{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57283/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57283","id":"gutenberg_57283","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57283","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Category: Teaching & Education","Child rearing","Education","Parent and child"],"text":"Produced by Turgut Dincer, Martin Pettit and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: ELLEN KEY From a photograph]\n\n\n\n\nThe Century of the Child\n\nBy\n\nEllen Key\n\nG. P. Putnam's Sons\nNew York and London\nThe Knickerbocker Press\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1909\nBY\nG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS\n\nPublished, February, 1909\nReprinted, December, 1909\n\nThe Knickerbocker Press, New York\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHERS' NOTE\n\n\nThe present translation is from the German version of Frances Maro,\nwhich was revised by the author herself.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER                                            PAGE\n   I. THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO CHOOSE HIS PARENTS    1\n\n  II. THE UNBORN RACE AND WOMAN'S WORK               63\n\n III. EDUCATION                                     106\n\n  IV. HOMELESSNESS                                  191\n\n   V. SOUL MURDER IN THE SCHOOLS                    203\n\n  VI. THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE                      233\n\n VII. RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION                         284\n\nVIII. CHILD LABOUR AND THE CRIMES OF CHILDREN       316\n\n\n\n\nThe Century of the Child\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE RIGHT OF THE CHILD TO CHOOSE HIS PARENTS\n\n\nFilled with sad memories or eager hopes, people waited for the turn of\nthe century, and as the clock struck twelve, felt innumerable undefined\nforebodings. They felt that the new century would certainly give them\nonly one thing, peace. They felt that those who are labouring to-day\nwould witness no new development in that process of change to which they\nhad consciously or unconsciously contributed their quota.\n\nThe events at the turn of the century caused the new century to be\nrepresented as a small naked child, descending upon the earth, but\ndrawing himself back in terror at the sight of a world bristling with\nweapons, a world in which for the opening century there was not an inch\nof free ground to set one's foot upon. Many people thought over the\nsignificance of this picture; they thought how in economic and in actual\nwarfare all the lower passions of man were still aroused; how despite\nall the tremendous development of civilisation in the century just\npassed, man had not yet succeeded in giving to the struggle for\nexistence nobler forms. Certainly to the question why this still is so,\nvery different answers were given. Some contented themselves with\ndeclaring, after consideration, that things must remain just as they\nare, since human nature remains the same; that hunger, the propagation\nof the race, the desire for gold and power, will always control the\ncourse of the world. Others again were convinced that if the teaching\nwhich has tried in vain for nineteen hundred years to transform the\ncourse of the world could one day become a living reality in the souls\nof men, swords would be turned into pruning hooks.\n\nMy conviction is just the opposite. It is that nothing will be different\nin the mass except in so far as human nature itself is transformed, and\nthat this transformation will take place, not when the whole of humanity\nbecomes Christian, but when the whole of humanity awakens to the\nconsciousness of the \"holiness of generation.\" This consciousness will\nmake the central work of society the new race, its origin, its\nmanagement, and its education; about these all morals, all laws, all\nsocial arrangements will be grouped. This will form the point of view\nfrom which all other questions will be judged, all other regulations\nmade. Up to now we have only heard in academic speeches and in\npedagogical essays that the training of youth is the highest function of\na nation. In reality, in the family, in the school, and in the state,\nquite other standards are put in the foreground.\n\nThe new view of the \"holiness of generation\" will not be held by mankind\nuntil it has seriously abandoned the Christian point of view and taken\nthe view, born thousands of years ago, whose victory has been first\nforeshadowed in the century just completed.\n\nThe thought of development not only throws light on the course of the\nworld that lies behind us, continued through millions of years, with its\nfinal and highest point in man; it throws light, too, on the way we have\nto travel over; it shows us that we physically and psychically are ever\nin the process of becoming. While earlier days regarded man as a fixed\nphenomenon, in his physical and psychical relations, with qualities that\nmight be perfected but could not be transformed, it is now known that he\ncan re-create himself. Instead of a fallen man, we see an incompleted\nman, out of whom, by infinite modifications in an infinite space of\ntime, a new being can come into existence. Almost every day brings new\ninformation about hitherto unsuspected possibilities; tells us of power\nextended physically or psychically. We hear of a closer reciprocal\naction between the external and internal world; of the mastery over\ndisease, of the prolongation of life and youth; of increased insight\ninto the laws of physical and psychical origins. People even speak of\ngiving incurable blind men a new kind of capacity of sight, of being\nable to call back to life the dead; all this and much else which it must\nbe allowed still belongs simply to the region of hypothesis, to what\npsychical and physical investigators reckon among possibilities. But\nthere are enough great results analysed already to show that the\ntransformations made by man before he became a human being are far from\nbeing the last word of his genesis. He who declares to-day that human\nnature always remains the same, that is, remains just as it did in\nthose petty thousands of years in which our race became conscious of\nitself, shows in making this statement that he stands on the same level\nof reflection as an ichthyosaurus of the Jura period, that apparently\nhad not even an intimation of man as a possibility of the future.\n\nBut he who knows that man has become what he now is under constant\ntransformations, recognises the possibility of so influencing his future\ndevelopment that a higher type of man will be produced. The human will\nis found to be a decisive factor in the production of the higher types\nin the world of animal and plant life. With what concerns our own race,\nthe improvement of the type of man, the ennobling of the human race, the\naccidental still prevails in both exalted and lower forms. But\ncivilisation should make man conscious of an end and responsible in all\nthese spheres where up to the present he has acted only by impulse,\nwithout responsibility. In no respect has culture remained more backward\nthan in those things which are decisive for the formation of a new and\nhigher race of mankind.\n\nIt will take the thorough influence of the scientific view of humanity\nto restore the full na\u00efve conviction, belonging to the ancient world,\nof the significance of the body. In the later period of antiquity, in\nSocrates and Plato, the soul began to look down upon the body. The\nRenaissance tried to reconcile the two but the effort was unfortunately\nnot serious enough. Boldness it did not lack, but its effort was not\nsuccessful in carrying out a task which Goethe himself said must be\napproached both with boldness and with serious purpose. Only now that we\nknow how soul and body together build up or undermine one another,\npeople are beginning to demand again a second higher innocence in\nrelation to the holiness and the rights of the body.\n\nA Danish writer has shown how the Mosaic Seventh Commandment sinks back\ninto nothing, as soon as one sees that marriage is only an accidental\nsocial form for the living together of two people, while the ethically\ndecisive factor is the way they live together. In morality there is\ntaking place a general displacement from objective laws of direction and\ncompulsion to the subjective basis from which actions proceed. Ethics\nbecome an ethic of character, a matter dealing with the constitution of\nthe temperament. We demand, we forgive, or we judge according to the\ninner constitution of the individual; we do not readily call an action\nimmoral which only in an external point of view does not harmonise with\nthe law or is opposed to the law. In each particular case we decide\naccording to the inner circumstances of the individual. Applying this\npoint of view to marriage, we find in the first place that this form\noffers no guarantee that the proper disposition towards the relation of\nthe two sexes is present. This can exist as well outside of as within\nmarriage. Many noble and earnest human beings prefer for their relation\nthe freer form as the more moral one. But as the result of this, the\nsignificance of the Seventh Commandment is altered, that states\nexplicitly that every relationship of sex outside of marriage is\nimmoral. People have commenced already to experiment with unions outside\nof marriage. People are looking for new forms for the common life\nbetween man and woman. The whole problem is being made the subject of\ndebate.\n\nIn this respect humanity occupies a field of discovery. People are\nseeing more and more what a complicated subject the whole relation of\nsex is, how full it is of dangers to the happiness of man. New\nobservations are being constantly made both in regard to the\nsignificance of this relation for individuals and for posterity. To\nbring light gradually into this chaos is supremely important for\nhumanity, and literature should therefore have the greatest possible\nfreedom in this sphere,--just the opposite to the tendencies of the\npresent day that would limit this freedom. While I fully agree with what\nhas been said I should like to state that the greatest obstacle to the\nfree discussion of this theme is still the Christian way of looking at\nthe origin and nature of man. His only possible escape from the results\nof the fall is made to consist in his belief in Christ; for with this\npoint of view, there came into Western Europe, by means of Christianity,\nthe opinion that everything concerning the continuation of the race was\nimpure; to be suppressed if possible, and if this could not be done,\nthat it must at least be veiled in silence and obscurity. For\nChristianity, eternal life, not life in the world, is ever the\nsignificant factor. The dualism of existence it tries in the first place\nto remove by asceticism, not by attempting to ennoble the life of human\nimpulses. This standpoint still continues to be popular in our days, as\nis shown in its victories through legislation directed against the nude\nin art and in literature.\n\nThe Christian way of looking at the relation of the sexes as something\nignoble, alone capable of being made holy by indissoluble marriage, has\nhad great direct influence on man's development during a certain period\nof time. It has caused progress in self-mastery, which has elevated the\nlife of the soul. Modesty, domesticity, sincerity, have been promoted by\nit; these along with innumerable other influences have developed the\nimpulse to love. If these emotions disappeared from love, it would not\nbe human, but only animal.\n\nBut allowing that the individual love between every new pair of human\nbeings always requires seclusion and reserve; allowing too that personal\nmodesty always remains an achievement wrought by mankind,\ndifferentiating man from the animal world, it is still true that this\nkind of spirituality, which passes over in silence and shame all the\nserious questions connected with this subject, or treats them as\noccasions for ambiguities calling forth joking and blushes, must be\nrooted out.\n\nEach one from earliest childhood should on every question asked about\nthis subject receive honest answers, suitable for the especial stage of\nhis development. One should be in this way completely enlightened about\none's own nature as man or woman, and so acquire a deep feeling of\nresponsibility in relation to one's future duty as man or woman. One\nshould be trained in habits of earnest thought and earnest speaking on\nthis subject. In this way alone can there come into existence a higher\ntype of sex with a higher type of morality.\n\nBut at the time when Bjoernsen in _Thomas Rendelen_ brought up the\nquestion of training youth to purity through intelligence of nature's\nlaws, I objected to his book on the ground that like the purity sermons\nof Christianity his efforts were rather directed to the mastery of\nnatural impulses than towards their ennoblement. I showed that Bjoernsen\ncertainly brought up two new points of view, that of bodily health, and\nthat of the ennobling of sex. He did not, as Christianity does, stress\nthe spiritual and personal side of the question. These new points of\nview of his were significant, because they united the just egoism of the\nindividual with the combining altruism produced by the feeling of\nsolidarity. The great purpose of Bjoernsen's book was to transform\ninherited characteristics as they are related to man's attitude towards\nmorality. So he proposed to create a sound and happy new generation, in\nwhich the sufferings of present day sexual discord should be brought to\nan end. For this purpose he wished the collaboration of the schools.\nThey were to communicate the knowledge of human beings as members of\nsex, and to instruct their scholars how, as human beings, they should\nprotect themselves and their posterity.\n\nI objected at that time to this plan, showing that the school was not\nthe place to lay the foundation for such knowledge. It should be slowly\nand carefully communicated by the mother herself; the school should only\ngive a theoretical basis. More defective still, I found the question of\nchastity handled essentially and solely as a question of bodily purity,\nas a negative not a positive ideal. I maintain that only erotic idealism\ncould awaken enthusiasm for chastity. The basis for such idealism must\nbe found in stories, history, and belles-lettres. Information derived\nfrom physiology is, in this respect, very inadequate, unless the\nimagination and the feeling are moved in the same direction. Neither\nimagination nor feeling can be helped by natural science and bodily\nexercises alone, and just as little by Christian religious instruction.\n\nNo, we must on the basis of natural science attain, in a newer and\nnobler form, the whole antique love for bodily strength and beauty, the\nwhole antique reverence for the divine character of the continuation of\nthe race, combined with the whole modern consciousness of the soulful\nhappiness of ideal love. Only so can the demand for real chastity save\nmankind from the torments which sexual divisions and degradations now\nbring with them. It is profoundly significant that in the world of the\npast, divinity was associated with woman on the ground of observations\nconcerning the continuation of the race; while in Christianity, woman\nbecame divine as the Virgin Mother. Through heathen and Christian\nthought, reunited and ennobled, the woman will receive a new reference\nfor herself as a sexual being. Antique and modern love, the love of the\nsenses and the love of soul, will, united and ennobled, induce human\nbeings, men and women alike, to adore again Eros the All-powerful.\n\nTo diminish the significance of love, to oppose it as a lowering\nsensualism, does not mean the elevation of mankind; it means, on the\nother hand, working for its debasement. For as lowering as sexual life\nwould be if it were continued in man accompanied by a feeling of shame\nas a characteristic of animal life, it would be just the same if it were\nregarded as a degrading duty, reluctantly carried out for the\npreservation of the species.\n\nAntiquity stood higher than the present day, for example when Lycurgus'\nlaws asserted that a people's strength lies in the breast of blooming\nwomanhood. Accordingly in Sparta, the physical development of the woman\nwas watched over as well as of the man, and the age of marriage was\ndetermined with reference to a healthy offspring. Higher, too, stood\nJudaism in relation to the conception of the seriousness of bearing\nchildren. This conviction expressed itself in the strictest hygienic\nlegislation known to history. Jewish, like other Oriental legislation,\ndepended, in relation to sexual morality as in relation to diet, on\nsharp-sighted observations of natural law and disease. The foundation to\na new ethic in these questions cannot be laid, until men begin with Old\nTestament shrewdness and Old Testament seriousness to handle the life\nquestions which the idealism of Christianity has indeed spiritualised\nbut at the same time debased.\n\nThis new ethic will call no other common living of man and woman\nimmoral, except that which gives occasion to a weak offspring, and\nproduces bad conditions for the development of their offspring. The Ten\nCommandments on this subject will not be prescribed by the founders of\nreligion, but by scientists.\n\nUp to the present day, partly as a result of a perverted modesty in such\nthings, science has only been able to offer incomplete observations on\nthe physical and psychical conditions for the improvement of the human\ntype in its actual genesis.\n\nOntogeny is really a new science in our century, introduced by Von\nLeeuwenhock, de Graaf, and others. It was founded in 1827, by von Baer.\nThe differences of opinion and the discovery of different theories are\nvery far from being ended. Purely scientific points of view are being\ncombined with social, physiological, or ethical ones. It is maintained\nthat by changing the diet of the mother the sex of the child can be\ndetermined. Attempts have been made to show that about three fifths of\nall men of genius were first-born children.\n\nPeople are studying what influence the age of parents has on the child;\nextreme youth of parents seems unfavourable for the offspring as well\nas extreme age. The first child of a too youthful mother is often weak,\nand besides ordinarily the joys of motherhood are not desired, because\nshe feels that physically and psychically a child is too great a burden\nto her, who herself is only a child. The conditions of a strong,\nwell-nourished offspring require the postponement of the marriage age\nfor women. In northern countries it should be established, if not by law\nat least by custom, at about twenty years. This is all the more\nnecessary because then the young woman can have behind her some years of\ncareless youthful joy, an undisturbed self-development, and will also\nhave reached the physical development necessary for motherhood. While\ntwenty years should be regarded as the earliest period of marriage it\nshould actually be often postponed some years still for the well-being\nof the woman, the man, and the children, and married life as a whole, in\nwhich most conflicts arise because women have decided about their fate\nbefore their personality was definitely formed, before their heart was\nable to find its choice. The love of the man chooses and the young girl\noften confuses the happiness of being loved with the happiness of\nloving, an experience which later on is gone through in a tragic way. To\nthe many questions which are related to heredity and natural selection,\nbelongs one which notices the significance of nature's purpose to cause\nstrong opposites to exert upon one another the strongest attraction.\nThis attraction often during married life changes into antipathy; it\nalmost results in impatience against the characteristics which\noriginally had so deep an attraction. Nature in this case seems to wish\nto reach its end with the greatest lack of consideration for the\nhappiness of the individual. So often the contradictions of parents seem\nreally to be moulded in full in the child. Occasionally these\ncontradictions are expressed as a deep discord, but in both cases there\noften arises an exceptional being. To attain correct results in this\ncase, belongs to the numerous still open possibilities.\n\nDifferences of opinion are most apparent in the theory of heredity,\nwhere there is a struggle between Darwin's view, that even acquired\ncharacteristics are inherited, and Galton's and Weissmann's conviction\nthat this is not the case. In connection with this stands, also, the\nquestion of the marriage of consanguineous relations; some regard these\nmarriages as dangerous, _per se_, for the posterity; others only as\ndangerous from the point of view that the same family trait is often\nfound in both parents, and so becomes strongly impressed on the\nchildren. For example, congenital shortsightedness of both parents\ndevelops into blindness of the children, their stupidity becomes idiocy,\ntheir melancholy, insanity.