a tendency of evolution which no one has the power
to arrest. It is not truly the aim of manual instruction to produce
skilled adult manual workers; we advocate it simply as a means of
education which has nothing whatever to do with technical education.
Manual training must be carefully adapted to the child’s age, and
in the case of very little children must take the form rather of a
game. Its character may be very various: the preparation of drawings
and models, experimentation with tools, the construction of tools
or other useful objects out of wood, clay, dough, iron, &c., garden
work, and the like.
Although the results of manual training are so remarkably good,
it is only quite recently that it has been utilised as a means of
education. The explanation perhaps is that manual work being all done
by slaves, serfs, body-servants, and wage-labourers, was despised
by the upper classes, and for this reason its great educational
value was so long overlooked. Ethical and educative influences are
so completely lacking to wage-labour, that the child should not be
occupied in wage-labour, but only in manual work of an educative
influence and tendency. Instruction in productive work, involving
an explanation of the fundamental methods of the production of
commodities and habituation to the use of the simpler tools must
form a part of education. The attempt to extend manual training
expresses the general tendency of evolution. The elementary schools
of most civilised countries show that manual training can be readily
introduced into the elementary school curriculum. Indeed, in the
public elementary schools of many countries, manual training is now
compulsory, especially as regards instruction in feminine manual
occupations. But manual training cannot be developed to the fullest
extent, nor can this method be expected to furnish the best possible
results, until capitalist production for profit has been replaced by
social production for use.
_Preparatory Schools._--What we said about crèches applies, though
with some differences, to preparatory schools. Children go to the
modern elementary school at a comparatively early age, and are
subjected to the discipline of school without any preparatory
initiation. Institutions whose aim it is to prepare children for
the life of the public elementary schools are known as preparatory
schools. The idea that before the age of school-attendance the
child should be methodically employed for some hours daily, that
the occupation should be physical, and that the work should be so
arranged as to appear to the child as a kind of play, is not a new
one. Alike on educational and on social grounds it is certainly
desirable that the period of public education should begin earlier
than the present age of compulsory school-attendance. Such is indeed
the tendency of evolution, and in Hungary we have already advanced
far in this direction.
_Supervised Playgrounds for Children (Kinderhorte)._--With the
growth of capitalism there have come into existence (though somewhat
later than the preparatory schools) supervised playgrounds for
children (_Kinderhorte_) to provide care and training out of school
hours for the school children whose parents work away from home.
These institutions may be associated with the schools, or may exist
independently; there may be separate playgrounds for boys and for
girls, or the two sexes may play together. In the United States of
America there exist “Children’s Clubs” for school-children, which
differ from preparatory schools, inasmuch as their main purpose is to
provide entertainment.
_Increasing Importance of the Public Elementary School._--The family
circle in which the proletarian child lives tends, as a rule, to
counteract the beneficial effects of school life. Nor are the other
elements in the environment of the proletarian child such as tend to
exercise a good educational influence. For this reason quite recently
the question has been mooted how the school may best counteract the
evil influences of the family and the environment. As time goes on
the public elementary school becomes ever more important, its circle
of duties becomes more comprehensive, and it undertakes many elements
of education which formerly appertained to the parental home and
the environment. The public elementary school and the associated
institutions begin to exercise functions outside the domain of
education in the narrower sense, and to absorb some of those formerly
exercised by the poor-law authorities, inasmuch as the schools are
coming to satisfy other needs of the proletarian child in addition
to the need for education. Consider, for example, the association
with the public elementary school of preparatory schools, supervised
playgrounds, baths, gardens, workshops, savings-banks, &c.
_Feeding of School Children._--The children of the lower classes are
to-day quite unable to pay for their schooling. If every pupil had to
pay school fees, a strict enforcement of compulsory school attendance
would involve gross injustice to the poorer classes. If the State
makes school attendance compulsory, the State must make it possible
for every child to attend school. Many children fail to attend school
because they lack proper clothing, and especially boots and shoes.
Is it not the duty of the education authorities to provide for poor
children of school age the clothing they need to make it possible
for them to attend school? This is not as yet recognised as a public
duty, but we see an unmistakable movement in its direction. In most
countries public elementary education is already free, in some
cases for all the children, in others only for the poorest; school
materials and books are as yet supplied gratuitously only in France,
Switzerland, and the United States of America.
Is it a part of the work of the public elementary school to provide
food for the pupils? (Should it provide a dwelling? Even those whose
demands are most extensive ask merely that the elementary schools
should provide a home for the child during the day time, on the one
hand during school hours, on the other during the intervals.) The
question of the feeding of school children was first mooted by the
teachers about thirty years ago. It was evident that a smaller
or larger proportion of the children attending urban schools (in
wealthier towns from 3 to 10 per cent., in the suburbs of large towns
even as many as 90 per cent.) were unable to derive adequate benefit
from their teaching because they were underfed. The proletarian
mother lacks sufficient time to prepare food for her children,
especially the midday meal. Few workmen earn enough to provide a
dietary in conformity with hygienic demands. The school is often
far from the home, and the children have neither time nor desire to
return home to dinner. The need is especially striking during the
winter months, inasmuch as at this time there is more unemployment,
whilst it is precisely at this season of the year that hot meals
are most necessary. Moreover, whilst it is simply cruel to force
half-fed children to learn, they hinder the progress of the others.
It is objected that the feeding of school children conflicts with
the principle of parental responsibility, and that it impairs the
intimacy of family life, which demands, as all will admit, that the
members of the family shall meet one another at least at meals. Our
aim, we are told, should therefore be to do away with the poverty
which is the cause of so many children coming to school underfed. But
school feeding may be so arranged that the parents are charged for
the meals at cost. Moreover, it is proposed to supply only breakfast
and dinner--meals which many proletarian parents are in any case
unable to take at home.
School feeding can be combined with instruction for the girls in
cooking and domestic economy. The meals may be given in the school,
which is the best plan, or in special institutions. The feeding of
school children must be kept entirely in the hands of the education
authorities; it has nothing to do with the poor-law, and it is
absolutely necessary that it should be kept completely distinct
from poor-law administration. (Who is to determine the children’s
need--the poor-law authorities or the school? The latter, in my
opinion; but this cannot always be done off-hand--in doubtful cases
a house-to-house visitation will be necessary.)
Quite recently it has been claimed that the feeding of children in
the public elementary schools should be entirely gratuitous--that
is to say, that food should be provided for well-to-do as well as
for necessitous children. This claim is supported by the following
arguments: (_a_) It is a logical consequence of universal free
education; (_b_) if school meals are provided for necessitous
children only, as if in relief of destitution, then, however
tactfully this may be done, parents and children alike feel ashamed
and suffer from a loss of self-respect. The following objections
are made to these views: (_a_) Feeding satisfies a natural need,
education a need peculiar to civilised man; (_b_) it is possible to
provide a suitable diet in the family circle, but not to provide
there a satisfactory education; (_c_) provided the feeding of the
children is general, no one need be ashamed, if those parents able to
pay have to pay, whilst the others are fed gratuitously. But these
objections are not worth further consideration.
