CHAPTER XIII

THE NURSERY-SCHOOL

In previous chapters, I have tried to give an outline of what can be

done for the young child in the way of creating the habits which will

give happiness and usefulness in later life. But I have not discussed

the question whether parents are to give this training, or whether

it is to be given in schools designed for the purpose. I think the

arguments in favour of the nursery-school are quite overwhelming--not

only for children whose parents are poor, ignorant, and overworked,

but for all children, or, at the very least, for all children who live

in towns. I believe that the children at Miss Margaret McMillan’s

nursery-school in Deptford get something better than any children of

well-to-do parents can at present obtain. I should like to see the

same system extended to all children, rich and poor alike. But before

discussing any actual nursery-school, let us see what reasons there are

for desiring such an institution.

To begin with, early childhood is of immeasurable importance both

medically and psychologically. These two aspects are very closely

intertwined. For example: fear will make a child breathe badly, and

breathing badly will predispose it to a variety of diseases.[17] Such

interrelations are so numerous that no one can hope to succeed with a

child’s character without some medical knowledge, or with its health

without some psychology. In both directions, most of the knowledge

required is very new, and much of it runs counter to time-honoured

traditions. Take for example the question of discipline. The great

principle in a contest with a child is: do not yield, but do not

punish. The normal parent sometimes yields for the sake of a quiet

life, and sometimes punishes from exasperation; the right method, to

be successful, requires a difficult combination of patience and power

of suggestion. This is a psychological example; fresh air is a medical

example. Given care and wisdom, children profit by constant fresh air,

day and night, with not too much clothing. But if care and wisdom are

absent, the risk of chills from wet or sudden cold cannot be ignored.

Parents cannot be expected to possess the skill or the leisure required

for the new and difficult art of dealing with young children. In

the case of uneducated parents, this is obvious; they do not know

the right methods, and if they were taught them they would remain

unconvinced. I live in an agricultural district by the sea, where

fresh food is easy to obtain, and there are no extremes of heat or

cold; I chose it largely because it is ideal for children’s health.

Yet almost all the children of the farmers, shopkeepers, and so on,

are pasty-faced languid creatures, because they are indulged in food

and disciplined in play. They never go to the beach, because wet feet

are thought dangerous. They wear thick woollen coats out-of-doors even

in the hottest summer weather. If their play is noisy, steps are taken

to make their behaviour “genteel”. But they are allowed to stay up

late, and are given all kinds of unwholesome tit-bits of grown-up food.

Their parents cannot understand why my children have not died of cold

and exposure long ago; but no object lesson will convince them that

their own methods are capable of improvement. They are neither poor

nor lacking in parental affection, but they are obstinately ignorant

owing to bad education. In the case of town parents who are poor and

overworked, the evils are of course far greater.

But even in the case of parents who are highly educated, conscientious,

and not too busy, the children cannot get as much of what they need

as in a nursery-school. First and foremost, they do not get the

companionship of other children of the same age. If the family is

small, as such families usually are, the children may easily get too

much attention from their elders, and may become nervous and precocious

in consequence. Moreover, parents cannot have the experience of

multitudes of children which gives a sure touch. And only the rich can

provide the space and the environment that best suits young children.

Such things, if provided privately for one family of children,

produce pride of possession and a feeling of superiority, which are

extraordinarily harmful morally. For all these reasons, I believe

that even the best parents would do well to send their children to a

suitable school from the age of two onwards, at least for part of the

day--provided such a school existed in their neighbourhood.

There are, at present, two kinds of schools, according to the status

of the parents. There are Froebel schools and Montessori schools for

well-to-do-children, and there are a small number of nursery-schools

for very poor children. Of the latter, the most famous is Miss

McMillan’s, of which the above-mentioned book gives an account which

should be read by every lover of children. I am inclined to think that

no existing school for well-to-do children is as good as hers, partly

because she has larger numbers, partly because she is not troubled by

the fussiness which middle-class snobbery obtrudes upon teachers. She

aims at keeping children, if possible, from one year old till seven,

though the education authorities incline to the view that the children

ought to go to an ordinary elementary school at the age of five.

The children come at eight in the morning, and stay till six in the

evening; they have all their meals in the school. They spend as much as

possible of their time out-of-doors, and indoors they have an abnormal

amount of fresh air. Before a child is admitted, he or she is medically

examined, and if possible cured at the clinic or in the hospital if

not healthy. After admission, the children become and remain healthy

with very few exceptions. There is a large, lovely garden, and a good

deal of the time is spent in playing there. The teaching is broadly on

Montessori lines. After dinner the children all sleep. In spite of the

fact that at night, and on Sundays, they have to be in poverty-stricken

homes, perhaps in cellars with drunken parents, their physique and

intelligence become equal to the best that middle-class children

achieve. Here is Miss McMillan’s account of her seven-year-old pupils:

They are nearly all tall, straight children. All are straight,

indeed, if not tall, but the average is a big, well-made child with

clean skin, bright eyes, and silky hair. He or she is a little

above the average of the best type of well-to-do child of the upper

middle class. So much for his or her physique. Mentally he is alert,

sociable, eager for life and new experience. He can read and spell

perfectly, or almost perfectly. He writes well and expresses himself

easily. He speaks good English and also French. He can not only help

himself, but he or she has for years helped younger children: and

he can count and measure and design and has had some preparation

for science. His first years were spent in an atmosphere of love

and calm and _fun_, and his last two years were full of interesting

experiences and experiment. He knows about a garden, and has planted

and watered, and taken care of plants as well as animals. The

seven-year-old can dance, too, and sing and play many games. Such

are the children who will soon present themselves in thousands at

the Junior Schools’ doors. What is to be done with them? I want to

point out, first of all, that the elementary school teachers’ work

will be changed by this sudden uprush of clean and strong young life

from below. Either the Nursery-School will be a paltry thing, that

is to say a new failure, or else it will soon influence not only

elementary schools but also the secondary. It will provide a new kind

of children to be educated, and this must react sooner or later, not

only on all the schools, but on all our social life, on the kind of

government and laws framed for the people, and on the relation of our

nation to other nations.

I do not think these claims exaggerated. The nursery-school, if it

became universal, could, in one generation, remove the profound

differences in education which at present divide the classes, could

produce a population all enjoying the mental and physical development

which is now confined to the most fortunate, and could remove the

terrible dead-weight of disease and stupidity and malevolence which

now makes progress so difficult. Under the Education Act of 1918,

nursery-schools were to have been promoted by Government money;

but when the Geddes Axe descended it was decided that it was more

important to build cruisers and the Singapore Dock for the purpose

of facilitating war with the Japanese. At the present moment, the

Government is spending a million a year to induce people to poison

themselves with preservatives in Canadian butter rather than eat pure

butter from Denmark. To secure this end, our children are condemned to

disease and misery and unawakened intelligence, from which multitudes

could be saved by a million a year spent on nursery-schools. The

mothers now have the vote; will they some day learn to use it for the

good of their children?[18]

Apart from these wider considerations, what has to be realized is that

the right care of young children is highly skilled work, which parents

cannot hope to do satisfactorily, and that it is quite different work

from school-teaching in later years. To quote Miss McMillan again:

The Nursery child has a fairly good physique. Not only do his

neighbours in the slums fall far short of him: his “betters” in good

districts, the middle-class children, of a very good type, fall

short of him. It is clear that something more than parental love

and “parental responsibility” are wanted. Rules of thumb have all

broken down. “Parental love” without knowledge has broken down. Child

nurture has not broken down. It is very highly skilled work.

As regards the finances:

A Nursery-School of 100 children can be run to-day at an annual cost

of £12 per head, and of this sum the parents in the poorest quarters

can pay one-third. A Nursery-School staffed by students will cost

more, but the greater part of the increased cost would be paid as

fees and maintenance of future teachers. An open-air nursery and

training centre, numbering in all about 100 children and thirty

students, costs as nearly as makes no difference £2,200 per annum.

One more quotation:

One great result of the Nursery-School will be that the children

can get faster through the curriculum of to-day. When they are

half or two-thirds through the present elementary school life they

will be ready to go on to more advanced work.... In short, the

Nursery-School, if it is a _real_ place of nurture, and not merely

a place where babies are “minded” till they are five, will affect

our whole educational system very powerfully and very rapidly. It

will quickly raise the possible level of culture and attainment in

all schools, beginning with the junior schools. It will prove that

this welter of disease and misery in which we live, and which makes

the doctor’s service loom bigger than the teacher’s, can be swept

away. It will make the heavy walls, the terrible gates, the hard

playground, the sunless and huge class-room look monstrous, as they

are. It will give teachers a chance.

The nursery-school occupies an intermediate position between early

training of character and subsequent giving of instruction. It carries

on both at once, and each by the help of the other, with instruction

gradually taking a larger share as the child grows older. It was in

institutions having a similar function that Madame Montessori perfected

her methods. In certain large tenement houses in Rome, a large room

was set apart for the children between three and seven, and Madame

Montessori was put in charge of these “Children’s Houses”.[19] As

in Deptford, the children came from the very poorest section of the

population; as in Deptford, the results showed that early care can

overcome the physical and mental disadvantages of a bad home.

It is remarkable that, ever since the time of Séguin, progress in

educational methods with young children has come from study of idiots

and the feeble-minded, who are, in certain respects, still mentally

infants. I believe the reason for the necessity of this detour was that

the stupidities of mental patients were not regarded as blameworthy,

or as curable by chastisement; no one thought that Dr. Arnold’s recipe

of flogging would cure their “laziness”. Consequently they were

treated scientifically, not angrily; if they failed to understand,

no irate pedagogue stormed at them and told them they ought to be

ashamed of themselves. If people could have brought themselves to take

a scientific instead of a moralizing attitude towards children, they

could have discovered what is now known about the way to educate them

without first having to study the mentally deficient. The conception

of “moral responsibility” is “responsible” for much evil. Imagine two

children, one of whom has the good fortune to be in a nursery-school,

while the other is left to unalleviated slum-life. Is the second

child “morally responsible” if he grows up less admirable than the

first? Are his parents “morally responsible” for the ignorance and

carelessness which makes them unable to educate him? Are the rich

“morally responsible” for the selfishness and stupidity which have been

drilled into them at expensive schools, and which make them prefer

their own foolish luxuries to the creation of a happy community? All

are victims of circumstances; all have had characters warped in infancy

and intelligence stunted at school. No good purpose is served by

choosing to regard them as “morally responsible”, and holding them up

to reprobation because they have been less fortunate than they might

have been.

There is only one road to progress, in education as in other human

affairs, and that is: Science wielded by love. Without science, love

is powerless; without love, science is destructive. All that has been

done to improve the education of little children has been done by

those who loved them; all has been done by those who knew all that

science could teach on the subject. This is one of the benefits we

derive from the higher education of women: in former days, science

and love of children were much less likely to coexist. The power of

moulding young minds which science is placing in our possession is a

very terrible power, capable of deadly misuse; if it falls into the

wrong hands, it may produce a world even more ruthless and cruel than

the haphazard world of nature. Children may be taught to be bigoted,

bellicose, and brutal, under the pretence that they are being taught

religion, patriotism, and courage, or communism, proletarianism, and

revolutionary ardour. The teaching must be inspired by love, and must

aim at creating love in the children. If not, it will become more

efficiently harmful with every improvement in scientific technique.

