That glorification10 of indolence which we call the principle of laissez-faire is so successful in this department of our public life that what ought to be the State’s chief concern is hardly ever mentioned in our orgies of parliamentary debate. We peck at it occasionally. We enact11 that babies must have orange-boxes, and that children must not smoke cigarettes or approach within a certain number of yards of a bar (so that we get bar-scenes outside the door); and occasionally the representatives of rival sects12 get up a grand debate on the Bible in the school. These things emphasise13 the general neglect. Laissez-faire meant originally, “Leave things as they are”—it sounded better in French, but, like many ancient sentiments, it was converted into a respectable philosophy: “The State must leave as much as possible to the individual and the amateur.” Nineteenth-century Radicals14 fought heroically for this Conservative principle.
Education, however, was so flagrantly neglected by the parent and the Church that we had to compromise and take the child’s mind out of their care: leaving its body and character to the old hazards. At last it dawns on us that a sound body and character are just as important to the State as the capacity to read comic journals and stories: that the entire being of the child needs expert training, and it is worth the State’s while to give it. This broad ideal of education is increasingly accepted by pædagogists and social writers, and it is already largely embodied15 in educational practice. It has provoked the usual reaction, the usual determination that we will not allow our ways to be reformed without a struggle. “Advanced” teachers fight with Conservative teachers and politicians (particularly of the vestry type), and the familiar old hymn-tunes are heard throughout the land. We must not weaken parental16 responsibility: we must not lessen17 the charm of the domestic circle: we must not encroach on the sphere of the Church: we must beware of Socialism: we must resist the thin end of the wedge wherever we see one.
Why did the State, in the first half of the nineteenth century, undertake the task of educating the young? I do not mean that State-education was a new thing in history when a few European Governments adopted it little over a century ago. The Roman Empire had had a very fair system of municipal and State-education, and it is one of the gravest charges against the clergy18 that they suffered it to decay, and allowed or compelled ninety per cent. of their followers19 to remain in a state of gross ignorance for fourteen hundred years. At the end of the eighteenth century, as the revolt against ecclesiastical authority spread, the idea of State-education was revived. In England the clergy warmly resisted the progress of the idea, but the appalling20 ignorance of the people proved intolerable to the increasing band of reformers. Quakers like Lancaster and Agnostics like Robert Owen demanded and provided schools for the children of the workers, and the Church of England was forced to meet this danger of unsectarian education by founding a rival and orthodox association. But for fifty years the schooling21 remained so primitive22, and the proportion of illiterates24 remained so enormous, that at last the bishops25 were brushed aside and the Government was compelled to resume the work of the old Roman municipalities and Senate.
The motives26 of the reformers and statesmen who secured this advance were complex. Some of them were frankly27 anti-clerical and eager to undermine superstition28: some of them were business-men who pleaded that a lettered worker was worth more to the State than an illiterate23 worker. The predominant feeling was, as it had been among the Stoic29 reformers at Rome, humanitarian30. The gross ignorance of the mass of the people was a disgrace to civilisation31 and a source of brutality32 and crime: it was a human duty to educate. It was very widely recognised that this sentiment imposed on us a duty of developing the child’s character as well as its mind, but here the Churches were inflexible33. Unblushingly asserting that they were the historic educators of Europe, they refused to relinquish34 their last hold on the school, and the State was compelled to accept the compromise of religious instruction in the public schools, as well as the endowment of sectarian schools. As to the third part of the ideal of education, the cultivation35 of the body, we may admit that science itself was not yet sufficiently36 advanced to demand it.
With the growth of democratic aspirations37, the Conservative began to see a danger in this plea that the community must see to the full development of all its children, and new phrases were invented. “Industrial efficiency” was the most plausible38 of these checks on education. The manual workers were to have their intellects awakened39 to the slight extent which was needed to make them better instruments of production, but no further: lest they should become dissatisfied with their position of inferiority and disturb our excellent industrial order. Educators, however, refused to be restrained by this kind of sociology. It was their business to develop the child’s intelligence, and they had a fine ambition to do it thoroughly. They built infant-schools, which took the tender young away from their mothers, to the great advantage of both. They found that large numbers of children were too poorly fed or too defective40 in body to receive real education, and they instituted drill and demanded cheap or free meals and medical inspection41. They abolished the half-timer, and raised the age of compulsory42 attendance. They began to resent the idea that lessons from the Bible were a training of character. These developments have alarmed many. They begin to see that in the long-run these things will impose on the State the duty of developing the child’s whole being—body, mind, and character—before the boy or girl is allowed to enter the industrial world. We hesitate, as we do in face of all large and fully43 developed ideals, and look round for ways of escape.