There is not as yet any uniform and generally accepted system for the
feeding of school children; we find such feeding only in isolated
schools, and meals are provided for necessitous children only. The
actual results of the institution have been admirable. In England,
a law providing for the feeding of school children was passed in
the year 1906. But this did not introduce a general national system
of school feeding; the law was permissive merely, empowering the
poor-law authorities and education authorities to organise private
benevolence for this purpose, and, in the event of this latter
proving insufficient, allowing a limited expenditure of public funds.
The tendency of evolution is unquestionably in the direction of the
introduction of gratuitous and general school feeding. But in the
future, when the upbringing of children will be altogether better
than it is to-day, this institution will be unknown.
_Care of Young Persons after they leave School._--The necessity and
importance of supervising young persons after they leave school are
obvious from the fact that the period of the puberal development,
the period immediately after leaving the public elementary school,
and after passing from the family life to a life of freedom, is
the most dangerous of all periods in the life of children of the
poorer classes. The means to be employed for this purpose are the
following:--
(_a_) The institution of special homes for young persons, where
those with no regular homes of their own can board and lodge.
Connected with these it is well that there should be employment
bureaux and lists of recommended dwellings.
(_b_) The institution of places for the occupation and amusement of
apprentices and young workpeople of both sexes during their hours of
freedom.
(_c_) The arrangement of occupation for Sundays, amusing as well as
instructive.
(_d_) The organisation of the young. There are associations for young
people connected with the various religious bodies, also political
associations, and others without either religious or political
tendency; in addition, there are apprentices’ clubs. Within the
ranks of the socialists we find two opposing tendencies. Some wish
to found special socialist organisations for young people; others
contend that better work can be done within the limits of existing
organisations. The attempt is made to associate these movements with
the continuation schools; that is, an attempt is made to secure that
every large continuation school should have attached to it a young
persons’ home or institute.
(_e_) Advice as to the choice of a profession, in newspapers,
pamphlets, and books.
(_f_) The conduct of a campaign against harmful books and pictures.
This campaign has of late years aroused interest and obtained
support in wide circles. Of especial importance is the campaign
against filthy and obscene literature, for such literature has of
late years gained an extraordinarily wide diffusion, and effects the
deliberate corruption of children. It stimulates their imagination
unnaturally and leads it into false paths; it destroys their sense
of truth and reality. The children’s taste is perverted; they no
longer find pleasure in good literature, become inattentive in class,
and out of school hours rough and brutal. In so far as children
buy obscene books and pictures they waste their money. The most
important measures in the conduct of this campaign are: 1. Criminal
prosecutions; 2. The diffusion of really good books for young people;
3. The enlightenment of children and their parents concerning the
worthless and injurious character of the bad literature; 4. The
reasonable regulation of the pupils’ activity out of schools hours,
whereby the youthful impulse to adventure may be directed in the
right channels.
(_g_) The most important of all means of caring for young persons
after they leave school, and one which supports and reinforces all
the others we have enumerated, is the continuation school. 1. Owing
to the defective character of public elementary education, it is
necessary that it should be supplemented by continuing the child’s
education when it has passed the age of obligatory school attendance.
2. Before the child enters a free life, what it has learned at
school, much of which will already have been forgotten, requires
to be retaught; and this is all the more necessary in view of the
fact that at the elementary school, where the child was still very
young and lacked the faculty of full comprehension of many ideas,
it could not receive true instruction and enlightenment. 3. The
period of the passage from the family life and from the elementary
school into a life of freedom must not come too early, and requires
to be a period of transition, or the child is very apt to fall
into poverty or crime. 4. Since apprenticeship is tending to pass
away, it is necessary that children should be taught the elements
of a handicraft at school. Wage-earning women have, as a rule, had
neither apprenticeship nor technical training, so that they become
unskilled workers, and receive even smaller wages than unskilled
male labourers. 5. The training of working-class girls in domestic
economy is extremely defective. Since these girls have to work for
wages while still very young, they have neither time nor desire,
nor even opportunity, to study cooking and housekeeping; in a
working-class family possibilities for the study of domestic economy
are of necessity extremely limited, because so much of what is bought
is already prepared, and what is done at home is of an extremely
simple character. The working-class mother, engaged throughout the
day in arduous wage-labour, has neither time nor capacity for the
instruction of her daughter, so that the girl becomes habituated to
idleness. A special training both for wage-labour and for domestic
economy is requisite for girls, and especially for those of the
proletariat.
All these arguments combine to reinforce the need for the institution
of continuation schools. It is not the aim of these schools to
prepare their pupils for work in special branches of industry, but
their spirit is a much more practical one than that of the elementary
schools. Almost without exception, they are purely secular, and
give no religious instruction. They must lay great emphasis upon
the need that the children should be habituated to care regularly
for their bodies and their health. In addition to the general
continuation schools, there exist industrial continuation schools
or schools of apprenticeship. The former are mostly in the hands of
the education authorities, whilst the latter are controlled by the
boards supervising commerce and industry (_Gewerbebehörden_). In
agricultural districts, schools of this latter order take the form of
schools of agriculture.
The advocates of the emancipation of women demand the institution
of continuation schools for girls in especial. Such schools must
naturally give the first place to the teaching of domestic economy;
but many consider that they should also give instruction in the
main principles of education, and especially regarding the care of
infants. (Special schools of domestic economy and of cooking already,
of course, exist.) Many demand that these subjects should receive
special attention in the public elementary schools; but it should
suffice here if in the teaching of other subjects the bearing of
these upon domestic economy and the conduct of life is explained,
in so far as this comports with the main object of the course of
instruction. Objections have been raised by many to the effect that
the girls are too young to be taught domestic economy to any good
purpose. But experience teaches the contrary. The results of teaching
domestic economy have been so satisfactory that it is proposed to
make it an essential part of the curriculum.
Continuation schools are not regarded with universal favour. In
fact, their existence offers a certain hindrance to the exploitation
of the working powers of the young, and this is disagreeable, not
only to factory owners and manual workers, but for the time being
is distasteful to many proletarian parents. These schools turn out
workers who can compete successfully with the older generation of
unskilled labourers. In spite of these objections, continuation
schools become ever more important and more widely diffused, tending
more and more to become an invariable supplement to the public
elementary school. Of late years, in many countries, attendance at
continuation schools has been made compulsory, especially attendance
at schools of apprenticeship in the case of children who fail to
attend the middle schools. To make attendance at a continuation
school obligatory is an unmistakable tendency of evolution.
_The Tendency of Evolution._--The public elementary school becomes
continually more uniform in character; it tends, that is to say,
to become the common school for all children of a certain age,
irrespective of the wealth or position of their parents, and to
lay the foundation upon which will build all middle and higher
educational institutions. Schools of this character are already to
be found in Denmark and in the United States of America. The public
elementary school need not necessarily give religious instruction.
Since the schools administered by the religious organisations are
of comparatively little value, it is necessary that the public
elementary school should be open to all children, irrespective
of their creed. A further step in development is for the public
elementary school to abandon its inappropriate efforts to give
religious instruction.