\n\nThe Occident has gradually abolished the Oriental marriage law to which\nMoses gave validity, while other Oriental legislators, for example,\nManes and Mohammed, are still followed to a great extent. In China, too,\nsimilar prohibitions have a binding power. Here and there the feeling of\nthe significance of heredity has vaguely appeared in some Occidental\nwriters. Sir Thomas More, like Plato, required a physical examination\nbefore entering into marriage. It was not until the nineteenth century\nthat the question of the rights of the child in this respect began to be\nnoticed. It was Robert Owen who in one way awakened the general right\nfeeling in favour of children, by investigations begun in 1815. They\nshowed that children under eight years old were forced to work by blows\nfrom leather whips, to work from fifteen to sixteen hours a day, with\nthe result that a fourth or fifth of them ended as cripples. Another\nEnglishman, Malthus, published in 1798 an essay on the _Principle of\nPopulation_, and directed the attention of society to the conditions\nwhich had caused him to write his work. He pointed to the deficiency of\nfood supply produced by over-population and the obstacles it offered to\nlegitimate marriages. Again, these conditions, he showed, resulted\npartly in great mortality among children, partly in the murder of\nchildren. Malthus saw the significance of selection and the danger of\ndegeneration. With perfect calmness of conscience he met the storm he\nhad evoked. Personally a blameless and tender hearted man, Malthus, as\nall other reformers of moral ideas, had to allow the shameless\naccusations of corruption and immorality to pass over his head. Harriet\nMartineau, who advocated Malthus's views, had the same experience. When\nshe wrote her novels on this subject she knew very well to what she was\nexposing herself; but this remarkable woman, who died unmarried and\nchildless, was at an early period of her life filled with a feeling for\nthe holiness of the child. When nineteen years old, at the time of the\nbirth of a small sister, she fell on her knees and devoutly thanked God\nthat she had been allowed to be the witness of the great wonder of the\ndevelopment of the human being from the beginning. The same feeling\ncaused her in her novels to expound the duty of voluntary limitation of\npopulation. She was pained by the thought of the fate endured by\nchildren, when they were so numerous that their parents were unable to\nmaintain and educate them. This part of the subject of the right of the\nchild called forth in all countries books for and against it. Everywhere\nthe question is discussed. I shall briefly handle the differences of\nopinion about other sides of the right of the child.\n\nIn Francis Galton's celebrated work, _Hereditary Genius_, almost all has\nbeen said that is required to-day from the point of view of the\nimprovement of the race. Galton, as early as the seventies, opposed\nDarwin's view that acquired characteristics were inherited. In this\nrespect he had a fellow-champion in the German Weissmann, who on his\nside was opposed, among others, by the English Darwinian Romanes.\n\nGalton invented from a Greek word a name for the science of the\namelioration of the race, Eugenics. He showed that civilised man, so\nfar as care for the amelioration of the race is concerned, stands on a\nmuch lower plane than savages, not to speak of Sparta which did not\nallow the weak, the too young, and the too old to marry, and where\nnational pride in a pure race, a strong offspring, was so great that\nindividuals were sacrificed to the attainment of this end. Galton, like\nDarwin, Spencer, A. R. Wallace, and others, has brought out the fact\nthat the law of natural selection, which in the rest of nature has\nsecured the survival of the fittest, is not applicable to human society,\nwhere economic motives lead to unsuitable marriages, made possible by\nwealth. Poverty hinders suitable marriages. Besides the development of\nsympathy has come into the field as a factor which disturbs natural\nselection. The sympathy of love, chooses according to motives that\ncertainly tend to the happiness of the individual, but this does not\nmean that they guarantee the improvement of the race. And while other\nwriters hope for a voluntary abstinence from marriage in those cases,\nwhere an inferior offspring is to be expected, Galton, on the other\nhand, is in favour of very strict rules, to hinder inferior specimens of\nhumanity from transmitting their vices or diseases, their intellectual\nor physical weaknesses. Just because Galton does not believe in the\ninheritance of acquired characteristics, selection has the greatest\nsignificance for him.\n\nOn the other side, he advocates using all means to encourage such\nmarriages, where the family on both sides gives promise of distinguished\noffspring. For him, as later for Nietzsche, the purpose of married life\nis the production of strong, able personalities.\n\nGalton makes it plain that civilised man, by his sympathy with weak,\ninefficient individuals, has helped to continue their existence. This\ntendency on its own side has lessened the possibility of the efficient\nindividuals to continue the species. Wallace, too, and several others,\nhave on different occasions declared that men in relation to this\nquestion must have harder hearts, if the human race is not to become\ninferior. The moral, social, and sympathetic factors, they say, which in\nhumanity work against the law of the survival of the fittest, and have\nmade it possible for the lower type, to continue and to multiply in\nexcess, must give way to new points of view where certain moral and\nsocial questions are concerned. So the natural law will be supported by\naltruism, instead of as now being opposed by this sentiment.\n\nSpencer's thoughts contain a great truth. They have been quoted in just\nthis connection. He says: We see the germ of many things that later on\nare developed in a way no one now suspects. Profound transformations are\nworked in society and its members, transformations which we could not\nhave hoped for as immediate results, but which we could have looked for\nin confidence as final consequences. The effort to find natural laws\nwhich cause racial progress or deterioration is one of these germinal\nideas. As to scientific investigation in this field, we can apply\nanother maxim of the same thinker, one often overlooked by science. \"The\npassion to discover truth must be accompanied by the passion to use it\nfor the welfare of mankind.\" But science must really reach universally\naccepted conclusions before we can expect humanity to begin seriously\nits self-purification; but it is certain to come then. When we read in\nethnographical and sociological works what restrictions in marriage are\nimposed by savage people on themselves, and religiously obeyed on the\nground of superstitious prejudice, we have a right to hope that\ncivilised men will one day bow before scientific proofs. This hope is\nnot too optimistic.\n\nWallace pleads not for such absolute regulations as Galton, in order to\nprevent the marriages of the less worthy and to encourage the marriages\nof the superior types of humanity. He perceives that the problem is\ntremendously complicated. One thing is, that the personal attraction of\nlove is extremely essential from the point of view of the improvement of\nthe race. If human beings could be bred like prize cattle, it is not\nlikely that a superior type of humanity would be produced. In the Middle\nAges, the human race deteriorated, Galton said, because the best fled to\nthe monasteries and the worst reproduced themselves. But if Galton's\nstrict requirements had to be carried out in every case before a\nmarriage could be allowed, not only would marriage lose its deepest\nmeaning, but the race also would lose its noblest inheritance.\n\nBut even with a strict limitation of Galton's principles and with a wise\nlimitation of his requirements, science has already shown the truth of\nso many of the first, that the significance of the last, taken as a\nwhole, must be granted. We know that in the inherited tendencies of\nchildren, often another form is taken from that which appears in their\nparents. Of three hundred idiots, one hundred and forty-five had\nalcoholic parents. Epilepsy, too, is often produced by the same cause.\nIt is known that apparently sound individuals are often attacked at the\nsame age by a disease to which their parents were subject. On the other\nhand, there are fortunately proofs that individuals endowed with power\nof will can resist certain dangerous inherited weaknesses. In the\ndiscussion on this subject, it should also be justly brought out, that\nit is possible for the unsound tendency of one parent to be neutralised\nin the case of children, by the soundness of the other. But this result,\nas well as the many other questions involved, as I have shown above, are\nfar from being established.\n\nThe question as to the inheritance of mental diseases has been\nespecially examined by Maudsley. In this case, too, nervous and psychic\ndiseases of the parents often change their character in the children. He\nrequires medical testimony before marriage, and asks that the appearance\nof mental diseases after marriage shall form a legitimate ground for\ndivorce. And he hopes that a pure descent, in a new sense of the word,\nwill be as important for the marriages of the future, as for\naristocratic marriages in early times. One of Maudsley's statements is\nso interesting that it should be mentioned here. Fathers, he says, who\nhave directed their whole energy towards attainment of wealth, have\ndegenerate children; for this sort of nerve strain undermines the system\nas infallibly as alcohol or opium. If this statement be true, we would\nadd another point of view to the many already existent, that show how\nhostile to life is our best social order, which aims at power and gain.\nIt proves how necessary is that transformation of existence which will\nmake work and production serve a new end. Each man should claim to live\nwholly, broadly, and in a way worthy of humanity. He should be able to\nleave behind him a posterity provided with all capacities for a similar\nlife. When this day dawns people will regard, as a terrible atavism,\nthat expression on the face of a child, which an artist of the present\nday has preserved in a picture of a boy represented as a future\nmillionaire.\n\nI will mention now from literary sources, some of Nietzsche's work on\nthis subject. Although this author did not base his ideas of the\n\"superman\" directly on Darwin's theories, yet they are, as Brandes has\nlately shown, the great consequences of Darwinism, that Darwin himself\ndid not see. In no contemporary was there a stronger conviction than in\nNietzsche that man as he now is, is only a bridge, only a transition\nbetween the animal and the \"superman.\" In connection with this,\nNietzsche looked upon the obligations of man for the amelioration of the\nrace as seriously as Galton, but he expressed his principles with the\npower of poetic and prophetic expression, not with scientific proof.\n\nLiterature on this subject is increasing every day; different opinions\npress one another hard. As long as this is the case, there is every\nreason to observe the warning of the German sociologist Kurella, who\nsays that we must reckon with social as well as with anthropological\nfactors if we wish to prevent the degeneration of the human species. A\nvital point in his position is, that it is a matter of indifference\nwhether the Darwinian theory of the transmission of acquired\ncharacteristics, or its contrary is victorious. The former is the theory\nof an unchangeable germ plasm transmitted by the parents to the\nchildren; so that better types can only originate through a new\ncombination of the characteristics of father and mother, and also by\nnatural selection in the struggle for existence. We must be careful\nbefore beginning to act in a social and political way on the basis of\nanthropological motives. He finally lays down with perfect justice, that\nthe material to be gathered from the works of Spencer, Galton, Lombroso,\nFerri, Ribot, Latourneau, Havelock Ellis, J. B. Haycraft, Colajanni,\nSergi, Ritchie, and others, must be systematically worked over. The\nsociologist must be zo\u00f6logist, anthropologist, and psychologist before\nhis plans for civilising man, and for elevating the human race could be\ncarried out.\n\nAs to intellectual characteristics it has been maintained that\nexceptionally gifted men have mostly inherited their characteristics\nfrom the mother. This fact has in our day, so very much increased the\ninterest taken in the mothers of famous men. This truth is supposed to\nhold good for a son, but if the daughter is gifted, her talent is held\nto come from the father. Another and certainly a better founded\nphenomenon seems to be this: That when in a family characteristics find\ntheir culmination in a world genius, this genius either remains\nchildless or his children are not only ordinary, but often\ninsignificant. It may be that nature has exhausted her power of\nproduction in these great personalities, or as is often assumed, the\ncreative power of genius in an intellectual direction, diminishes the\ncreative power in the physical direction.\n\nAlong with the question of heredity stands that of the development of\nraces. In the beginning of the _Origin of Species_ Darwin showed how\nessential pure descent is for the production of a noble race. This\ntheory is appealed to by a modern anti-Semitic writer, who represents\nthe Jew as a typical example of pure race, an idea which one of the most\nconspicuous representatives of Judaism, Disraeli, has also expressed in\nthe following words: \"Race is everything; there is no other truth, and\nevery race which carelessly allows mixed blood, perishes.\" Yet other\nspecialists consider some racial mixture as highly advantageous to the\noffspring.\n\nProfessor Westermark has offered a good reason for the significance\nattached to beauty in the case of love, and therefore its importance for\nthe race. He has shown how man has conceived physical beauty to be the\nfull development of all of those characteristics which distinguish the\nhuman organism from the animal, and which mark sex distinctions, and,\nmost of all, race distinctions. He thinks individuals with these\ncharacteristics are best suited for their life work. Accordingly it is\nthe result of natural selection that exactly those individuals are found\nmost beautiful and are most desired, who first as human beings best\nfulfil the general demands of the human organism, as sexual beings\nfulfil those of their sex, and as members of the race are best suited to\nthe conditions which surround them. In the struggle for existence, those\nare overcome, who are descended from human beings, whose instincts of\nlove are directed to individuals badly adapted to that struggle; while\nthose who are victorious are children happily so adapted. In this way,\ntaste has developed by which, what is best adapted to environment\nappears as the highest beauty. This is equivalent to health, the power\nto resist the attacks of the external world. While every considerable\ndeviation from the pure type in sex and race, has a lesser degree of\nadaptability; that is of health, and also of beauty.\n\nAnother writer has used the foot as an example of this principle. The\nsmall, high-arched foot with the fine ankle is always, he says,\nregarded as the most beautiful. But such a foot is only combined with a\nfine, strong, and elastic bony structure. Such a foot besides has, by\nits great elasticity, a considerably higher power of bearing weight than\nthe flat foot. The high-vaulted foot, in walking and jumping, increases\nthe activity of the lungs and the heart. This again makes the walk\nelastic, strong, and easy, agile and stately. These traits, for the same\nreason as the beauty of the foot itself, are looked upon as a racial\nsign. This physical power and ease influence the mind, and produce\nself-confidence, and so increase the feeling of superiority and the joy\nof living, marks of distinction in human beings.\n\nWhether the illustration in this special case holds good or not, it\nproves nothing against the truth of the theory on which it rests, and\nwhich is gradually becoming prevalent; the view I mean, according to\nwhich souls and bodies are mutually developed through adaptability to\ntheir surroundings.\n\nSo it is necessary not only to investigate what conditions give the best\nselection, but also what external ones strengthen or weaken the\ncharacteristics found in natural selection. We must again see the\nimportance of bodily exercise. Painful experiences have taught us to\nprevent the consequences of overstrain, over-exertion in competitive\nimbecility, and mania for sport. Such results have specially shown\nthemselves to be harmful for women in respect to motherhood. Sport and\nplay, gymnastics and pedestrianism, life in nature and in the open air,\na regenerated system of dancing, after the model of the Swedish peasant\ndances, will be most excellent bases for the physical and psychical\nrenewal of the new generation.\n\nIn plans concerning this renewal, people have pointed to the influence\nof art; it has been shown how Burne-Jones created the new English type\nof woman. It was formed by an adaption to the quiet, distinguished\nstyle, by a process that went slowly on. This was the type regarded by\nhim as the model one. It is maintained that we only need to see a pair\nof young English girls in front of one of his pictures, in order to\nnotice how not only the faces but the expressions show a resemblance.\nThe artist has impressed his trait on youth before it was conscious of\nit. Before these forms they grew up, they have seen them in their\npicture books, they have been dressed in clothes cut in the fashion of\nthe master's pictures. There is another reason. Mothers of the present\nday are supposed to have passed on to their children the Burne-Jones\ntype in the same way in which the charm of the Greeks was influenced by\nthe beauty of their statuary. In antiquity it was believed, even in\nother details, (for example, in attaining the much-longed-for blonde\nhair) that this end could be secured by observing the proper directions.\n\nAs to the significance of external influences of this kind on mothers,\nthere is too little material still to build up conclusions. On this\npoint, learned men also disagree. I have only, therefore, incidentally\nmentioned this factor among others. All should be established before we\ncan get a final and certain insight into the conditions of human birth.\nIn the absence of scientific knowledge I can only refer to the\nliterature and comprehensive investigations commenced in the preceding\ncentury, that throw light on the riddle of man's coming into the world.\nMany of these matters are still involved in obscurity. But man's spirit\nis resting on the waters; gradually a new creation will be called forth\nfrom them.\n\nIn connection with this, must be discussed the development of new ideas\nof law in these spheres. Heathen society in its hardness, exposed weak\nor crippled children. Christian society on the other hand, has gone so\nfar in its mildness, that it prolongs the life of the child who is\nincurably ill, physically and psychically, even if he is misshapen and\nso becomes an hourly torment to himself and his surroundings. Yet\nrespect for life is still not strong enough in a social order, which\nkeeps up among other things, the death penalty and war, that one can\nwithout danger suggest the extinction of such a life. Only when death is\ninflicted through compassion, will the humanity of the future show\nitself in such a way, that the doctor under control and responsibility\ncan painlessly extinguish such suffering. On the other hand, this\nChristian society still maintains the distinction between legitimate\nchildren and the children of sin, a distinction which more than anything\nelse has helped to obstruct a real ethical conception of the duties of\nparents. Every child has the same rights in respect to both father and\nmother. Both parents have just the same obligation to every child. Until\nthis is recognised there will be no basis for the future morality of\nthe common life between man and woman. Some day society will look upon\nthe arrangements of the love relation as the private affair of\nresponsible individuals. Those who are lovers, those who are married\nwill regard themselves as completely free, and will also be so regarded.\nBinding promises in respect of emotions, demands of exclusive possession\nover personality, have already come to be regarded by fine feeling and\nfully developed human beings as a relic of erotic sentiments on a lower\nplane. These sentiments were the outcome of desire for mastery, vanity,\ncruelty, and blind passion. People are beginning to see that perfect\nfidelity is only to be obtained by perfect freedom; that complete\nexchange of individuality can only take place in perfect freedom; that\ncomplete excellence can only come into being in perfect freedom. Each\nmust cease to try to force and bend the emotions, opinions, habits, and\ninclinations of the other towards him- or herself. Each must regard the\ncontinuance of the feeling of the other as a happiness, not as a right.\nEach must regard the possible cessation of this feeling as a pain, not\nas an injustice. Only in this way can there arise between the two souls\nsuch pure, full, freedom that both can move with absolute independence,\nand complete unity.\n\nFreedom is no danger to fidelity. The kind of fidelity required by the\nchurch and by the law has certainly been a notable means of education.\nBut the method, as it is, is opposed to the end. For it has produced the\nfeeling of possession. This has led to loss of respect in the worship of\nlove. The requirements based on force have awakened hostility in soul\nand sense; the fear of public opinion has produced all sorts of\ndishonesty between man and wife, between them and the world. When the\nbonds of compulsion fall away feeling will be strengthened. For when the\nexternal supports of fidelity are wanting, the power required for it\nwill come from the inner life. Although human beings will be exposed\nalways to the possibility of serious mistakes about themselves and the\nobject of their love; although time can always change human beings and\ntheir emotions; although, even in a marriage which has resulted from\nmutual love, conditions can arise which make Nietzsche's ideal\nlegitimate, that it is better to break up the marriage than to be broken\nup by it; yet on the whole freedom will encourage fidelity, which itself\nwill always have a support through the experience of its psychological\nand ethical value.