What Is and What Might Be A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular

Edmond Holmes

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the externalism of the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undue regard to outward and visible "results" and to neglect what is inward and vital, is the source of most of the defects that vitiate Education in this country, and therefore that the only remedy for those defects is the drastic one of changing our standard of reality and our conception of the meaning and value of life. My reason for making a special study of that branch of education which is known as "Elementary, " is that I happen to have a more intimate knowledge of it than of any other branch, the inside of an elementary school being so familiar to me that I can in some degree bring the eye of experience to bear upon the problems that confront its teachers. I do not for a moment imagine that the elementary school teacher is more deeply tainted than his fellows with the virus of "Occidentalism. " Nor do I think that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because, though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to eradicate

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• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819937111
• Langue: English

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PREFACE
My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the externalism of the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undueregard to outward and visible “results” and to neglect what isinward and vital, is the source of most of the defects that vitiateEducation in this country, and therefore that the only remedy forthose defects is the drastic one of changing our standard ofreality and our conception of the meaning and value of life. Myreason for making a special study of that branch of education whichis known as “Elementary, ” is that I happen to have a more intimateknowledge of it than of any other branch, the inside of anelementary school being so familiar to me that I can in some degreebring the eye of experience to bear upon the problems that confrontits teachers. I do not for a moment imagine that the elementaryschool teacher is more deeply tainted than his fellows with thevirus of “Occidentalism. ” Nor do I think that the defects of hisschools are graver than those of other educational institutions. Inmy judgment they are less grave because, though perhaps moreglaring, they have not had time to become so deeply rooted, and aretherefore, one may surmise, less difficult to eradicate. Also thereis at least a breath of healthy [vi] discontentstirring in the field of elementary education, a breath whichsometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams ofsunshine, whereas over the higher levels of the educational worldthere hangs the heavy stupor of profound self-satisfaction. [1] I am not exaggerating when I say that at thismoment there are elementary schools in England in which the life ofthe children is emancipative and educative to an extent which isunsurpassed, and perhaps unequalled, in any other type or grade ofschool.
I am careful to say all this because I foresee that,without a “foreword” of explanation, my adverse criticism of what Ihave called “a familiar type of school” may be construed into anattack on the elementary teachers as a body. I should be very sorryif such a construction were put upon it. No one knows better than Ido that the elementary teachers of this country are the victims ofa vicious conception of education which has behind it twentycenturies of tradition and prescription, and the malign influenceof which was intensified in their case by thirty years ormore [2] of Code despotism and “payment by results. ”Handicapped as they have been by this and other adverse conditions,they have yet produced a noble band of pioneers, to whom I, forone, owe what little I know about the inner meaning of education;and if I take an [vii] unduly high standard injudging of their work, the reason is that they themselves, by thebrilliance of their isolated achievements, have compelled me totake it. I will therefore ask them to bear with me, while I exposewith almost brutal candour the shortcomings of many of theirschools. They will understand that all the time I am thinking ofeducation in general even more than of elementary education, andusing my knowledge of the latter to illustrate statements andarguments which are really intended to tell against the former.They will also understand that at the back of my mind I am layingthe blame of their failures, not on them but on the hostile forceswhich have been too strong for many of them, — on the falseassumptions of Western philosophy, on the false standards and falseideals of Western civilisation, on various “old, unhappy, far-offthings, ” the effects of which are still with us, foremost amongthese being that deadly system of “payment by results” which seemsto have been devised for the express purpose of arresting growthand strangling life, which bound us all, myself included, withlinks of iron, and which had many zealous agents, of whom I, alas!was one.
[1]
PART I
WHAT IS
OR
THE PATH OF MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE
[3]
CHAPTER I
SALVATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE
The function of education is to foster growth. Bysome of my readers this statement will be regarded as a truism; byothers as a challenge; by others, again, when they have realisedits inner meaning, as a “wicked heresy. ” I will begin by assumingthat it is a truism, and will then try to prove that it istrue.