Private schools are only for the children of the well-to-do. In the
majority of _Gemeindeschulen_ a conservative and narrowly orthodox
religious spirit prevails. A proportion of the local authorities
are unwilling or unable to make the material sacrifices requisite
for the proper carrying on of the elementary schools, and for this
reason these schools vary greatly in efficiency. To prove this, it
suffices, in various countries, to compare the State schools with the
_Gemeindeschulen_, and the town schools with the village schools.
It is absolutely essential that it should be established on principle
that every child, not excepting the children of the well-to-do, must
attend a public elementary school, and that neither attendance at a
private school nor private domestic instruction can be accepted in
lieu of such attendance--if only for the reason that not until this
obligation is universally enforced will the richer classes acquire
a genuine interest in the public elementary schools. To this it is
objected that the elementary schools are already overcrowded, that
their hygienic conditions are unsatisfactory, and that the society
of the poorer children would not be good for the richer ones. But
if all this is true, the only reasonable conclusion we can draw is,
that it is time that these defects in the public elementary school
were abolished. If, for the reasons given, the elementary school
is unsuitable for the children of the well-to-do, it is no less
unsuitable for the children of the poor. For the rest, each child
is influenced by all the others. The rich child may learn much that
is beautiful and good from the poor one, the latter often learns
much that is evil and hateful from the former. The children of the
well-to-do must learn in their earliest youth to know the people,
for it is their mission to lead and they must accustom themselves to
intercourse with the people.
The national system for elementary education must be extended so as
to become as comprehensive and as actual as possible. The tendency of
evolution is towards the institution of a public elementary school
truly general, truly national, secular, and uniform in character.
Such a school is the school of the future.
_C._--DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL LAW
CHAPTER I
CRIMINALITY IN YOUTH
_Introductory._--The foundations of the classical criminal law have
been shattered. New ideas begin to prevail, new institutions appear
and develop. The old criminal law will soon altogether disappear. In
harmony with the general tendency of evolution, whereby our whole
legal system tends to become an affair of local administration,
criminal law tends to be transformed even more rapidly than
other branches of law into a department of local administrative
activity. We are to-day in the period of transition, in which this
transformation is being effected. The aim of medical science is
not merely to cure individual cases of disease, but to prevent the
origination, recurrence, and diffusion of disease. Criminal law has
similar aims, its highest aim of all being, not to punish, but to
prevent crime. It regards as of primary importance, not individual
liberty, but the interest of society, and it considers, not the
crime, but the criminal. The transformation that is going on is
further advanced in some portions of criminal law than it is in
others. The most advanced portion of all is the one which concerns
youthful criminals.
_The Causes of Criminality in Youth._--The three causes of criminal
offences are: (_a_) inherited predisposition; (_b_) bad educational
influences; (_c_) poverty. (The climatic and physiological causes of
criminality are of little importance, and are, essentially, social
causes.)
(_a_) According to the theory of the “born criminal,”[6] most
youthful criminals are born criminals. The view is correct to this
extent only, in so far as a certain proportion--by no means a large
one--of youthful criminals are born criminals; but many youthful
criminals, although they have come into the world physically,
mentally and morally degenerate, are not for this reason necessarily
to be regarded as born criminals. To-day more degenerate individuals
are born than formerly. It is more probable that the children of
persons suffering from syphilis, tuberculosis, and alcoholism, and
the children of prostitutes and criminals, will become criminals,
than the children of sound individuals. We find, in fact, that a
notably large proportion of all criminals are the offspring of
persons of the former classes.
(_b and c_) The children of the proletariat tend to be much rougher,
and are much more inclined to become criminals than the children of
the well-to-do. Among young proletarians, we find more criminals than
among adults. The towns are the true breeding-grounds of youthful
criminals. To-day vagrant children in the streets are as constant
a feature of town life as the street-lamps. The conditions of
proletarian life make the proper upbringing of children impossible at
the best of times. All the more is it impossible when the conditions
are bad, as when crime, prostitution, and alcoholism prevail in the
family circle. The principal cause of youthful criminality is to be
found in the very character of proletarian family life, which makes
education impossible, and often forces the child into a career of
crime. It is well known that a considerable proportion of proletarian
children receive no schooling at all--that is, they grow up unable
to read and write, and a large number of criminals and prostitutes
are made up of such illiterates. A notable proportion of youthful
criminals are recruited from the class of wage-earning children,
and these latter are almost all proletarians, and most of them
have been forced to adopt wage-labour in very early youth. A foul
dwelling-place contaminates the mind as well as the body; an enormous
preponderance of proletarian children live in such contaminating
surroundings. A principal cause of youthful criminality is to be
found in the direct influence of poverty, _i.e._ poverty operating
otherwise than through the education and environment. However well
educated a child may have been, it must steal when starving and
freezing. Poverty forces children to adopt a course of action which
may enable them to satisfy their immediate and most pressing needs.
About half of the girls who go wrong become prostitutes; about half
of the boys in similar case become thieves.
The study of the child-psyche throws light upon the age at which
children are especially liable to commit punishable offences, and
upon the character of these. The character of the punishable offences
committed by children is a natural consequence of the child-nature,
whose especial characteristics are impulsiveness and acquisitiveness.
It is chiefly on this account that among the punishable offences
committed by children, theft is the most frequent, and next to
this comes bodily injury. Punishable offences requiring strength,
adroitness, or deliberation can hardly be undertaken by children.
Sexual offences are committed by those children only in whom the
sexual life is already awakening. Grievous bodily harm is effected
only by those whose bodily strength is fully developed. Complicated
criminal offences can be undertaken by children only when they
possess special experience and training. Younger children commit
fewer punishable offences than older ones, and different offences,
their capacity being less, and their opportunities more limited. The
suggestive influence of the adult criminal is very great; he exploits
the youthful criminal, and by threats and chastisement forces him
into criminal courses. During the nineteenth century, the number of
criminals, of recidivists, of punishable offences, and the gravity of
these latter, has increased to a greater extent than the population.
The number of offences against public order, and of crimes against
the person, has indeed diminished, but the number of crimes against
property, and of offences against morality, has disproportionately
increased. The number of the most serious crimes is smaller, but the
number of relapses into crime has greatly increased.
During the nineteenth century, the number of juvenile criminals has
also increased. The glitter of the industrial development of the
nineteenth century has to be paid for in large part by the gigantic
increase in juvenile criminality. In all the civilised countries
of Europe, with the exception of England, there has been an
extraordinary increase in the number of youthful criminals, and in
the number of punishable offences committed by them, this increase
being greater than the increase in the number of criminals and of
criminal offences in general. In the case of juvenile criminals,
there has also been an increase in the number of habitual offenders,
as well as in the gravity of the punishable offences. Perhaps the
most important difference between the older criminality and the
newer, is that to-day the juvenile criminal and the habitual offender
are more in evidence. Unquestionably these two phenomena are closely
associated, for the great majority of professional criminals are
persons whose first criminal offence was committed during childhood
or youth. At the present day, in all the civilised countries of
Europe, about 25 per cent. of all punishable offences are committed
by young persons.