\n\nIt is not through a series of lightly entered into and lightly dissolved\nconnections that one is prepared for the happiness of great love.\nVoluntary fidelity is a sign of nobility, because it assumes the will to\nconcentrate about the centre of life's meaning; because it signifies the\nunity with our own proper innermost ego. This is as true of fidelity in\nlove as of all other kinds of fidelity. Only when love is the practical\nreligion of the work-day, and the devotion of the holiday, when it is\nkept under the constant supervision of the soul, when it brings with it\na constant growth, (why should not the fine old word \"sanctification\" be\nused) of personality, is love great. Then it comes into possession of a\nhigher right than some earlier union, because it then means really\nfidelity and nothing else towards our own highest ego. But where it does\nnot have this character, it does not possess this right. It is then a\npetty emotion even when it is made pardonable by great passion. The\nchildren which issue from temporary unions are often as imperfect as\ntheir origin. Great love is, as a young doctor once said, only that\nwhich grips so deeply, that after its loss one no longer feels as a\nwhole, but as a half of a whole. Yet nature has protected itself against\nannihilation by giving the possibility of love more than once. But what\nnature's ideal is cannot be doubted. The race which would come into\nexistence, provided young men and women were given the possibility of\nuniting when the first love took possession of them,--that love which is\nthe deepest,--this race would be sound and strong, different from what\nour own race is now. But when young people love now they seldom have the\nmeans for union, and when they have the means, then that which leads\nthem to the marriage union is not the deepest feeling they have ever\nfelt, but only an impulse, which, even if real, is still only a\nsubstitute.\n\nSuch a transformation of the conditions of society and of the individual\nview of the true worth of life will enable young men and women, between\nthe ages of twenty and thirty, to found their own home and under simple\nconditions, to secure their happiness. Here would be one of the most\nessential foundations for the origin of a new race, which would have the\nancient feeling for the hearth as an altar, and would have the life of\nlove as the service of a divinity. Only through such a transformation\nmight it be expected that the deepest misery of society, prostitution,\ncould be restrained. Only after such a transformation could we with full\nright require from our youth that self-mastery which is the best\npre-condition of the sound development of the new generation.\n\nAs things are at present, it is certain that just as there are really\nimmoral, unmarried mothers, so there are others deeply moral, who would\nbe mothers with a great pure love to the father of their child, but who\nfor various reasons should not be united with them in legal marriage.\nAnd even if the contraction of marriage were simplified, such motherhood\non the part of single women, should continue to exist.\n\nBjoernsen, when he gave lectures in Norway on sexual morality,\nmaintained the view that the woman who wished for motherhood, but who\nwas not adapted in her opinion for marriage, should be fully entitled to\nthe first, without the last being regarded as necessary, on condition\nthat she was willing to fulfil to the child her maternal duties. This\nidea certainly has a future. In Germany there was a well-known case in\nwhich a fully mature woman, not a mere girl, saw shortly after her\nmarriage that the temperaments and conditions of both parties to the\nmarriage would make it an unhappiness for both. She separated,\ntherefore, brought her child into the world unmarried, educated it\npublicly and with self-sacrifice. Now she has along with the peace which\ncomes from work and the happiness of motherhood, the possibility of\nfulfilling her duty also as daughter, while married life would have\ndestroyed this for all parties. This is one of the many cases out of the\ngreat collection of life, that shows how foolish is that requirement of\nsociety to press human nature, in its manifold types, into one mould,\nwith a sphere of duty arranged in the same way for all.\n\nBut the sphere of duty, an ever-widening one, is the sphere which\nembraces the right of the child. Yet its lines will be drawn in the\nfuture bounded in quite a different way from now. It will then be looked\nupon as the supreme right of the child that he shall not be born in a\ndiscordant marriage. Above everything, therefore, marriage must be free.\nThis means that the two parties can freely separate after mutual\nagreement. In entering into marriage and in dissolving it, only certain\nduties towards the children are to be assumed. Such legal provisions\nmight well be superfluous even in this case; in others, they might be\nimportant. But in none are they to become an obstacle to the development\nof this relation to the children. On the other hand, the compulsory\nmarriage laws of to-day, as well in relation to divorce as to the\nguardianship given the man, have become obstacles to the higher\ndevelopment of the common life of man and woman.\n\nThe vigorous drawing together of the bonds of marriage will not protect\nchildren from growing up in a destroyed home. This protection will be\nsecured by deeper earnestness in entering upon marriage, but above all\nby a deeper sense of responsibility to the children themselves. This\nwill make it possible for the parents who see themselves deceived in\ntheir married happiness to keep a peaceful resignation, a high\ncharacter, as they continue to live together, if they feel that this is\nthe best solution of the conflict, for the children who are already\nborn. But this resolution does not mean the continuance of real married\nlife, but parenthood alone. Only so can it be really useful to the\nchildren that the marriage should not be dissolved. The parents, who are\nprofoundly and finally alienated must not bestow life on any new being.\n\nMarriages lightly entered into are many; lightly entered into divorces\nare few, at least where there are children. It is not the prescriptions\nof the law, but those of blood which work as a restraining influence\nhere even at the present day. The decisive sentence is not spoken by\nsociety but by the children. But these deep motives are just as decisive\nin the case of a free union as in the case of a legal one; if the father\nor the mother is only kept with the children by compulsion, the children\nhave not much to lose. The important thing for unwritten duties, duties\nwhich largely can not be determined by law, is to awaken the conscience\nof fathers and mothers in order to create a better morality. Perhaps for\nthis, new legislation is necessary for the present. Certainly antiquated\nlegal conceptions should be done away with; they have done good duty as\na past training for morality. Now they stand in the way of the higher\nmorality. The man or the woman who plays the r\u00f4le of seduction, spoiling\nthe life of a young woman or a young man, or disturbing the peace of a\nhappy marriage, this type of character, is being treated with\never-increasing contempt. The more one learns to distinguish the\nheartless play of masculine or feminine desire for conquest, the\nselfish soulless claims of the senses, from those of love, the more does\nthe conception of morality become equivalent to the feeling of\nresponsibility towards the new generation.\n\nThe gratification of natural impulses, which act contrary to the real\nprofound intention of nature, is what destroys individuals and peoples.\nBut as has been said, these devastations cannot be successfully\nrestrained by the extermination of man's material nature.\n\nIt is a favourable symptom when a poet opposes the mastery of material\nnature, apart from the feeling of responsibility. But it is harmful when\nthis sensuousness is made, as Tolstoi does, equivalent to the conception\nof love. Love must not be debased to simple sensuousness, nor must it be\netherealised to a simple spiritual quality, if the human race is to be\nfreed from the debasing mastery of impulse. This happens, as I have\noften shown before, and in an earlier part of this work as well, by the\nelevation of sensuousness to love. I mean by this that the spiritual\nunity of beings, the indulgence of tenderness, the sympathy of souls,\nthe community of work, and the happiness of comradeship, will be as\nreally decisive factors in the lofty emotions of love, and in the charm\nof love, as the attraction of the senses. This wealth in the elements of\nmutual dependence is what keeps fidelity in love both inwardly and\noutwardly. This soft current of the soul's depths keeps the sensuous\ncharm fresh; while mere relation, both legal marriage and free union,\nvery soon exhausts happiness and leaves behind ennui, if love has\ncontained only sensuous attraction, and not that mutual feeling of\ndependence, which involves the union of the soul and the sense, and\nwhich unites the spirit and the sympathies.\n\nThe duty and responsibility towards the children will be all the more\nstrict as society learns to regard it as one of its principal duties to\nhinder all thoughtless and undeserved suffering.\n\nThe morality of the future will not be found in sacrificing to the\nholiness of the family so-called illegitimate children, who are often by\nnature richly endowed, but who by the prevailing legal system receive\nsuch treatment, that they often become what they are called, and so are\nfilled with vengeance against society and the perverse conceptions of\nlaw whose victims they are. Child murder, phosphorous poisonings,\n\"angel-making\"--all these are connected with these perverse legal ideas.\nBut all of these results are still less pernicious than those which\nsociety draws upon itself through those \"disgraced\" children, who go to\nruin not physically but psychically. In them, there are not only\nfrequently good powers lost, but socially destructive powers developed.\nWhen the whole of Europe shuddered over the murder of the Empress\nElizabeth, one fact above every other seemed to me terrible. The\nmurderer confessed, \"I know nothing of my parents.\"\n\nThe time will come in which the child will be looked upon as holy, even\nwhen the parents themselves have approached the mystery of life with\nprofane feelings; a time in which all motherhood will be looked upon as\nholy, if it is caused by a deep emotion of love, and if it has called\nforth deep feelings of duty.\n\nThen the child, who has received its life from sound, loving human\nbeings and has been afterwards brought up wisely and lovingly, will be\ncalled legitimate, even if its parents have been united in complete\nfreedom. Then will the child, who has been born in a loveless marriage,\nand has been burdened by the fault of its parents with bodily or mental\ndisease, be regarded as illegitimate, even if its parents have been\nunited in marriage by the Pope at St. Peter's. The shadow of contempt\nwill not fall on the unmarried tender mother of a radiantly healthy\nchild, but on the legitimate or illegitimate mother of a being made\ndegenerate by the misdeeds of its forefathers.\n\nIn a much discussed drama called _The Lion's Whelp_, there occurs the\nfollowing dialogue between an older and younger man:\n\n\n     THE OLDER MAN: The next century will be the century of the child,\n     just as this century has been the woman's century. When the child\n     gets his rights, morality will be perfected. Then every man will\n     know that he is bound to the life which he has produced with other\n     bonds, than those imposed by society and the laws. You understand\n     that a man cannot be released from his duty as father even if he\n     travels around the world; a kingdom can be given and taken away,\n     but not fatherhood.\n\n     THE YOUTH: I know this.\n\n     THE OLDER MAN: But in this all righteousness is still not\n     fulfilled--in man's carefully preserving the life which he has\n     called into existence. No man can early enough think over the other\n     question, whether and when he has the right to call life into\n     existence.\n\n\nThis dialogue has supplied me with a title for this book. It is the\npoint of departure of my assertion, that the first right of the child\nis to select its own parents.\n\nWhat here must be first considered is the thought constantly being\nbrought out by Darwinian writers, that the natural sciences, in which\nmust now be numbered psychology, should be the basis of juristic science\nas well as of pedagogy. Man must come to learn the laws of natural\nselection and act in the spirit of these laws. Man must arrange the\npunishments of society in the service of development; they must be\nprotective measures for natural selection. In the first place this must\nbe secured by hindering the criminal type from perpetuating itself. The\ncharacteristics of this type can only be determined by specialists. But\nthe criminal must be prevented from handing on his characteristics to\nhis posterity.\n\nSo the human race will be gradually freed from atavisms which reproduce\nlower and preceding stages of development. This is the first condition\nof that evolution by which mankind will be able to let the ape and tiger\ndie. Then comes the requirement that those with inherited physical or\npsychical diseases shall not transmit them to an offspring.\n\nAs to this type of heredity opinions are still very much divided. Great\nauthorities are in conflict with one another on the question of\ntuberculosis. Some contend that it is hereditary, others declare that it\nis only transmitted by infection. Accordingly when a child is born of a\ntuberculous mother, and is taken away from her, there is no danger for\nthe child. Views are also divided on the subject of cancer. Regarding\nother diseases, however, there is complete certainty. Legislation has\nalready interfered in the case of epilepsy, although the law in practice\nis not always applied. But in the case of syphilis, alcoholism, and many\nkinds of nervous complaints, diseases which afflict children most\ncertainly, in various ways, legislation has yet done nothing.\n\nThere is an old axiom that we are obliged to thank our parents for life.\nOur parents, I know from my own experience, can themselves have been the\nheirs of bodily and mental health, resulting from the fact that maternal\nand paternal ancestors all made early, right, and happy marriages. But\ngenerally, parents must on their part, ask the children's pardon for the\nchildren's existence.\n\nIt makes no difference, whether we talk with people sunken in necessity\nor crime, or with those suffering from nervous and other diseases, or\nfinally with people who are spiritually maimed. In most cases we are\nconvinced that the main cause of their condition as indicated by them,\ngoes back to their birth, or to the time of their childish\nconsciousness. Sometimes their parents have been too young or too old,\ntheir fathers or mothers invalids. Sometimes they are the offspring of\nintemperance. Again their mother may have been overburdened by the\ntorment of work, or by a large family of children; or they may have\nreceived their life in marriages concluded without love, or after the\ncessation of love. They have been unwelcome, or born under feelings of\nrevulsion, bearing in their blood the germ of discord or disgust of\nlife. Numerous abnormal tendencies, among them misanthropy in women, can\nbe traced back to these causes. Finally they have been brought up in a\nhome where they have suffered from the burden of bad examples, or\nconflicting influences.\n\nSo strong has the conviction of the meaning of heredity become that\nyoung men, who have themselves borne a burden, imposed by generations of\none character or another, have begun to see that it is their duty\nrather to abstain from marriage than to transmit their unfortunate\ninheritence to a new generation. I knew a woman in whose family on her\nfather's and mother's side, mental disease was inherited. Therefore,\nthough healthy herself, she refused to marry the man she loved. I know\nof another who broke her engagement, because she was convinced that the\nman whom she loved was a drinker, and she did not want to give her\nchildren such a father. It is especially on this point that women sin in\nmarrying from ignorance, because they do not know that epilepsy and\nother diseases, especially alcoholism, are often caused because the\nchild has had a drunkard for a father. A young woman could have no more\ncertain test for the continuance of her feelings for a man, than whether\nshe feels exalted joy or tormenting distress, at the thought of seeing\nhis characteristics transmitted to their child.\n\nMen sin against the coming race not only by excessive drinking, but in\nother respects where the results are still more destructive.\n\nBesides the conscience of men must begin to awaken. This will express\nitself partly in the requirement to abstain from marriage when they know\nthat they have to transmit a bad inheritance, partly in other spheres\nof morality as in the following examples:\n\nA young man, himself a physician, thought he was healthy when he\nmarried. He discovered his mistake and found himself confronting the\nchoice of wronging his wife or separating from her. As they were deeply\nin love, the only possible way was separation. He chose death which he\ninflicted on himself in such a way that his wife thought it was caused\nby accident.\n\nAnother man acted in the same way after he had been married several\nyears and had three children; he found out that he was his wife's\nhalf-brother.\n\nBut these incidents as the one before mentioned, where women are\nconcerned, are notoriously only isolated examples. It will require the\ndevelopment of several generations before it will be the woman's\ninstinct, an irresistibly mastering instinct, to allow no physically or\npsychically degenerated or perverted man to become the father of her\nchildren. The instinct of the man is far stronger in this direction, but\nit is dulled too by an antiquated legal conception, according to which\nthe woman must subject herself as a duty to requirements against which\nher whole being revolts. In this respect a woman has only one duty, an\nunmistakable one, against which every transgression is a sin, namely\nthat the new being to which she gives life, must be born in love and\npurity, in health and beauty, in full mutual harmony, in a complete\ncommon will, in a complete common happiness. Until women see this as a\nduty, the earth will continue to be peopled by beings, who in a moment\nof their existence have been robbed of the best pre-conditions of their\nlife's happiness and their life's efficiency. Occasionally they show\nplainly at an early age the sign of degeneration or of discord.\nOccasionally they seem for a long time to be healthy and powerful\nspecimens of humanity, until in some critical moment they go to pieces\nthrough an insufficient supply of physical and psychical vitality caused\nby their very origin.\n\nAs to marriages between healthy and active individuals, legislation can\ndo nothing. Ethics alone can exert an influence for betterment. Children\nmust be taught from their earliest years about their existence and their\nfuture duties as men and women. So mothers and fathers together can\nimpress on the conscience of the children not any abstract conception\nof purity, but the concrete commandment of chastity in letters of fire.\nSo they will keep their health, their attractiveness, their\nguilelessness, for the being they are to love; for the children who from\nthis love will receive their life.\n\nThe impulse to preserve the species, it is true, makes human beings low,\nsmall, or laughable; as poets like Maupassant, Tolstoi, and others have\ndepicted from quite different points of view; but it only does so when\nthe impulse appears without relation to the end given it in nature, or\nwhen this end is attained without consideration for the production of an\noffspring qualified to live. The kind of love which disturbs life is\nthat which diminishes the value of an individual as a creator of life.\nThis type of love really degrades human beings, is immoral from the\nstandpoint of the modern view, which wills life to be, but above all,\nwills the progress of life to ever higher forms.\n\nYoung people must therefore learn to reverence their future duties.\nThese they altogether miss, if they squander their spiritual and bodily\nobligations, in unions formed and dissolved thoughtlessly, without any\nintention of fidelity, without the worth of responsibility. But they\nmust also know that it is a still greater transgression of their duty if\nthe life of a child is called forth with cold hearts and cold temper,\nwhether this happens in a marriage based on worldly motives or one\nmaintained on moral grounds in which the previously existing discord is\ntransmitted to a new being.