BOND AND FREE
=Spiritual freedom.=--There is no slavery more abject than the bondage
of ignorance. John Bunyan was not greatly inconvenienced by being
incarcerated in jail. His spirit could not be imprisoned, but the
imprisonment of his body gave his mind and spirit freedom and
opportunity to do work that, otherwise, might not have been done. If he
had lived a mere physical life and had had no resources of the mind upon
which to draw, his experience in the jail would have been most irksome.
But, being equipped with mental and spiritual resources, he could smile
disdain at prison bars, and proceed with his work in spiritual freedom.
Had he been dependent solely, or even mainly, upon food, sleep, drink,
and other contributions to his physical being for his definition of
life, then his whole life would have been restricted to the limits of
his cell; but the more extensive and expansive resources of his life
rendered the jail virtually nonexistent.
=Illustrations.=--It is possible, therefore, so to furnish the mind that
it can enjoy freedom in spite of any bondage to which the body may be
subjected. Indeed, the whole process of education has as its large
objective the freedom of the mind and spirit. Knowledge of truth gives
freedom; ignorance of truth is bondage. A man's knowledge may be
measured by the extent of his freedom; his ignorance, by the extent of
his bondage. In the presence of truth the man who knows stands free and
unabashed, while the man who does not know stands baffled and
embarrassed. In a chemical laboratory the man who knows chemistry moves
about with ease and freedom, while the man who does not know chemistry
stands fixed in one spot, fearing to move lest he may cause an
explosion. To the man who knows astronomy the sky at night presents a
marvelous panorama full of interest and inspiration, to the man who is
ignorant of astronomy the same sky is merely a dome studded with dots of
light.
=Rome.=--The man who lacks knowledge of history is utterly bewildered
and ill at ease in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. All about him are
busts that represent the men who made Roman history, but they have no
meaning for him. Nero and Julius Cæsar are mere names to him and, as
such, bear no relation to life. Cicero and Caligula might exchange
places and it would be all one to him. He takes a fleeting glance at the
statue of the Dying Gaul, but it conveys no meaning to him. He has
neither read nor heard of Byron's poem which this statue inspired. He
sees near by the celebrated Marble Faun, but he has not read Hawthorne's
romance and therefore the statue evokes no interest. In short, he is
bored and uncomfortable, and importunes his companions to go elsewhere.
When he looks out upon the Forum he says it looks the same to him as any
other stone quarry, and he roundly berates the shiftlessness of the
Romans in permitting the Coliseum to remain when the stone could be used
for building purposes, for bridges, and for paving. The Tiber impresses
him not at all for, as he says, he has seen much larger rivers and,
certainly, many whose water is more clear. In the Sistine Chapel he
cannot be persuaded to give more than a passing glance at the ceiling
because it makes his neck ache to look up. The Laocoön and Apollo
Belvedere he will not see, giving as a reason that he is more than tired
of looking at silly statuary. He feels it an imposition that he should
be dragged around to such places when he cares nothing for them. His
evident boredom is pathetic, and he repeatedly says that he'd far rather
be visiting in the corner grocery back home, than to be spending his
time in the Vatican.
=Contrasts.=--In this, he speaks but the simple truth. In the grocery he
has comfort while, in the Vatican, he is in bondage. His ignorance of
art, architecture, history, and literature reduces him to thralldom in
any place that exemplifies these. In the grocery he has comfort because
he can have a share in the small talk and gossip that obtain there. His
companions speak his language and he feels himself to be one of them.
Were they, by any chance, to begin a discussion of history he would feel
himself ostracized and would leave them to their own devices. If they
would retain him as a companion they must keep within his range of
interests and thinking. To go outside his small circle is to offer an
affront. He cannot speak the language of history, or science, or art,
and so experiences a feeling of discomfort in any presence where this
language is spoken.