Love for children exists in the community as an effective force; this

is shown by the lowering of the infant death-rate and the improvement

of education. It is still far too weak, or our politicians would not

dare to sacrifice the life and happiness of innumerable children to

their nefarious schemes of bloodshed and oppression; but it exists and

is increasing. Other forms of love, however, are strangely lacking.

The very individuals who lavish care on children cherish passions

which expose those same children, in later life, to death in wars

which are mere collective insanities. Is it too much to hope that love

may gradually be extended from the child to the man he will become?

Will the lovers of children learn to follow their later years with

something of the same parental solicitude? Having given them strong

bodies and vigorous minds, shall we let them use their strength and

vigour to create a better world? Or, when they turn to this work, shall

we recoil in terror, and plunge them back into slavery and drill?

Science is ready for either alternative; the choice is between love and

hate, though hate is disguised beneath all the fine phrases to which

professional moralists do homage.

PART III

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION

CHAPTER XIV

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

The building up of character, which has been our theme hitherto, should

be mainly a matter for the earlier years. If rightly conducted, it

ought to be nearly complete by the age of six. I do not mean that a

character cannot be spoilt after that age; there is no age at which

untoward circumstances or environment will not do harm. What I mean is

that, after the age of six, a boy or girl who has been given the right

early training ought to have habits and desires which will lead in the

right direction if a certain care is taken with the environment. A

school composed of boys and girls rightly brought up during their first

six years will constitute a good environment, given a modicum of good

sense in the authorities; it ought not to be necessary to give much

time or thought to moral questions, since such further virtues as are

required ought to result naturally from purely intellectual training. I

do not mean to assert this pedantically as an absolute rule, but as a

principle guiding school authorities as regards the matters upon which

they ought to lay emphasis. I am convinced that, if children up to

the age of six have been properly handled, it is best that the school

authorities should lay stress upon purely intellectual progress, and

should rely upon this to produce the further development of character

which is still desirable.

It is a bad thing for intelligence, and ultimately for character, to

let instruction be influenced by moral considerations. It should not

be thought that some knowledge is harmful and some ignorance is good.

The knowledge which is imparted should be imparted for an intellectual

purpose, not to prove some moral or political conclusion. The purpose

of the teaching should be, from the pupil’s point of view, partly to

satisfy his curiosity, partly to give him the skill required in order

that he may be able to satisfy his curiosity for himself. From the

teacher’s point of view, there must also be the stimulation of certain

fruitful kinds of curiosity. But there must never be discouragement of

curiosity, even if it takes directions which lie outside the school

curriculum altogether. I do not mean that the curriculum should be

interrupted, but that the curiosity should be regarded as laudable, and

the boy or girl should be told how to satisfy it after school hours, by

means of books in the library for example.

But at this point I shall be met by an argument which must be faced at

the outset. What if a boy’s curiosity is morbid or perverted? What if

he is interested in obscenity or in accounts of tortures? What if he is

only interested in prying into other people’s doings? Are such forms of

curiosity to be encouraged? In answering this question, we must make a

distinction. Most emphatically, we are not to behave so that the boy’s

curiosity shall continue to be limited to these directions. But it does

not follow that we are to make him feel wicked for wishing to know

about such things, or that we are to struggle to keep knowledge of them

away from him. Almost always, the whole attraction of such knowledge

consists in the fact that it is forbidden; in a certain number of

cases, it is connected with some pathological mental condition which

needs medical treatment. But in no case is prohibition and moral horror

the right treatment. As the commonest and most important case, let

us take an interest in obscenity. I do not believe that such a thing

could exist in a boy or girl to whom sex knowledge was just like any

other knowledge. A boy who obtains possession of indecent pictures is

proud of his skill in having done so, and of knowing what his less

enterprising companions have failed to find out. If he had been told

openly and decently all about sex, he would feel no interest in such

pictures. If, nevertheless, a boy were found to have such an interest,

I should have him treated by a doctor skilled in these matters. The

treatment should begin by encouraging him to utter freely even his

most shocking thoughts, and should continue with a flood of further

information, growing gradually more technical and scientific, until

the whole matter bored him to extinction. When he felt that there was

nothing more to know, and that what he did know was uninteresting, he

would be cured. The important point is that the knowledge in itself

is not bad, but only the habit of brooding on one particular topic.

An obsession is not cured, at first, by violent efforts to distract

attention, but rather by a plethora of the subject. Through this, the

interest can be made scientific instead of morbid; and when that has

been achieved, it takes its legitimate place among other interests, and

ceases to be an obsession. This, I am convinced, is the right way to

deal with a narrow and morbid curiosity. Prohibition and moral horror

can only make it worse.

Although improvement of character should not be the aim of instruction,

there are certain qualities which are very desirable, and which are

essential to the successful pursuit of knowledge; they may be called

the intellectual virtues. These should result from intellectual

education; but they should result as needed in learning, not as virtues

pursued for their own sakes. Among such qualities the chief seem to me:

curiosity, open-mindedness, belief that knowledge is possible though

difficult, patience, industry, concentration and exactness. Of these,

curiosity is fundamental; where it is strong and directed to the right

objects, all the rest will follow. But perhaps curiosity is not quite

so active as to be made the basis of the whole intellectual life.

There should always also be a desire to _do_ something difficult; the

knowledge which is acquired should appear in the pupil’s mind as skill,

just like skill in games or gymnastics. It is, I suppose, unavoidable

that the skill should be in part merely that required for artificial

school tasks; but wherever it can be made to appear necessary for

some non-scholastic purpose which appeals to the pupil, something

very important has been accomplished. The divorce of knowledge from

life is regrettable, although, during school years, it is not wholly

avoidable. Where it is hardest to avoid, there should be occasional

talks about the utility of the knowledge in question--taking “utility”

in a very broad sense. Nevertheless, I should allow a large place to

pure curiosity, without which much of the most valuable knowledge (for

instance, pure mathematics) would never have been discovered. There is

much knowledge which seems to me valuable on its own account, quite

apart from any use to which it is capable of being put. And I should

not wish to encourage the young to look too closely for an ulterior

purpose in all knowledge; disinterested curiosity is natural to the

young, and is a very valuable quality. It is only where it fails that

I should appeal to the desire for skill such as can be exhibited in

practice. Each motive has its place, but neither should be allowed to

push the other aside.

I am aware that I have been assuming that some knowledge is desirable

on its own account, not merely on account of its utility. This view

is often challenged. I find it said by Professor O’Shea[20] that in

European and Oriental schools “a person is not regarded as educated,

or at least not cultured, unless he has amassed a considerable body of

knowledge of ancient flavour. But in our country we are rapidly coming

to the view that culture does not depend upon the mere possession of

facts, whether ancient or modern. The cultured individual is one who

has acquired knowledge and skill which make him of service to society,

and habits of conduct which make him agreeable in association with

his fellows.[21] Knowledge which does not function in the life of

the individual in his relations with others, to-day is not regarded

by American teachers as of value for culture any more than for

disciplinary purposes.”

Of course this account of how the Old World regards culture is a

caricature. No one would maintain that _mere_ knowledge of facts

confers culture. But it would be argued that culture implies a certain

freedom from parochialism, both in space and time, and that this

involves a respect for excellence even if it is found in another

country or another age. We are apt to exaggerate our superiority not

only to foreigners, but to the men of former times, and this makes

us contemptuous of everything in which they were better than we are,

which includes the whole æsthetic side of life. And I should say that

culture involves a certain power of contemplation, for thinking or

feeling without rushing headlong into energetic action. This leads

me to a certain hesitation in adopting the theory of what is called

“dynamic” education, which “requires pupils actually to _do_ what they

are learning” (ib. p. 401). Undoubtedly this method is right with

young children, but education is not complete until more abstract

and intellectual methods have become possible. To “do” the nebular

hypothesis or the French Revolution would take a long time, not to

mention danger from the guillotine. A person who has been adequately

educated has learned to extract the meaning from abstractions when

necessary, and to manipulate them as abstractions so long as that will

serve his purpose. A mathematician who had to stop to realize the

meaning of each step in his transformations would never get through

his work; the essential merit of his instrument is that it can be

used without this labour. In higher education, therefore, the dynamic

method seems inadequate. I cannot help thinking that its popularity in

America is partly due to the notion that all excellence consists in

doing, rather than in thinking and feeling. This notion is implicit in

the definition of culture which I quoted just now, and is natural in

a mechanical age, since a machine can only do, and is not expected to

think or feel. But the assimilation of men to machines, whatever may

be thought of it metaphysically, is hardly likely to give us a just

standard of values.

Open-mindedness is a quality which will always exist where desire for

knowledge is genuine. It only fails where other desires have become

entangled with the belief that we already know the truth. That is why

it is so much commoner in youth than in later life. A man’s activities

are almost necessarily bound up with some decision on an intellectually

doubtful matter. A clergyman cannot be disinterested about theology,

nor a soldier about war. A lawyer is bound to hold that criminals

ought to be punished--unless they can afford a leading lawyer’s fee. A

schoolmaster will favour the particular system of education for which

he is fitted by his training and experience. A politician can hardly

help believing in the principles of the party which is most likely to

give him office. When once a man has chosen his career, he cannot be

expected to be perpetually considering whether some other choice might

not have been better. In later life, therefore, open-mindedness has its

limitations, though they ought to be as few as possible. But in youth

there are far fewer of what William James called “forced options”,

and therefore there is less occasion for the “will to believe”. Young

people ought to be encouraged to regard every question as open, and to

be able to throw over any opinion as the result of an argument. It is

implied in this freedom of thought that there should not be complete

freedom of action. A boy must not be free to run off to sea under the

influence of some story of adventure in the Spanish Main. But so long

as his education continues, he should be free to _think_ that it is

better to be a pirate than a professor.

Power of concentration is a very valuable quality, which few people

acquire except through education. It is true that it grows naturally,

to a considerable extent, as young people get older; very young

infants seldom think of any one thing for more than a few minutes, but

with every year that passes their attention grows less volatile until

they are adult. Nevertheless, they are hardly likely to acquire enough

concentration without a long period of intellectual education. There

are three qualities which distinguish perfect concentration: it should

be intense, prolonged, and voluntary. Intensity is illustrated by the

story of Archimedes, who is said to have never noticed when the Romans

captured Syracuse and came to kill him, because he was absorbed in a

mathematical problem. To be able to concentrate on the same matter for

a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement, and even to

the understanding of any complicated or abstruse subject. A profound

spontaneous interest brings this about naturally, so far as the object

of interest is concerned. Most people can concentrate on a mechanical

puzzle for a long time; but this is not in itself very useful. To be

really valuable, the concentration must also be within the control

of the will. By this I mean that, even where some piece of knowledge

is uninteresting in itself, a man can force himself to acquire it if

he has an adequate motive for doing so. I think it is above all the

control of attention by the will that is conferred by higher education.

In this one respect, an old-fashioned education is admirable; I

doubt whether modern methods are as successful in teaching a man to

endure voluntary boredom. However, if this defect does exist in modern

educational practice, it is by no means irremediable. The matter is one

to which I shall return later.

Patience and industry ought to result from a good education. It was

formerly thought that they could only be secured, in most cases, by the

enforcement of good habits imposed by external authority. Undoubtedly

this method has some success, as may be seen when a horse is broken

in. But I think it is better to stimulate the ambition required for

overcoming difficulties, which can be done by grading the difficulties

so that the pleasure of success may at first be won fairly easily.