The chief of these evasions44 is still the doctrine45 of what we call “parental responsibility.” Some day the idea that a parent is the best-fitted person to train a child will be regarded as a medieval superstition. The parent is as amateurish46 in training children as in cooking or making frocks. The notion that “nature tells” a mother what to do is part of the crude psychology47 of the Schoolmen. From the moment of birth, and during the months before birth, the human mother has no inspiration whatever. She goes by tradition, by the crude advice of elders and neighbours, as every observer of the arrival of the first baby knows. A cat acts by what we call “instinct,”—by certain neuro-muscular reactions which natural selection has perfected,—but a human being has intelligence instead of instinct, and the first thing intelligence enjoins49 is that experts ought to be trained for particular duties. The death-rate in every civilised country has gone down enormously since we ceased to rely on motherly instinct, or grandmotherly fables50. A time may come, therefore, when the State will receive a bearing woman in a properly appointed home, and will care for the child from the moment of birth until, in its later teens, it is equipped for work. I will suggest in the next chapter that this ought by no means to be regarded as the completion of education; here I am concerned only with the earlier part. Many are convinced that this is the last and logical term of the development on which we have entered.
I am avoiding remote ideals as much as possible, but it is important to meet the prejudice which opposes reform along this line. Many people tell us that, if this unnatural51 dethronement of the mother and invasion of the home are to be the final terms of our present development, they will resist it at every step: on the familiar thin-end-of-the-wedge principle. Our beautiful “home life” must be preserved at all costs. Our “parental instincts” shall not be enfeebled.
Candidly52, in what proportion of the real homes of England, as distinct from the home of a fiction-writer, is the life “beautiful”? In what proportion does it not rather present the spectacle of an overburdened mother struggling heroically to live up to her reputation for gentleness under the strain of ill or wayward children and an irritating husband? In what proportion are the beautiful homes of the novel written by spinsters or bachelors, or people who restrict the number of their children, or men whose posthumous53 biographies do not reveal a very sweet home life? I believe it was Carlyle who originated that fond boast that no nation in the world has a word for “home” like the English. It was certainly Dickens who gave us the most touching54 pictures of domestic tenderness and happiness. How many mothers of the working and lower middle class do not dread55 the holidays, when the children threaten to be near them all day? How many are capable of training children? How many do not regard a blow as the supreme moral agency? How many would not welcome the easing of their burden, and the training of their children by experts? And why in the world should mothers be likely to have less affection for their children because they have infinitely56 less trouble with them, and see them only in their smiling hours?
The happiest phase of English home life is, surely, found in those middle-class families which can send the children away to school for four-fifths of the year and welcome them home periodically in the holiday mood. In the vast majority of cases the teacher has to struggle despairingly against the influence of the home and the street; for it is to the street that the mother entrusts57 the child. A lady (an educational expert) once observed to me that it was remarkable58 to find the children in Gaelic districts of Scotland speaking the purest English. On the contrary, it was wholly natural, and it points an important pædagogical moral. The children learned English from their teachers only; there was no corrupt59 English dialect in the home or village to undo60 the teacher’s lessons. In other matters besides language the school-lessons are constantly frustrated61 outside the school.
I pass frequently through the stream of children pouring out of a large and handsome suburban62 school. It is not in a slum. There are broad green fields on every side, and there are vast and beautiful public spaces not far away. But the homes from which many of the children come are squalid, and the street-scenes, especially in front of the local inn, are often disgusting. On more than one occasion I have heard the men openly talk of their practice of unnatural vice48. I have seen a girl of ten watch her intoxicated63 father misconduct himself with a prostitute, while the mother—whose attention was called to the fact by the child, in the mono-syllabic language of the district—chatted with a neighbour. And I am not surprised to notice that, when the children burst from school, which they hate, numbers of them break into foul64 language, indecent behaviour, and fighting. Their world, outside the school, is one mighty65 drag on the teacher’s efforts. When they leave school, with brains half-developed and only the maxims66 of ancient Judæa (at which half their world scoffs) to guide their conduct, when they enter workshops and laundries and join the company of ring-eyed boys and girls in the first flush of sex-development, they shed the feeble influence of the school-lessons in a few months.