=History.=--In this concrete illustration we find ample justification
for the teaching of history in the schools. History is one of the large
strands in the web of life, and to neglect this study is to deny to the
pupil one of the elements of freedom. It is not easy to conceive a
situation that lacks the element of history in one or another of its
phases or manifestations. Whether the pupil travels, or embarks upon a
professional life, or associates, in any relation, with cultivated
people, he will find a knowledge of history not only a convenience but a
real necessity, if he is to escape the feeling of thralldom. The
utilitarian value of school studies has been much exploited, and that
phase is not to be neglected; but we need to go further in estimating
the influence of any study. We need to inquire not only how a knowledge
of the study will aid the pupil in his work, but also how it will
contribute to his life.
=Restricted concepts.=--We lustily proclaim our country to be the land
of the free, but our notion of freedom is much restricted. In the
popular conception freedom has reference to the body. A man can walk the
streets without molestation and can vote his sentiments at the polls,
but he may not be able to take a day's ride about Concord and Lexington
with any appreciable sense of freedom. He may walk about the
Congressional Library and feel himself in prison. He may desert a
lecture for the saloon in the interests of his own comfort. He may find
the livery stable more congenial than the drawing-room. His body may
experience a sort of freedom while his mind and spirit are held fast in
the shackles of ignorance. A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, might have
his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as
this. He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes
blindfolded, and that condition of mind precludes freedom.
=Real freedom.=--We shall not attain our high privileges as a free
people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical
restraint. Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of
mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their
chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free. We have only
to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublime heights
mind can attain in its explorations of the realms of truth, and, since
the boys and girls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every
effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedom to emulate
the mental achievements of those who have gone before. They have a right
to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of mind and
spirit can make them such. Every man should be larger than his task, and
only freedom of mind and spirit can make him so. The man who works in
the ditch can revel among the sublime manifestations of truth if only
his mind is rightly furnished.
=Spelling.=--The man who is deficient in spelling inevitably confines
his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and
nicety of diction. Accordingly, he suffers by comparison with others
whose vocabulary is more extensive and whose diction is, therefore, more
elegant. The consciousness of his shortcomings restricts the exuberance
of his life, and he fails of that sense of large freedom that a
knowledge of spelling would certainly give. So that even in such an
elementary study as spelling the school has an opportunity to generate
in the pupils a feeling of freedom, and this feeling is quite as
important in the scheme of life as the ability to spell correctly. In
this statement, there is no straining for effects. On the contrary, many
illustrations might be adduced to prove that it is but a plain statement
of fact. A cultured lady confesses that she is thrown into a panic
whenever she has occasion to use the word _Tuesday_ because she is never
certain of the spelling.
=The switchboard.=--Life may be likened to an extensive electric
switchboard, and only that man or woman has complete freedom who can
press the right button without hesitation or trepidation. The ignorant
man stands paralyzed in the presence of this mystery and knows not how
to proceed to evoke the correct response to his desires. It has been
said that everything is infinitely high that we cannot see over. Hence,
to the man who does not know, cube root is infinitely high and, as such,
is as far away from his comprehension as the fourth dimension or the
precession of the equinoxes. In the presence of even such a simple truth
as cube root he stands helpless and enthralled. He lives in a small
circle and cannot know the joy of the man whose mind forgathers with the
big truths of life.
=Comparisons.=--The ignorant man cannot accompany this man upon his
mighty excursions, but must remain behind to make what he can of his
feeble resources. The one can penetrate the mysteries of the planets and
bring back their secrets; the other must confine his thinking to the
weather and the crops. The one can find entertainment in the Bible and
Shakespeare; the other seeks companionship among the cowboys and Indians
of the picture-films. The one sits in rapt delight through an evening of
grand opera, reveling on the sunlit summits of harmony; the other can
rise no higher in the scale of music than the raucous hand organ. The
one finds keen delight among the masterpieces of art; the other finds
his definition of art in the colored supplement. The one experiences the
acme of pleasure in communing with historians, musicians, artists,
scientists, and philologists; the other finds such associations the very
acme of boredom. The one finds freedom among the big things of life; the
other finds galling bondage.