This gives experience of the rewards of persistence, and gradually

the amount of persistence required can be increased. Exactly similar

remarks apply to the belief that knowledge is difficult but not

impossible, which is best generated by inducing the pupil to solve a

series of carefully graded problems.

Exactness, like the voluntary control of attention, is a matter

to which educational reformers perhaps tend to attach too little

importance. Dr. Ballard (_op. cit._ Chap. XVI) states definitely that

our elementary schools, in this respect, are not so good as they were,

although in most respects they are vastly improved. He says: “There

is in existence a large number of tests given to school-children in

the annual examinations of the ’eighties and early ’nineties, and the

results of those tests were scheduled for purposes of grant.[22] When

those same tests are set to-day to children of the same age the results

are palpably and consistently worse. Account for it as we may, there

can be no doubt whatever about the fact. Taken as a whole, the work

done in our schools--our primary schools at least--is less accurate

than it was a quarter of a century ago.” Dr. Ballard’s whole discussion

of this subject is so excellent that I have little to add to it. I

will, however, quote his concluding words: “After all deductions have

been made, it [accuracy] is still a noble and inspiring ideal. It is

the morality of the intellect: it prescribes what it ought to strive

for in the pursuit of its own proper ideal. For the extent to which we

are accurate in our thoughts, words, and deeds is a rough measure of

our fealty to truth.”

The difficulty which is felt by the advocate of modern methods is

that accuracy, as hitherto taught, involves boredom, and that it is

an immense gain if education can be made interesting. Here, however,

we must make a distinction. Boredom merely imposed by the teacher

is wholly bad; boredom voluntarily endured by the pupil in order to

satisfy some ambition is valuable if not overdone. It should be part

of education to fire pupils with desires not easily gratified--to know

the calculus, to read Homer, to perform well on the violin, or what

not. Each of these involves its own kind of accuracy. Able boys and

girls will go through endless tedium and submit willingly to severe

discipline in order to acquire some coveted knowledge or skill. Those

who have less native ability can often be fired by similar ambitions

if they are inspiringly taught. The driving force in education should

be the pupil’s wish to learn, not the master’s authority; but it does

not follow that education should be soft and easy and pleasant at

every stage. This applies, in particular, to the question of accuracy.

The acquisition of exact knowledge is apt to be wearisome, but it

is essential to every kind of excellence, and this fact can be made

obvious to a child by suitable methods. In so far as modern methods

fail in this respect, they are at fault. In this matter, as in many

others, reaction against the old bad forms of discipline has tended to

an undue laxity, which will have to give place to a new discipline,

more internal and psychological than the old external authority. Of

this new discipline, accuracy will be the intellectual expression.

There are various kinds of accuracy, each of which has its own

importance. To take the main kinds: There is muscular accuracy,

æsthetic accuracy, accuracy as to matter-of-fact, and logical accuracy.

Every boy or girl can appreciate the importance of muscular accuracy

in many directions; it is required for the control of the body which a

healthy child spends all its spare time in acquiring, and afterwards

for the games upon which prestige depends. But it has other forms

which have more to do with school-teaching, such as well-articulated

speech, good writing, and correct performance on a musical instrument.

A child will think these things important or unimportant according

to his environment. Æsthetic accuracy is difficult to define; it

has to do with the appropriateness of a sensible stimulus for the

production of emotion. One way of teaching an important form of it is

to cause children to learn poetry by heart--_e.g._, Shakespeare, for

purposes of acting--and to make them feel, when they make mistakes,

why the original is better. I believe it would be found that, where

æsthetic sensibility is wide-spread, children are taught conventional

stereotyped performances, such as dances and songs, which they enjoy,

but which must be done exactly right on account of tradition. This

makes them sensitive to small differences, which is essential to

accuracy. Acting, singing, and dancing seem to me the best methods of

teaching æsthetic precision. Drawing is less good, because it is likely

to be judged by its fidelity to the model, not by æsthetic standards.

It is true that stereotyped performances also are expected to reproduce

a model, but it is a model created by æsthetic motives; it is copied

because it is good, not because copying is good.

Accuracy as to matter-of-fact is intolerably boring when pursued on its

own account. Learning the dates of the kings of England, or the names

of the counties and their capitals, used to be one of the terrors of

childhood. It is better to secure accuracy by interest and repetition.

I could never remember the list of capes, but at eight years old I knew

almost all the stations on the Underground. If children were shown a

cinema representing a ship sailing round the coast, they would soon

know the capes. I don’t think they are worth knowing, but if they

were, that would be the way to teach them. All geography ought to be

taught on the cinema; so ought history at first. The initial expense

would be great, but not too great for governments. And there would be a

subsequent economy in ease of teaching.

Logical accuracy is a late acquisition, and should not be forced upon

young children. Getting the multiplication table right is, of course,

accuracy as to matter-of-fact; it only becomes logical accuracy at a

much later stage. Mathematics is the natural vehicle for this teaching,

but it fails if allowed to appear as a set of arbitrary rules. Rules

must be learnt, but at some stage the reasons for them must be made

clear; if this is not done, mathematics has little educative value.

I come now to a question which has already arisen in connection with

exactness, the question, namely, how far it is possible or desirable

to make all instruction interesting. The old view was that a great

deal of it must be dull, and that only stern authority will induce the

average boy to persist. (The average girl was to remain ignorant.) The

modern view is that it can be made delightful through and through. I

have much more sympathy with the modern view than with the old one;

nevertheless, I think it is subject to some limitations, especially in

higher education. I shall begin with what I think true in it.

Modern writers on infant psychology all emphasize the importance of not

urging a young child to eat or sleep: these things ought to be done

spontaneously by the child, not as a result of coaxing or forcing. My

own experience entirely bears out this teaching. At first, we did not

know the newer teaching, and tried the older methods. They were very

unsuccessful, whereas the modern methods succeeded perfectly. It must

not be supposed, however, that the modern parent does nothing about

eating and sleeping; on the contrary, everything possible is done to

promote the formation of good habits. Meals come at regular times, and

the child must sit through them without games whether he eats or not.

Bed comes at regular times, and the child must lie down in bed. He may

have a toy animal to hug, but not one that squeaks or runs or does

anything exciting. If the animal is a favourite, one may play the game

that the animal is tired and the child must put it to sleep. Then leave

the child alone, and sleep will usually come very quickly. But never

let the child think you are anxious he should sleep or eat. That at

once makes him think you are asking a favour; this gives him a sense of

power, which leads him to demand more and more coaxing or punishment.

He should eat and sleep because he wants to, not to please you.

This psychology is obviously applicable in great measure to

instruction. If you insist upon teaching a child, he will conclude that

he is being asked to do something disagreeable to please you, and he

will have a psychological resistance. If this exists at the start, it

will perpetuate itself; at a later age, the desirability of getting

through examinations may become evident, and there will be work for

that purpose, but none from sheer interest in knowledge. If, on the

contrary, you can first stimulate the child’s desire to know, and then,

as a favour, give him the knowledge he wants, the whole situation

is different. Very much less external discipline is required, and

attention is secured without difficulty. To succeed in this method,

certain conditions are necessary, which Madame Montessori successfully

produces among the very young. The tasks must be attractive and not

too difficult. There must, at first, be the example of other children

at a slightly more advanced stage. There must be no other obviously

pleasant occupation open to the child at the moment. There are a number

of things the child may do, and he works by himself at whichever he

prefers. Almost all children are perfectly happy in this régime, and

learn to read and write without pressure before they are five years old.

How far similar methods can advantageously be applied to older children

is a debatable question. As children grow older, they become responsive

to more remote motives, and it is no longer necessary that every detail

should be interesting in itself. But I think the broad principle that

the impulse to education should come from the pupil can be continued

up to any age. The environment should be such as to stimulate the

impulse, and to make boredom and isolation the alternative to learning.

But any child that preferred this alternative on any occasion should be

allowed to choose it. The principle of individual work can be extended,

though a certain amount of class-work seems indispensable after the

early years. But if external authority is necessary to induce a boy or

girl to learn, unless there is a medical cause, the probability is that

the teacher is at fault or that previous moral training has been bad.

If a child has been properly trained up to the age of five or six, any

good teacher ought to be able to win his interest at later stages.

If this is possible, the advantages are immense. The teacher appears

as the friend of the pupil, not as his enemy. The child learns faster,

because he is co-operating. He learns with less fatigue, because there

is not the constant strain of bringing back a reluctant and bored

attention. And his sense of personal initiative is cultivated instead

of being diminished. On account of these advantages, it seems worth

while to assume that the pupil can be led to learn by the force of his

own desires, without the exercise of compulsion by the teacher. If, in

a small percentage of cases, the method were found to be a failure,

these cases could be isolated and instructed by different methods. But

I believe that, given methods adapted to the child’s intelligence,

there would be very few failures.

For reasons already given in connection with accuracy, I do not believe

that a really thorough education can be made interesting through and

through. However much one may wish to know a subject, some parts of it

are sure to be found dull. But I believe that, given suitable guidance,

a boy or girl can be made to feel the importance of learning the dull

parts, and can be got through them also without compulsion. I should

use the stimulus of praise and blame, applied as the result of good or

bad performance of set tasks. Whether a pupil possesses the necessary

skill should be made as obvious as in games or gymnastics. And the

importance of the dull parts of a subject should be made clear by

the teacher. If all these methods failed, the child would have to be

classified as stupid, and taught separately from children of normal

intelligence, though care must be taken not to let this appear as a

punishment.

Except in very rare cases, the teacher, even at an early age (_i.e._,

after four, say) should not be either parent. Teaching is work

requiring a special type of skill, which can be learnt, but which most

parents have not had the opportunity of learning. The earlier the age

of the pupil, the greater is the pedagogical skill required. And apart

from this, the parent has been in constant contact with the child

before formal education began, so that the child has a set of habits

and expectations towards the parent which are not quite appropriate

towards a teacher. The parent, moreover, is likely to be too eager and

too much interested in his child’s progress. He will be inordinately

pleased by the child’s cleverness and exasperated by his stupidity.

There are the same reasons for not teaching one’s own children as have

led medical men not to treat their own families. But of course I do not

mean that parents should not give such instruction as comes naturally;

I mean only that they are, as a rule, not the best people for formal

school lessons, even when they are well qualified to teach other

people’s children.

Throughout education, from the first day to the last, there should

be a sense of intellectual adventure. The world is full of puzzling

things which can be understood by sufficient effort. The sense of

understanding what had been puzzling is exhilarating and delightful;

every good teacher should be able to give it. Madame Montessori

describes the delight of her children when they find they can write;

I remember a sense almost of intoxication when I first read Newton’s

deduction of Kepler’s Second Law from the law of gravitation. Few joys

are so pure or so useful as this. Initiative and individual work give

the pupil the opportunity of discovery, and thus afford the sense of

mental adventure far more often and more keenly than is possible where

everything is taught in class. Wherever it is possible, let the student

be active rather than passive. This is one of the secrets of making

education a happiness rather than a torment.

CHAPTER XV

THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM BEFORE FOURTEEN

The questions: what should be taught? and how should it be taught?

are intimately connected, because, if better methods of teaching are

devised, it is possible to learn more. In particular, more can be

learnt if the pupils wish to learn than if they regard work as a bore.

I have already said something about methods, and I shall say more in a

later chapter. For the present, I shall assume that the best possible

methods are employed, and I shall consider what ought to be taught.