The following are some of the causes of the increase in juvenile
criminality. The character of many of the offences customary in
former days--for instance, robbery in the streets and highways by
footpads and highwaymen--was such as to render it impossible for
children to undertake them. Great towns, in whose streets and suburbs
children could wander about, and in which it is comparatively easy
for them to commit punishable offences, did not exist. Moreover,
children begin to work for a living at an earlier age than in
former times. The application of draconian laws, under which even
little children suffered corporal and capital punishment, exercised
a deterrent influence. Since the end of the eighteenth century
punishments have become much milder. A large proportion of criminal
offences are to-day more lucrative, easier to carry out, and less
risky than in former times. Youthful criminality is probably far
more extensive than the official records show, for these latter take
no account of petty offences. Many punishable offences never become
known outside the limits of the family. In view of the offenders’
youth, reports are often suppressed.
_The Classical Criminal Law._--It is characteristic of the classical
criminal law that criminal offences committed by children were either
left unpunished, or, if punished, were punished less severely
than the offences of adults. In the classical criminal law several
age-classes were distinguished among juvenile criminals. (_a_)
Children too young to understand that an offence is punishable, and
for this reason liable neither to prosecution nor to punishment.
In existing legislative systems, the age at which criminal
responsibility is supposed to begin varies greatly; it may be as
low as seven, and as high as fifteen years. (_b_) The second class
consists of those children of an age at which criminal responsibility
is supposed to have begun. If such a child commits a punishable
offence, it is examined as to whether it possesses the necessary
understanding of the punishable nature of the offence. If it is
considered not to possess this understanding, no punishment is
inflicted. The punishment is, in any case, less severe than that
which would be inflicted upon an adult. To this class belong children
at ages from seven to eighteen years. (_c_) The third age-class
consists of offenders over eighteen years of age, who are regarded as
necessarily possessed of an understanding of the punishable character
of their offence, but in whom also the punishment is less severe than
it would be if they were of full age.
_Gradual Transformation of the Classical Criminal Law._--In the
nineteenth century the provisions of the classical criminal law no
longer meet the case of juvenile criminality. Their inefficiency is
demonstrated by the enormous proportion of recidivists among juvenile
offenders. The number of recidivists continually increases, and
criminality tends more and more to be the work of habitual offenders.
Indeed, the criminal, in most cases, continues to repeat the very
offence for which he was first punished. This is especially true of
offences against property. The oftener anyone has been punished, the
greater is the probability that he will commit another offence, and
the sooner is this likely to take place. In reality the frequency of
recidivism is even greater than appears from the official statistics.
These relate to those persons only who are regarded as recidivists by
the existing laws. They take no account of how many individuals leave
the country after their first conviction for a criminal offence.
An examination of these facts, and the study of the child-mind,
have led to the conclusion that criminality in youth is the main
source of the general stream of criminality, and that we cannot
depend upon our present methods of dealing with crime and criminals
to dry up this source. Hence even the dogmatists are coming more
and more to admit the failures of the classical criminal law, and
to recommend that mere punitive methods should give place to the
educative treatment of criminal offenders, punishment being used,
if at all, only as an educative influence. Even in those countries
which lag behind the rest in development, this conception begins
to influence legislation. This conviction that youthful offenders
require not punishment, but education, was acquired by mankind many
decades before it was generally realised that it is equally true of
adult criminals--that they should not be punished, but improved,
or, if unimprovable, rendered harmless. It is understood that those
punishments only can be justified which exercise a lasting educative
influence, by removing the child from its former environment into
a better and healthier one. It is recognised that the difference
between punishment and education is not absolute, but relative
merely, inasmuch as education cannot dispense entirely with punitive
methods, and punishment, properly utilised, exercises an educative
influence. It is also now understood that by the proper legal
treatment of youthful criminal offenders, many thousands of children
can be saved every year from the permanent adoption of a career of
crime, and their working powers thus preserved for the community.
This was seen first of all, where it more especially applies, in
the case of manufacturing towns. For the reformation of criminal
and neglected youth by educational methods, the first steps were
taken, and taken most effectively, by the country in which the modern
manufacturing system first made its appearance--England, to wit. At
the present day it is the great manufacturing countries, England,
Belgium, France, and the United States of America, in which most is
done in this regard.
_Special Legislation Dealing with Youthful Criminals._--It is to that
portion of the newer criminal law which concerns youthful criminals
that the dogmatists object most strongly. They complain that it
endangers very seriously personal liberty and parental authority.
There are many who argue to-day against coercive reformatory
education, on the ground that personal freedom and parental authority
should be inviolable. We even find some who attack modern ideas
from the standpoint of various legal theories. Such persons tell us
that coercive reformatory education interferes more than punishment
with the child’s individual liberty, and that it absolutely ignores
parental authority. The criminal authorities have absolutely no
right, in their view, to supervise a child’s education, but merely
to punish it or to set it at liberty. But this portion of modern
criminal jurisprudence does not aim merely at the suppression of
juvenile criminality. It is likewise an experimental laboratory, as
it were, for the testing of new institutions, the success or failure
of which is eagerly awaited by criminal jurists. If any institution
thus tested proves successful, its application is immediately
extended to other portions of the criminal law. In the United States
of America, for example, the method which has been found successful
in the case of juvenile offenders is now being applied in the case
also of young adult criminals.
_Proposals Bearing on the Question of Criminal Responsibility at
Different Ages._--(_a_) A radical proposal for reform is that the
distinction between juvenile and adult criminals should be abolished,
and that, instead, criminals should be classified simply as educable
or non-educable. This proposal is impracticable. In consequence
of the application of the principles of individualisation and
classification, the distinctions between the various age-classes of
criminals become, indeed, of less and less importance. There may even
be a little truth in the assertion that in a large country, owing
to racial and climatic differences, no uniform classification of
offenders according to ages can be adopted. And yet the definition
of age-limits in the case of criminal offenders is indispensable. In
a few cases such distinction may render the appropriate treatment of
offenders more difficult, but in the great majority of instances they
facilitate the work of judges and magistrates, and afford a means of
individualisation.
(_b_) Liability to punishment is almost universally regarded as
beginning, at the earliest, at the age of fourteen. This is the
period of the commencement of the puberal development, of the
cessation of school attendance, when the child passes from the life
of the family and the school to a life in the open, and becomes
competent to work for a living.
(_c_) Many writers demand that the period of nonage, as far as
criminal responsibility is concerned, should be extended. They do
so on these grounds. The physical development of the individual is
not completed till the age of twenty-three or thereabouts. It is
inconsistent that one who is still a minor from the point of view
of civil law should be regarded as of full age from the point of
view of criminal law. Civil law is an affair merely for the owning
and well-to-do classes; criminal law arises mainly in consequence
of poverty. Hence we may say that in general civil law is created
for the former class, and criminal law for the latter. There is
certainly at any rate an appearance of class-justice in the assertion
that those belonging to the poorer classes at eighteen are mature
enough to be sent to jail, whilst those belonging to the well-to-do
classes are incompetent to make a binding legal engagement to pay
half-a-sovereign until they are twenty-one or twenty-four years
of age. But the proposal is impracticable. Its adoption would
undoubtedly involve grave dangers to public order, since the
age-class of persons from eighteen to twenty-one is characterised
by a high and a serious criminality-rate. The result of educative
measures in the case of young criminals of such an age is not a very
great one, for the formation of the character is by this time far
advanced. To extend the age for a coercive reformatory education
to include the last years of civil minority would be devoid of any
justification upon accepted legal principles. There is no reason why
the period of criminal nonage should coincide with the civil. In
the first place, a much higher degree of intellectual capacity is
requisite to the understanding of a transaction in civil law than to
the understanding of the punishable character of an offence. In the
second place, a punishable offence is also an offence against public
order, but matters of civil law usually concern individuals only. In
the third place, as regards the capacity also for infringements of
the civil law, narrower limits are imposed than in the case of the
capacity to enter into a bargain.