=Three elements of freedom.=--There are three elements of freedom that
are worthy of emphasis. These are self-reliance, self-support, and
self-respect. These elements are the trinity that constitute one of the
major ultimate aims of the vitalized school. The school that inculcates
these qualities must prove a vital force in the life of the pupil; and
the pupil who wins these qualities is well equipped for the work of real
living. These qualities are the golden gateways to freedom, nor can
there be a full measure of freedom if either of these qualities be
lacking. Moreover, these qualities are cumulative in their relations to
one another. Self-reliance leads to and engenders self-support, and both
these underlie and condition self-respect. Or, to put the case
conversely, there cannot be self-respect in the absence of self-reliance
and self-support.
=Self-reliance.=--It would not be easy to over-magnify the influence of
the school that is rightly conducted in the way of inculcating the
quality of self-reliance and in causing it to grow into a habit. Every
problem that the boy solves by his own efforts, every obstacle that he
surmounts, every failure that he transforms into a success, and every
advance he makes towards mastery gives him a greater degree of
self-reliance, greater confidence in his powers, and greater courage to
persevere. It is the high privilege of the teacher to cause a boy to
believe in himself, to have confidence in his ability to win through. To
this end, she adds gradually to the difficulties of his work, always
keeping inside the limits of discouragement, and never fails to give
recognition to successful achievements. In this way the boy gains
self-reliance and so plumes himself for still loftier flights. Day after
day he moves upward and onward, until at length he exemplifies the
sentiment of Virgil, "They can because they think they can."
=This quality in practice.=--The self-reliance that becomes ingrained in
a boy's habits of life will not evaporate in the heat of the activities
and competition of the after-school life. On the contrary, it will be
reënforced and crystallized by the opportunities of business or
professional life, and, in calm reliance upon his own powers, he will
welcome competition as an opportunity to put himself to the test. He is
no weakling, for in school he made his independent way in spite of the
lions in his path, and so gained fiber and courage for the contests of
daily life. And because he has industry, thrift, perseverance, and
self-reliance the gates of success swing wide open and he enters into
the heritage which he himself has won.
=The sterling man.=--His career offers an emphatic negation to the
notion that obtains here and there to the effect that education makes a
boy weak and ineffective, robbing him of the quality of sterling
elemental manhood, and fitting him only for the dance-hall and inane
social functions. The man who is rightly trained has resources that
enable him to add dignity and character to social functions in that he
exhales power and bigness. People recognize in him a real man, capable,
alert, and potential, and gladly pay him the silent tribute that manhood
never fails to win. He can hold his own among the best, and only the
best appeal to him.
=Self-respect.=--And, just as he wins the respect of others, so he wins
the respect of himself, and so the triumvirate of virtues is complete.
Having achieved self-respect he disdains the cheap, the bizarre, the
gaudy, and the superficial. He knows that there are real values in life
that are worthy of his powers and best efforts, and these real values
are the goal of his endeavors. Moreover, he has achieved freedom, and so
is not fettered by precedent, convention, or fads. He is free to
establish precedents, to violate the conventions when a great principle
is at stake, and to ignore fads. He can stand unabashed in the presence
of the learned of the earth, and can understand the heartbeats of life,
because he has had experience both of learning and of life. And being a
free man his life is fuller and richer, and he knows when and how to
bestow the help that will give to others a sense of freedom and make
life for them a greater boon.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Account for the production of some of our greatest religious
literature in prison or in exile. Give other instances than the one
mentioned by the author.
2. Give your idea of the author's concept of the terms "bondage" and
"freedom."
3. Add to the instances noted in this chapter where ignorance has
produced bondage.
4. Defend the assertion that the cost of ignorance in our country
exceeds the cost of education. The total amount spent for public
education in 1915 slightly exceeded $500,000,000.
5. How do the typical recitations of your school contribute to the
happiness of your pupils? Be specific.
6. How may lack of thoroughness limit freedom? Illustrate.
7. How may education give rise to self-reliance? Self-respect?
8. Show that national and religious freedom depend upon education.