When we consider what an adult ought to know, we soon realize that

there are things which everybody ought to know, and other things which

it is necessary that some should know, though others need not. Some

must know medicine, but for the bulk of mankind it is sufficient to

have an elementary knowledge of physiology and hygiene. Some must

know higher mathematics, but the bare elements suffice for those to

whom mathematics is distasteful. Some should know how to play the

trombone, but mercifully it is not necessary that every school-child

should practise this instrument. In the main, the things taught at

school before the age of fourteen should be among those that every

one ought to know; apart from exceptional cases, specialization ought

to come later. It should, however, be one of the aims of education

before fourteen to discover special aptitudes in boys and girls, so

that, where they exist, they may be carefully developed in the later

years. For this reason, it is well that everybody should learn the bare

beginnings of subjects which need not be further pursued by those who

are bad at them.

When we have decided what every adult ought to know, we have to decide

the order in which subjects are to be taught; here we shall naturally

be guided by relative difficulty, teaching the easiest subjects first.

To a great extent, these two principles determine the curriculum in the

early school years.

I shall assume that, by the time a child is five years old, he knows

how to read and write. This should be the business of the Montessori

school, or whatever improvement upon it may hereafter be devised.

There, also, the child learns a certain accuracy in sense-perception,

the rudiments of drawing and singing and dancing, and the power to

concentrate upon some educational occupation in the middle of a

number of other children. Of course the child will not be very perfect

in these respects at five years old, and will need further teaching

in all of them for some years to come. I do not think that anything

involving severe mental effort should be undertaken before the age

of seven, but by sufficient skill difficulties can be enormously

diminished. Arithmetic is a bugbear of childhood--I remember weeping

bitterly because I could not learn the multiplication table--but if it

is tackled gradually and carefully, as it is by means of the Montessori

apparatus, there is no need of the sense of blank despair which its

mysteries used to inspire. In the end, however, there must be a good

deal of rather tiresome mastering of rules if sufficient facility is

to be acquired. This is the most awkward of early school subjects

to fit into a curriculum intended to be interesting; nevertheless,

a certain degree of proficiency is necessary for practical reasons.

Also, arithmetic affords the natural introduction to accuracy: the

answer to a sum is either right or wrong, and never “interesting” or

“suggestive”. This makes arithmetic important as one element in early

education, quite apart from its practical utility. But its difficulties

should be carefully graded and spread out thin; not too much time at a

stretch should be devoted to them.

Geography and history were, when I was young, among the worst taught

of all subjects. I dreaded the geography lesson, and if I tolerated

the history lesson it was only because I have always had a passion

for history. Both subjects might be made fascinating to quite young

children. My little boy, though he has never had a lesson, already

knows far more geography than his nurse. He has acquired his knowledge

through the love of trains and steamers which he shares with all boys.

He wants to know of journeys that his imaginary steamers are to make,

and he listens with the closest attention while I tell him the stages

of the journey to China. Then, if he wishes it, I show him pictures of

the various countries on the way. Sometimes he insists upon pulling

out the big Atlas and looking at the journey on the map. The journey

between London and Cornwall in the train, which he makes twice a year,

interests him passionately, and he knows all the stations where the

train stops or where carriages are slipped. He is fascinated by the

North Pole and the South Pole, and puzzled because there is no East

Pole or West Pole. He knows the directions of France and Spain and

America over the sea, and a good deal about what is to be seen in those

countries. None of this has come by way of instruction, but all in

response to an eager curiosity. Almost every child becomes interested

in geography as soon as it is associated with the idea of travel. I

should teach geography partly by pictures and tales about travellers,

but mainly by the cinema, showing what the traveller sees on his

journey. The knowledge of geographical facts is useful, but without

intrinsic intellectual value; when, however, geography is made vivid

by pictures, it has the merit of giving food for imagination. It is

good to know that there are hot countries and cold countries, flat

countries and mountainous countries, black men, yellow men, brown men,

and red men, as well as white men. This kind of knowledge diminishes

the tyranny of familiar surroundings over the imagination, and makes it

possible in later life to _feel_ that distant countries really exist,

which otherwise is very difficult except by travelling. For these

reasons, I should give geography a large place in the teaching of very

young children, and I should be astonished if they did not enjoy the

subject. Later on, I should give them books with pictures, maps, and

elementary information about different parts of the world, and get

them to put together little essays about the peculiarities of various

countries.

What applies to geography applies even more strongly to history,

though at a slightly more advanced age, because the sense of time is

rudimentary at first. I think history can profitably be begun at about

five years old, at first with interesting stories of eminent men,

abundantly illustrated. I myself had, at that age, a picture-history

of England. Queen Matilda crossing the Thames at Abingdon on the ice

made such a profound impression upon me that I still felt thrilled

when I did the same thing at the age of eighteen, and quite imagined

that King Stephen was after me. I believe hardly any boy of five years

old would fail to be interested by the life of Alexander. Columbus

perhaps belongs more to geography than to history; I can testify that

he becomes interesting before the age of two, at least to children who

know the sea. By the time a child is six years old, he ought to be ripe

for an outline of world history, treated more or less on Mr. Wells’s

or Mr. Van Loon’s lines, with the necessary simplifications, and with

pictures, or the cinema if possible. If he lives in London, he can see

the strange beasts in the Natural History Museum; but I should not

take him to the British Museum before the age of ten or thereabouts.

It is necessary to be careful, in teaching history, not to obtrude

aspects which are interesting to us until the child is ripe for them.

The two aspects which are first interesting are: the general pageant

and procession, from geology to man, from savage man to civilized man,

and so on; and the dramatic story-telling interest of incidents which

have a sympathetic hero. But I think we should keep in our own minds,

as a guiding thread, the conception of gradual chequered progress,

perpetually hampered by the savagery which we inherit from the brutes,

and yet gradually leading on towards mastery of ourselves and our

environment through knowledge. The conception is that of the human

race as a whole, fighting against chaos without and darkness within,

the little tiny lamp of reason growing gradually into a great light

by which the night is dispelled. The divisions between races, nations

and creeds should be treated as follies, distracting us in the battle

against Chaos and Old Night, which is our one truly human activity.

I should give first the illustrations of this theme, and only

afterwards, if ever, the theme itself. I should show savage man

cowering in the cold, gnawing the raw fruits of the earth. I should

show the discovery of fire, and its effects; in this connection, the

story of Prometheus would be in place. I should show the beginnings

of agriculture in the Nile Valley, and the domestication of sheep

and cows and dogs. I should show the growth of ships from canoes

to the largest liners, and the growth of cities from colonies of

cave-dwellers to London and New York. I should show the gradual

growth of writing and of numerals. I should show the brief gleam of

Greece, the diffused magnificence of Rome, the subsequent darkness,

and the coming of science. The whole of this could be made interesting

in detail even to very young children. I should not keep silence

about wars and persecutions and cruelties, but I should not hold

up military conquerors to admiration. The true conquerors, in my

teaching of history, should be those who did something to dispel the

darkness within and without--Buddha and Socrates, Archimedes, Galileo

and Newton, and all the men who have helped to give us mastery over

ourselves or over nature. And so I should build up the conception of a

lordly splendid destiny for the human race, to which we are false when

we revert to wars and other atavistic follies, and true only when we

put into the world something that adds to our human dominion.

In the early years at school, there should be a time set apart for

dancing, which is good for the body and a training for the æsthetic

sense, besides being a great pleasure to the children. Collective

dances should be taught after the elements have been learnt; this is a

form of co-operation which young children easily appreciate. Similar

remarks apply to singing, though it should begin a little later than

dancing, both because it does not afford the same muscular delight, and

because its rudiments are more difficult. Most children, though not

all, will enjoy singing, and after nursery rhymes they should learn

really beautiful songs. There is no reason to corrupt their taste

first and try to purify it afterwards. At the best, this makes people

precious. Children, like adults, differ enormously in musical capacity,

so that the more difficult singing classes would have to be reserved

for a selection among the older children. And among them singing ought

to be voluntary, not enforced.

The teaching of literature is a matter as to which it is easy to make

mistakes. There is not the slightest use, either for young or old, in

being well-informed _about_ literature, knowing the dates of the poets,

the names of their works, and so on. Everything that can be put into

a handbook is worthless. What is valuable is great familiarity with

certain examples of good literature--such familiarity as will influence

the style, not only of writing, but of thought. In old days the Bible

supplied this to English children, certainly with a beneficial effect

upon prose style; but few modern children know the Bible intimately.

I think the good effect of literature cannot be fully obtained without

learning by heart. This practice used to be advocated as a training for

the memory, but psychologists have shown that it has little, if any,

effect in this way. Modern educationists give it less and less place.

But I think they are mistaken, not because of any possible improvement

of memory, but on account of the effect upon beauty of language in

speech and writing. This should come without effort, as a spontaneous

expression of thought; but in order to do so, in a community which has

lost the primitive æsthetic impulses, it is necessary to produce a

habit of thought which I believe is only to be generated by intimate

knowledge of good literature. That is why learning by heart seems to me

important.

But mere learning of set pieces, such as “the quality of mercy” and

“all the world’s a stage”, seems tedious and artificial to most

children, and therefore fails of its purpose. It is much better that

learning by heart should be associated with acting, because then it

is a necessary means to something which every child loves. From the

age of three onwards, children delight in acting a part; they do it

spontaneously, but are overjoyed when more elaborate ways of doing it

are put in their way. I remember the exquisite amusement with which I

acted the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius, and declaimed:

I had rather be a dog and bay the moon

Than such a Roman.

Children who take part in performing _Julius Cæsar_ or _The Merchant

of Venice_ or any other suitable play will not only know their own

parts, but most of the other parts as well. The play will be in their

thoughts for a long time, and all by way of enjoyment. After all, good

literature is intended to give pleasure, and if children cannot be got

to derive pleasure from it they are hardly likely to derive benefit

either. For these reasons, I should confine the teaching of literature,

in early years, to the learning of parts for acting. The rest should

consist of voluntary reading of well-written stories, obtainable in

the school library. People nowadays write silly sentimental stuff for

children, which insults them by not taking them seriously. Contrast

the intense seriousness of “Robinson Crusoe”. Sentimentality, in

dealing with children and elsewhere, is a failure of dramatic sympathy.

No child thinks it charming to be childish; he wants, as soon as

possible, to learn to behave like a grown-up person. Therefore a book

for children ought never to display a patronizing pleasure in childish

ways. The artificial silliness of many modern children’s books is

disgusting. It must either annoy a child, or puzzle and confuse his

impulse towards mental growth. For this reason, the best books for

children are those that happen to suit them, though written for

grown-up people. The only exceptions are books written for children but

delightful also to grown-up people, such as Lear and Lewis Carroll.

The question of modern languages is one which is not altogether easy.

In childhood it is possible to learn to speak a modern language

perfectly, which can never be achieved in later years; there are

therefore strong grounds for teaching languages at an early age, if

at all. Some people seem to fear that knowledge of one’s own language

suffers if others are learnt too soon. I do not believe this. Tolstoy

and Turgenev were quite competent in Russian, though they learnt

English, French and German in infancy. Gibbon could write in French

as easily as in English, but this did not spoil his English style.