\n\nMothers made apathetic and unresponsive, by the consciousness of\nnumerous breaches of faith, towards their youthful dreams, their ideal\nconvictions, are often precisely those, who in their children, struggle\nagainst the pure instincts of love, its chaste and strong feelings, its\nhigher aims. They often teach that love as a rule ends after marriage,\nthat marriages can be made without love. This is a process of thought\nresembling the conclusion that a vessel can quite well go into the sea\nwith some defect, since it is possible in any event that it will be\ndamaged. They speak of the impurity of the senses, of the advantages of\na marriage based on friendship and reason, of the calming power of duty.\nAll of these are chilly processes of reason by which souls, filled with\nthe warmth of life, are killed. Daughters must be helped by their\nmothers, wisely and delicately, in order to be protected from hasty\nacts, in order to distinguish with open eyes, when their feelings\nthemselves are uncertain. It must be branded upon their souls and their\nnerves that they will be fallen beings if they give themselves from\nother reasons than from reciprocated love. Under these convictions\nalone, will there be a great transformation of present ethical\nstandards. Men think that they can do with marriage what they will; that\nthey can enter upon it with any kind of motive; they think that they\nmust marry from feelings of duty, to fulfil some given engagement, or to\natone for some fault; that they have the right to enter upon a marriage\nwithout love because they long for home life. While these things are\nregarded as legitimate, men stand on the same ethical level as the\nperson who commits murder because he has first stolen, or has stolen\nbecause he was hungry. The great crime against the holiness of\ngeneration is believing that one can treat arbitrarily, the most\nsensitive sphere of life, the sphere where innumerable secret influences\norder the destiny of a new generation.\n\nWhile children continue to be born in the cold atmosphere of duty, or in\nthe stormy atmosphere of discord, while people continue to regard such\nmarriages as moral, while people can transmit to their children all\nkinds of intellectual mutilation and bodily unsoundness, and their\nparents continue to be called honorable, so long will the world be\nwithout the slightest conception of that morality which will mould the\nnew mankind.\n\nThis morality has still more exalted precepts. To-day it seldom happens\nthat a young girl enters marriage in ignorance, but in my generation I\nknow cases where the ignorance of the bride resulted in insanity. In\nanother case this ignorance led to thoughts of suicide; in a third, the\nchild was regarded with coldness by its mother; in the fourth, the child\nhad abnormal psychic qualities. Still it is not sufficient for the ideal\nbeauty of marriage and the harmony of the child that the woman knows in\ngeneral what is before her. A young man said once to me that most\nmarriages are spoilt at the very beginning, because the man brings with\nhim the point of view and the habits of those degraded women, from whom\nhe has received his initiation into love; frequently he annihilates\nforever the tenderest element in his relation to his wife. He damages\nthe most beautiful factor in their mutual feelings. Man must learn to\nhave reverence and patience, and I know men who have shown these\ncharacteristics really because they saw that their wives gave, as is not\nunfrequently the case, their souls and their hearts before their senses\nwere awakened. Only the constant close association taught them to desire\na completed marriage. A child should receive life only through this\ncommon impulse. Many children are born, as it is, in legalised\nprostitution, in legalised rape. Yet there is wanting in the consciences\nof many women and men, the slightest shadow of religious reverence, of\n\u00e6sthetic feeling before the greatest mystery of existence. And yet we\ncontinue in the name of morality to veil for youth the nakedness of\nnature and we neglect to inspire their feeling of devotion towards their\nown being as the shrine in which the mystery of life must some day be\nfulfilled.\n\nIn this mystery there are still hidden fields only penetrated by the\nintuition. Here and there a profound poet has surmised the innumerable\naffinities or repulsions which under changing spiritual and material\ndispositions with altering opinions, condition the life of love in\nmodern human beings, the mystic influences which sometimes forever,\nsometimes partially, can change the deepest feeling. All these mystic\ninfluences, the tender woof of all these fine threads, will then be a\npart of the living fabric of the child. These secret processes explain\nthe great differences between children of the same parents,--children\nwho externally are born and brought up in quite similar conditions.\n\nIn all these promptings of instinct, in all these categorical\nimperatives of the nerves and the blood, human beings must be at the\nsame time obedient listeners and strict masters. On this depends the\nfuture happiness of love, and with it a happier future race.\n\nThe people of to-day live under inherited morals and newly acquired\ntransgressions of morality. Both must be conquered before soul and sense\nin love can become inseparable, or in other words, before this unity is\nrecognised as the only possible moral basis of the relation between man\nand woman.\n\nTalented men, as well as one-sided advocates of women's rights, think\nthat the development will take quite a different course, after the low\nimpulse which is at the basis of love has been laid bare and\nscientifically analysed. They say that the superior person will satisfy\nthe impulse shamelessly and animally, without any emotional decoration;\nor he will isolate himself from its influence and devote to more noble\npurposes that vital power, that emotional capacity, which is now\nconsumed by love.\n\nNothing impossible is to be found in this point of view. I have shown\nmore than once that woman by her maternal functions, uses up so much\nphysical and psychical energy, that in the sphere of intellectual\nproduction she must remain of less significance. What I at an earlier\nperiod assumed intuitively, has been substantiated since then by a\nspecialist. A Finnish doctor has shown how the vital power of lower\norganisms, is concentrated in sexual production. But the higher man\ngoes, so much more power is made free. This power which is not consumed\nin the production of new generations, can serve intellectual production.\nEach of the two different productive expressions of human vital action\nmust to a certain extent limit the development of the power of the\nother, and restrict its capacity of work. The same writer contends that\nthis is the natural cause of the more limited fertility of civilised\nman, and will be, according to the pessimists named above, the decisive\nfactor in the prophesied downfall of love.\n\nAccording to my conception of the word, it is love on the contrary,\nwhich will win the victory by the relative weakening of impulse, and by\nscientific analysis of the same. Men will no longer mistake impulse for\nlove. Of course this impulse is always present in love, but in the same\nway in which the sculpture of the cave man is present in the work of\nMichael Angelo. Man will then, with all the powers of his being, be able\nto love, when love, according to the happy expression of Thoreau, is not\na glow, but a light. Then he will see for the first time, what wealth\nlife can have through love, when love becomes a happiness worthy of man\nbecause it becomes an \u00e6sthetic creation, a religious worship; when the\ncompleted unity of those who love is expressed in a new being,--a being\nthat will some day be really grateful for the life it has received.\nWhere the amelioration of the human race is concerned, the\ntransformation of customs and feelings is always the essential thing.\nInfluence of legislation in comparison with it is ever slight. But as\nhas been said before, legislation has its role to play. Especially\nwhere there are diseases which can certainly be transmitted, society\nmust interfere to restrict marriage. In Germany and America a good\nproposal has been made, for the period of transition in this direction.\nIt is suggested that the law shall require as an obligatory condition\nfor marriage, a certificate of a medical witness with complete data as\nto the health of both parties. Those who contract marriage will continue\nto have their freedom of choice but at least they would not enter\nignorantly upon marriage as they do now, and expose themselves and their\nchildren to disastrous consequences. It appears to me to be at least as\nimportant for society to have a medical certificate as to capacity for\nmarriage, as it is for military service. In the one case, we deal with\ngiving life, in the other with taking it away. And although the latter\nhas certainly been, up till now, regarded as a more serious occasion\nthan the former, still an awakening social conscience should demand\nprogress in this direction. It is conceivable that from this beginning\nnew customs will develop; further legislation may be dispensed with;\nhuman beings will agree to sacrifice the most dangerous of all\nliberties, giving life to a defective offspring, while prohibition of\nmarriage now would not hinder parenthood. For the great mass might\ncontinue, outside of marriage, to rob children of the possibilities of\nhealth and happiness, by burdening them with inherited diseases or bad\ntendencies.\n\nNietzsche, who knew little of love because he knew nothing of woman, and\nwho therefore on this subject says little worthy of attention, has still\nspoken more profoundly on the subject of parenthood than any\ncontemporary writer. He saw what impurity, what poverty are concealed\nunder the name of marriage. He saw how meretricious, how ignorant\neducation is. In his writings are to be found prophetical and poetical\nwords describing the end aimed at in parenthood, and showing what true\nparenthood should be.\n\n\n     I will that thy victory and thy emancipation shall yearn for a\n     child. Living memorials shalt thou build for thy victory, and for\n     thy emancipation.\n\n     Thou must build upward to a height beyond thyself. But first I\n     would have thee thyself built with a square foundation, body and\n     soul.\n\n     See that through thee the race progresses, not continues only.\n\n     Let a true marriage help thee to this end.\n\n     A more exalted being must thou create, a being gifted with\n     initiative like a wheel that turns itself. A creative principle\n     shouldst thou create.\n\n     Marriage: I call marriage the will shared by two, to create the\n     one,--the one that is in itself more than its creators. Reverence\n     for one another, I call marriage; such reverence as is meet for\n     those whose wills are united in this one act of will.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE UNBORN RACE AND WOMAN'S WORK\n\n\nThere are few factors in the life of the present in which the dualism\nbetween theory and practice is greater and more unconscious than in\nquestions concerning woman. The protagonists of the feminist movement\nare in many cases sturdily Christian. They protest with vigour against\nthe idea that they could have any share in the sort of emancipation of\npersonality that includes freedom for all the powers and activities of\nthe personality. Individualism, and the assertion of self are for them\ndegrading words with a sinful significance. That the emancipation of\nwomen is practically the greatest egoistic movement of the nineteenth\ncentury, and the most intense affirmation of the right of the self that\nhistory has yet seen, they have no suspicion. Freedom for the powers and\nthe personality of woman have never appeared to them except as an ideal\nstruggle for justice, as a noble victory to be won. In its deepest\nmeaning this is as true of every other effort at self-affirmation, the\nend of which is the recognition of the right of human personality to the\nfull development of capacities in a sphere of freedom, where\nresponsibility belongs to the self alone. But just as every other such\naffirmation of the individual self, of a class, of a race, easily falls\ninto an unjustifiable egoism, so with the emancipation of woman.\n\nThis great, deep, serious movement for woman's emancipation has in the\ncourse of time received a new name, the \"Woman Question.\" The change in\nterminology signifies a change in the attitude of thought. From a real\nemancipation movement, that is, a movement to free the restricted powers\nof woman and her restricted personality, the movement has become a\nquestion, a social institution with officers, a church system with\ndogmas. Certainly we still hear in books and speeches that the woman\nquestion is being discussed and urged, in its relation to the happiness\nand development of the whole of humanity. But in reality the woman\nquestion, since it became a fact, a cause with an end of its own, since\nits champions have lost more and more their appreciation of its\nconnection with other great questions of the day, is tending to\nincrease the civil rights and the fields of woman's labour. In both\ncases people really have the women of the upper classes in view. This\nhas been the end, and it is thoroughly justified and justifiable. But,\nin striving for this end, those who are aiming at it have come more and\nmore into opposition to the first and highest of all rights, the rights\nof the individual woman to think her own thoughts, to go her own ways,\neven when these thoughts and these ways follow other courses than those\nof the advocates of woman's rights. While this group is, on one hand,\nvery far from conceding to the individual woman the freedom which\nbelongs to her, it is, on the other hand, blind to the results of the\nself-assertion of the whole female sex. In taking up work more and more\nexternal in character, they are blind to the profound and revolutionary\neffects of this movement, on the conditions of labour in the present\nday, on the existence of man and the family, on society as a whole.\n\nDoing away with an unjust paragraph in a law which concerns woman,\nturning a hundred women into a field of work where only ten were\noccupied before, giving one woman work where formerly not one was\nemployed,--these are the mile-stones in the line of progress of the\nwoman's rights movement. It is a line pursued without consideration of\nfeminine capacities, nature, and environment.\n\nThe exclamation of a woman's rights champion when another woman had\nbecome a butcher, \"Go thou and do likewise,\" and an American young lady\nworking as an executioner, are, in this connection, characteristic\nphenomena.\n\nThe emancipation of woman has practically ceased to be the freedom which\nenlarges soul and heart. It is conducted quite officially, like a\nbusiness, and dogmatically, too, without feeling for the pulsating\nmanifoldness of life, and has become an egoistic self-concentrated\ncampaign. On this account I, and many others of my generation, with many\nmore of the younger generation, stand outside of the movement, although\nwe actively wished, and still wish, for the freedom of woman. The\nchampions of woman's rights, like the champions of other movements for\nrights, illustrate the truth of the old Swedish saying, that \"what we\nare pursuing is really only a runaway horse attached to our waggon.\" How\nblindly the fanatics of woman's rights have rushed by the other needs of\nthe time can be best measured by considering their attitude towards the\ngreatest question of the day--I mean the social question.\n\nThe old advocates of woman's rights maintain that the adult woman must\nhave the same right as the adult man to \"protect\" herself, and they ask\nwhy the woman is hindered from working because she is married, or\nbecause she has children. Protective legislation drives woman from the\nfactories and workshops; and this legislation is very far, they tell us,\nfrom meriting the support of women. Women, on the contrary, they say,\nshould demand the same protective legislation for women as for men. They\nask for technical instruction and an extended field of work for women.\n\nThis whole argument is quite logical from the point of view that\nlimitation of woman's labour is opposed to one of the foremost\nprinciples of our time,--the self-determination of the individual. This\nimplies the right of the adult woman, as well as the adult man, to\nchoose her own work. Privileges on the ground of sex only hinder the\nwoman from being put on an equality with man before the law.\n\nBut all these arguments are based on the sophistical notion which\nperverts the whole feminist movement. The idea is to free woman from the\nlimitations of nature. It involves, too, the other sophistical notion\nwith which capitalistic society meets every demand of protective\nlegislation for men, women, or children. Such legislation is said to be\nan interference with the individual's right of choice.\n\nEvery human being who is socially alive is aware that this right to\ncontrol one's life is the emptiest phrase to describe reality in a\nsociety built up on a capitalistic basis. It is doubly empty where woman\nis concerned. I have never heard a woman desire that woman should fulfil\nmilitary duties as an equivalent for having civil rights like man. But\nthis would be the consequence of the argument that woman should have no\nprivileges on the ground of her sex. The greatest privilege that can be\nthought of in modern society is to be spared the discomforts and loss of\ntime that come from military training, to be exempt from the dangers and\nthe terrors of war. That women are not absolutely incapable of service\nin warfare, women have shown on many occasions, especially in the Boer\nWar. So when the advocates of women's rights hesitate before this\nextreme consequence of their principle, and introduce the functions of\nmotherhood as a cogent ground for the privilege of being freed from\nmilitary service in time of war (even if women at some time should\nreceive the same civil rights now enjoyed by man), they are in the\nhighest degree illogical. Other women with more logic declare that on\nanother battle-field, a still more destructive one, that of the factory\nsystem, the same maternal functions require certain privileges for\nwoman, and these same functions must result in subjecting her to certain\nlimitations of her individual right to control her life. That is, she\ncannot pass beyond the limits drawn by nature, without interfering with\nthe rights of another, the potential child.\n\nIt lies in the individual sphere of woman's choice as of man's choice\nnot to choose marriage, or to desire it without parenthood; and for\nexemption from the latter, real altruistic as well as real egoistic\nreasons can be urged. It lies in the individual choice of the woman, as\nwell as of the man, to isolate herself from what may be regarded as an\nobstacle to her individual development, or to her freedom of movement.\nShe can do without love or motherhood, if the one or both of these are\nregarded from this point of view. Woman has the full right to allow\nherself to be turned into a third sex, the sex of the working bees, or\nthe sexless ant, provided she finds in this her highest happiness.\n\nA good while ago I was ingenuous enough to maintain that motherhood was\nthe central factor of existence for most women. In the discussion of\nthis question I considered several facts: woman's work imposed by\nnecessity, woman's ambition stimulated by the freedom of her power,\nwoman's intellectual life modified by many other influences of\ncontemporary thought,--all these have forced the maternal instinct into\nthe background for the time being. Here was a danger which, it seemed,\nwas not too late to expose. There are women in whom the feeling of love\nis really and absolutely stunted; there are others who do not find in\nmodern man the soulful and profound harmony in love that they quite\nrightly demand; there are others, more numerous, who wish for love but\ndo not wish for motherhood. They absolutely fear it. The famous German\nauthoress Gabrielle Reuter has spoken of this fear, this alarm of\nmotherhood continually vigilant, active, placing woman in an attitude of\nself-defence,--a fear which to-day has taken possession of so many\nstrenuous and creative women. The alarm, the aversion, becomes so\nstrong, so dominant in them that one might almost believe it a dark\nperverse instinct, which, like all unnatural instincts, has been\nconceived and born through cruel necessities, and through these\nnecessities has become overmastering. It is as if a secret voice in the\ndepths of their nature was telling these women that, by paying their\ntribute to their sex, they would lose that power, brilliancy, and\nsharpness of intellect by which they have elevated themselves above\ntheir sex; and perhaps certain kinds of women are right in having this\nfear.\n\nI am convinced, just as the German writer is, that every actual\nphenomenon of disease and of health alike is a necessary result from\ngiven causes; and I am more convinced than the advocates of women's\nrights ever were, that it is in the sphere of human freedom to choose\none's own type of development, happiness, or ruin. I am not inclined to\nsay anything further to the women who do not desire motherhood.\n\nIt would be very disastrous if these women, who have never been moved by\ntenderness when they felt a soft childish hand in their own, who have\nnever longed to surrender themselves entirely to another being, were to\nbecome mothers. Their children would be more unfortunate than they\nthemselves.