The district I have in mind is a very common type of district: a healthy, open suburb on the fringe of London, tainted67 by one of those older villages in which the poorest workers are apt to congregate69. It has an expensive Church-Institute and numerous chapels70. You may see the thing in almost any part of London, and most other towns. I have a vivid recollection of passing from a Catholic elementary school and strict home in Manchester to a large warehouse71 thirty-five years ago. There is little change in that respect to-day. A very few years ago a Manchester boy passed the same way; and a month or two later, his father told me, he returned home chuckling72 over a “funny story” about Christ. The school fails, not from lack of devotion in the teachers, but because the child learns more in the street, and often in the home; and these lessons are, somehow, more congenial.
Now if we are not satisfied with this comparative waste of effort and sterility73 of result, we have to consider candidly the ambition of the educationist. He wants to turn out a young citizen with an active mind, a sound body, and a character prepared to resist the more degrading influences of the world he will enter. He cannot carry out this aim in the case of every child entrusted74 to him, but he can in most cases, if the State will help him. He must have his children properly nourished: neither underfed nor stuffed with coarse food by ignorant mothers. He must have them seasonably clothed and shod: again the mothers need instruction and pressure. He must have, not only drill and more natural forms of exercise, but more control over the children outside of school-hours; he is already beginning, with great promise of good, to walk and play with them, to take them to museums, and so on. He must have adequate medical assistance, and must have the support of the law in counteracting75 dirty homes and careless parents. He must keep the child still a few years longer at school, because a child only begins to be really educable at thirteen or fourteen. He must have the encouragement of knowing that the more promising76 boys and girls will find the avenue open to higher schools, and that the community will make some serious provision of mental stimulation77 for the adolescent and the adult. And in order to carry out properly this large and promising scheme of training he must have twice as many colleagues as he has, so that each may be able to give individual attention to pupils, and in order that too great demands be not made on their hours of rest.
But where are we to find the very large sums of money which would be required for carrying out such a scheme? I wish everybody in England realised that we should have the funds to carry out this scheme in its entirety, in its most advanced developments, if we abolished militarism; that if we had done this before 1914, we should have had, in the cost of the war, the funds to carry out such a scheme two or three times over. We have to reflect also whether the increased prosperity of England would not pay the cost. There are other considerations which I give later, but I would add here at least a word about experience in other lands. At New York and Chicago I visited schools—elementary and secondary, but both free—with which we have nothing to compare in this country: palatial78 structures with superb equipment and devoted79 staffs. Yet when I asked ratepayers how they contrived80 to spend so lavishly81 on education, the three or four public men I asked were so little conscious of a burden that they were unable to explain satisfactorily where the funds came from!
We are, however, making progress here and there,—Bradford, for instance, has had the courage to be quite Socialistic in its care of the young,—and the triple ideal of education is generally, if at times reluctantly, recognised. As far as the education of the body is concerned, in fact, we have no ground for quarrelling with our teachers, whatever we may say of some of our educational authorities. Medical inspection, drill, hygiene82, play, excursions, feeding, etc., are discussed very conscientiously83 at every meeting of teachers, and the reforms proposed are more or less admitted in all places, even under the London County Council. The teachers themselves often go far beyond their prescribed tasks in endeavouring to help the children. In places they yield part of their necessary midday rest to attend to the feeding of poor children: which I found admirably, and most cheerfully and expeditiously84, done in Chicago (where 1500 children at one school were quietly and excellently fed in thirty minutes) by a committee of ladies of the district. They give Saturdays and holidays for conducting visits to museums or excursions, or for controlling sports. What is chiefly needed is that the authorities should deal stringently85 with backward sectarian schools, and provide a very much larger supply of teachers and servants. The municipal authority of the richest city in the world—the London County Council—is scandalously stingy and reactionary86 in this respect.