All through the eighteenth century, all English aristocrats learnt

French in early youth as a matter of course, and many also learnt

Italian; yet their English was vastly better than that of their modern

descendants. A child’s dramatic instinct prevents it from confusing one

language with another, provided it speaks them to different people. I

learnt German at the same time as English, and spoke it to nurses and

governesses up to the age of ten; then I learnt French, and spoke it

to governesses and tutors. Neither language ever confused itself with

English, because it had different personal associations. I think that

if a modern language is to be taught, it should be taught by a person

whose native language it is, not only because it will be better taught,

but because children feel less artificiality in talking a foreign

language to a foreigner than in talking it to a person whose natural

language is the same as their own. I think, therefore, that every

school for children ought to have a French mistress, and if possible a

German mistress too, who should not formally instruct the children in

her language, except quite at first, but should play games with them

and talk to them, and make the success of the games depend upon their

understanding and answering. She could start with _Frère Jacques_ and

_Sur le pont d’Avignon_, and go on gradually to more complicated games.

In this way the language could be acquired without any mental fatigue,

and with all the pleasure of play-acting. And it can be acquired then

far more perfectly and with less waste of valuable educational time

than at any subsequent period.

The teaching of mathematics and science can only be begun towards

the end of the years that we are considering in this chapter--say at

the age of twelve. Of course I assume that arithmetic has already

been taught, and that there have been popular talks about astronomy

and geology, about prehistoric animals, famous explorers, and such

naturally interesting matters. But I am thinking now of formal

teaching--geometry and algebra, physics and chemistry. A few boys and

girls like geometry and algebra, but the great majority do not. I

doubt if this is wholly due to faulty methods of teaching. A sense for

mathematics, like musical capacity, is mainly a gift of the gods, and I

believe it to be quite rare, even in a moderate degree. Nevertheless,

every boy and girl should have a taste of mathematics, in order to

discover those who have a talent for it. Also, even those who learn

little profit by the knowledge that there is such a subject. And by

good methods almost everybody can be made to understand the elements

of geometry. Of algebra I cannot say the same; it is more abstract

than geometry, and essentially unintelligible to those whose minds are

incapable of detachment from the concrete. A taste for physics and

chemistry, properly taught, would probably be found to be less rare

than a taste for mathematics, though still existing only in a minority

of young people. Both mathematics and science, in the years from

twelve to fourteen, ought only to be pursued to the point at which it

becomes clear whether a boy or girl has any aptitude for them. This,

of course, is not immediately evident. I loathed algebra at first,

although afterwards I had some facility in it. In some cases, it would

still be doubtful at the age of fourteen whether there was ability or

not. In these cases, tentative methods would have to be continued for

a while. But in most cases a decision could be made at fourteen. Some

would definitely like the subjects and be good at them, others would

dislike them and be bad at them. It would very seldom happen that a

clever pupil disliked them or a stupid pupil liked them.

What has been said about mathematics and science applies equally to

the classics. Between twelve and fourteen, I should give just so much

instruction in Latin as would suffice to show which boys and girls

had a love of the subject and facility for it. I am assuming that

at fourteen education should begin to be more or less specialized,

according to the tastes and aptitudes of the pupil. The last years

before this moment arrives should be spent in finding out what it will

be best to teach in subsequent years.

All through the school years, education in outdoor things should

continue. In the case of well-to-do children, this can be left to the

parents, but with other children it will have to be partly the business

of the school. When I speak of education in outdoor things, I am not

thinking of games. They, of course, have their importance, which is

sufficiently recognized; but I am thinking of something different:

knowledge of agricultural processes, familiarity with animals and

plants, gardening, habits of observation in the country, and so on.

I have been amazed to discover that town-bred people seldom know

the points of the compass, never know which way the sun goes round,

cannot find out which side of the house is out of the wind, and are

generally destitute of knowledge which every cow or sheep possesses.

This is the result of life exclusively in towns. Perhaps I shall be

thought fanciful if I say that it is one reason why the labour party

cannot win rural constituencies. But it certainly is the reason why

town-bred people are so utterly divorced from everything primitive

and fundamental. It has to do with something trivial and superficial

and frivolous in their attitude to life--not of course always, but

very often. The seasons and the weather, sowing and harvest, crops and

flocks and herds, have a certain human importance, and ought to be

intimate and familiar to everybody if the divorce from mother earth is

not to be too complete. All this knowledge can be acquired by children

in the course of activities which are of immense value to health,

and deserve to be undertaken for that reason alone. And the pleasure

of town children in the country shows that a profound need is being

satisfied. So long as it is not satisfied, our educational system is

incomplete.

CHAPTER XVI

LAST SCHOOL YEARS

After the summer holidays in the fifteenth year, I shall assume that a

boy or girl who so desires is allowed to specialize, and that this will

be done in a large proportion of cases. But where there is no definite

preference, it will be better to prolong an all-round education. And

in exceptional cases specializing may begin earlier. All rules, in

education, should be capable of being broken for special reasons. But I

think that, as a general rule, pupils of more than average intelligence

should begin to specialize at about fourteen, while pupils of less than

average intelligence should usually not specialize at all at school,

unless in the way of vocational training. I am refraining, in this

book, from saying anything on this subject. But I do not believe that

it ought to begin before fourteen, and I do not think that, even then,

it ought to take up the whole of the school time of any pupil. I do

not propose to discuss how much time it should take up, or whether it

should be given to all pupils or only to some. These questions raise

economic and political issues which are only indirectly connected with

education, and which cannot be discussed briefly. I therefore confine

myself to the scholastic education in the years after fourteen.

I should make three broad divisions in school: (1) classics, (2)

mathematics and science, (3) modern humanities. This last should

include modern languages, history, and literature. In each division it

might be possible to specialize somewhat more before leaving school,

which I shall suppose does not occur before eighteen. Obviously all

who take classics must do both Latin and Greek, but some may do more

of the one, and some more of the other. Mathematics and science should

go together at first, but in some sciences it is possible to achieve

eminence without much mathematics, and in fact many eminent men of

science have been bad mathematicians. I should, therefore, at the

age of sixteen, allow a boy or girl to specialize in science or to

specialize in mathematics, without entirely neglecting the branch not

chosen. Similar remarks apply to modern humanities.

Certain subjects, of great utilitarian importance, would have to be

taught to everybody. Among these, I should include anatomy, physiology

and hygiene, to the extent that is likely to be required in adult daily

life. But perhaps these subjects ought to come at an earlier stage,

since they are naturally connected with sex education, which ought to

be given, as far as possible, before puberty. The objection to putting

them very early is that they ought not to be forgotten before they are

needed. I think the only solution is to give them twice over, once,

very simply and in bare outline, before puberty, and again later in

connection with elementary knowledge about health and disease. I should

say that every pupil ought to know something also about Parliament and

the Constitution, but care must be taken to prevent teaching on this

subject from degenerating into political propaganda.

More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of

teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given. As to this,

the main problem is to make the work interesting without making it too

easy. Exact and detailed study should be supplemented by books and

lectures on general aspects of the studies concerned. Before sitting

down to a Greek play, I would have the students read a translation, by

Gilbert Murray or some other translator with a poetic gift. Mathematics

should be diversified by an occasional lecture on the history of

mathematical discovery, and on the influence of this or that piece of

mathematics upon science and daily life, with hints of the delightful

things to be found in higher mathematics. Similarly the detailed study

of history should be supplemented by brilliant outlines, even if they

contained questionable generalizations. The students might be told

that the generalizations are doubtful, and be invited to consider

their detailed knowledge as supporting or refuting them. In science,

it is good to read popular books which give an _aperçu_ of recent

research, in order to have some idea of the general scientific purpose

served by particular facts and laws. All these things are useful as

incentives to exact and minute study, but are pernicious if they are

treated as substitutes for it. Pupils must not be encouraged to think

that there are short cuts to knowledge. This is a real danger in

modern education, owing to the reaction against the old severe drill.

The mental work involved in the drill was good; what was bad was the

killing of intellectual interests. We must try to secure the hard work,

but by other methods than those of the old disciplinarian. I do not

believe this is impossible. One finds in America that men who were idle

as undergraduates work hard in the law school or the medical school,

because at last they are doing work which strikes them as important.

That is the essence of the matter: make the school work seem important

to the pupils, and they will work hard. But if you make the work too

easy, they will know, almost by instinct, that you are not giving

them what is really worth having. Clever boys and girls like to test

their minds on difficulties. With good teaching and the elimination of

fear, very many boys and girls would be clever who now seem stupid and

lethargic.

All through education, initiative should come from the pupil as far as

possible. Madame Montessori has shown how this can be done with very

young children, but with older children different methods are required.

It is, I think, generally recognized by progressive educationists that

there should be much more individual work and much less class-work

than has been customary, though the individual work should be done in

a room full of other boys and girls similarly engaged. Libraries and

laboratories should be adequate and roomy. A considerable part of the

working day should be set apart for voluntary self-directed study, but

the pupil should write an account of what he or she is studying, with

an abstract of any information acquired. This helps to fix things in

the memory, to make reading have a purpose instead of being desultory,

and to give the teacher just that amount of control which may be

necessary in each case. The cleverer the pupil, the less control is

required. With those who are not very clever it will be necessary to

give a great deal of guidance; but even with them it should be by way

of suggestion, inquiry, and stimulus rather than by command. There

should, however, also be set themes, giving practice in ascertaining

the facts about some prescribed subject, and in presenting them in an

orderly manner.

In addition to regular work, boys and girls ought to be encouraged to

take an interest in current controversial questions of importance,

political, social, and even theological. They should be encouraged to

read all sides in such controversies, not only the orthodox side. If

any of them have strong feelings on one side or the other, they should

be told how to find out facts which support their view, and should be

set to debate with those who hold the opposite view. Debates, conducted

seriously with a view to ascertaining the truth, could be of great

value. In these, the teacher should learn not to take sides, even if he

or she has strong convictions. If almost all the pupils take one side,

the teacher should take the other, saying that it is only for purposes

of argument. Otherwise, his part should be confined to correcting

mistakes as to facts. By such means, the pupils could learn discussion

as a means of ascertaining truth, not as a contest for rhetorical

victory.

If I were at the head of a school for older boys and girls, I should

consider it equally undesirable to shirk current questions and to do

propaganda about them. It is a good thing to make pupils feel that

their education is fitting them to cope with matters about which the

world is excited; it gives them a sense that scholastic teaching is

not divorced from the practical world. But I should not urge my own

views upon the pupils. What I should do is to put before them the ideal

of a scientific attitude to practical questions. I should expect them

to produce arguments that are arguments, and facts that are facts. In

politics, especially, this habit is as rare as it is valuable. Every

vehement political party generates a cocoon of myth, within which its

mentality peacefully slumbers. Passion, too often, kills intellect;

in intellectuals, on the contrary, intellect not infrequently kills

passion. My aim would be to avoid both these misfortunes. Passionate

feeling is desirable, provided it is not destructive; intellect is

desirable, with the same proviso. I should wish the fundamental

political passions to be constructive, and I should try to make the

intellect serve these passions. But it must serve them genuinely,

objectively, not only in the world of dreams. When the real world is

not sufficiently flattering we all tend to take refuge in an imaginary

world, where our desires are gratified without great effort. This

is the essence of hysteria. It is also the source of nationalist,

theological, and class myths. It shows a weakness of character which

is almost universal in the present world. To combat this weakness

of character should be one of the aims of later school education.

There are two ways of combating it, both necessary, though in a sense

opposites. The one is to increase our sense of what we can achieve in

the world of reality; the other is to make us more sensitive to what

reality can do in the way of dispelling our dreams. Both are comprised

in the principle of living objectively rather than subjectively.