_The Defects of our Present Penal Methods._--The punishments imposed
by our present penal system are quite unmeaning. Not only do they
exercise no educative influence, but they even hinder education.
In the case of children they are not deterrent, first, because
children act on impulse, and, secondly, because they have no accurate
conception of the nature of these punishments. To many children
imprisonment seems the same sort of thing as being “kept in” at
school, and they quite fail to recognise its seriousness. Punishment
by fine is supposed to make the offender suffer in proportion to the
suffering he has inflicted by his offence. But how can the judge
or magistrate, above all where children are concerned, accurately
estimate the fine necessary to achieve this result? The difficulties
of rightly apportioning the punishment are equally formidable in the
matter of imprisonment as in the matter of fine.
(_a_) In the punishment of juvenile offenders, in modern times, the
fine is really altogether inapplicable. Ninety per cent. of juvenile
offenders are altogether without means. What does a fine matter to
one for whom it is paid by another? Young people, as a rule, do not
yet understand the value of money. If the offender is a person of
property, then he has no occasion to dread a fine; or even if the
fine were proportionate to his means, the juvenile offender would not
understand its significance until after he had attained his majority.
But we cannot depend upon the efficacy of a punishment which does not
become effective as punishment until after the lapse of years. If the
juvenile offender has to pay the fine out of his wages, he loses all
desire for work. The majority of youthful offenders belong to the
poorer classes, and are not in a position to pay the fine themselves.
The parents will give their child a lecture if they have to pay the
fine, but this will by no means attain the object of the punishment.
Moreover, if the relatives pay the fine, they are unjustly punished,
and may revenge themselves on the child.
(_b_) Punishment by imprisonment costs the State millions of money
every year, and yet does no good. It is not possible, everywhere
and always, to separate the young prisoners from the adults,
although it is absolutely essential that this should be done. A
society, such as that of the prison, in which the worst are the most
respected, and in which the innocent are despised and corrupted,
is not suitable for young persons. If the juvenile offender is
kept in isolation, his mental health will suffer; moreover, his
loneliness impels him to seek the society of the other prisoners,
and the greatest possible care will not succeed in preventing such
association. It is maintained by some that imprisonment exercises a
deterrent influence upon children, and that a coercive reformatory
education does not. But the reverse of this is true. Not even the
longest term of imprisonment which can be inflicted for juvenile
crime will be found to exercise a deterrent influence; and it is
the custom of the courts, in the case of juvenile offenders, to
inflict, not the maximum, but the minimum sentence permissible
by the law. The child is not afraid of the prison, because it is
better treated there than outside; in prison it receives shelter,
food, clothing, and warmth without having to pay anything, without
having to work hard, and without being ill-treated. But the child
is afraid of a coercive reformatory education: in prison the child
is apathetic, its life being meaningless and without aim; but the
working discipline associated with a coercive reformatory education
is regarded by the child as a much more serious matter, being new
and strange, needing continuous attention, constant diligence, and
hard work. For many proletarian parents, to commit their child to
prison is an alleviation; the parents then have one trouble the less,
and the family income goes a little farther. Imprisonment brands a
child. When it has served its time, employment is often extremely
hard to obtain, for most employers very naturally dread that such a
child will commit another criminal offence while in their employ.
The child, finding it impossible to earn an honest living, is forced
into the paths of habitual crime. Young people, much more readily
than adults, accustom themselves to new conditions of life. In view
of this fact, there is great danger that the youthful offender will
become altogether indifferent to imprisonment; that the punishment
will induce a condition of immunity to its effects. A child which
has been once in prison is likely to become a recidivist, if only
for the reason that it will now have lost the dread of prison which
it had in the days before its first offence was committed. We learn
from statistics that the majority of youthful offenders are sentenced
to short terms of imprisonment. They regard these with the greatest
indifference, and are not in the least afraid of them. Such short
terms of imprisonment do not protect society; and the possibility
of their exercising any educative influence is excluded by the
fact that since the term of imprisonment is short, and the cost of
transport considerable, the child will be confined in the nearest
prison, instead of being sent to some special and suitable place of
confinement. Many children are even pleased at being sent to prison,
regarding their sentence as a desirable interlude in school work.
This difficulty is not met by postponing the term of imprisonment to
the holiday season. The child leaves prison to return to school. If
it is despised by its schoolmates, it sinks lower; if it is regarded
as a hero, the effect is no less corrupting.
Imprisonment for a child must take no other form than that of
education under strict discipline. If a short term of imprisonment
is ordered, solitary confinement is essential. If a child must be
sent to prison, the use of the common prison is inadmissible, and
a children’s wing in a general prison is hardly better; a special
prison for children is essential, if only for the reason that, unless
we have a comparatively large number of young persons assembled
together, it is more difficult to arrange for the proper distribution
of occupations (manual work of various kinds).
From these considerations we may draw the following conclusions:
Society stands quietly by, waiting until juvenile criminals grow
up and begin to commit serious offences. Our prisons are the true
high schools of criminality. The present prison system is the most
effective factor in the production of crime; to such an extent is
this true, that if we discharge a juvenile offender with a caution,
there is less likelihood that he will commit another criminal offence
than if we had sent him to prison. The accuracy of these views is
now more and more widely recognised; and in the case of juvenile
offenders, imprisonment, formerly the rule, is now quite exceptional.
_The Question of the Capacity for Understanding the Punishable
Character of Criminal Offences._--The notion of the capacity for
understanding the punishable character of criminal offences is
unworkable in practice. It considers the intellectual element only,
whereas in children we have to distinguish between intellectual
maturity and moral. Intellectual maturity is commonly attained
earlier than moral, and intellectual maturity alone should not render
the child liable to punishment. Often a child is mature enough to
distinguish what is allowed from what is forbidden, but is not yet
strong enough to refrain from the latter course. The most striking
example of this is to be found in the case of young proletarians, in
whom, in consequence of their premature contact with the manifold
factors of life, the mental development is often premature to an
astonishing degree, but this intellectual precocity stands contrasted
with conspicuous moral immaturity. It is hard to determine what
factors have to be taken into consideration in deciding whether a
child has attained intellectual and moral maturity. It is essential
to examine--(_a_) whether the child has an accurate conception of
the nature of punishment; (_b_) whether it understands what legal
principle is infringed or threatened by its act; (_c_) whether it
possesses such a degree of moral maturity that, through possession of
the conception alluded to in section (_a_), and of the understanding
alluded to in section (_b_), it was competent to refrain from the
criminal offence.
