THE SCHOOLING OF THE WORLD
And now I am going on to a review of the broad facts of the educational organization of our present world.
I am myself a very under-educated person. It is a constant trouble to me. Like seeks like in this world. I propose to ask the question whether the whole world is not under-educated, and I warn you in advance that I am going to answer in the affirmative.
I am going to discuss the possibility of raising the general educational level very considerably, and I am going to consider what such a raising of the educational level would mean in human life.
I propose to adopt rather a vulgar, business-like tone about all this. I am going to apply to the human community much the same sort of tests that a manufacturer applies to his factory. His factory has some distinctive product, and when he looks into his affairs he tries to find out whether he gets the utmost quantity of the product, whether he gets the best possible quality of the product, whether he gets it as efficiently and inexpensively as possible, and constantly how he can improve his factory and his processes in all these matters.
Now the human community may be regarded as a concern engaged in the production of human life. And it may be judged very largely by the question whether the human life it produces is abundant and full and intense and beautiful.
Most of the tests that we apply to a state or a city or a period or a nation resolve themselves, you will find, into these questions:—
What was the life it produced? What is the life it produces?
Now I will further assume that as yet the community has little or no control over the raw product, over the life, that is to say, that comes into it. I admit that from at least the time of Plato onward the possibility has been discussed of breeding human beings as we do horses and dogs. There is an enormous amount of what is called eugenic literature and discussion to-day. But I will set all that sort of thing aside from our present discussion because I do not think anything of the kind is practicable at the present time.
Quite apart from any other considerations, one has to remember one entire difference between the possible breeding of human beings and the actual breeding of dogs and horses. We breed dogs and horses for uniformity, for certain very limited specified points—speed, scent and the like. But human beings we should have to breed for variety: we cannot specify any particular points we want. We want statesmen and poets and musicians and philosophers and swift men and strong men and delicate men and brave men. The qualities of one would be the weaknesses of another.
It is really a false analogy, that between the breeding of men and the breeding of horses and dogs. In the case of human beings we want much more subtle and delicate combinations of qualities. For any practical purposes we do not know what we want nor do we know how to get it. So let us rule that theme out of our present discussion altogether.
And I also propose to rule out another set of topics from this discussion—simply because if we don't do so we shall have more matter than we can handle conveniently in the time at our disposal. I propose to leave out all questions of health and physical welfare. There is, as you know, a vast literature now in existence, concerned with the health and welfare of children before and after birth, concerned with infantile life, with social conditions and social work directed to the production of a vigorous population. I am going to assume here that all that sort of thing is seen to—that it is all right, that somebody is doing that, that we need not trouble for the present about any of those things.
This leaves us with the mental life only of our community and its individuals to consider. On that I propose to concentrate this discussion.
Now the human mind in its opening stages in a civilized community passes through a process which may best be named as schooling. And under schooling I would include not only the sort of things that we do to a prospective citizen in the school and the infant school but also anything in the nature of a school-like lesson that is done by the mother or nurse or tutor at home, or by playmates and companions anywhere. Out of this schooling arises the general mental life. It is the structural ground-stuff of all education and thought.
Now what is this schooling to do—what is it doing to the new human being?
Let us recall what our own schooling was.
It fell into two pretty clearly defined parts. We learnt reading and writing, we made a certain study of grammar, the method of language, perhaps we learnt the beginnings of some other language than our own; we learnt some arithmetic and perhaps a little geometry and algebra; we did some drawing. All these things were ways of expression, means of expressing ourselves, means of comprehending our thoughts in terms of other people's minds, and of understanding the expressions of others. That was the basis and substance of our schooling; a training in mental elucidation and in communication with other minds. But also as our schooling went on there was something more; we learnt a little history, some geography, the beginnings of science. This second part of education was not so much expression as wisdom. We learnt what was generally known of the world about us and of its past. We entered into the common knowledge and common ideas of the world.
Now, obviously, this schooling is merely a specialization and expansion of a parental function.
In the primitive ages of our race the parent, and particularly the mother, out of an instinctive impulse and practical necessity, restrained and showed and taught, and the child, with an instinctive imitativeness and docility, obeyed and learnt. And as the primitive family grew into a tribe, as functions specialized and the range of knowledge widened, this primitive schooling by the mother was supplemented and extended by the showing of things by companions and by the maxims and initiations of old men.
It was only with the development of early civilizations, as the mysteries of writing and reading began to be important in life, that the school, qua school, became a thing in itself. And as the community expanded, the scope of instruction expanded with it. Schooling is, in fact, and always has been, the expansion and development of the primitive savage mind, which is still all that we inherit, to adapt it to the needs of a larger community. It makes out of the savage raw material which is our basal mental stuff, a citizen. It is a necessary process of fusion if a civilized community is to keep in being. Without at least a network of schooled persons, able to communicate its common ideas and act in intelligent co-operation, no community beyond a mere family group can ever hold together.
As the human community expands, therefore, the range of schooling must expand to keep pace with it.
I want to base my inquiry upon that proposition. If it is sound, certain very interesting conclusions follow.
I have already shown in the preceding discussions that the range of the modern state has increased at least ten times in the past century, and that the scale of our community of intercourse has increased correspondingly. I want now to ask if there has been any corresponding enlargement of the scope of the schooling—either of the community as a whole or of any special governing classes in the community—to keep pace with this tremendous extension of range. I am going to argue that there has not been such an enlargement, and that a large factor in our present troubles is the failure of education and educational method to keep pace with the new demands made upon them.
Now I will first ask what would one like one's son or daughter to get at school to make him or her a full living citizen of this modern world. And at first I will not take into consideration the question of expense or any such practical difficulties. I will suppose that for the education of this fortunate young citizen whose case we are considering we have limitless means, the best possible tutors, the best apparatus and absolutely the most favourable conditions. The only limits to the teaching of this young citizen are his or her own limitations. We suppose a pupil of fair average intelligence only.