When we turn to the question of educating the intelligence, it is not possible to approve so cordially. No one, assuredly, can fail to appreciate the zeal87 and efforts of educationists and teachers, especially in the last few decades. Hardly any body of professional men and women among us, certainly no body of public servants, has a deeper and sounder ambition to conduct its work on the most effective lines. A vast literature is published, frequent congresses are held, and the science of psychology is assiduously cultivated. One must appreciate also the fatal limitations of the teacher’s activity; as long as we withdraw children from him at the age of fourteen, education is impossible. It may seem, therefore, ungracious or unwise to criticise,—though I am not wholly a layman88 in regard to education,—but there is at least one feature of our school life to which I would draw serious critical attention.
The general public is apt to express this feature resentfully by saying that the modern teacher “crams.” Better informed critics have put it that modern education is little more than a process of “encephalisation,” or the imprinting89 of certain facts on the child’s brain almost as mechanically as the indenting90 of marks on the cylinder91 of a gramophone. Each of these criticisms implies an injustice92. Educationists and teachers have, of course, discussed this very point for decades, and the present system is the formulation of their deliberate judgment93. They still differ amongst themselves as to the proportion of memory-work and stimulation-work, but it is too late in the day (if accurate at all) to tell teachers that to “educate” means “to draw out” the child’s “faculties,” not to put in. Every elementary teacher knows that he must train the child to think as well as furnish it with positive information. The point one may legitimately94 raise is whether the general educational practice represents a fair adjustment of the two functions.
It is essential in such disputes to have clear principles. What is the aim of education? The current phrase, “to make good citizens,” is far too vague. A good citizen is, in a large employer’s mind, a man who will work for two pounds a week and not annoy wealthier people by demanding more: in a clergyman’s mind, one who goes to church. The point is serious and relevant, because there is a growing tendency among the middle and upper class to insist on a return to the ideal of the old Church of England school society: the children must not be educated in such a way that they will aspire95 above the station to which the Almighty96 has called them. As, however, the educationist will probably reply at once that his duty is to do all in his power to promote intelligence during such period as the State thinks advisable, we need not discuss the larger ideal of developing the child’s powers on general humanitarian grounds.
But glance at the manuals which are used in our schools, and consider whether we have as yet realised the true ideal of education. These manuals, and the methods employed, are the outcome of a hundred years of critical discussion, yet I venture to say that they need to be entirely97 rewritten. I pass over the infant-schools and earlier standards, where the first general ideas are carefully, and on the whole judiciously99, implanted. As soon, however, as the child enters its teens, it is painfully overloaded100 with memory-work. I take, for example, the manuals of geography and history which are used in educating children of eleven in a first-class London secondary school. They are crammed101 with information which will never be of the least use to one man in ten thousand, and which we have no right whatever to impose on the young brain with so much necessary work to do.
The manual of early English history which I have before me is a characteristically modern production. Instead of the grim old paragraphs, in alternate large and small type, on which the eye of the child nearly always gazes with reluctance102, there are vivid sketches103 of life in successive ages. There is danger, perhaps, that the child will pass to the opposite extreme, and take the manual as a story-book, a work of ephemeral interest; at least careful guidance will be needed to enable it to select the necessary material which is to be memorised. But the chief defect still is the overloading104 of the pages with matter of no serious usefulness. The doings of Ethelbert and Ethelfrith and Redwald and Penda and Offa, whose very names bewilder the young mind, are compressed into a few forbidding paragraphs, instead of being relegated105 to the University. Later come Ethelwulf and Osburh and Ethelbald and Ethelbert; and Sweyn Forkbeard and Olaf Trygvasson and Guhilda; and Rhodri and Llywelyn and Griffith ap Rees and Own Gwynedd and Egfrith and Malcolm Canmore and John Balliol. How many of us know, or need to know, a word about them, and their families, and their battles? Then the French wars are told in detail, and the pages bristle106 with dates and French names and genealogies107; and the Wars of the Roses introduce a new series of repellent and useless names and dates. The child, in a word, is enormously overburdened with stuff which we adults would refuse to commit to memory or even to read. Yet this is a very modern manual, the last word in the adaptation of history to the mind of a child of ten or eleven.