The function of education is to foster growth. Theend which the teacher should set before himself is the developmentof the latent powers of his pupils, the unfolding of their latentlife. If growth is to be fostered, two things must be liberallyprovided, — nourishment and exercise. On the need for nourishment Ineed not insist. The need for exercise is perhaps less obvious, butis certainly not less urgent. We make our limbs, our organs, oursenses, our faculties grow by exercising them. When they havereached their maximum of development we maintain them at that levelby exercising them. When their capacity for growth is unlimited, asin the case of our mental and spiritual faculties, the need forexercise is still more urgent. To neglect to exercise a given limb,or organ, or sense, or faculty, would result in its becoming weak,flabby, and in the last resort [4] useless. Inchildhood, when the stress of Nature's expansive forces isstrongest, the neglect of exercise will, for obvious reasons, havemost serious consequences. If a healthy child were kept in bedduring the second and third years of his life, the damage done tohis whole body would be incalculable.
These are glaring truisms. Let me perpetrate onemore, — one which is perhaps the most glaring of all. The processof growing must be done by the growing organism, by the child, letus say, and by no one else. The child himself must take in andassimilate the nourishment that is provided for him. The childhimself must exercise his organs and faculties. The one thing whichno one may ever delegate to another is the business of growing. Towatch another person eating will not nourish one's own body. Towatch another person using his limbs will not strengthen one's own.The forces that make for the child's growth come from withinhimself; and it is for him, and him alone, to feed them, use them,evolve them.
All this is—
"As true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth. "
But it sometimes happens that what is most palpableis least perceptible; and perhaps it is because the truth of what Isay is self-evident and indisputable, that in many ElementarySchools in this country the education given seems to be based onthe assumption that my “truisms” are absolutely false. In suchschools the one end and aim of the teacher is to do everything forthe child; — to feed [5] him with semi-digested food;to hold him by the hand, or rather by both shoulders, when he triesto walk or run; to keep him under close and constant supervision;to tell him in precise detail what he is to think, to feel, to say,to wish, to do; to show him in precise detail how he is to dowhatever may have to be done; to lay thin veneers of information onthe surface of his mind; never to allow him a minute forindependent study; never to trust him with a handbook, a note-book,or a sketch-book; in fine, to do all that lies in his power toprevent the child from doing anything whatever for himself. Theresult is that the various vital faculties which education might besupposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in theover-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes forhim to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously caredfor, he is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless,resourceless, without a single interest, without a single purposein life.
The contrast between elementary education as it toooften is, and as it ought to be if the truth of my “truisms” werewidely accepted, is so startling that in my desire to account forit I have had recourse to a paradox. “Trop de vérité, ” saysPascal, “nous étonne: les premiers principes ont trop d'évidencepour nous. ” I have suggested that the inability of so manyteachers to live up to the spirit, or even to the letter, of myprimary “truism, ” may be due to its having too much evidence forthem, to their being blinded by the naked light of its truth.
But there may be another explanation ofthe [6] singular fact that a theory of education towhich the teacher would assent without hesitation if it weresubmitted to his consciousness, counts for nothing in the dailyroutine of his work. Failure to carry an accepted principle intopractice is sometimes due to the fact that the principle has notreally been accepted; that its inner meaning has not beenapprehended; that assent has been given to a formula rather than atruth. The cause of the failure may indeed lie deeper than this. Itmay be that the nominal adherents of the principle are in secretrevolt against the vital truth that is at the heart of it; thatthey repudiate it in practice because they have already repudiatedit in the inner recesses of their thought. “This people drawethnigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips;but their heart is far from me. ” Tell the teacher that thefunction of education is to foster growth; that therefore it is hisbusiness to develop the latent faculties of his pupils; and thattherefore (since growth presupposes exercise) he must allow hispupils to do as much as possible by and for themselves, — placethese propositions before him, and the chances are that he will say“Amen” to them. But that lip assent will count for nothing. One'slife is governed by instinct rather than logic. To give a lipassent to the logical inferences from an accepted principle is onething. To give a real assent to the essential truth thatunderlies and animates the principle is another. The way in whichthe teacher too often conducts his school leads one to infer thatthe intuitive, instinctive side of him— the side that is nearest topractice— has somehow or other held [7] intercoursewith the inner meaning of that “truism” which he repeats so glibly,and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional assumptio