In the case of almost all punishable offences another solution of
this problem is possible. The more serious the punishable offence,
the earlier the age at which a child is competent to understand its
character. But, in many cases, it is an obvious inference that a
child which from absurd motives has committed so serious an offence
cannot possibly possess the requisite moral maturity. Moreover, the
three factors we have mentioned cannot be accurately defined. In
maturity there are many degrees and stages, passing imperceptibly
one into another, and exceedingly difficult to differentiate. The
decision of this question will therefore be the work of experts,
who will have to keep the child under observation for months. It
follows that a decision as to criminal responsibility based upon
an understanding of the punishable nature of an offence is, of
necessity, and in every case, uncertain and unequal.
To-day, in legal proceedings where juvenile offenders are concerned,
remarkable incidents occur. For example, the judge or magistrate
asks the child to repeat the ten commandments and the catechism.
If the child can do this, it is supposed to possess the requisite
understanding. It is left quite out of consideration that the child
has probably learned the commandments by rote, without understanding
them in the least. Or, again, the judge makes the child describe
the act it has committed, and then asks, “Do you know that such
acts are punishable?” But in the proceedings in court the child has
been made well aware of the fact that it has committed a punishable
offence, and yet it may not have known this at the time the offence
was committed. In the case of the offences with which the enormous
majority of juvenile offenders are charged, namely, theft, fraud,
and bodily injury, a knowledge of the punishable character of
these offences is apt habitually to be assumed by the courts. This
assumption is justified, but it suffices to show the impracticability
of the conception.
_The School._--The proposal has been made that when petty offences
are committed by children of school age, the school should deal
with the matter; and that only when a more serious offence has been
committed should the case go before the law-courts. In proportion to
the seriousness of the case, the punishment should be apportioned
by the class-master, by the head-master and class-master together,
or by the united teaching faculty. The suggested punishments are--a
reprimand, task-work, sitting on the punishment form, being kept in
after school hours, corporal punishment, &c. Investigation by other
authorities is not to be regarded as superfluous, but in minor cases
it will suffice to leave the whole matter in the hands of the school
authorities. The following reasons are given for this proposal. In
the case of petty offences, the tedious and laborious intervention
of the criminal authority is quite uncalled for. It may even be said
that we misuse and make light of the criminal authority, when we
invoke the aid of this gigantic apparatus, and as a result of this
the child is discharged with a hardly perceptible punishment. If the
State undertakes to deal with all petty offences, it is left no time
for the proper consideration of the graver and more important ones.
The aim in view can be attained by less expensive and less elaborate
means.
These considerations notwithstanding, this proposal can be approved
only to this extent, that in the case of juvenile offences which
do not render necessary a coercive reformatory education, it will
suffice that the child should be punished by its parents or by the
school authorities.
_The Reprimand._--Some contend that it is in many cases sufficient
for the court to administer a suitable reprimand. But, owing to the
peculiarities of the child-psyche, the influence of the reprimand is
extremely fugitive. A child so readily forgets. It has not as yet any
accurate conception of honour, and completely fails to understand
that it is dishonoured by the reprimand. As in the case of any other
punishment, the reprimand can as a rule only be administered after
the offence has been proved, and the offender sentenced; hence, there
is so long an interval between the act and its punishment, that the
reprimand becomes quite ineffective, and is in fact no more than an
empty formality. Moreover, there are objections on principle against
utilising the reprimand as a method of punishment, so that its use is
possible only in exceptional cases.
_Flogging._--Many persons consider that in the case of certain
offences, especially such as betray the existence of a rough
disposition, a flogging is the best punishment. But the fact
that England, which holds the leadership in the movement for
child-protection, continues to employ flogging as a punishment, and
the fact that Denmark introduced flogging as a punishment only a few
years ago (since then, however, abolished), prove nothing. For the
reasons given in an earlier chapter, flogging must be regarded as
an excessively noxious method of punishment, and must not even be
employed as a disciplinary measure in reformatory schools and prisons.
_The Conditional Sentence._--The nature of the conditional sentence
is that, conviction having been effected, the sentence is passed, but
does not take effect, unless the offender commits another punishable
offence; should he fail to do this, he is, by many legal codes,
still classed as a non-punished person. The conditional sentence is
distinguished from a conditional pardon by the fact that in the case
of the latter the punishment is disallowed, not by the court, but in
virtue of the right of pardon vested in the higher authority of the
government. The conditional sentence is of dubious value in the case
of juvenile offenders, because young persons very readily forget; and
in the event of their committing a second offence, they now incur
a double punishment. Considerations of jurisprudence compel us to
regard the conditional pardon also as a measure of dubious value.
In the United States of America probation is employed. This is a
postponement of the sentence--that is to say, not a conditional
sentence, nor a conditional release from punishment, nor even a
postponement of punishment. In this way it is hoped that condemnation
and punishment of the child will be altogether avoided. The court,
at its free discretion, can commit the child to a reformatory
without having first passed sentence. If the child does not mend
its ways, it is brought up for judgment, and sentence is passed.
The system is an unmistakable improvement upon the unconditional
sentence. But the conditional sentence can be imposed upon such terms
that it is associated with a protective supervision, and that the
conditionally-remitted punishment will be reimposed, not only in the
event of the commission of a fresh criminal offence, but also in the
event of general misconduct.
The European system of conditional remission of punishment consists
in a conditional release of the prisoner after he has served a
portion of his sentence. If he makes a good use of his freedom,
the remainder of his punishment is entirely remitted, but if he
misconducts himself he must return to prison and serve out his term.
Release on parole in the United States of America is distinguished
from this system by the fact that in the former case, after its
release, the child remains subject to educative supervision; and
it is distinguished from probation by the fact that in the case
of probation a portion of the punishment, or of the reformatory
education, as the case may be, has already been undergone.
Probation and release on parole are preferable to the European
system; for from this last, since it is not associated with any
serious attempt at educative supervision, no particular good can be
expected. It is eminently desirable that the criminal legislation
of every civilised State should adopt these systems of probation
and parole, with whatever modifications may be found necessary in
individual countries; and the tendency of evolution is unmistakably
in this direction. In the majority of the States of the American
Union, the probationary system is in force, and in many of these
States it is applicable even in the case of adults. In most of those
States in which it is in force, it is associated with the system of
Children’s Courts; but in a few these Courts are as yet unknown.
_The Indeterminate Sentence._--In Europe, in view of the sacred
character of individual liberty, it is the general opinion that
the law courts should have no power to sentence an offender to
imprisonment for anything but a definitely fixed term. But this
system is in direct contradiction with the object of the punishment.
The criminal is to be regarded as an abnormal, diseased individual,
whose punishment must last until he is cured. He must for the most
part be treated as we treat one suffering from mental disorder, who
is committed to an asylum for an indeterminate period. The work
undertaken by the State in respect of the majority of criminals is
to effect their physical and moral cure. It is therefore absurd on
the face of the matter to specify beforehand a precise period within
which the cure must be completed. It is quite impossible for the
judge, when passing sentence, to determine how long it will take
to attain the desired end. When and if that end is attained can be
determined only by those to whom is entrusted the administration
of the punishment--persons continuously, and for a long period,
associated with the prisoner. The duration of the punishment must
depend, not upon the offender’s conduct at the time the offence
was committed, but upon his conduct after he has been sentenced.