The manual of European geography, also, is one of the most modern and enlightened that a teacher can choose, but it imposes a mass of pedantic108 and useless knowledge. Isotherms and isobars and the freezing of the Oder and Vistula and Danube; the navigability of the Ebro and Guadalquiver, and the wheat-growing areas of France and Spain, and the industries of Lille and Roubaix and Magdeburg and Lombardy and Smyrna; in a word, fully one-third of the details in the little manual—the details which it is most difficult to remember, which tax the child’s brain most, and will be forgotten soonest and with least loss—ought not to have been inserted. The whole plan is academic and pedantic: it is built on the supposition that the child must have a summary of the kind of knowledge which a geographical109 expert would have to master. And in later years the child must laboriously110 cover the whole globe with the same unnecessary attention to useless details.
In mathematics, at least, the same criticism will hold. Geometry is, of course, no longer a mere111 task of memorisation; but the positive knowledge of problems is not of the least use, save in a few exceptional cases, and the training of the mind might be achieved by lessons in natural science. In natural science itself one might quarrel with much of the material given: not one in ten thousand, for instance, will even remember in later years the elements of botany. But at least we are, in giving scientific information, training the young to inquire into the nature of positive reality and initiating112 them to branches of knowledge in which they can easily advance in later years, since we have so fine a popular literature of science, and the advance will be a considerable gain in their whole mental outlook. It is chiefly in regard to history and geography that time and labour might be spared, and more leisure given for ensuring that the child will assimilate the knowledge imparted. Mental energy should not be wasted in mastering an immense collection of facts which, experience shows, are certain to be forgotten within a few years.
I may also recall that, when we choose to carry out the elementary reform of abolishing the plurality of tongues, a vast economy will be made in the curriculum, and really useful knowledge will be imparted more thoroughly and with finer attention to the texture113 of the child’s brain. The academic plea, that there is excellent training in a thorough study of Latin and Greek, may be freely granted. But there is just as excellent a training in the thorough study of such branches of science as are fitted for the school, and the positive information gained is permanently114 useful.
If we thus eliminate languages and simplify geography and history we give the modern teacher a more hopeful opportunity. It is surely the universal experience that we forget nine-tenths of the geographical details we learn at school, and we find little inconvenience in re-learning such as we need to master in later years. A judicious98 outline-scheme, with more physiography and less of useless detail, and a fuller account of one’s national geography (not because it describes the child’s country, but because it is practical information) would suffice. The remainder, or part of it, could be imparted in technical training for commerce. History should be wholly remodelled115. It is ludicrous to-day to make the child grow pale and worn over the past royal families and wars of England, and dismiss the general history of the race in a page or two. A fine scheme of the history, and even the prehistory and origin, of the human race, with so much fuller information about the child’s own country as is useful for the understanding of its institutions and monuments, could be imparted in less time, with more interest, and with far greater profit. The patriotic116 sham117 deeply vitiates our scheme of instruction and makes the training of the child scandalously one-sided and exacting118. Germany has recently shown us the pernicious results of this political perversion119 of education.
Passing to the moral education of children, we at once find it cruelly distorted and enfeebled by a religious sham of the least defensible nature. Such moralists as Kant and Emerson hardly exaggerated the human importance of moral law, however much they failed to understand its human significance. Character is the pivot120 on which life turns. The general diffusion121 of fine qualities of character would transform the earth, quite apart from economic and political reform, and lead to a speedier settlement of our industrial and international difficulties. It is therefore of supreme importance to train the will or character of the child from its earliest years. Yet there is no other branch of our education, and hardly any other branch of our life, in which we tolerate so crude and ludicrous a pretence122 of work.
The education authority of the Metropolis123 of England would, one supposes, have the advantage of the finest expert advice in the world. Enter one of the thousands of schools under its control, however, and ask how the training of character is conducted. A teacher informs you that at college he has learned only to impart “Biblical knowledge.” He will show you a scheme of lessons founded on the Old and New Testament124. The younger the child, the more preposterous125 the lesson. In the lower standards the child must learn the story of the Creation, the Fall, the Deluge126, etc. It is still too young to imagine that its teacher may, at the command of our education authorities, be grossly deceiving it, or to perceive that these ancient Babylonian legends contain no particular incentive127 to virtue128. When it passes to the higher standards it is initiated129 to some equally remarkable stories about the early history of mankind and the early conduct of the Deity130. The teacher rarely believes these things, and it may be assumed that men like Mr. Sidney Webb, who voted for this scheme of education in the L.C.C., do not. If the child has intelligence enough to raise the question of veracity131, it must be snubbed or deceived. A London teacher told me that on one occasion, when he had described some of the remarkable proceedings132 of the Israelites in ancient Palestine, a precocious133 youngster asked: “Please, sir, is it true?” Our education authorities forbid him to reply to such a question. Indeed, his headmaster was a Nonconformist (very zealous134 for Bible lessons), and would find a way to punish any departure from the appointed untruths.