\n\nMany women like these are to be found to-day, and if things remain as\nthey are, they are bound to increase in numbers. In some of them,\nhowever, the maternal instinct is not dead, but only dormant. Modern\nwomen with their capacity for psychic analysis, with their physical and\npsychical refinement, are often repelled by the crudeness, the\nignorance, or the importunities of man's nature. The whole factor of\nlove in the being of these women is shrivelled up as a bud that has\nnever blossomed, and in enthusiasm for a duty, or for a woman friend,\nthey find an expression for that sacrifice whose real aim they deny or\noverlook, a something which ends often by avenging itself in a tragic\nway.\n\nI am simply insisting that every woman, who has not yet ceased to desire\nmotherhood, has duties as a girl, and still more as a woman, to the\nunborn generation from which she cannot free herself without absolute\nselfishness. This selfishness is often disguised under a great impulse,\nan impulse which, like that of the preservation of the species, masters\nexistence. I mean the impulse of self-protection. But it is just this\nthat should make the \"obligatory\" egoism of the modern working woman\nappear so terrible to those who are busied with the emancipation of\nwoman.\n\nTo talk of the freedom of woman, of her individual right to control her\nactions, when she works like a beast of burden to reach a minimum of\nexistence, to keep from dying of starvation, to talk of the freedom of\nwomen where conditions are such that the free choice of work, for man as\nwell as for woman, is an empty phrase--to put it mildly, it is\nsenseless. I will throw some light on the results of freedom by the\nfollowing illustration:\n\nWhen women in England worked in white lead factories, seventy-seven\nwomen were examined in one factory. It appeared in the time covered by\nthe investigation that there were among this number ninety miscarriages,\ntwenty-seven cases of still-born children; beside, forty young children\ndied of convulsions produced by the poisoning of their mothers. The\neffects of this occupation were most harmful in the case of women from\neighteen to twenty-three years of age. Lameness, blindness, and other\ninfirmities resulted from this kind of work.\n\nAn English doctor has shown from exact investigations conducted during\na number of years, that the enormous mortality among young children in\nfactory districts arises chiefly because the child is deprived of a\nmother's care a few weeks after birth. A child needs its mother's milk\nat least six months, and the mother's milk cannot be substituted by\nartificial means, least of all when the substitutes are used with\ncarelessness. In certain textile factory districts, in Nottingham, for\nexample, where lace is produced, and where people have complained of the\nlaw limiting women's work, out of each thousand children, two hundred\ndie annually. Mortality in factory districts is four to five times\ngreater than in country districts; and yet the death of children is,\nrelatively speaking, a lesser evil. More unfortunate still is it that\nthose who survive always suffer partial weakness from the lack of a\nmother's care at a tender age.\n\nIn Silesia, where children and quite young girls are employed in the\nglass industry, the work has so distorted their bodily structure that\nwhen they bear children, their sufferings are intense. Such unique\nmaterial do they offer for the study of obstetrics, that doctors make\npilgrimages to Silesia to learn from their cases.\n\nBefore women have reached maturity, when they can, according to the\nadvocates of women's rights, protect themselves, they are ruined\nphysically. If it is said that the facts mentioned above belong to the\nquestion of the protection of children, not to that of the protection of\nwomen, the answer lies close at hand. The physical and moral interest of\nchildren and of women are so mutually related, that they cannot be\nseparated. Crippled women have children who are stunted at the time of\ntheir birth. The burden of toil they take up with weakened power of\nresistance and they transmit this weakness to their offspring. Cause and\neffect are so intimately associated here, that they cannot be accurately\napportioned between the work of women and the work of children.\n\nEven the advocates of women's rights must, allow that the limit of their\nclaims to right is to be found where the right of another begins. They\ncannot suppose that the individual right of the woman to control her\nlife should go so far that a woman could take a piece of a neighbour's\nproperty to lay out a garden, or use for an industrial scheme a part of\nthe water power belonging to some one else.\n\nCan they not see that woman's individual freedom is limited by the\nrights of another, by the rights of the potential child? The potential\nchild has its own proper rights, its own vital power. This property, the\nwoman has not the right to encroach upon in advance.\n\nA woman, who from one motive or another, great or small, permanently\nkeeps outside of the marriage relation, has complete right to ruin\nherself by work, provided she does not, as a result of so doing, become\na burden to others through incapacity.\n\nBut the woman who looks forward to motherhood as a possibility for\nherself, or the woman who is expecting to become a mother, should not,\nthrough an unlimited amount of voluntary work or of work forced upon her\ncontrary to her will, sacrifice the capacities for life and work of an\nunborn generation, in such a way that she will bring into the world\nweak, invalid, or physically incapable children, who will later on be\nneglected.\n\nIt does not occur to the dogmatic advocates of women's rights that their\ntalk about the individual freedom of the woman to control her career,\ntheir contention that no limitation need restrict woman's power of\ndeciding her own vocation, because they are married or are mothers,\nmean the most crying injury, not only to children, but to women\nthemselves. For the demand of equality, where nature has made\ninequality, brings about the injury of the weaker factor. Equality is\nnot justice. Often it is just the opposite, the most absolute injustice.\n\nThe strongest reasoning will not convince those advocates of women's\nrights who discuss woman's labour from the old-fashioned level of\nindividualism, unaffected by the social feeling of solidarity, which is\nthe solution offered by our age. But fortunately protective legislation\ndoes not depend on the women who advocate the rights of women. The\nworkingmen's movement, aided by women and men of all classes who are\nactive in it, will carry through this legislation. The movement for the\nnormal working day is steadily gaining ground.\n\nExperience has shown that, because of the greater intensity of the work\ndone, just as much can be accomplished in a shorter as in a longer time.\nThe first concern has been the work of children and of younger adults.\nThe effect of factory life on the health of women themselves, as well as\non their children, has excited general attention. In England first,\nthen in other European countries, it has become recognised as necessary\nthat a normal period of work should be laid down for women as well. The\nprogramme was and continues to be threefold:--a maximum working time for\nwomen's work; limitation, or, better still, the cessation of night work\non the part of women; the prevention, too, of the work of women in mines\nand in certain other industries dangerous to health; finally the\nprotection of women who are about to become mothers. In most European\ncountries there is now a maximum working time fixed at eight to eleven\nhours. Night work, work in mines, and extra work, is either forbidden or\nconsiderably limited, and a rest period of three to eight weeks is\nestablished for women at childbirth.\n\nFrom all points of view, an eight-hour working day should be the highest\nlimit for woman's work. There are more reasons for it in her case than\nfor man's work. The eight-hour day means not only for the woman as for\nthe man the possibility of enjoying her life in permanent health; it\nsecures time for improving recreation. For the married woman it is an\nindispensable requirement. Without it her home cannot be kept in order\nand comfort, her children cannot be physically cared for; without it\nshe is not able to co-operate in their education. The normal working day\nis, therefore, more necessary for the woman than for the man, because on\nher, rather than on him, comes the burden of household work. The dangers\nof night work, as of work in mines, are from the standpoint of health\nand morality so plain, that no further reason need be urged to defend\nprotective legislation in this case.\n\nBut not only the theoretical principles of women's rights are urged\nagainst this legislation. Socialists as well as the advocates of women's\nrights are responsible for different objections of a more solid\ncharacter. It is urged that legislation will increase the number of\nunemployed women who, in order to live, will be forced into\nprostitution, but it is forgotten that the same result comes from low\nwages in many occupations, and that these low wages are caused by an\nover-supply of working women. It is said, also, that if protective\nlegislation hinders or prevents women from working, they will not be\nable to care for their children and the children will be employed in the\nfactory in their stead. The way out of the last difficulty is absolutely\nplain: the complete prohibition of all work by children under fifteen\nyears of age.\n\nIt is urged also that if women are hindered by legislation from\nfulfilling the demands of their occupation, the result will be, not that\nthey are protected in their occupation, but that the occupation is\nprotected against them. The remedy in this case is certainly difficult,\nbut not impossible to find. Let only the tenth part of the energy now\nused in agitation for the free right of women to labour be employed in\npreparing women for such labour as they are suited to undertake. But\neven when this cannot be done protective legislation carries with it its\nown corrective. It is always urged that the occupation will be destroyed\nby protective legislation. Then new methods and new machines will be\ninvented to replace cheap labour power. Those who are protected often\nthemselves complain that they suffer economically under protective\nlegislation, but a long experience will show them how, through the\nreciprocal effects of all factors in production, the temporary failures\nwill be balanced. A potent remedy for this effect of protective\nlegislation may be looked for in the assertion, found in the programmes\nof all labour parties, of the right of the unemployed to have work, and\na fixed minimum wage. These demands along with that for a normal working\nday, in which is included rest at night and rest on Sunday, and other\nmeasures for the protection of workingmen against accident and old age,\nare the chief methods by which the labour question, both for men and\nwomen, will be solved. Until these aims are realised Ruskin's judgment\non modern industrialism which kills the real humanity in man holds good\nboth for men and for women. We make, he says, everything except real\nmen; we bleach cotton; we harden and improve steel; we refine sugar; we\nmake porcelain and print books; but to refine a single living soul, to\nreform it, to improve it never enters into our reckoning of profit.\n\nThe women of the working classes must continue to endure the suffering,\nto bear the dangers, to subject themselves to the forces which\nsolidarity in this great struggle implies. Only under these conditions\ncan men as well as women elevate themselves, partly by their own\ncombination, partly by the extension of the principle, more and more\ncoming to be recognised, that society, through its legislation, can\ndetermine the conditions under which its members work. So will be\nproduced conditions of life and of work worthy of mankind,--a\nhealthier, stronger, and more beautiful race. In this ever continuing\nprogress every part is related to every other part.\n\nUnorganised, ordinary and therefore badly paid work, done by woman,\ndiminishes the wages of man and his opportunity of work. Work in a\nfactory unfits the woman for the conduct of the household, for her\nduties as a mother. In the turmoil, heat, and rush of the factory her\nnerves are destroyed and with them her finer emotions. The woman loses\nnot only the right hand, but also the right heart for family life. Badly\nconditioned women make marriage more difficult for the man; through\ncelibacy, his mortality is increased. Low wages, or times of lack of\nemployment, cause bad dwellings, bad clothes, and bad nourishment. The\ntortured or ill-conditioned woman is not able to prepare anything good\nwith the small amount of money which the man may earn. From all of this\ncome intemperance and disease. Through these causes, combined with those\nalready noted, the population of factory districts degenerates, in\nrepublican Switzerland, not less than in absolutistic Russia.\n\nIt is true that such limitations of work in many cases are felt, as\nwell by the single woman as by the family. The restriction of child\nlabour may bring immediate discomfort. But all this is a passing evil.\nIt can be corrected, as soon as it is clearly seen in what direction the\nadvance along all the line is being made. This kind of progress moves in\nzigzag fashion. What decides whether temporary limitation of freedom\nmakes for progress or not is whether one finds, in turning from the\nindividual, or small groups, to the great whole, that the last is\ngaining, that in the future, freedom and happiness for all will be\nincreased by this temporary limitation of freedom.\n\nIn other relations of life it is a just law that he who goes into a game\nmust abide by its rules. But this rule cannot be applied to that very\ncruel game which we call life. We do not go into it of our own will.\nChildren have the right not to be obliged to suffer for the mistakes and\nerrors of their parents. How this suffering can be best avoided in case\nof an inharmonious marriage must be decided by the different\nindividuals, as a question belonging to them alone. As I have already\nshown, change of custom in relation to the time, age, and motives for\nmarriage is the surest protection for the children, a protection that\nwill gradually be extended. Under a serious conviction of woman's duty\nas a member of her sex, it will be regarded as a crime for a young wife\nvoluntarily to ill-treat her person, either by excessive study, or\nexcessive attention to sports, by tight-lacing, or consumption of\nsweets, by smoking or the use of stimulants, by sitting up at night,\nexcessive work, or by all the thousand other ways by which these\nattractive simpletons sin against nature, until nature finally loses all\npatience with them.\n\nIt must be demanded of the laws of society that they hinder involuntary\ncrimes of unprotected women against their feminine nature.\n\nThis is the great work of woman's emancipation; everything else compared\nwith it is non-essential. Through their failure to see this the present\nrepresentatives of women's rights are working against progress, though\nthey themselves apply the word reactionary to all who assert that the\nonly way by which the woman question as a whole can be solved is through\nthe social revolution. In this revolution protective legislation is an\nimportant factor.\n\nAccording to my method of thinking, and that of many others, not woman\nbut the mother is the most precious possession of the nation, so\nprecious that society advances its own highest well-being when it\nprotects the functions of the mother. These functions are not limited to\nbirth nor to the nourishment of the child; but they go on during the\nwhole time of its training. I believe that in the new society where all\nwomen and men alike will be compelled to work (not children, not\ninvalids, and not the aged) people will regard the maternal function as\nso important for the whole social order, that every mother under fixed\nconditions, subject to certain control, during a certain period, and for\na certain number of children, will obtain from society an allowance for\neducation. She will receive this during the time in which her children\nrequire all her care, while she herself is freed from work outside the\nhome. Naturally this does not exclude the case of mothers who from one\nor another reason cannot devote themselves to the care and training of\ntheir children; they can by their own productive work secure a\nsubstitute. But for the majority of women, the proposal made above would\nundoubtedly be the real solution of many problems which now seem\ninsoluble. I do not believe that social development will maintain the\nold ideal of the father as the one who takes care of the family. I\nhope, rather, that the new conception of having every individual look\nafter himself will gain more ground. The father will then be, in the\nreal sense of the word, the educator, when the care for the maintenance\nof the family does not press him down to the ground. A woman will then,\nas mother of the family, not be in dependence on the man,--a position\nshe feels as humiliating, if as a girl she earned her own living. People\nare bound to return to this new form of matriarchy, when they begin to\nconsider care of the new generation, as the great business the mother\ntakes over for society. During its progress society must guarantee her\nexistence. In many cases, the answer of the married woman who works\noutside the home would be as follows: That her happiness would consist\nin quietly looking after her children, and in being able to keep house,\nbut that she must have an income that would make her independent of her\nhusband. A Swedish evening paper, the special organ of the feminist\nmovement, two years ago started an investigation on the productive work\nof married women. The answers, contrary to the expectations of the\npaper, were nearly unanimous in showing what dangers for children, and\nwhat interference with household comfort, were caused by the woman\nworking outside the home. An impartial investigation of the causes of\nthe increasing brutality of the young would show certainly that the\nrapid increase in crime in several countries among the young is caused\npartly by their prematurely taking up productive work, and partly by\nearly lack of home life, the result of the mother working outside the\nhome.\n\nIf the world is agreed that children must still continue to be born and\nthat a home furnishes generally the best means for training them during\nthe first years of their life, the present consequences of woman's work\ndone outside the home must cause pessimism; such work must be stopped.\nAfter we have thought over the matter, it is plain that nothing is now\nmore needed than such plans of social order, such programmes of\neducation, as will give the mother back to her children and to her home.\n\nEverything that philanthropy now does to heal the injurious and\ndisintegrating effects of the capitalistic industrial system is on the\nwhole wasted power. Children's cr\u00e8ches, kindergartens, providing meals\nfor children, hospitals, vacation homes, cannot with all their noble\nefforts replace a hundredth part of the life energy, taken directly or\nindirectly from the new generation by women working outside the home.\n\nThere are some people who expect the problem of domestic life to be\nsolved by collective institutions which will take care of the children,\nand give them meals. Just as brewing, baking, slaughtering, making\ncandles and clothes, have more and more ceased to be done in the home,\nmuch of the work which now absorbs the greatest part of household\nactivity, cooking, washing, mending and cleaning clothes, will, I firmly\nbelieve, finally be done by collective effort, by the help of\nelectricity and machines. But I hope the tendency of man towards\nindividualisation will overcome the tendency towards impersonal, uniform\napplication of power _en masse_, in everything by which the innermost\nrelations of life and private habits are deeply affected. A strong\nfamily life will, I hope, be regarded as the basis for true happiness\nand for the development of personality. When women are free from the\nbarbarous relics of present methods of housekeeping,--the market basket,\nthe kitchen utensils, the scrubbing brush gone from every house,\nelectricity everywhere spreading warmth and life,--they will still be\nforced to do a certain amount of work. This cannot be avoided even by\nthe help of the most perfect apparatus and by co-operative methods,\nprovided the house is not to be replaced by the barrack. And since the\ncustom of keeping servants will soon cease because, probably, there will\nbe no servants to keep, all women will be forced to do housework, or\nfind the remedy already discovered in America where bureaus supply\ndomestic help for a fixed time for a fixed price. In London, too, there\nis at present a guild for general houseworkers who are trained for\noccupation and work under regularly established conditions. In the\ncountry, not only wives but daughters will be needed for agricultural\nlabour, when there are no more hired labourers to be had. This will be a\nnatural corrective against that pressure towards outside fields of\nlabour, that has taken the daughters in multitudes away from home, and\nhas crowded and overflowed the cities with them.\n\nFinally if we weigh the economic loss occasioned by the fact that women\nafter five or ten years' preparation have to give up work or study as a\nresult of marriage, it is easy to see that the modern work of women has\nhad results which must soon lead to earnest thought, in balancing up the\naccounts for or against the system. From the point of view of the woman\nherself, from the children's point of view, from the man's point of\nview, and finally, from the productive point of view, it has become\npretty plain that society must either change the conditions of woman's\nlabour or see a progressive disintegration in home life. Society must\neither transform the conditions of life and work, or it will witness the\ndegeneration of the sexes.