When an offender is serving out a fixed sentence, the only thing
that interests him is how much of the period he has got through,
and how much still remains before him. But when the sentence is
indeterminate, it will be his whole-hearted endeavour to conduct
himself in such a way, to effect such an improvement, as to obtain
his release.
At the present day, there is no country in which sentences are
altogether indeterminate. Even in the United States of America, where
the indeterminate sentence prevails, a maximum term is specified
for the prisoner’s detention. The greater this maximum, the more
powerful will be the effect of the indeterminate sentence. The
younger the prisoner, the more powerful also will be the effect of
the indeterminate sentence, for the younger the prisoner, the more
has he to expect from life. In America the experience of the working
of the indeterminate sentence has been so satisfactory, that there
is a general desire that the specified maximum sentence should be
completely abolished. But as yet the efforts in this direction have
been unsuccessful.
In the case of juvenile offenders, the arguments in favour of the
indeterminate sentence are even more powerful than in the case of
adults. The aim of imprisonment is to exercise an educative influence
upon the child, and it is impossible to determine beforehand how long
a time will be required to complete the necessary education. The
indispensable foundation of every sound penal system for juvenile
criminals is the institution of the indeterminate sentence. We find,
in fact, that in the United States of America the reformatory system
is inseparably associated with the indeterminate sentence; and in
many European countries, when a child is sent to a reformatory, no
definite term is specified beforehand.
_Should Punishment be Rendered more Severe._--The classical legal
system is defective. But to many it appears that its present failures
depend upon the excessive mitigation of punishment; such persons
contend that we can expect a diminution of crime only if we render
punishments more severe. Many even demand the reintroduction of
corporal punishment. More severe sentences are indispensable in
the case of the habitual criminal; but in the case of occasional
criminals and juvenile criminals, no good results are to be expected
from any such measure.
_The Coercive Reformatory Education of Youthful Criminals._--The
coercive reformatory education of youthful criminals has in
essentials the same character as the compulsory education enforced
by the ordinary processes of the civil law. Its central idea is the
following. The child which for one reason or another stands in need
of a coercive reformatory education, whether that need is manifested
by the commission of some punishable offence or in any other way,
and whether the need arises in consequence of neglect on the part of
the child’s parents or in consequence of that of some other person
or persons, must receive the education it needs. The child that
requires a coercive reformatory education because it has committed
a punishable offence does not differ in any important respects from
a child which has not committed any such offence, but is in a state
of neglect. The latter child also should be subjected to a coercive
reformatory education; on no account should we wait until it has
committed a punishable offence, and has in this way manifested its
neglected state in a manner that cannot be overlooked. Besides,
neglected children and juvenile criminals belong to the same class of
society, and in the case of both the need for a coercive reformatory
education arises out of like conditions. Thus, the question of
the coercive reformatory education of juvenile criminals is not
one appertaining merely to the province of criminal law, but, in
conjunction with the question of the coercive reformatory education
of neglected children, it is also a matter of civil law and local
administrative activity. The care of youthful criminals is, in the
first place, a matter for the local authorities that are responsible
for the care of neglected children--that is to say, for the Boards
of Guardianship [see note to page 74], and for the Poor Law Boards.
The education of juvenile criminals differs but little from the
education of the children cared for by the Poor Law authorities;
and thus the question arises whether the care of juvenile criminals
necessitates the existence of _ad hoc_ boards to administer this
special department of the criminal law.
Since the middle of the seventeenth century, it has been the
tendency to send troublesome juveniles to institutions; and at
the outset they were sent to poorhouses and workhouses to mingle
with adult vagabonds and prostitutes. Not until towards the end of
the eighteenth century did people begin to recognise that it was
essential to separate heterogeneous elements. But even at the present
day, in many countries, reformatories are so far from being worthy of
their name that, like prisons, they are schools of corruption. Many
reformatories have still the aspect and the organisation of barracks.
In such places the children are subjected to a rigid discipline. They
are managed very strictly, and yet the children are in some respects
better off than free workers of the same age; they are compelled to
be diligent, clean, and healthy. But their life is not truly living.
The children receive instruction, but no real education. They work,
but acquire no love for work. When they are discharged from the
reformatory they are even less inclined to work than they were when
they entered the institution; they are further corrupted, they renew
outside the unwholesome friendships they have contracted within the
walls, and commonly carry out, after they leave, the crimes they have
learned and planned during their stay at the “reformatory.”
In real advances in reformatory methods, England and the United
States of America have led the way. But in the case of the former
country, true progress in this respect dates only from the latter
half of the nineteenth century; and in the case of the latter
country, only from the year 1870. In other countries, even to-day,
sound ideas have found in this matter but little application. This
slow progress probably depends upon the difficulty of getting rid of
the influence of the older legal theories, and upon the difficulty of
assimilating the idea that a reformatory must be something totally
different from a prison.
_Institutional Education_ versus _Family Education_.--Which is
preferable, institutional education or family education? There is
much to be said on both sides of this question. Unquestionably,
in the case of juvenile criminals and neglected children the
advantages of family care are less conspicuous than they are in the
case of abandoned children. The accumulation, under one roof, of
children of the former categories involves the close approximation
of numerous injurious germs, which would less readily develop if
they were dispersed. Moreover, for such children it is even harder
to find suitable foster-parents than it is for those who are simply
abandoned. Few are willing to undertake the difficult task of
bringing up such children, and fewer foster-parents still are in a
position to give them a suitable upbringing. The strict handling they
require is much easier to enforce in an institution or a colony than
in an ordinary family. There is often good reason to be afraid that
the juvenile criminal or neglected child, if boarded with a family,
will corrupt the younger members of that family.
The problem must therefore be solved on the following lines: In
every case there should be a thorough medical examination of the
child, and a careful study of its educational acquirements and
capacities, and upon the results of this examination should be
based the decision whether this particular child can best be dealt
with in an institution or in a family. In making our decision we
should never lose sight of the principle that, except in the case
of the really bad children, the advantages of a family education
should as far as possible be given. Only in the case of children
with obstinate and unconquerable criminal tendencies is continuous
institutional care essential; for abnormal children, prolonged
curative educational treatment is requisite, as far as possible,
in institutions or colonies founded especially for this purpose.
The educational institution should be a place in which the pupils
undergo a thorough bodily and mental cleansing process. When this
has been effected, as soon as we have a right to assume that the
child could be received as an inmate by an ordinary family without
endangering the other children, then the sooner the child is removed
from the unnatural life of the institution to the natural life of the
family, the better will be its chances for the future. A reformatory
institution which is to attain its ends must have characteristics
resembling those of a modern foundling hospital. It must be a place
at which those children who, for one reason or another, have to leave
their foster-parents, can be received and cared for while another
suitable home is being found for them; it must be the centre of
supervision of the children placed in family care. It is true that
at a reformatory a child is deprived of personal liberty and remains
in the institution under compulsion, but the aim of the reformatory
is very different from that of the prison. The reformatory should
resemble, not a barrack, but a family--that is to say, the barrack
system (collective system) must find no place in the reformatory. The
institutional life must be as free as possible, and the child must be
treated as a member of a family.