The classic example of subjectivity is Don Quixote. The first time he

made a helmet, he tested its capacity for resisting blows, and battered

it out of shape; next time he did not test it, but “deemed” it to be

a very good helmet. This habit of “deeming” dominated his life. But

every refusal to face unpleasant facts is of the same kind: we are all

Don Quixotes more or less. Don Quixote would not have done as he did

if he had been taught at school to make a really good helmet, and if

he had been surrounded by companions who refused to “deem” whatever he

wished to believe. The habit of living in fancies is normal and right

in early childhood, because young children have an impotence which

is not pathological. But as adult life approaches, there must be a

more and more vivid realization that dreams are only valuable in so

far as they can be translated, sooner or later, into fact. Boys are

admirable in correcting the purely personal claims of other boys; in

a school, it is difficult to cherish illusions as to one’s power in

relation to schoolfellows. But the myth-making faculty remains active

in other directions, often with the co-operation of the masters. One’s

own school is the best in the world; one’s country is always right and

always victorious; one’s social class (if one is rich) is better than

any other class. All these are undesirable myths. They lead us to deem

that we have a good helmet, when in fact some one else’s sword could

cut it in two. In this way they promote laziness and lead ultimately to

disaster.

To cure this habit of mind, it is necessary, as in many other cases,

to replace fear by rational prevision of misfortune. Fear makes people

unwilling to face real dangers. A person afflicted with subjectivity,

if awakened in the middle of the night by the cry of “fire”, might

decide that it must be his neighbour’s house, since the truth would be

too terrifying; he might thus lose the moment when escape was still

possible. This, of course, could only occur in a pathological case; but

in politics the analogous behaviour is normal. Fear, as an emotion, is

disastrous in all cases where the right course can only be discovered

by thinking; we want, therefore, to be able to foresee possibilities of

evil without feeling fear, and to use our intelligence for the purpose

of avoiding what is not inevitable. Evils which are really inevitable

have to be treated with sheer courage; but it is not of them that I am

speaking.

I do not want to repeat what I said about fear in a former chapter;

I am concerned with it now only in the intellectual sphere, as an

obstacle to truthful thinking. In this sphere, it is much easier to

overcome in youth than in later life, because a change of opinion is

less likely to bring grave misfortune to a boy or girl than to an

adult, whose life is built upon certain postulates. For this reason,

I should encourage a habit of intelligent controversy among the older

boys and girls, and I should place no obstacles in their way even if

they questioned what I regarded as important truths. I should make it

my object to teach thinking, not orthodoxy, or even heterodoxy. And I

should absolutely never sacrifice intellect to the fancied interest

of morals. It is generally held that the teaching of virtue demands

the inculcation of falsehood. In politics, we conceal the vices of

eminent statesmen of our own party. In theology, we conceal the sins

of Popes if we are Catholics, and the sins of Luther and Calvin if we

are Protestants. In matters of sex, we pretend before young people that

virtue is much commoner than it is. In all countries, even adults are

not allowed to know certain kinds of facts which the police consider

undesirable, and the censor, in England, does not allow plays to be

true to life, since he holds that the public can only be cajoled into

virtue by deceit. This whole attitude implies a certain feebleness.

Let us know the truth, whatever it is; then we can act rationally.

The holders of power wish to conceal the truth from their slaves,

in order that they may be misled as to their own interests; this is

intelligible. What is less intelligible is that democracies should

voluntarily make laws designed to prevent themselves from knowing

the truth. This is collective Quixotism: they are resolved not to be

told that the helmet is less good than they wish to believe. Such

an attitude of abject funk is unworthy of free men and women. In my

school, no obstacle to knowledge shall exist of any sort or kind. I

shall seek virtue by the right training of passions and instincts,

not by lying and deceit. In the virtue that I desire, the pursuit

of knowledge, without fear and without limitation, is an essential

element, in the absence of which the rest has little value.

What I am saying is no more than this: that I should cultivate the

scientific spirit. Many eminent men of science do not have this spirit

outside their special province; I should seek to make it all-pervasive.

The scientific spirit demands in the first place a wish to find out

the truth; the more ardent this wish, the better. It involves, in

addition, certain intellectual qualities. There must be preliminary

uncertainty, and subsequent decision according to the evidence. We must

not imagine in advance that we already know what the evidence will

prove. Nor must we be content with a lazy scepticism, which regards

objective truth as unattainable and all evidence as inconclusive. We

should admit that even our best-founded beliefs probably stand in need

of _some_ correction; but truth, so far as it is humanly attainable,

is a matter of degree. Our beliefs in physics are certainly less false

now than they were before the time of Galileo. Our beliefs as to child

psychology are certainly nearer to the truth than Dr. Arnold’s were.

In each case, the advance has come through substituting observation

for preconceptions and passions. It is for the sake of this step that

preliminary uncertainty is so important. It is necessary, therefore,

to teach this, and also to teach the skill required for marshalling

evidence. In a world where rival propagandists are perpetually blazing

falsehoods at us, to induce us to poison ourselves with pills or each

other with poison gases, this critical habit of mind is enormously

important. Ready credulity in the face of repeated assertions is one of

the curses of the modern world, and schools should do what they can to

guard against it.

Throughout the later school years, even more than earlier, there

should be a sense of intellectual adventure. Pupils should be given

the opportunity of finding out exciting things for themselves after

their set tasks were done, and therefore the set tasks should not be

too heavy. There must be praise whenever it is deserved, and although

mistakes must be pointed out, it should be done without censure.

Pupils should never be made to feel ashamed of their stupidity. The

great stimulus in education is to feel that achievement is possible.

Knowledge which is felt to be boring is of little use, but knowledge

which is assimilated eagerly becomes a permanent possession. Let the

relation of knowledge to real life be very visible to your pupils, and

let them understand how by knowledge the world could be transformed.

Let the teacher appear always the ally of the pupil, not his natural

enemy. Given a good training in the early years, these precepts will

suffice to make the acquisition of knowledge delightful to the great

majority of boys and girls.

CHAPTER XVII

DAY SCHOOLS AND BOARDING SCHOOLS

Whether a boy or girl should be sent to a boarding school or a day

school is, to my mind, a question which must be decided in each case

according to circumstances and temperament. Each system has its own

advantages; in some cases the advantages of one system are greater, in

others those of the other. I propose, in this chapter, to set forth the

kind of arguments which would weigh with me in deciding about my own

children, and which, I imagine, would be likely to weigh with other

conscientious parents.

There are first of all considerations of health. Whatever may be true

of actual schools, it is clear that schools are capable of being

made more scientifically careful in this respect than most homes,

because they can employ doctors and dentists and matrons with the

latest knowledge, whereas busy parents are likely to be comparatively

uninformed medically. Moreover, schools can be put in healthy

neighbourhoods. In the case of people who live in big towns, this

argument alone is very powerful in favour of boarding schools. It is

obviously better for young people to spend most of their life in the

country, so that if their parents have to live in towns it may be

desirable to send the children away for their schooling. This argument

may perhaps cease, before long, to have much validity: the health of

London, for example, is steadily improving, and might be brought up

to the standard of the country by the artificial use of ultra-violet

light. Nevertheless, even if illness could be brought as low as in the

country, a considerable nervous strain would remain. Constant noise is

bad for both children and adults; the sights of the country, the smell

of damp earth, the wind and the stars, ought to be stored in the memory

of every man and woman. I think, therefore, that life in the country

for the greater part of the year will remain important for the young

whatever improvements may be effected in urban health.

Another argument, though a much smaller one, in favour of boarding

schools is that they save the time otherwise spent in going and coming.

Most people do not have a really good day school at their doors, and

the distance to be traversed may be considerable. This argument is

strongest in the country, as the other was strongest for town dwellers.

When it is desired to try any innovation in educational methods, it is

almost inevitable that it should first be tried in a boarding school,

because it is unlikely that the parents who believe in it will all

live within one small area. This does not apply to infants, because

they are not yet wholly in the grip of the education authorities;

consequently Madame Montessori and Miss McMillan were able to try their

experiment upon the very poor. Within the recognized school years, on

the contrary, only the rich are allowed to try experiments with their

children’s education. Most of them, naturally, prefer what is old and

conventional; the few who desire anything else are geographically

widely distributed, and do not anywhere suffice to support a day

school. Such experiments as Bedales are only possible for boarding

schools.

The arguments on the other side are, however, very considerable. In a

school, many aspects of life do not appear: it is an artificial world,

whose problems are not those of the world at large. A boy who is only

at home during the holidays, when everybody makes a fuss over him, is

likely to acquire far less knowledge of life than a boy who is at home

every morning and evening. This is, at present, less true of girls,

because more is demanded of them in many homes; but in proportion as

their education is assimilated to that of boys, their home life also

will become similar, and their present greater knowledge of domestic

affairs will disappear. After fifteen or sixteen, it is good for

boys and girls to have a certain share in parental occupations and

anxieties--not too much, it is true, since that would interfere with

education, but still some, lest they should fail to realize that the

old people have their own life, their own interests, and their own

importance. In the school, only young people count, and it is for them

that everything is done. In holidays, the atmosphere of home is apt

to be dominated by the young people. Consequently they tend to become

arrogant and hard, ignorant of the problems of adult life, and quite

aloof from their parents.

This state of affairs is apt to have a bad effect upon the affections

of young people. Their affection for their parents becomes atrophied,

and they never have to learn to adjust themselves to people whose

tastes and pursuits are different from their own. I think this tends

towards a certain selfish completeness, a feeling of one’s own

personality as something exclusive. The family is the most natural

corrective of this tendency, since it is a unit composed of people of

different ages and sexes, with different functions to perform; it is

organic, in a way which a collection of homogeneous individuals is not.

Parents love their children largely because they give so much trouble;

if parents give no trouble to their children, their children will not

take them seriously. But the trouble they give must be legitimate: it

must be only such as is necessary if they are to do their work and have

any life of their own. Respect for the rights of others is one of the

things young people ought to learn, and it is more easily learnt in

the family than elsewhere. It is good for boys and girls to know that

their father can be harassed by worries and their mother worn out by a

multiplicity of details. And it is good that filial affection should

remain alive during adolescence. A world without family affection

tends to become harsh and mechanical, composed of individuals who

try to domineer, but become cringing if they fail. I fear that these

bad effects are to a certain extent produced by sending children to

boarding schools, and I regard them as sufficiently serious to offset

great advantages.

It is of course true, as modern psychologists insist, that the

excessive influence of father or mother is a very harmful thing. But

I do not believe it is likely to exist where children have gone to

school from the age of two or three, as I have suggested that they

should. Day school from an early age affords, to my mind, the right

compromise between parental domination and parental insignificance. So

far as concerns the set of considerations with which we have just been

occupied, this seems clearly the best course, given a good home.

In the case of sensitive boys, there is a certain risk in leaving

them to the exclusive society of other boys. Boys of about twelve

are, for the most part, at a rather barbarous and insensitive stage.

Quite recently, at a leading English school, there was a case of a

boy suffering grave bodily injury for being sympathetic to the Labour

Party. Boys who differ from the average in their opinions and tastes

are likely to suffer seriously. Even at the most modern and progressive

boarding schools in existence, pro-Boers had a bad time during the

Boer war. Any boy who is fond of reading, or does not dislike his

work, is pretty sure to be ill-treated. In France, the cleverest boys

go to the _Ecole Normale Supérieure_ and do not mix any longer with

the average. This plan certainly has advantages. It prevents the

intellectuals from having their nerve broken and becoming sycophants

of the average Philistine, as happens to many of them in this country.