\n\nAll philanthropy--no age has seen more of it than our own--is only a\nsavoury fumigation burning at the mouth of a sewer. This incense\noffering makes the air more endurable for passers-by, but it does not\nhinder the infection in the sewer from spreading.\n\nSelfishness, the instinct of self-preservation, will perhaps end by\nforcing the leaders of society to direct their actions from the social\npoint of view. Then the woman question will become a question of\nhumanity; then will its champions perhaps come to see that there can be\nno enduring good for the woman, if she works under conditions injurious\nto men and to children. It will be seen that the old axiom can be justly\napplied to the demands made in the name of woman's individuality;\nsupreme right becomes supreme injustice. Justice is not to be reached\nby having the woman work under conditions which ruin both her and the\nwhole generation physically. In other respects she must be able to use\nher free choice, and be educated enough to make good use of it. Justice\nconsists in protecting innumerable women, who are not able as yet to\nprotect themselves, against the abuses of which capital is guilty in\nemploying their labour power.\n\nIt is an instructive feature in the history of class conflict, and of\nthe movement for women's progress, that as women began by driving men\nout of certain fields of labour, so now unmarried women try to force\nmarried women from the labour market. In America, where everything goes\nat full speed, an association has been founded among unmarried women\nwith this intention. These and similar phenomena belong to the system of\nfree competition, the creation of the \"leading thought of our time, the\nright of the individual to determine his own vocation.\" Perhaps when the\nwar of women against women becomes the rule, the women's rights women\nwill see that the problem of woman's work is more complicated than they\nimagine. They have continued to look at it till now only from the point\nof view of a woman's right to take care of herself. Perhaps they will\nthen understand that individualism, apart from the feeling of\nsolidarity, leads to social conflict, class against class, sex against\nsex, unmarried against married, young against old. So it will be seen\nthat only in the transformation of the whole of society can woman attain\nher full rights without impairing, through her advance, the rights of\nothers.\n\nThe sooner the women's rights party understands this, the better.\nInstead of fighting protective legislation, they should advocate it;\ninstead of regarding unions and strikes with disfavour, they should help\nlabouring women to organise unions, and support strikes where strikes\nare justified.\n\nOur century, which has opened up to women new fields of labour, has made\nlife very hard for her by forcing her in the competitive struggle. As\nwives, as married or unmarried mothers, as divorced women, as widows,\nwomen often not only have the burden of their own support to bear, but\nthey have frequently the r\u00f4le of guardian of a family, working for an\ninvalid or intemperate husband; for children, or sisters, or aged\nparents. These women, whether they belong to those who labour with the\nbrain or with the hand, are worn out, partly by earning their own\nliving, partly by household tasks. While the man goes from home to his\nwork, refreshed by rest, the woman often goes already tired out, and she\ncomes back to the house perhaps to work at night. It is as clear as day\nthat by so doing she loses her bodily health and mental equanimity, both\nneeded by her children. It is astonishing how many working women despite\nall this have enough energy for intellectual effort in reading and\nthinking. They soon see, women like these, that an occupation is not\nemancipation. The best that can be said is that it is only a means to\nemancipation. Those who work with their hands are not the worst off in\nthis respect. Bookkeepers, telephone and telegraph operators,\npost-office employees, shop girls, waiters in public establishments, and\nservants in private houses, who must often serve the public standing,\nand who are often deprived of rest at night and on Sunday, are\npractically labour's worst slaves. Who can wonder if the possible income\nobtained by an immoral life is reckoned by the employer, when he secures\nfor his establishment, at low wages, the services of attractive young\ngirls? Small wonder it is that such employees, worried to death in\nshops, telephone bureaus, post and telegraph offices, should often be\ndriven to hysteria, insanity, and suicide.\n\nThe advocates of women's rights are not blind to all these\nincongruities. They ask equal salaries for men and women, and claim,\noften with justice, and often without, that women's work is too\ninadequately compensated. But they do not see that they have contributed\nto the evil by constantly urging women to work in all possible\noccupations, and that a low rate of wages and an overcrowding of all\nfields of labour is the result. It is far more necessary to pay\nattention to these things than to open up new fields of labour to women,\nif their vital energy is not to be dried up, if they are not to lose\ntheir youthful freshness and attractiveness prematurely, and their\npossibilities for development and happiness as human beings, wives, and\nmothers.\n\nA loss of freedom accomplished gradually, this is, on the whole, the sad\nresult of the so-called emancipation of women in our century, if the\nsubject is looked at broadly, apart from the few thousand women of the\nupper classes in good paying positions. For several decades, I have felt\nstrongly against the importance given by the advocates of women's rights\nto the work of women outside of the home, for the reasons I have given\nabove. I have applied to such work the objection formulated by Feuerbach\nin these words: \"Mediocrity always weighs correctly, only its weight is\nfalse.\"\n\nWherever we look, in Europe or America, we find new and injurious\nresults from the new conditions, from the free activity of women's work\nthrough the development of industry on a large scale, through the\ntransformation of home work, and the growing conviction on the part of\nwomen that \"celibacy is the aristocracy of the future,\" to quote the\nwords of a distinguished supporter of woman's rights.\n\nYet it would be foolish to wish a change in these unhappy results\nthrough a reaction that would again rob the woman of her essential\nfreedom in relation to her choice of work, and the control of her life.\n\nThe line of progress is tending towards a new society, where all will be\ncompelled to work and all will find work; where all will work moderately\nunder healthy conditions for an adequate wage. Then neither the\nunmarried nor the married woman will lose her strength by exhausting\nwork done to earn a living, or impair the powers she needs for\nmotherhood. If she becomes a mother, in most cases she will really\nrejoice at the possibility offered to her by society of working for\nsociety, as a mother and an educator.\n\nWe are yet very far from such a society, but every social regulation\nshould, as we have said, be tested as to whether it brings us nearer\nthis ideal or leads us farther away from it. The question should be\nasked whether the direction of thought is encouraged or restricted, that\nwill in the end transform everything, the conviction I mean that\neconomic production is here in the world for the sake of men, not, as\nnow, men for the sake of production; that work is to be done for the\nsake of freedom, not, as now, freedom created for the sake of work.\n\nWhen I tried in my book called _The Misuse of the Power of Woman_ to\nurge women to test the consequences of this process, my thesis was as\nfollows: In our programme of civilisation, we must start out with the\nconviction that motherhood is something essential to the nature of woman\nand the way in which she carries out this profession is of value for\nsociety. On this basis we must alter the conditions which more and more\nare robbing woman of the happiness of motherhood and are robbing\nchildren of the care of a mother. Or, we must begin with the assumption\nthat motherhood is not essential: then everything must continue to go\non as it is going on now, and work directed towards external spheres\nwith its satisfaction in the joy of creation, of ambition, of gain, of\nenjoyment, of independence, will be more and more the end towards which\nwomen will arrange their plan of life. For this end they will modify\ntheir fundamental habits and remould their feelings. The na\u00efve belief\nthat every woman, who has the liberty to do so, is following her own\nnature, shows a complete ignorance of psychology and history. Some ideal\nconsidered worth striving for, the prevailing view of a period, will\nobtain supremacy over nature. This is shown best in the stunted feeling\nof motherhood peculiar to the eighteenth century, by the plain results\nof medi\u00e6val asceticism. By a new ideal innumerable women are now driven\nfrom a life directed inwards to a life directed outwards.\n\nI am in favour of real freedom for woman; that is, I wish her to follow\nher own nature, whether she be an exceptional or an ordinary woman. But\nthe opinion held by the feminine advocates of woman's emancipation, in\nregard to the nature and the aims of the everyday woman, does violence\nto the real nature of most women. It is one of the most remarkable\nmanifestations of the times that, while women preach about the rights of\nwoman and her will to work and to act unrestrained by family ties, men\nlike Ibsen, for example, in _When We Dead People Awake_, show that the\nreal Fall of Man in life is transgression of the law of love, meaning\nthat man through this transgression not only diminishes his personality,\nbut lessens his creative capacity.\n\nIt would appear as though men were approaching the conception of love\nonce held by women, while women were beginning to regard love as a petty\nepisode in life compared with what are really its true concerns, an\nepisode which gives life the colour of a sensual, sentimental,\npsychological, or sportsmanlike adventure, an episode which she treats\nas a game which she can get into, and just as easily get out of. From\nthis new position in which extremes meet, suffering, previously\nundreamed of, must arise. Such results coming to the emancipated woman\nwill I hope reveal to her the eternal laws of her own being, laws from\nwhich she cannot be freed without destroying herself.\n\nI would not put the slightest hindrance, however, in the way of a single\nisolated woman pursuing her own path freely, if it leads her even to\nthe most unusual forms of labour and attempts to make a living. But for\nthe sake of women themselves, for the sake of children, for the sake of\nsociety, I wish men as well as women to think earnestly over the present\nposition of things. They will see that in the near future, one of two\nthings must be chosen. Either there must be such a transformation of the\nway in which modern society thinks and works that the majority of women\nwill be restored to motherhood, or the disintegration of the home and\nthe substitution of general institutions will inevitably result. There\nis no alternative.\n\nUndoubtedly it required the whole egoistic self-assertion of woman, all\nher efforts towards individuality, her temporary separation from home\nand from family, her independent efforts to make a living to convince\nman and society of the following truths: that woman is not solely a\nsexual being, not solely dependent on man, the home and the family, no\nmatter in what form these may exist. Only in this way could woman fulfil\nher destiny as wife and mother with really free choice. Only in this way\ncould she secure the right of being regarded as man's intellectual equal\nin the field of the home and the family, the recognition that in her\nway she was just as complete a being as he.\n\nBut it is clear that this fragment of feminine egoism must have a\nfurther consequence. With the rights of sex the feeling of solidarity\nmust be awakened. The woman must see that her emancipated and developed\nhuman personality will lead to this solidarity by the realisation of her\nespecial vocation as woman. Women in parliament and in journalism, their\nrepresentation in the local and general government, in peace congress\nand in workingmen's meetings, science and literature, all this will\nproduce small results until women realise that the transformation of\nsociety begins with the unborn child, with the conditions for its coming\ninto existence, its physical and psychical training. It must be the\ngeneral conviction that the new instincts, the new feelings, the new\nthoughts, the new ideas, which mothers and fathers pass on into the\nflesh and blood of their children, will transform existence. When, after\nmany successive generations, the new spiritual kingdom of this world has\narisen, there will come into being these greater ideas through which\nlife may be renewed.\n\nUntil that time secular misdeeds, political injustice, economic\nstruggles,--all these socially destructive abuses will go on from\ngeneration to generation. Mankind remains the same though its acts may\ntake different shapes. Thinkers will always find new ideas, scholars new\nmethods and systems, artists new \u00e6sthetic creations, but on the whole\neverything must remain the same. Only when woman heeds the message which\nlife proclaims to her, that, through her, salvation must come--will the\nface of the earth be renewed. Oratorical talk of the high task of\nmothers and of the great profession of education are empty phrases,\nuntil we see that the possibility of humanity and civilisation winning\nsome day the victory over savagery depends on the physiological and\npsychological transformation of man's nature. This transformation\nrequires an entirely new conception of the vocation of mother, a\ntremendous effort of will, continuous inspiration. Those who believe\nthey can fulfil their duties as mothers and at the same time can\naccomplish other valuable work have never made the experiment of\neducation. The long continued habit of alternately caressing and\nstriking one's children is not education. It needs tremendous power to\ndo one's duty to a single child. This by no means signifies giving up to\nthe child every hour of one's time, but it does mean that our soul is\nto be filled by the child, just as the man of science is possessed by\nhis investigations and the artist by his work. The child should be in\none's thoughts when one is sitting at home or walking along the road,\nwhen one is lying down or when one is standing up. This devotion, much\nmore than the hours immediately given to one's children, is the\nabsorbing thing; the occupation which makes an earnest mother always go\nto any external activity with divided soul and dissipated energy.\nTherefore the mother, if she gives her children the share they need, can\ndevote to social activities only her occasional attention. And for the\nsame reason she should be entirely free from working to earn her living\nduring the most critical years of the children's training.\n\nNeither in the upper nor in the lower classes, have I ever heard of any\nmother forced to do work of this kind or one engaged in artistic\nproductions through the stimulus of her talents, who was able to satisfy\nher children in the period when they were growing up.\n\nAdele Gerhard and Helen Simon under the title of _Motherhood and\nIntellectual Work_ published a very interesting investigation in which I\nfound my own observations substantiated. The book showed that a mother\nwho wished to train her children and at the same time engage in an\noccupation, or take part in some public activity, could give to neither\nher whole personality. The result is a mediocre education for the\nchildren and for herself; mediocre work done with a divided soul. This\nis allowed to be true by all of those really conscientious mothers who\nhave maintained a high aim in their work and in the bringing up of their\nchildren. They are dilettantes in both directions; what they do is half\ndone owing to the effort to unite two separate fields of work.\n\nFrom the point of view of women's rights, it is said, in reply to these\nopinions of mine, that motherhood can be made infinitely easier by a\nnatural method of life, that work can be very well combined with it. It\nis said that children soon grow out of needing the protection of their\nmother, that the mothers can then devote themselves entirely to their\nwork. They contend besides that motherhood is no unconditional\nobligation; that people are fully justified in making different\nindividual arrangements; one woman wishes to become a mother, another\nnot. The one gets married with the hope of becoming a mother; the other\nwith the resolution of avoiding maternity. The third does not marry at\nall. Attempts to generalise on this matter in which individual freedom\nhas every right to be recognised, they consider reactionary. Full\nfreedom for the woman, married or unmarried, to choose her work and to\ncontinue it; full freedom to choose motherhood or to do without it, this\nthey say is the way to free woman, this is the line of progress. Here\nwoman is subject to that economic law which has made it necessary for\nher to work for her own living. Just as woman's household work has been\nsuperseded by factory work, so too, they say, will the maternal\nobligations of woman be fulfilled collectively, and the difficulties on\nwhich the so-called reactionary members of the women's rights movement\nbase their arguments, will in the future only arise in exceptional\ncases. As regards these arguments, I have already shown that I recognise\nfully the right of the feminine individual to go her own way, to choose\nher own fortune or misfortune. I have always spoken of women\ncollectively and of society collectively.\n\nFrom this general, not from the individual standpoint, I am trying to\nconvince women that vengeance is being exacted on the individual, on the\nrace, when woman gradually destroys the deepest vital source of her\nphysical and psychical being, the power of motherhood.\n\nBut present-day woman is not adapted to motherhood; she will only be\nfitted for it when she has trained herself for motherhood and man is\ntrained for fatherhood. Then man and woman can begin together to bring\nup the new generation out of which some day society will be formed. In\nit, the completed man--the Superman--will be bathed in that sunshine\nwhose distant rays but colour the horizon of to-day.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nEDUCATION\n\n\nGoethe showed long ago in his _Werther_ a clear understanding of the\nsignificance of individualistic and psychological training, an\nappreciation which will mark the century of the child. In this work he\nshows how the future power of will lies hidden in the characteristics of\nthe child, and how along with every fault of the child an uncorrupted\ngerm capable of producing good is enclosed. \"Always,\" he says, \"I repeat\nthe golden words of the teacher of mankind, 'if ye do not become as one\nof these,' and now, good friend, those who are our equals, whom we\nshould look upon as our models, we treat as subjects; they should have\nno will of their own; do we have none? Where is our prerogative? Does it\nconsist in the fact that we are older and more experienced? Good God of\nHeaven! Thou seest old and young children, nothing else. And in whom\nThou hast more joy, Thy Son announced ages ago. But people believe in\nHim and do not hear Him--that, too, is an old trouble, and they model\ntheir children after themselves.\" The same criticism might be applied to\nour present educators, who constantly have on their tongues such words\nas evolution, individuality, and natural tendencies, but do not heed the\nnew commandments in which they say they believe. They continue to\neducate as if they believed still in the natural depravity of man, in\noriginal sin, which may be bridled, tamed, suppressed, but not changed.\nThe new belief is really equivalent to Goethe's thoughts given above,\n_i.e._, that almost every fault is but a hard shell enclosing the germ\nof virtue. Even men of modern times still follow in education the old\nrule of medicine, that evil must be driven out by evil, instead of the\nnew method, the system of allowing nature quietly and slowly to help\nitself, taking care only that the surrounding conditions help the work\nof nature. This is education.\n\nNeither harsh nor tender parents suspect the truth expressed by Carlyle\nwhen he said that the marks of a noble and original temperament are\nwild, strong emotions, that must be controlled by a discipline as hard\nas steel. People either strive to root out passions altogether, or they\nabstain from teaching the child to get them under control.\n\nTo suppress the real personality of the child, and to supplant it with\nanother personality continues to be a pedagogical crime common to those\nwho announce loudly that education should only develop the real\nindividual nature of the child.\n\nThey are still not convinced that egoism on the part of the child is\njustified. Just as little are they convinced of the possibility that\nevil can be changed into good.