Individual treatment and classification of the children are of great
importance. Special institutions are requisite for older children
and younger children, for those who are more and those who are less
corrupt, for those who need mild and for those who need strict
treatment. In accordance with this classification, the children must
be distributed in the various separate institutions. Unimprovable
children should not be received at all, for not only can we do them
no good, but their presence is harmful to the other children. It
is also necessary that there should be special institutions for
observation purposes, to enable us to decide which of the other
institutions is best adapted for the treatment of individual cases.
When they first enter the observational institution, children should
be isolated for a while, until they can be sent to an appropriate
section. In former times, grave mistakes were made in this matter of
individualisation. Routine treatment and equality of punishment for
all similar offences were justified with reference to the principle
of equality before the law. Even to-day, children still at times are
thrust into contact with the most dangerous elements, and even with
the refuse of human society, although this happens much less often
in reformatory institutions than in police cells, local prisons, or
workhouses. But in general, and especially in England, France, and
the United States of America, great stress is now laid upon proper
individualisation. In England, above all, do we find the attempt made
to secure that all the younger children should be sent to industrial
schools, and all the older children to reformatory institutions.
The aim of the reformatory is to improve the child. This is
equivalent to an endeavour to produce in the child an independent
spirit, and a capacity to provide for itself in a free life. This
can be done only by leaving the child a certain amount of freedom,
by cultivating its self-respect, and by doing all in our power to
put it upon its mettle. He only will be able to make his living who
possesses some definite capacity and is willing to work. For this
reason, the institution must take every care, not merely to accustom
the child to work in general, but also to render it competent in
some particular handicraft. Hence the child’s occupation in the
institution must not be either useless or depressing in character,
nor must it be of such a kind as only an adult can do properly; it
must be one suited to the powers and capacities of the child. In
the older institutions, which were badly conducted, the pupils were
engaged in useless and mind-destroying occupations. Owing to the fact
that these institutions were inadequately supplied with funds, the
work done was chosen, not because it was of any value to the inmates,
but simply because it could provide a contribution to the expenses
of maintenance. Unfortunately, even at the present day, on the
ground that it is within the rights of the State that a part of the
expenditure upon the inmates should be provided by the utilisation of
their labour-power, far too much stress is laid upon attempts to make
such institutions “self-supporting.”
The school instruction in reformatories should, in general, resemble
that which is given by the State to normal children outside. The main
points are, to provide a suitable elementary education, and to devote
a great deal of attention to the care of the body. The most difficult
class to deal with in reformatories is that of the habitual vagrants.
_Testing Reform._--How can the improvement we hope to effect in the
reformatory best be tested, and how can we best prepare for the
transition into a free life? In view of the fact that these problems
have been most completely solved in the United States of America,
it will suffice here to describe the systems in vogue in that
country. The indispensable preliminary to a successful reformatory
education is the indeterminate sentence. The child will not leave the
reformatory (presuming that the stipulated maximum term has not been
attained) to assume the full responsibilities of freedom, until it
has satisfactorily responded to the test of a probationary freedom.
When it first enters the reformatory the child is apathetic. But
before long it becomes aware of the significance of the indeterminate
sentence; it perceives that it will not obtain its discharge until it
has improved; and this induces a condition of nervous, yet salutary,
tension and disquiet. The indeterminate sentence thus exercises upon
the child a powerful influence, laying its fate to some extent in its
own hands, making hope in place of fear the most effective element of
its thought, and awakening the desire to effect improvement by means
of its own efforts.
We must not overlook the possibility that those who may secure
their discharge before they have served the maximum term of their
sentence may not necessarily be those who have truly and completely
reformed, but those who possess the greatest power of adaptation to
the conditions necessary to secure their release.
A system which in various forms constitutes an almost universal
feature in the conduct of American reformatories is known as the
“mark system,” or “merit system.” The nature of this system is that
every inmate is able, by earning a certain number of good marks,
allotted on account of general good behaviour, and of progress in
the school and the workshop respectively, to earn his release upon
probation. The numerical formalism of this system is counteracted by
an individual consideration and treatment of the pupils.
In the reformatory, we may endeavour to effect an improvement, and
may hope that we have done so; but it is impossible to be certain
that this end has been attained. While the child remains in the
institution, no one can tell if it has acquired the power of
overcoming the difficulties of the life of freedom. It is the period
immediately following the discharge from the reformatory which is the
most dangerous to the child. It is upon this period, above all, that
it depends whether the child will be successful in gaining a proper
place in society. For this reason, it is of fundamental importance
to find work for all those who are discharged from a reformatory;
indeed, they should only leave the reformatory to enter an assured
position. Every care must be taken, in seeking employment for those
about to be discharged, that we are not increasing the general
difficulty in obtaining work by overstocking the labour market. In
the reformatories of the United States, the difficulties of the
transition period are met by releasing the inmates on probation only,
for a time during which they are not only supported, but carefully
supervised. In the criminal law of European countries, the period
of punishment is at an end when the specified term of sentence has
expired. No such determinate sentence exists in the case of American
reformatories, for the maximum term of sentence usually extends
far beyond the end of the period of probationary release. What is
requisite is, that the definitive discharge from supervision and
control should only take place when the conduct during the term of
probationary release has been satisfactory, and when the duties
imposed have been faithfully performed. The child released on
probation must behave well, work diligently, and punctually and at
regular intervals report itself at the reformatory. Until the end of
the probationary period, it remains under the supervision and care of
the institution; the conditional release may at any time be revoked;
and the final discharge is not effected until the child has given
satisfactory proof of its fitness for a free life. The child released
on probation generally behaves very well, for it fully understands
that any misconduct would entail serious consequences, that it would
lose in a moment all that it has hitherto gained, that it would have
to return to the institution, and begin once more at the beginning
the struggle to secure its freedom.
Some of the reformatory schools of America are governed as child
republics, known as “Junior Republics.” In these the children
exercise self-government after the example of the Great Republic
itself, and the executive of the institution merely exercises a kind
of supervision. The greatest possible weight is thus given to the
educative influence of personal responsibility. Above all, the trial
and punishment of offences against the discipline of the reformatory,
by courts constituted by the inmates, works exceedingly well, because
the comrades know one another better than anyone else can. The
reformatory system of the United States of America meets with very
general approval. In Europe, indeed, it is said that the system is
too expensive, and that the inmates are treated too well. The view
we shall take upon this matter will depend upon our general opinion
as to how a reformatory should be organised and carried on. In the
United States of America, intercourse between man and man is free and
unrestrained, and the standard of life is higher than in Europe. Only
the improvable children are so well treated; the habitual offenders,
on the contrary, are subjected to a draconian régime. It is true
that in Europe the cost per child is less, but in view of the meagre
results obtained on this side of the Atlantic, the saving is apparent
merely.
The defects of the American system are the following. As soon as a
new political party gains a majority, and a new government therefore
comes into power, much of the official staff, including that of the
reformatories, is changed. Hence, the greater part of the staff
does not consist of persons who have devoted their life to the
improvement of children, but is composed mainly of persons without
proper professional training. But it is well known that the staff of
our European reformatories also lacks proper professional training in
respect of the hygiene and psychology of child life.