The lessons from the New Testament are, it is true, devoid135 of this atmosphere of Oriental animalism, ferocity, and superstition which clings to the Old Testament lesson, but here again the teacher is forced to violate the elementary principles of education. He must gravely tell the story of the miraculous136 birth, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ. He probably knows that some of the most learned divines in England and other countries regard these stories as false, but he must deliberately137 and solemnly tell the young that Christ was God and that these things are written in the “Word of God.” He must repeat parables138 which we know to have been borrowed (and often spoiled in the borrowing) from the Jewish rabbis, yet teach that this was the unique feature of Christ’s preaching. He must use all his ingenuity139 to wring140 a moral lesson out of the parables of the workers in the vineyard, the royal banquet, and so on. He must keep up this elaborate deception141 of the child until it leaves his care; and he knows that, in nine cases out of ten in London or any large city, the child is already hearing on all sides sneers142 at these ancient myths, and laughing at the system which inculcates them in the name of all that is most sacred.
The aim of our London authorities, and education authorities generally in England, is not to train character, but to teach the contents of the Bible. Why a civic143 authority should include the teaching of the Bible no man knows; and whether a civic authority can be indifferent to the truth or untruth of the lessons it imposes few seem to ask. Mr. Sidney Webb, endorsing144 these lessons, said that the Bible was “great literature”; and scores of our parochial legislators, who were not generally known to admire great literature (but were known to have numbers of Nonconformist constituents), fervently145 repeated the phrase. Does the child appreciate or hear a single word about the literary qualities of the Bible? Does a literary lesson need to be a deliberate lesson in untruth? Can we find no great literature which has not the taint68 of untruth?
Dr. Clifford says that these lessons tend to make “good citizens.” It is not at first sight apparent why we should go to the literature of an ancient, mendacious146, polygamous, and bloodthirsty tribe for lessons in citizenship147 in a modern civilisation. Let us suppose, however, that the ingenious teacher has wrung148 a moral of truthfulness149, fraternity, respect for women, self-reliance, and universal justice out of these peculiar150 records of ancient Judæa. Follow the child, in imagination, into the later years of citizenship. He hardly leaves the school before he learns that the whole Biblical scheme is very generally ridiculed151, and is rejected even by large numbers of learned theologians. Before many years, at least, he is fairly sure to learn this. The prescriptions152 of the Sermon on the Mount he, of course, never had the slightest intention of observing. The teacher, even while he reads the quixotic counsels, knows, and possibly notes with approval, that the boy’s code is: “If any smite153 thee on the one cheek, smite him forthwith on both.” But the boy now learns that from the Creation to the Resurrection the whole story is seriously disputed and is rejected by the majority of well-educated people. He looks back on his “Bible lessons” and his teacher with derision, and he discards the whole authority of his code of conduct. Surely an admirable foundation for virtue and citizenship!
Into the larger question of the relation of religious education and crime I cannot enter here. I have shown elsewhere that France, Victoria, and New Zealand, the countries with longest experience of secular154 education, have the best record among civilised nations in the reduction of crime. The carelessness of clerical writers as to the truth of their statements on this subject is appalling. There is not a tittle of reason in criminal statistics, or any other exact indications of national health, for retaining religious lessons in our schools. They are there merely because the clergy find it conducive155 to their prestige to have their sacred book enthroned with honour in the national scheme of education. As in the case of divorce, they ask us to maintain immorality156 in the name of religion. German schools are saturated157 with religious teaching, yet we have seen the issue of it all.
For one hundred years our English school-system has been hampered158 and perverted159 by this clerical insistence160 on religious lessons. Parents, they sometimes say, desire it; but when the Trades union Congress, the only large body of parents which ever pronounced on the subject, repeatedly voted for secular education, by overwhelming majorities, the clergy, through the minority of their followers, could only secure the exclusion161 of the subject from the agenda. Neither do the majority of teachers desire it; while educationists, as a whole, resent this grievous complication of their work. Nothing but the complete secularisation of all schools receiving funds from the nation or municipality will enable us to advance. The clergy must do their own work on their own premises162. The moral pretext163 is a thin disguise of an effort to use the nation’s resources and authority for the purpose of attaching children to the churches.