\n\nEducation must be based on the certainty that faults cannot be atoned\nfor, or blotted out, but must always have their consequences. At the\nsame time, there is the other certainty, that through progressive\nevolution, by slow adaptation to the conditions of environment they may\nbe transformed. Only when this stage is reached will education begin to\nbe a science and art. We will then give up all belief in the miraculous\neffects of sudden interference; we shall act in the psychological sphere\nin accordance with the principle of the indestructibility of matter. We\nshall never believe that a characteristic of the soul can be destroyed.\nThere are but two possibilities. Either it can be brought into\nsubjection or it can be raised up to a higher plane.\n\nMadame de Sta\u00ebl's words show much insight when she says that only the\npeople who can play with children are able to educate them. For success\nin training children the first condition is to become as a child\noneself, but this means no assumed childishness, no condescending\nbaby-talk that the child immediately sees through and deeply abhors.\nWhat it does mean is to be as entirely and simply taken up with the\nchild as the child himself is absorbed by his life. It means to treat\nthe child as really one's equal, that is, to show him the same\nconsideration, the same kind confidence one shows to an adult. It means\nnot to influence the child to be what we ourselves desire him to become\nbut to be influenced by the impression of what the child himself is; not\nto treat the child with deception, or by the exercise of force, but with\nthe seriousness and sincerity proper to his own character.\n\nSomewhere Rousseau says that all education has failed in that nature\ndoes not fashion parents as educators nor children for the sake of\neducation. What would happen if we finally succeeded in following the\ndirections of nature, and recognised that the great secret of education\nlies hidden in the maxim, \"do not educate\"?\n\nNot leaving the child in peace is the greatest evil of present-day\nmethods of training children. Education is determined to create a\nbeautiful world externally and internally in which the child can grow.\nTo let him move about freely in this world until he comes into contact\nwith the permanent boundaries of another's right will be the end of the\neducation of the future. Only then will adults really obtain a deep\ninsight into the souls of children, now an almost inaccessible kingdom.\nFor it is a natural instinct of self-preservation which causes the child\nto bar the educator from his innermost nature. There is the person who\nasks rude questions; for example, what is the child thinking about? a\nquestion which almost invariably is answered with a black or a white\nlie. The child must protect himself from an educator who would master\nhis thoughts and inclinations, or rudely handle them, who without\nconsideration betrays or makes ridiculous his most sacred feelings, who\nexposes faults or praises characteristics before strangers, or even uses\nan open-hearted, confidential confession as an occasion for reproof at\nanother time.\n\nThe statement that no human being learns to understand another, or at\nleast to be patient with another, is true above all of the intimate\nrelation of child and parent in which, understanding, the deepest\ncharacteristic of love, is almost always absent.\n\nParents do not see that during the whole life the need of peace is never\ngreater than in the years of childhood, an inner peace under all\nexternal unrest. The child has to enter into relations with his own\ninfinite world, to conquer it, to make it the object of his dreams. But\nwhat does he experience? Obstacles, interference, corrections, the whole\nlivelong day. The child is always required to leave something alone, or\nto do something different, to find something different, or want\nsomething different from what he does, or finds, or wants. He is always\nshunted off in another direction from that towards which his own\ncharacter is leading him. All of this is caused by our tenderness,\nvigilance, and zeal, in directing, advising, and helping the small\nspecimen of humanity to become a complete example in a model series.\n\nI have heard a three-year-old child characterised as \"trying\" because he\nwanted to go into the woods, whereas the nursemaid wished to drag him\ninto the city. Another child of six years was disciplined because she\nhad been naughty to a playmate and had called her a little pig,--a\nnatural appellation for one who was always dirty. These are typical\nexamples of how the sound instincts of the child are dulled. It was a\nspontaneous utterance of the childish heart when a small boy, after an\naccount of the heaven of good children, asked his mother whether she did\nnot believe that, after he had been good a whole week in heaven, he\nmight be allowed to go to hell on Saturday evening to play with the bad\nlittle boys there.\n\nThe child felt in its innermost consciousness that he had a right to be\nnaughty, a fundamental right which is accorded to adults; and not only\nto be naughty, but to be naughty in peace, to be left to the dangers and\njoys of naughtiness.\n\nTo call forth from this \"unvirtue\" the complimentary virtue is to\novercome evil with good. Otherwise we overcome natural strength by weak\nmeans and obtain artificial virtues which will not stand the tests which\nlife imposes.\n\nIt seems simple enough when we say that we must overcome evil with good,\nbut practically no process is more involved, or more tedious, than to\nfind actual means to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what\none shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength\nof character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into\namiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be\nbrought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic\nor perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it\nbecomes a permanent evil only through its one-sided supremacy.\n\nThe educator wants the child to be finished at once, and perfect. He\nforces upon the child an unnatural degree of self-mastery, a devotion to\nduty, a sense of honour, habits that adults get out of with astonishing\nrapidity. Where the faults of children are concerned, at home and in\nschool, we strain at gnats, while children daily are obliged to swallow\nthe camels of grown people.\n\nThe art of natural education consists in ignoring the faults of children\nnine times out of ten, in avoiding immediate interference, which is\nusually a mistake, and devoting one's whole vigilance to the control of\nthe environment in which the child is growing up, to watching the\neducation which is allowed to go on by itself. But educators who, day in\nand day out, are consciously transforming the environment and\nthemselves are still a rare product. Most people live on the capital and\ninterest of an education, which perhaps once made them model children,\nbut has deprived them of the desire for educating themselves. Only by\nkeeping oneself in constant process of growth, under the constant\ninfluence of the best things in one's own age, does one become a\ncompanion half-way good enough for one's children.\n\nTo bring up a child means carrying one's soul in one's hand, setting\none's feet on a narrow path; it means never placing ourselves in danger\nof meeting the cold look on the part of the child that tells us without\nwords that he finds us insufficient and unreliable. It means the humble\nrealisation of the truth that the ways of injuring the child are\ninfinite, while the ways of being useful to him are few. How seldom does\nthe educator remember that the child, even at four or five years of age,\nis making experiments with adults, seeing through them, with marvellous\nshrewdness making his own valuations and reacting sensitively to each\nimpression. The slightest mistrust, the smallest unkindness, the least\nact of injustice or contemptuous ridicule, leave wounds that last for\nlife in the finely strung soul of the child. While on the other side\nunexpected friendliness, kind advances, just indignation, make quite as\ndeep an impression on those senses which people term as soft as wax but\ntreat as if they were made of cowhide.\n\nRelatively most excellent was the old education which consisted solely\nin keeping oneself whole, pure, and honourable. For it did not at least\ndepreciate personality, although it did not form it. It would be well if\nbut a hundredth part of the pains now taken by parents were given to\ninterference with the life of the child and the rest of the ninety and\nnine employed in leading, without interference, in acting as an\nunforeseen, an invisible providence through which the child obtains\nexperience, from which he may draw his own conclusions. The present\npractice is to impress one's own discoveries, opinions, and principles\non the child by constantly directing his actions. The last thing to be\nrealised by the educator is that he really has before him an entirely\nnew soul, a real self whose first and chief right is to think over the\nthings with which he comes in contact. By a new soul he understands only\na new generation of an old humanity to be treated with a fresh dose of\nthe old remedy. We teach the new souls not to steal, not to lie, to\nsave their clothes, to learn their lessons, to economise their money, to\nobey commands, not to contradict older people, say their prayers, to\nfight occasionally in order to be strong. But who teaches the new souls\nto choose for themselves the path they must tread? Who thinks that the\ndesire for this path of their own can be so profound that a hard or even\nmild pressure towards uniformity can make the whole of childhood a\ntorment.\n\nThe child comes into life with the inheritance of the preceding members\nof the race; and this inheritance is modified by adaptation to the\nenvironment. But the child shows also individual variations from the\ntype of the species, and if his own character is not to disappear during\nthe process of adaptation, all self-determined development of energy\nmust be aided in every way and only indirectly influenced by the\nteacher, who should understand how to combine and emphasise the results\nof this development.\n\nInterference on the part of the educator, whether by force or\npersuasion, weakens this development if it does not destroy it\naltogether.\n\nThe habits of the household, and the child's habits in it must be\nabsolutely fixed if they are to be of any value. Amiel truly says that\nhabits are principles which have become instincts, and have passed over\ninto flesh and blood. To change habits, he continues, means to attack\nlife in its very essence, for life is only a web of habits.\n\nWhy does everything remain essentially the same from generation to\ngeneration? Why do highly civilised Christian people continue to plunder\none another and call it exchange, to murder one another _en masse_, and\ncall it nationalism, to oppress one another and call it statesmanship?\n\nBecause in every new generation the impulses supposed to have been\nrooted out by discipline in the child, break forth again, when the\nstruggle for existence--of the individual in society, of the society in\nthe life of the state--begins. These passions are not transformed by the\nprevalent education of the day, but only repressed. Practically this is\nthe reason why not a single savage passion has been overcome in\nhumanity. Perhaps man-eating may be mentioned as an exception. But what\nis told of European ship companies or Siberian prisoners shows that even\nthis impulse, under conditions favourable to it, may be revived,\nalthough in the majority of people a deep physical antipathy to\nman-eating is innate. Conscious incest, despite similar deviations, must\nalso be physically contrary to the majority, and in a number of women,\nmodesty--the unity between body and soul in relation to love--is an\nincontestable provision of nature. So too a minority would find it\nphysically impossible to murder or steal. With this list I have\nexhausted everything which mankind, since its conscious history began,\nhas really so intimately acquired that the achievement is passed on in\nits flesh and blood. Only this kind of conquest can really stand up\nagainst temptation in every form.\n\nA deep physiological truth is hidden in the use of language when one\nspeaks of unchained passions; the passions, under the prevailing system\nof education, are really only beasts of prey imprisoned in cages.\n\nWhile fine words are spoken about individual development, children are\ntreated as if their personality had no purpose of its own, as if they\nwere made only for the pleasure, pride, and comfort of their parents;\nand as these aims are best advanced when children become like every one\nelse, people usually begin by attempting to make them respectable and\nuseful members of society.\n\nBut the only correct starting point, so far as a child's education in\nbecoming a social human being is concerned, is to treat him as such,\nwhile strengthening his natural disposition to become an individual\nhuman being.\n\nThe new educator will, by regularly ordered experience, teach the child\nby degrees his place in the great orderly system of existence; teach him\nhis responsibility towards his environment. But in other respects, none\nof the individual characteristics of the child expressive of his life\nwill be suppressed, so long as they do not injure the child himself, or\nothers. The right balance must be kept between Spencer's definition of\nlife as an adaptation to surrounding conditions, and Nietzsche's\ndefinition of it as the will to secure power.\n\nIn adaptation, imitation certainly plays a great r\u00f4le, but individual\nexercise of power is just as important. Through adaptation life attains\na fixed form; through exercise of power, new factors.\n\nThoughtful people, as I have already stated, talk a good deal about\npersonality. But they are, nevertheless, filled with doubts when their\nchildren are not just like all other children; when they cannot show in\ntheir offspring all the ready-made virtues required by society. And so\nthey drill their children, repressing in childhood the natural instincts\nwhich will have freedom when they are grown. People still hardly realise\nhow new human beings are formed; therefore the old types constantly\nrepeat themselves in the same circle,--the fine young men, the sweet\ngirls, the respectable officials, and so on. And new types with higher\nideals,--travellers on unknown paths, thinkers of yet unthought\nthoughts, people capable of the crime of inaugurating new ways,--such\ntypes rarely come into existence among those who are well brought up.\n\nNature herself, it is true, repeats the main types constantly. But she\nalso constantly makes small deviations. In this way different species,\neven of the human race, have come into existence. But man himself does\nnot yet see the significance of this natural law in his own higher\ndevelopment. He wants the feelings, thoughts, and judgments already\nstamped with approval to be reproduced by each new generation. So we get\nno new individuals, but only more or less prudent, stupid, amiable, or\nbad-tempered examples of the genus man. The still living instincts of\nthe ape, double, in the case of man, the effect of heredity.\nConservatism is for the present stronger in mankind than the effort to\nproduce new types. But this last characteristic is the most valuable.\nThe educator should do anything but advise the child to do what\neverybody does. He should rather rejoice when he sees in the child\ntendencies to deviation. Using other people's opinion as a standard\nresults in subordinating one's self to their will. So we become a part\nof the great mass, led by the Superman through the strength of his will,\na will which could not have mastered strong personalities. It has been\njustly remarked that individual peoples, like the English, have attained\nthe greatest political and social freedom, because the personal feeling\nof independence is far in excess of freedom in a legal form. Accordingly\nlegal freedom has been constantly growing.\n\nFor the progress of the whole of the species, as well as of society, it\nis essential that education shall awake the feeling of independence; it\nshould invigorate and favour the disposition to deviate from the type in\nthose cases where the rights of others are not affected, or where\ndeviation is not simply the result of the desire to draw attention to\noneself. The child should be given the chance to declare\nconscientiously his independence of a customary usage, of an ordinary\nfeeling, for this is the foundation of the education of an individual,\nas well as the basis of a collective conscience, which is the only kind\nof conscience men now have. What does having an individual conscience\nmean? It means submitting voluntarily to an external law, attested and\nfound good by my own conscience. It means unconditionally heeding the\nunwritten law, which I lay upon myself, and following this inner law\neven when I must stand alone against the whole world.\n\nIt is a frequent phenomenon, we can almost call it a regular one, that\nit is original natures, particularly talented beings, who are badly\ntreated at home and in school. No one considers the sources of conduct\nin a child who shows fear or makes a noise, or who is absorbed in\nhimself, or who has an impetuous nature. Mothers and teachers show in\nthis their pitiable incapacity for the most elementary part in the art\nof education, that is, to be able to see with their own eyes, not with\npedagogical doctrines in their head.\n\nI naturally expect in the supporters of society, with their conventional\nmorality, no appreciation of the significance of the child's putting\ninto exercise his own powers. Just as little is this to be expected of\nthose Christian believers who think that human nature must be brought to\nrepentance and humility, and that the sinful body, the unclean beast,\nmust be tamed with the rod,--a theory which the Bible is brought to\nsupport.\n\nI am only addressing people who can think new thoughts and consequently\nshould cease using old methods of education. This class may reply that\nthe new ideas in education cannot be carried out. But the obstacle is\nsimply that their new thoughts have not made them into new men; the old\nman in them has neither repose, nor time, nor patience, to form his own\nsoul, and that of the child, according to the new thoughts.\n\nThose who have \"tried Spencer and failed,\" because Spencer's method\ndemands intelligence and patience, contend that the child must be taught\nto obey, that truth lies in the old rule, \"As the twig is bent the tree\nis inclined.\"\n\n_Bent_ is the appropriate word, bent according to the old ideal which\nextinguishes personality, teaches humility and obedience. But the new\nideal is that man, to stand straight and upright, must not be bent at\nall, only supported, and so prevented from being deformed by weakness.\n\nOne often finds, in the modern system of training, the crude desire for\nmastery still alive and breaking out when the child is obstinate. \"You\nwon't!\" say father and mother; \"I will teach you whether you have a\nwill. I will soon drive self-will out of you.\" But nothing can be driven\nout of the child; on the other hand, much can be scourged into it which\nshould be kept far away.\n\nOnly during the first few years of life is a kind of drill necessary, as\na pre-condition to a higher training. The child is then in such a high\ndegree controlled by sensation, that a slight physical pain or pleasure\nis often the only language he fully understands. Consequently for some\nchildren discipline is an indispensable means of enforcing the practice\nof certain habits. For other children, the stricter methods are entirely\nunnecessary even at this early age, and as soon as the child can\nremember a blow, he is too old to receive one.\n\nThe child must certainly learn obedience, and, besides, this obedience\nmust be absolute. If such obedience has become habitual from the\ntenderest age, a look, a word, an intonation is enough to keep the child\nstraight. The dissatisfaction of those who are bringing him up can only\nbe made effective when it falls as a shadow in the usual sunny\natmosphere of home. And if people refrain from laying the foundations of\nobedience while the child is small, and his naughtiness is entertaining,\nSpencer's method undoubtedly will be found unsuitable after the child is\nolder and his caprice disagreeable.\n\nWith a very small child, one should not argue, but act consistently and\nimmediately. The effort of training should be directed at an early\nperiod to arrange the experiences in a consistent whole of impressions\naccording to Rousseau and Spencer's recommendation. So certain habits\nwill become impressed in the flesh and blood of the child.\n\nConstant crying on the part of small children must be corrected when it\nhas become clear that the crying is not caused by illness or some other\ndiscomfort,--discomforts against which crying is the child's only\nweapon. Crying is now ordinarily corrected by blows. But this does not\nmaster the will of the child, and only produces in his soul the idea\nthat older people strike small children, when small children cry. This\nis not an ethical idea. But when the crying child is immediately\nisolated, and it is explained to him at the same time that whoever\nannoys others must not be with them; if this isolation is the absolute\nresult, and cannot be avoided, in the child's mind a basis is laid for\nthe experience that one must be alone when one makes oneself unpleasant\nor disagreeable. In both cases the child is silenced by interfering with\nhis comfort; but one type of discomfort is the exercise of force on his\nwill; the other produces slowly the self-mastery of the will, and\naccomplishes this by a good motive. One method encourages a base\nemotion, fear. The other corrects the will in a way that combines it\nwith one of the most important experiences of life. The one punishment\nkeeps the child on the level of the animal. The other impresses upon him\nthe great principle of human social life, that when our pleasure causes\ndispleasure to others, other people hinder us from following our\npleasures; or withdraw themselves from the exercise of our self-will.