It avoids the strain and misery which an unpopular boy must suffer. It

makes it possible to give to clever boys the kind of teaching which

suits them, which goes at a much more rapid pace than is possible for

the less intelligent. On the other hand, it isolates the intellectuals

from the rest of the community in later life, and makes them,

perhaps, less able to understand the average man. In spite of this

possible disadvantage, I think it on the whole better than the British

upper-class practice of torturing all boys who have exceptional brains

or exceptional moral qualities, unless they happen also to be good at

games.[23]

However, the savagery of boys is not incurable, and is in fact much

less than it was. “Tom Brown’s School Days” gives a black picture,

which would be exaggerated if applied to the public schools of our own

day. It would be still less applicable to boys who had had the kind of

early training which we considered in previous chapters. I think also

that co-education--which is possible at a boarding school, as Bedales

shows--is likely to have a civilizing effect upon boys. I am chary

of admitting native differences between the sexes, but I think that

girls are less prone than boys to punish oddity by serious physical

cruelty. At present, however, there are very few boarding schools to

which I should venture to send a boy if he were above the average in

intelligence, morals, or sensitiveness, or if he were not conservative

in politics and orthodox in theology. For such boys, I am convinced

that the existing school system for the sons of rich parents is bad.

And among such boys are included almost all who have any exceptional

merit.

Of the above considerations, both for and against boarding schools,

there are only two that are essential and unalterable, and these two

are on opposite sides. On the one side there is the benefit of the

country and air and space; on the other, the family affections and

the education derived from knowledge of family responsibilities. In

the case of parents who live in the country, there is a different

argument in favour of boarding schools, namely, the improbability of

a really good day school in their neighbourhood. I do not think it is

possible, in view of these conflicting considerations, to arrive at

any general conclusion. Where children are so strong and vigorous that

considerations of health need not be taken very seriously, one argument

for boarding schools fails. Where they are very devoted to their

parents, one argument for day schools fails, since the holidays will

suffice to keep family affection alive, and term time may just prevent

it from becoming excessive. A sensitive child of exceptional ability

had better not go to boarding school, and in extreme cases had better

not go to school at all. Of course, a good school is better than a bad

home, and a good home is better than a bad school. But where both are

good, each case must be decided on its merits.

So far, I have written from the standpoint of a well-to-do parent,

to whom individual choice is possible. When the matter is considered

politically, from the point of view of the community, other

considerations enter in. We have on the one hand the expense of

boarding schools, on the other the simplification of the housing

problem if children are away from home. I hold strongly that, apart

from a few rare cases, every one ought to have a scholastic education

up to the age of eighteen, and exclusively vocational training should

only begin after that age. Although much might be urged both ways on

our present topic, the financial consideration will, for a long time to

come, decide the question, in the case of most wage-earners’ sons and

daughters, in favour of day schools. Since there is no clear ground for

thinking this decision wrong, we may accept it, in spite of the fact

that it is not made on educational grounds.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE UNIVERSITY

In previous chapters, we have considered the education in character and

knowledge which, in a good social system, should be open to everybody,

and should in fact be enjoyed by everybody, except for serious special

reasons such as musical genius. (It would have been unfortunate if

Mozart had been obliged to learn ordinary school subjects up to the age

of eighteen.) But even in an ideal community there would, I think, be

many people who would not go to the university. I am convinced that, at

present, only a minority of the population can profit by a scholastic

education prolonged to the age of twenty-one or twenty-two. Certainly

the idle rich who at present infest the older universities very often

derive no benefit from them, but merely contract habits of dissipation.

We have therefore to ask on what principle we are to select those

who should go to the university. At present, they are in the main

those whose parents can afford to send them, though this principle of

selection is being increasingly modified by the scholarship system.

Obviously, the principle of selection ought to be educational, not

financial. A boy or girl of eighteen, who has had a good school

education, is capable of doing useful work. If he or she is to be

exempted for a further period of three or four years, the community has

a right to expect that the time will be profitably employed. But before

deciding who is to go to the university, we must have some view as to

the function of the university in the life of the community.

British universities have passed through three stages, of which,

however, the second is not yet wholly displaced by the third. At first,

they were training colleges for the clergy, to whom, in the Middle

Ages, learning was almost wholly confined. Then, with the renaissance,

the idea gained ground that every well-to-do person ought to be

educated, though women were supposed to need less education than men.

“The education of a gentleman” was given at the universities throughout

the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is still

given at Oxford. For reasons which we considered in Chapter I, this

ideal, which was formerly very useful, is now out-of-date; it depended

upon aristocracy, and cannot flourish either in a democracy or in an

industrial plutocracy. If there is to be an aristocracy, it had better

be composed of educated gentlemen; but it is better still to have no

aristocracy. I need not argue this question, since it was decided in

England by the Reform Bill and the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in

America by the War of Independence. It is true that we still have in

England the forms of aristocracy, but the spirit is that of plutocracy,

which is quite a different thing. Snobbery makes successful business

men send their sons to Oxford to be turned into “gentlemen”, but the

result is to give them a distaste for business, which reduces their

children again to comparative poverty and the need of earning a living.

The “education of a gentleman” has therefore ceased to be an important

part of the life of the nation, and may be ignored in considering the

future.

The universities are thus reverting to a position more analogous to

that which they occupied in the Middle Ages; they are becoming training

schools for the professions. Barristers, clergymen and medical men have

usually had a university education; so have the first division of the

civil service. An increasing number of engineers and technical workers

in various businesses are university men. As the world grows more

complicated and industry becomes more scientific, an increasing number

of experts are required, and in the main they are supplied by the

universities. Old-fashioned people lament the intrusion of technical

schools into the haunts of pure learning, but it continues none the

less, because it is demanded by plutocrats who care nothing for

“culture”. It is they, much more than the insurgent democracy, who are

the enemies of pure learning. “Useless” learning, like “art for art’s

sake”, is an aristocratic, not a plutocratic, ideal; where it lingers,

it is because the renaissance tradition is not yet dead. I regret the

decay of this ideal profoundly; pure learning was one of the best

things associated with aristocracy. But the evils of aristocracy were

so great as easily to outweigh this merit. In any case, industrialism

must kill aristocracy, whether we desire it or not. We may as well make

up our minds, therefore, to save what we can by attaching it to new

and more potent conceptions; so long as we cling to mere tradition, we

shall be fighting a losing battle.

If pure learning is to survive as one of the purposes of universities,

it will have to be brought into relation with the life of the community

as a whole, not only with the refined delights of a few gentlemen

of leisure. I regard disinterested learning as a matter of great

importance, and I should wish to see its place in academic life

increased, not diminished. Both in England and in America, the main

force tending to its diminution has been the desire to get endowments

from ignorant millionaires. The cure lies in the creation of an

educated democracy, willing to spend public money on objects which our

captains of industry are unable to appreciate. This is by no means

impossible, but it demands a general raising of the intellectual level.

It would be much facilitated if our learned men would more frequently

emancipate themselves from the attitude of hangers-on of the rich,

which they have inherited from a time when patrons were their natural

source of livelihood. It is of course possible to confound learning

with learned men. To take a purely imaginary example, a learned man may

improve his financial position by teaching brewing instead of organic

chemistry; he gains, but learning suffers. If the learned man had a

more genuine love of learning, he would not be politically on the side

of the brewer who endows a professorship of brewing. And if he were on

the side of democracy, democracy would be more ready to see the value

of his learning. For all these reasons, I should wish to see learned

bodies dependent upon public money rather than upon the benefactions

of rich men. This evil is greater in America than in England, but it

exists in England, and may increase.

Leaving aside these political considerations, I shall assume that

universities exist for two purposes: on the one hand, to train men and

women for certain professions; on the other hand, to pursue learning

and research without regard to immediate utility. We shall therefore

wish to see at the universities those who are going to practise these

professions, and those who have that special kind of ability which will

enable them to be valuable in learning and research. But this does

not decide, by itself, how we are to select the men and women for the

professions.

At present, it is very difficult to enter upon such a profession as

law or medicine unless one’s parents have a certain amount of money,

since the training is expensive and earnings do not begin at once.

The consequence is that the principle of selection is social and

hereditary, not fitness for the work. Take medicine as illustrative.

A community which wished to have its doctoring done efficiently would

select for medical training those young people who showed most keenness

and aptitude for the work. At present this principle is applied

partially, to select among those who can afford the training; but it

is quite probable that many of those who would make the best doctors

are too poor to take the course. This involves a deplorable waste of

talent. Let us take another example of a somewhat different kind.

England is a very thickly populated country, which imports most of

its food. From a number of points of view, but especially from that of

safety in war, it would be a boon if more of our food were produced

at home. Yet no measures are taken to see that our very limited area

is efficiently cultivated. Farmers are selected mainly by heredity:

as a rule, they are the sons of farmers. The others are men who have

bought farms, which implies some capital but not necessarily any

agricultural skill. It is known that Danish methods of agriculture

are more productive than ours, but no steps are taken to cause our

farmers to know about them. We ought to insist that every person

allowed to cultivate more than a small holding should have a diploma

in scientific agriculture, just as we insist on a motorist having a

licence. The hereditary principle has been abandoned in government, but

it lingers in many other departments of life. Wherever it exists, it

promotes the inefficiency to which it formerly led in public affairs.

We must replace it by two correlative rules: first, that no one shall

be allowed to undertake important work without having acquired the

necessary skill; secondly, that this skill shall be taught to the

ablest of those who desire it, quite independently of their parents’

means. It is obvious that these two rules would enormously increase

efficiency.

University education should therefore be regarded as a privilege for

special ability, and those who possess the skill but no money should be

maintained at the public expense during their course. No one should be

admitted unless he satisfies the tests of ability, and no one should be

allowed to remain unless he satisfies the authorities that he is using

his time to advantage. The idea of the university as a place of leisure

where rich young men loaf for three or four years is dying, but, like

Charles II, it is an unconscionable time about it.

When I say that a young man or woman at the university should not

be allowed to be idle, I must hasten to add that the tests of work

must not consist in a mechanical conformity to system. In the newer

universities in England and America there is a regrettable tendency

to insist upon attendance at innumerable lectures. The arguments in

favour of individual work, which are allowed to be strong in the case

of infants in a Montessori school, are very much stronger in the case

of young people of twenty, particularly when, as we are assuming,

they are keen and exceptionally able. When I was an undergraduate, my

feeling, and that of most of my friends, was that lectures were a pure

waste of time. No doubt we exaggerated, but not much. The real reason

for lectures is that they are obvious work, and therefore business men

are willing to pay for them. If university teachers adopted the best

methods, business men would think them idle, and insist upon cutting

down the staff. Oxford and Cambridge, because of their prestige, are to

some extent able to apply the right methods; but the newer universities

are unable to stand up against business men, and so are most American

universities. The teacher should, at the beginning of the term, give

a list of books to be read carefully, and a slight account of other

books which some may like and others not. He should set papers, which

can only be answered by noticing the important points in the books

intelligently. He should see the pupils individually when they have

done their papers. About once a week or once a fortnight, he should see

such as care to come in the evening, and have desultory conversation

about matters more or less connected with their work. All this is not

very different from the practice at the older universities. If a pupil

chooses to set himself a paper, different from that of the teacher but

equally difficult, he shall be at liberty to do so. The industry of the

pupils can be judged by their papers.