Writers on the subject are not wholly agreed whether we ought to substitute moral lessons for the discarded Bible lessons. We can in such a matter proceed only on probabilities, and it seems to me that judicious lessons for the training of character are very desirable. I do not so much mean abstract or direct lessons on the various qualities of character. If such lessons (on truthfulness, honesty, manliness164, etc.) were tactfully and sensibly conducted, they could be of great service. There is really not much danger of turning the average British schoolboy into a prig. But indirect lessons, especially from history and biography, should be more effective.
In either case our teachers would need special training for the lessons, and no philosophic165 or religious or anti-religious view of moral principles should be admitted. Experience has surely shown how little use there is in giving children a “categorical imperative,” or a set of arbitrary commandments, or an æsthetic lesson on “modesty.” You cannot in one hour teach the child to think, and in the next expect it to accept your instruction without thinking, because you are not prepared to give reasons for your commands. It is sometimes forgotten that even children share the mental awakening166 of our age, and must be treated wisely. The American or the Australian child well illustrates167 the change that is taking place. It is increasingly dangerous to give children dogmatic or mystic instruction in rules of conduct, nor is it in the least necessary to base this important part of their training on disputable grounds. Every quality of character that is inculcated may be related to the child’s actual or future experience of life, and will find an ample sanction therein. Life is full of material for such lessons: material far richer and easier of assimilation than the doings of an ancient Oriental people with a different code of morals. Let these lessons of history and contemporary life be developed, let the child learn in plain human speech the social significance of justice and honour, avoiding namby-pamby dissertations168 on the beauty of virtue, and there will be placed in the mind of the young, not an exotic plant which the child will be tempted169 to eradicate170, but a germ which will grow and bear fruit under the influence of its own experience.
The modern ideal of education further implies that the State shall provide higher tuition for those youths and maidens171 to whom it will be profitable to impart it. Scholastic172 evolution is advancing so rapidly in this direction that the ideal hardly needs vindication173. Seventeen hundred years ago such a “ladder of education” existed in Europe; from the municipally-endowed elementary school the promising youth could pass, through secondary colleges, to the imperial schools at Rome. Had that model been retained and improved instead of being abandoned for fourteen centuries, Europe would be in an immeasurably greater state of efficiency than it is. We are restoring and improving the pagan model, and there are signs that in time we shall have a complete system of secondary, technical, and higher education, quite apart from the schools in which the children of more or less wealthy parents learn their traditional virtues174 and vices175. If we have also some means by which able children whose talent has escaped the academic eye (of which we have many classical instances) may in later years have a chance of recognition, we shall exploit the intelligence of the race with splendid results.
The cost of this great reform need not intimidate176 us. Enormous sums of money have been given (by men like Mr. Carnegie) or bequeathed for the purpose, and the admirable practice will continue. But we need a searching revision of educational endowments, foundations, scholarships, etc. There is strong reason to suspect that estates which are now of great value are not applied177 to the scholastic purposes for which they were intended, or are badly administered, or are used in giving gratuitous178 or cheap education to the children of comfortable parents who secure favour or influence. A consolidation179 of all the endowments which had not in their origin an express sectarian purpose would provide a fund to which the State and municipal authorities need add little. The scheme would bring some order into our chaos180 of schools and colleges, and, while the more snobbish181 establishments would continue to preserve their pupils from the society of the children of tradesfolk, and would waste valuable resources on uncultivable minds, the youth of the nation generally, of both sexes, would be developed to the full extent of its capacity. These things have a monetary182 value. A distinguished183 historical writer told me that, on sending his son to Sandhurst, he proposed that they should study together the campaigns of Napoleon. The youth presently informed him that the traditions of Sandhurst did not allow them to do serious work outside the general routine. A few years later we heard the details of our South African War.
