Now, "at long last," we are ready to enter the city proper. This is not
merely the Town of place and work and folk, even were this at their
economic best. It is not enough to add the School, even at its
completest; nor the cloister, though with this a yet greater step
towards the city proper is made. For though this is not itself the City,
its ideals of human relations, its theory of the universe and man, its
artistic expression and portrayal of all these, ever sooner or later
react upon the general view and conduct of life. Hence the Academe of
Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle, the mediaeval cloister and the modern
Research Institute, have been so fertile, so creative in their influence
upon the city's life, from which they seemed to be retired. Hence it is
ever some new combination of the threefold product of the
cloister--ideal, idea, and image--which transforms the world, which
opens each new epoch. Each new revelation and vision, each system of
thought, each new outburst of poetry and song, has moved the men of its
age by no mere mechanical pressure of economic need or external force,
by no mere scholastic instruction, but in a far subtler way, and into
new and unexpected groupings, as the [Page: 86] sand upon Chladon's
vibrating plate leaps into a new figure with each thrill of the
violinist's bow.
Instead of simply developing our morals from custom, and therefore
codifying them into law as in the school they are now boldly criticised,
as in part if not in whole, hindrances to a better state of things. As
this becomes more and more clearly formulated as an ideal, its ethic
transcendence of convention and law not only becomes clear, but the
desire for its realisation becomes expressed. This may be with all
degrees of clearness of reason and vividness of imagery, yet may remain
long or altogether in the plane of literature, as has Plato's Republic
or More's Utopia--standard and characteristic types of the cloister
library as we may call it, one of inestimable value to the world in the
past, and perhaps in our time needed as much as ever to help us to see
somewhat beyond the output of the busy presses of town and school. Yet
our ideal, our "Civitas Dei," "Civitas Solis," need not remain
unrealised: it may be not only seriously planned towards realisation, as
was Platonopolis of old, but bravely founded, as has been done in cases
without number, from the ancient world to modern communities, by no
means wholly unsuccessful. Though in our great industrial towns, our
long settled regions, such new departures seem less easy, the
principle remains valid--that it is in our ideal of polity and
citizenship, and in our power of realising this, that the city proper
has its conception and its birth. Again, instead of simply deriving our
thought from experience we now project our clarified thought into action
and into education; so that from cloister of philosophy, and from its
long novitiate of silence, there grows up the brotherhood of culture,
the culture city itself. Similarly in art, we no longer imitate nature,
nor copy traditional designs. Art proper appears, shaping bronze and
marble into images of the gods, and on a burnt and ruined hill-fort
renewing the Parthenon. In general terms, instead of simply adjusting,
as in the school, our mental picture to the outward facts, we reverse
the process; and with a new art conception, be it good or bad, we
transform the outward world, like wax under the seal. Thus from the
[Page: 88] cloister and chapel of the musician, the studio-cell of the
artist, the scriptorium of the poet, comes forth the architect,
remodelling the city around his supreme material expression and home of
its moral and material reorganisation, its renewed temporal and
spiritual powers. Of this, the city proper, the Acropolis of Athens, the
Temple of Jerusalem, the Capitol and Forum of Rome are classic and
central examples, and in the mediaeval city, pre-eminently the
cathedral; though beside this we must not forget the town house and its
belfry, the guild houses, the colleges, the great place, the fountains,
the city cross, and if last, still best if good at all, the streets and
courts and homes. Returning once more to the history of educational
development, we have here a means of unravelling the apparently
perplexing history of universities. For the university past or present
has but its foundations in the school, with its local and its general
tradition, whatever may be the accordance of these with well-ascertained
fact, its true novitiate can only be afforded in the cloister of
reflection and research, of interpretation and synthesis; while for its
full development it needs the perpetual renewal of that generous social
life--that inspiring intercourse "of picked adolescents and picked
senescents"--which has marked the vital periods of every university
worthy of the name.
Realisation in
ACROPOLIS }
CATHEDRAL } CITY
UNIVERSITY }
(EU)-POLITY
^
| CULTURE
| ^
Rise towards |
Formulation | ART
and Realisation, Rise through ^
through |
{ Politics { Action Rise to
{ Church Militant { Education expression
^ ^ ^
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | "IMAGERY"
| | AESTHETICS
| | (Beautiful)
SOCIAL. ECON. POL. "IDEAS"
^ SYNTHETICS
| (True)
"IDEALS"
ETHICS
(Good) Criticism, Selection,
Re-synthesis, in
HERMITAGE
ACADEME
CLOISTER, etc.
In summary then, to the town has been added the school, with its
advantages, its increasingly obvious limitations also, which it is for
the cloister to remedy--even the advantages of the barrack finding a
main element of its claim in this no less than in its professed training
as regards citizenship. But here also it is for few to remain, albeit
free for each to return at will. Ideals, to survive, must surely live,
that is, be realised; hence for full life one needs "to meditate with
the free solitary; yet to live secular, and serve mankind."
TOWN | CITY
FOLK | POLITY
|
WORK | CULTURE
|
PLACE | ART
-----------------------------+--------------------------------
SURVEY | IMAGERY
|
KNOWLEDGE | IDEAS
|
MORALS | SOC. ECON.
| IDEALS
LAW | ETHICS
SCHOOL | CLOISTER