There is, however, one point of great importance. Every university

teacher should be himself engaged in research, and should have

sufficient leisure and energy to know what is being done in his subject

in all countries. In university teaching, skill in pedagogy is no

longer important; what is important is knowledge of one’s subject and

keenness about what is being done in it. This is impossible for a man

who is overworked and nervously exhausted by teaching. His subject is

likely to become distasteful to him, and his knowledge is almost sure

to be confined to what he learnt in youth. Every university teacher

ought to have a Sabbatical year (one in every seven), to be spent in

foreign universities or in otherwise acquiring knowledge of what is

being done abroad. This is common in America, but European countries

have too much intellectual pride to admit that it is necessary. In this

they are quite mistaken. The men who taught me mathematics at Cambridge

were almost wholly untouched by the Continental mathematics of the

previous twenty or thirty years; throughout my undergraduate time, I

never heard the name of Weierstrass. It was only by subsequent travel

that I came in contact with modern mathematics. This was no rare or

exceptional circumstance. Of many universities at many periods similar

things could be said.

There is in universities a certain opposition between those who care

most for teaching and those who care most for research. This is almost

entirely due to a wrong conception of teaching, and to the presence of

a number of students whose industry and capacity are below the level

which ought to be exacted as a condition of residence. The idea of the

old-fashioned schoolmaster persists to some extent at universities.

There is a desire to have a good moral effect on students, and a wish

to drill them in old-fashioned worthless information, largely known to

be false but supposed to be morally elevating. Students ought not to

be exhorted to work, but they should not be allowed to remain if they

are found to be wasting their time, whether from idleness or from lack

of ability. The only morality which can be profitably exacted is that

of work; the rest belongs to earlier years. And the morality of work

should be exacted by sending away those who do not possess it, since

evidently they had better be otherwise employed. A teacher should not

be expected to work long hours at teaching, and should have abundant

leisure for research; but he should be expected to employ this leisure

wisely.

Research is at least as important as education, when we are considering

the functions of universities in the life of mankind. New knowledge

is the chief cause of progress, and without it the world would soon

become stationary. It could continue, for a time, to improve by the

diffusion and wider use of existing knowledge, but this process, by

itself, could not last long. And even the pursuit of knowledge, if

it is utilitarian, is not self-sustaining. Utilitarian knowledge

needs to be fructified by disinterested investigation, which has no

motive beyond the desire to understand the world better. All the great

advances are at first purely theoretical, and are only afterwards found

to be capable of practical applications. And even if some splendid

theory never has any practical use, it remains of value on its own

account; for the understanding of the world is one of the ultimate

goods. If science and organization had succeeded in satisfying the

needs of the body and in abolishing cruelty and war, the pursuit of

knowledge and beauty would remain to exercise our love of strenuous

creation. I should not wish the poet, the painter, the composer or

the mathematician to be preoccupied with some remote effect of his

activities in the world of practice. He should be occupied, rather,

in the pursuit of a vision, in capturing and giving permanence to

something which he has first seen dimly for a moment, which he has

loved with such ardour that the joys of this world have grown pale

by comparison. All great art and all great science springs from the

passionate desire to embody what was at first an unsubstantial phantom,

a beckoning beauty luring men away from safety and ease to a glorious

torment. The men in whom this passion exists must not be fettered by

the shackles of a utilitarian philosophy, for to their ardour we owe

all that makes man great.

CHAPTER XIX

CONCLUSION

At the end of our journey, let us look back over the road, to obtain a

bird’s-eye view of the country we have traversed.

Knowledge wielded by love is what the educator needs and what his

pupils should acquire. In earlier years, love towards the pupils is the

most important kind; in later years, love of the knowledge imparted

becomes increasingly necessary. The important knowledge at first is

knowledge of physiology, hygiene, and psychology, of which the last

more especially concerns the teacher. The instincts and reflexes with

which a child is born can be developed by the environment into the

most diverse habits, and therefore into the most diverse characters.

Most of this happens in very early childhood; consequently it is at

this period that we can most hopefully attempt to form character.

Those who like existing evils are fond of asserting that human nature

cannot be changed. If they mean that it cannot be changed after six

years old, there is a measure of truth in what they say. If they mean

that nothing can be done to alter the instincts and reflexes with

which an infant is born, they are again more or less in the right,

though of course eugenics could, and perhaps will, produce remarkable

results even here. But if they mean, as they usually do, that there

is no way of producing an adult population whose behaviour will be

radically different from that of existing populations, they are flying

in the face of all modern psychology. Given two infants with the same

character at birth, different early environments may turn them into

adults with totally different dispositions. It is the business of early

education to train the instincts so that they may produce a harmonious

character, constructive rather than destructive, affectionate rather

than sullen, courageous, frank, and intelligent. All this can be done

with a great majority of children; it is actually being done where

children are rightly treated. If existing knowledge were used and

tested methods applied, we could, in a generation, produce a population

almost wholly free from disease, malevolence, and stupidity. We do not

do so, because we prefer oppression and war.

The crude material of instinct is, in most respects, equally capable

of leading to desirable and to undesirable actions. In the past,

men did not understand the training of instinct, and therefore were

compelled to resort to repression. Punishment and fear were the great

incentives to what was called virtue. We now know that repression is

a bad method, both because it is never really successful, and because

it produces mental disorders. The training of instincts is a totally

different method, involving a totally different technique. Habits and

skill make, as it were, a channel for instinct, leading it to flow one

way or another according to the direction of the channel. By creating

the right habits and the right skill, we cause the child’s instincts

themselves to prompt desirable actions. There is no sense of strain,

because there is no need to resist temptation. There is no thwarting,

and the child has a sense of unfettered spontaneity. I do not mean

these statements to be taken in an absolute sense; there will always be

unforeseen contingencies in which older methods may become necessary.

But the more the science of child psychology is perfected, and the more

experience we acquire in nursery-schools, the more perfectly the new

methods can be applied.

I have tried to bring before the reader the wonderful possibilities

which are now open to us. Think what it would mean: health, freedom,

happiness, kindness, intelligence, all nearly universal. In one

generation, if we chose, we could bring the millennium.

But none of this can come about without love. The knowledge exists;

lack of love prevents it from being applied. Sometimes the lack of

love towards children brings me near to despair--for example, when I

find almost all our recognized moral leaders unwilling that anything

should be done to prevent the birth of children with venereal disease.

Nevertheless, there is a gradual liberation of love of children, which

surely is one of our natural impulses. Ages of fierceness have overlaid

what is naturally kindly in the dispositions of ordinary men and

women. It is only lately that many Christians have ceased to teach the

damnation of unbaptized infants. Nationalism is another doctrine which

dries up the springs of humanity; during the war, we caused almost all

German children to suffer from rickets. We must let loose our natural

kindliness; if a doctrine demands that we should inflict misery upon

children, let us reject it, however dear it may be to us. In almost all

cases, the psychological source of cruel doctrines is fear; that is one

reason why I have laid so much stress upon the elimination of fear in

childhood. Let us root out the fears that lurk in the dark places of

our own minds. The possibilities of a happy world that are opened up by

modern education make it well worth while to run some personal risk,

even if the risk were more real than it is.

When we have created young people freed from fear and inhibitions and

rebellious or thwarted instincts, we shall be able to open to them the

world of knowledge, freely and completely, without dark hidden corners;

and if instruction is wisely given, it will be a joy rather than a task

to those who receive it. It is not important to increase the amount of

what is learnt above that now usually taught to the children of the

professional classes. What is important is the spirit of adventure and

liberty, the sense of setting out upon a voyage of discovery. If formal

education is given in this spirit, all the more intelligent pupils will

supplement it by their own efforts, for which every opportunity should

be provided. Knowledge is the liberator from the empire of natural

forces and destructive passions; without knowledge, the world of our

hopes cannot be built. A generation educated in fearless freedom will

have wider and bolder hopes than are possible to us, who still have to

struggle with the superstitious fears that lie in wait for us below

the level of consciousness. Not we, but the free men and women whom we

shall create, must see the new world, first in their hopes, and then at

last in the full splendour of reality.

The way is clear. Do we love our children enough to take it? Or shall

we let them suffer as we have suffered? Shall we let them be twisted

and stunted and terrified in youth, to be killed afterwards in futile

wars which their intelligence was too cowed to prevent? A thousand

ancient fears obstruct the road to happiness and freedom. But love can

conquer fear, and if we love our children nothing can make us withhold

the great gift which it is in our power to bestow.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “The Child: His Nature and His Needs.” Prepared under the editorial

supervision of M. V. O’Shea, Professor of Education, University of

Wisconsin, 1924. I shall allude to this book as “O’Shea”.

[2] Probably many of Dr. Arnold’s pupils suffered from adenoids, for

which medical men do not usually prescribe flogging, although they

cause habitual idleness.

[3] On fear and anxiety in childhood, see _e.g._ William Stern,

“Psychology of Early Childhood”, Chap. XXXV. (Henry Holt, 1924).

[4] If it be objected that, after all, the world progressed, the reply

is that it did not progress nearly as fast as it might have done, or as

it will do if children are wisely handled.

[5] This is perhaps not strictly accurate. Most children have periods

of apparent stagnation, which cause anxiety to inexperienced parents.

But probably throughout these periods there is progress in ways that

are not easily perceptible.

[6] “Studies in Infant Psychology”, _Scientific Monthly_, December,

1921, p. 506.

[7] I came to know of these passages from a quotation in Dr. Paul

Bousfield’s “Sex and Civilization”, where the same point of view is

strongly advocated.

[8] I think this fear was the same as the fear of mechanical toys. He

saw her first asleep, and thought she was a doll; when she moved he was

startled.

[9] The method adopted with me at the same age was to pick me up by the

heels and hold my head under water for some time. This method, oddly

enough, succeeded in making me like the water; nevertheless I do not

recommend it.

[10] See Bousfield, “Sex and Civilization”, _passim_.

[11] Cf. “The Nervous Child” by Dr. H. C. Cameron (3rd ed., Oxford,

1924), p. 32 ff.

[12] See _e.g._ “The Secret Corps”, by Captain Ferdinand Tuohy, Chap.

VI, (Murray, 1920).

[13] Hodder and Stoughton, 1925.

[14] “The Montessori Method” (Heinemann, 1912), p. 103.

[15] See Dr. H. C. Cameron, “The Nervous Child”, Chaps. IV and V.

[16] In very rare instances, it does a little harm, but this is easily

cured and is not more serious than the results of thumb-sucking.

[17] On this subject, _cf._ “The Nursery-School”, by Margaret McMillan

(Dent, 1919), p. 197.

[18] Although Miss McMillan is American, I understand that the

importance of nursery-schools is even less appreciated in America than

in England. As, however, there are not the financial difficulties which

exist in Europe, it may be hoped that the movement will soon become

wide-spread in the United States. There is no mention of it in O’Shea’s

book, though the need of it is evident from his remarks on p. 182.

[19] See Montessori, “The Montessori Method” (Heinemann, 1912), p. 42

ff.

[20] O’Shea, p. 386.

[21] Are we to infer that culture consists in carrying a hip-flask? The

definition seems applicable.

[22] In those days, in England, the State bore only part of the expense

of the school; this part was called a “grant”, and depended upon the

success of the children in examinations.

[23] The arguments in favour of segregating the able children are well

stated in O’Shea, Chap. XIV.

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