It will be a part of this increased efficiency to rid our secondary and higher schools of clerical domination. It is futile184 to say that the clergyman must represent morals and religion in the school. His record as a moralist during fifteen hundred years does not recommend his services. Even to-day public schools which retain the tradition of clerical masters are deplorable from the moral point of view. Some of them are nurseries of a vice which, unless it be discontinued when the youth goes out into the world, may bring on him one of the most degrading sentences of our penal185 law. The clerical method of character-training—one admits, of course, great occasional personalities—has little influence on these things. Public-school boys, and especially young men at our universities, know that every syllable186 which the preacher addresses to them is disputed, and no other ground of right and healthy conduct is, as a rule, impressed on them. Many will know that the grossest opinion of the clergy themselves is current in our public schools and older universities, and is embodied in numbers of scurrilous187 stories. The position of the clergyman in our educational world is false. He is there for the same reason that the Bible is in the elementary school: in the interest of the Churches. We have improved mental education enormously since it ceased to be a monopoly of the clergy. Possibly we will make a similar improvement in character-training; we can hardly do it with less success than they have done.
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1
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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glorification
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| n.赞颂 | |
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enact
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| vt.制定(法律)；上演，扮演 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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emphasise
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| vt.加强...的语气，强调，着重 | |
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radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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lessen
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| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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illiterates
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| 目不识丁者( illiterate的名词复数 )； 无知 | |
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bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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stoic
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| n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者 | |
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humanitarian
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| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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33
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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34
relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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38
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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40
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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41
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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42
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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43
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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evasions
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| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
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45
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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amateurish
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| n.业余爱好的，不熟练的 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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49
enjoins
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| v.命令( enjoin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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50
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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51
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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53
posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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54
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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55
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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entrusts
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的第三人称单数 ) | |
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58
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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59
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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61
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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62
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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maxims
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| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
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67
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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68
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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congregate
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| v.(使)集合，聚集 | |
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70
chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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72
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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sterility
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| n.不生育，不结果，贫瘠，消毒，无菌 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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counteracting
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的现在分词 ) | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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palatial
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| adj.宫殿般的，宏伟的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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lavishly
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| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
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hygiene
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| n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic） | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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expeditiously
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| adv.迅速地，敏捷地 | |
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stringently
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| adv.严格地，严厉地 | |
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reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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layman
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| n.俗人，门外汉，凡人 | |
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imprinting
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| n.胚教，铭记（动物生命早期即起作用的一种学习机能）；印记 | |
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indenting
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| n.成穴的v.切割…使呈锯齿状( indent的现在分词 )；缩进排版 | |
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cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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legitimately
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| ad.合法地；正当地，合理地 | |
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aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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overloaded
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| a.超载的，超负荷的 | |
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101
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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102
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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overloading
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| 过载，超载，过负载 | |
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relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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106
bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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genealogies
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| n.系谱，家系，宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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initiating
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| v.开始( initiate的现在分词 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员 | |
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113
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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114
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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115
remodelled
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| v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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116
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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117
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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118
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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119
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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120
pivot
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| v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的 | |
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121
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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122
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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123
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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124
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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125
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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126
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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127
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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128
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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129
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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130
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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131
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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132
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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133
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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134
zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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135
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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136
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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137
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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138
parables
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| n.（圣经中的）寓言故事( parable的名词复数 ) | |
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139
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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140
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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141
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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142
sneers
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| 讥笑的表情（言语）( sneer的名词复数 ) | |
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143
civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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144
endorsing
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| v.赞同( endorse的现在分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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145
fervently
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| adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地 | |
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146
mendacious
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| adj.不真的，撒谎的 | |
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147
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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148
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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149
truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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150
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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151
ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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152
prescriptions
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| 药( prescription的名词复数 )； 处方； 开处方； 计划 | |
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153
smite
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| v.重击；彻底击败；n.打；尝试；一点儿 | |
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154
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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155
conducive
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| adj.有益的，有助的 | |
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156
immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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157
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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158
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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159
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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160
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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161
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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162
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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163
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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164
manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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165
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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166
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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167
illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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168
dissertations
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| 专题论文，学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
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169
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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170
eradicate
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| v.根除，消灭，杜绝 | |
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171
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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172
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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173
vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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174
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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175
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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176
intimidate
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| vt.恐吓，威胁 | |
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177
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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178
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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179
consolidation
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| n.合并,巩固 | |
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180
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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181
snobbish
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| adj.势利的，谄上欺下的 | |
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182
monetary
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| adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的 | |
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183
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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184
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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185
penal
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| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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186
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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187
scurrilous
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| adj.下流的，恶意诽谤的 | |
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