\n\nIt is necessary that small children should accustom themselves to good\nbehaviour at table, etc. If every time an act of naughtiness is\nrepeated, the child is immediately taken away, he will soon learn that\nwhoever is disagreeable to others must remain alone. Thus a right\napplication is made of a right principle. Small children, too, must\nlearn not to touch what belongs to other people. If every time anything\nis touched without permission, children lose their freedom of action one\nway or another, they soon learn that a condition of their free action is\nnot to injure others.\n\nIt is quite true, as a young mother remarked, that empty Japanese rooms\nare ideal places in which to bring up children. Our modern crowded rooms\nare, so far as children are concerned, to be condemned. During the year\nin which the real education of the child is proceeding by touching,\ntasting, biting, feeling, and so on, every moment he is hearing the cry,\n\"Let it alone.\" For the temperament of the child as well as for the\ndevelopment of his powers, the best thing is a large, light nursery,\nadorned with handsome lithographs, wood-cuts, and so on, provided with\nsome simple furniture, where he may enjoy the fullest freedom of\nmovement. But if the child is there with his parents and is disobedient,\na momentary reprimand is the best means to teach him to reverence the\ngreater world in which the will of others prevails, the world in which\nthe child certainly can make a place for himself but must also learn\nthat every place occupied by him has its limits.\n\nIf it is a case of a danger, which it is desirable that the child should\nreally dread, we must allow the thing itself to have an alarming\ninfluence. When a mother strikes a child because he touches the light,\nthe result is that he does this again when the mother is away. But let\nhim burn himself with the light, then he is certain to leave it alone.\nIn riper years when a boy misuses a knife, a toy, or something similar,\nthe loss of the object for the time being must be the punishment. Most\nboys would prefer corporal punishment to the loss of their favourite\npossession. But only the loss of it will be a real education through\nexperience of one of the inevitable rules of life, an experience which\ncannot be too strongly impressed.\n\nWe hear parents who have begun with Spencer and then have taken to\ncorporal punishment declare that when children are too small to repair\nthe clothing which they have torn there must be some other kind of\npunishment. But at that age they should not be punished at all for such\nthings. They should have such simple and strong clothes that they can\nplay freely in them. Later on, when they can be really careful, the\nnatural punishment would be to have the child remain at home if he is\ncareless, has spotted his clothes, or torn them. He must be shown that\nhe must help to put his clothes in good condition again, or that he will\nbe compelled to buy what he has destroyed carelessly with money earned\nby himself. If the child is not careful, he must stay at home, when\nordinarily allowed to go out, or eat alone if he is too late for meals.\nIt may be said that there are simple means by which all the important\nhabits of social life may become a second nature. But it is not possible\nin all cases to apply Spencer's method. The natural consequences\noccasionally endanger the health of the child, or sometimes are too slow\nin their action. If it seems necessary to interfere directly, such\naction must be consistent, quick, and immutable. How is it that the\nchild learns very soon that fire burns? Because fire does so always. But\nthe mother who at one time strikes, at another threatens, at another\nbribes the child, first forbids and then immediately after permits some\naction; who does not carry out her threat, does not compel obedience,\nbut constantly gabbles and scolds; who sometimes acts in one way and\njust as often in another, has not learned the effective educational\nmethods of the fire.\n\nThe old-fashioned strict training that in its crude way gave to the\ncharacter a fixed type rested on its consistent qualities. It was\nconsistently strict, not as at present a lax hesitation between all\nkinds of pedagogical methods and psychological opinions, in which the\nchild is thrown about here and there like a ball, in the hands of grown\npeople; at one time pushed forward, then laughed at, then pushed aside,\nonly to be brought back again, kissed till it is disgusted, first\nordered about, and then coaxed. A grown man would become insane if\njoking Titans treated him for a single day as a child is treated for a\nyear. A child should not be ordered about, but should be just as\ncourteously addressed as a grown person in order that he may learn\ncourtesy. A child should never be pushed into notice, never compelled to\nendure caresses, never overwhelmed with kisses, which ordinarily torment\nhim and are often the cause of sexual hyper\u00e6sthesia. The child's\ndemonstrations of affection should be reciprocated when they are\nsincere, but one's own demonstrations should be reserved for special\noccasions. This is one of the many excellent maxims of training that are\ndisregarded. Nor should the child be forced to express regret in begging\npardon and the like. This is excellent training for hypocrisy. A small\nchild once had been rude to his elder brother and was placed upon a\nchair to repent his fault. When the mother after a time asked if he was\nsorry, he answered, \"Yes,\" with emphasis, but as the mother saw a\nmutinous sparkle in his eyes she felt impelled to ask, \"Sorry for what?\"\nand the youngster broke out, \"Sorry that I did not call him a liar\nbesides.\" The mother was wise enough on this occasion, and ever after,\nto give up insisting on repentance.\n\nSpontaneous penitence is full of significance; it is a deeply felt\ndesire for pardon. But an artificial emotion is always and everywhere\nworthless. Are you not sorry? Does it make no difference to you that\nyour mother is ill, your brother dead, your father away from home? Such\nexpressions are often used as an appeal to the emotions of children. But\nchildren have a right to have feelings, or not have them, and to have\nthem as undisturbed as grown people. The same holds good of their\nsympathies and antipathies. The sensitive feelings of children are\nconstantly injured by lack of consideration on the part of grown people,\ntheir easily stimulated aversions are constantly being brought out. But\nthe sufferings of children through the crudeness of their elders belong\nto an unwritten chapter of child psychology. Just as there are few\nbetter methods of training than to ask children, when they have behaved\nunjustly to others, to consider whether it would be pleasant for them to\nbe treated in that way, so there is no better corrective for the trainer\nof children than the habit of asking oneself, in question small and\ngreat,--Would I consent to be treated as I have just treated my child?\nIf it were only remembered that the child generally suffers double as\nmuch as the adult, parents would perhaps learn physical and psychical\ntenderness without which a child's life is a constant torment.\n\nAs to presents, the same principle holds good as with emotions and marks\nof tenderness. Only by example can generous instincts be provoked. Above\nall the child should not be allowed to have things which he immediately\ngives away. Gifts to a child should always imply a personal requital for\nwork or sacrifice. In order to secure for children the pleasure of\ngiving and the opportunity of obtaining small pleasures and enjoyments,\nas well as of replacing property of their own or of others which they\nmay have destroyed, they should at an early age be accustomed to perform\nseriously certain household duties for which they receive some small\nremuneration. But small occasional services, whether volunteered or\nasked for by others, should never be rewarded. Only readiness to serve,\nwithout payment, develops the joy of generosity. When the child wants to\ngive away something, people should not make a pretence of receiving it.\nThis produces the false conception in his mind that the pleasure of\nbeing generous can be had for nothing. At every step the child should be\nallowed to meet the real experiences of life; the thorns should never be\nplucked from his roses. This is what is least understood in present-day\ntraining. Thus we see reasonable methods constantly failing. People find\nthemselves forced to \"afflictive\" methods which stand in no relation\nwith the realities of life. I mean, above all, what are still called\nmeans of education, instead of means of torture,--blows.\n\nMany people of to-day defend blows, maintaining that they are milder\nmeans of punishment than the natural consequences of an act; that blows\nhave the strongest effect on the memory, which effect becomes permanent\nthrough association of ideas.\n\nBut what kinds of association? Is it not with physical pain and shame?\nGradually, step by step, this method of training and discipline has\nbeen superseded in all its forms. The movement to abolish torture,\nimprisonment, and corporal punishment failed for a long time owing to\nthe conviction that they were indispensable as methods of discipline.\nBut the child, people answer, is still an animal, he must be brought up\nas an animal. Those who talk in this way know nothing of children nor of\nanimals. Even animals can be trained without striking them, but they can\nonly be trained by men who have become men themselves.\n\nOthers come forward with the doctrine that terror and pain have been the\nbest means of educating mankind, so the child must pursue the same road\nas humanity. This is an utter absurdity. We should also, on this theory,\nteach our children, as a natural introduction to religion, to practise\nfetish worship. If the child is to reproduce all the lower development\nstages of the race, he would be practically depressed beneath the level\nwhich he has reached physiologically and psychologically through the\ncommon inheritance of the race. If we have abandoned torture and painful\npunishments for adults, while they are retained for children, it is\nbecause we have not yet seen that their soul life so far as a greater\nand more subtle capacity for suffering is concerned has made the same\nprogress as that of adult mankind. The numerous cases of child suicide\nin the last decade were often the result of fear of corporal punishment;\nor have taken place after its administration. Both soul and body are\nequally affected by this practice. Where this is not the result, blows\nhave even more dangerous consequences. They tend to dull still further\nthe feeling of shame, to increase the brutality or cowardice of the\nperson punished. I once heard a child pointed out in a school as being\nso unruly that it was generally agreed he would be benefited by a\nflogging. Then it was discovered that his father's flogging at home had\nmade him what he was. If statistics were prepared of ruined sons, those\nwho had been flogged would certainly be more numerous than those who had\nbeen pampered.\n\nSociety has gradually given up employing retributive punishments because\npeople have seen that they neither awaken the feeling of guilt, nor act\nas a deterrent, but on the contrary retribution applied by equal to\nequal brutalises the ideas of right, hardens the temper, and stimulates\nthe victim to exercise the same violence towards others that has been\nendured by himself. But other rules are applied to the psychological\nprocesses of the child. When a child strikes his small sister the mother\nstrikes him and believes that he will see and understand the difference\nbetween the blows he gets and those he gives; that he will see that the\none is a just punishment and the other vicious conduct. But the child is\na sharp logician and feels that the action is just the same, although\nthe mother gives it a different name.\n\nCorporal punishment was long ago admirably described by Comenius, who\ncompared an educator using this method with a musician striking a badly\ntuned instrument with his fist, instead of using his ears and his hands\nto put it into tune.\n\nThese brutal attacks work on the active sensitive feelings, lacerating\nand confusing them. They have no educative power on all the innumerable\nfine processes in the life of the child's soul, on their obscurely\nrelated combinations.\n\nIn order to give real training, the first thing after the second or\nthird year is to abandon the very thought of a blow among the\npossibilities of education. It is best if parents, as soon as the child\nis born, agree never to strike him, for if they once begin with this\nconvenient and easy method, they continue to use corporal discipline\neven contrary to their first intention, because they have failed while\nusing such punishment to develop the child's intelligence.\n\nIf people do not see this it is no more use to speak to them of\neducation than it would be to talk to a cannibal about the world's\npeace.\n\nBut as these savages in educational matters are often civilised human\nbeings in other respects, I should like to request them to think over\nthe development of marriage from the time when man wooed with a club and\nwhen woman was regarded as the soulless property of man, only to be kept\nin order by blows, a view which continued to be held until modern times.\nThrough a thousand daily secret influences, our feelings and ideas have\nbeen so transformed that these crude conceptions have disappeared, to\nthe great advantage of society and the individual. But it may be hard to\nawaken a pedagogical savage to the conviction that, in quite the same\nway, a thousand new secret and mighty influences will change our crude\nmethods of education, when parents once come to see that parenthood must\ngo through the same transformation as marriage, before it attains to a\nnoble and complete development.\n\nOnly when men realise that whipping a child belongs to the same low\nstage of civilisation as beating a woman, or a servant, or as the\ncorporal punishment of soldiers and criminals, will the first real\npreparation begin of the material from which perhaps later an educator\nmay be formed.\n\nCorporal punishment was natural in rough times. The body is tangible;\nwhat affects it has an immediate and perceptible result. The heat of\npassion is cooled by the blows it administers; in a certain stage of\ndevelopment blows are the natural expression of moral indignation, the\ndirect method by which the moral will impresses itself on beings of\nlower capacities. But it has since been discovered that the soul may be\nimpressed by spiritual means, and that blows are just as demoralising\nfor the one who gives them as for the one who receives them.\n\nThe educator, too, is apt to forget that the child in many cases has as\nfew moral conceptions as the animal or the savage. To punish for\nthis--is only a cruelty, and to punish by brutal methods is a piece of\nstupidity. It works against the possibility of elevating the child\nbeyond the level of the beast or the savage. The educator to whose mind\nflogging never presents itself, even as an occasional resource, will\nnaturally direct his whole thought to finding psychological methods of\neducation. Administering corporal punishment demoralises and stupefies\nthe educator, for it increases his thoughtlessness, not his patience,\nhis brutality, not his intelligence.\n\nA small boy friend of mine when four years old received his first\npunishment of this kind; happily it was his only one. As his nurse\nreminded him in the evening to say his prayers he broke out, '\"Yes,\nto-night I really have something to tell God,\" and prayed with deep\nearnestness, \"Dear God, tear mamma's arms out so that she cannot beat me\nany more.\"\n\nNothing would more effectively further the development of education than\nfor all flogging pedagogues to meet this fate. They would then learn to\neducate with the head instead of with the hand. And as to public\neducators, the teachers, their position could be no better raised than\nby legally forbidding a blow to be administered in any school under\npenalty of final loss of position.\n\nThat people who are in other respects intelligent and sensitive continue\nto defend flogging, is due to the fact that most educators have only a\nvery elementary conception of their work. They should constantly keep\nbefore them the feelings and impressions of their own childhood in\ndealing with children. The most frequent as well as the most dangerous\nof the numerous mistakes made in handling children is that people do not\nremember how they felt themselves at a similar age, that they do not\nregard and comprehend the feelings of the child from their own past\npoint of view. The adult laughs or smiles in remembering the punishments\nand other things which caused him in his childhood anxious days or\nnights, which produced the silent torture of the child's heart, infinite\ndespondency, burning indignation, lonely fears, outraged sense of\njustice, the terrible creations of his imagination, his absurd shame,\nhis unsatisfied thirst for joy, freedom, and tenderness. Lacking these\nbeneficent memories, adults constantly repeat the crime of destroying\nthe childhood of the new generation,--the only time in life in which the\nguardian of education can really be a kindly providence. So strongly do\nI feel that the unnecessary sufferings of children are unnatural as well\nas ignoble that I experience physical disgust in touching the hand of a\nhuman being that I know has struck a child; and I cannot close my eyes\nafter I have heard a child in the street threatened with corporal\npunishment.\n\nBlows call forth the virtues of slaves, not those of freemen. As early\nas Walther von der Vogelweide, it was known that the honourable man\nrespects a word more than a blow. The exercise of physical force\ndelivers the weak and unprotected into the hands of the strong. A child\nnever believes in his heart, though he may be brought to acknowledge\nverbally, that the blows were due to love, that they were administered\nbecause they were necessary. The child is too keen not to know that such\na \"must\" does not exist, and that love can express itself in a better\nway.\n\nLack of self-discipline, of intelligence, of patience, of personal\neffort--these are the corner-stones on which corporal punishment rests.\nI do not now refer to the system of flogging employed by miserable\npeople year in and year out at home, or, particularly in schools, that\nof beating children outrageously, or to the limits of brutality. I do\nnot mean even the less brutal blows administered by undisciplined\nteachers and parents, who avenge themselves in excesses of passion or\nfatigue or disgust,--blows which are simply the active expression of a\ntension of nerves, a detestable evidence of the want of self-discipline\nand self-culture. Still less do I refer to the cruelties committed by\nmonsters, sexual perverts, whose brutal tendencies are stimulated by\ntheir disciplinary power and who use it to force their victims to\nsilence, as certain criminal trials have shown.\n\nI am only speaking of conscientious, amiable parents and teachers who,\nwith pain to themselves, fulfil what they regard as their duty to the\nchild. These are accustomed to adduce the good effects of corporal\ndiscipline as a proof that it cannot be dispensed with. The child by\nbeing whipped is, they say, not only made good but freed from his evil\ncharacter, and shows by his whole being that this quick and summary\nmethod of punishment has done more than talks, and patience, and the\nslowly working penalties of experience. Examples are adduced to prove\nthat only this kind of punishment breaks down obstinacy, cures the habit\nof lying and the like. Those who adopt this system do not perceive that\nthey have only succeeded, through this momentarily effective means, in\nrepressing the external expression of an evil will. They have not\nsucceeded in transforming the will itself. It requires constant\nvigilance, daily self-discipline, to create an ever higher capacity for\nthe discovery of intelligent methods. The fault that is repressed is\ncertain to appear on every occasion when the child dares to show it. The\neducator who finds in corporal punishment a short way to get rid of\ntrouble, leads the child a long way round, if we have the only real\ndevelopment in view, namely that which gradually strengthens the child's\ncapacity for self-control.\n\nI have never heard a child over three years old threatened with corporal\npunishment without noticing that this wonderfully moral method had an\nequally bad influence on parents and children. The same can be said of\nmilder kinds of folly, coaxing children by external rewards. I have seen\nsome children coaxed to take baths and others compelled by threats. But\nin neither case was their courage, or self-control, or strength of will\nincreased. Only when one is able to make the bath itself attractive is\nthat energy of will developed that gains a victory over the feeling of\nfear or discomfort and produces a real ethical impression, viz., that\nvirtue is its own reward. Wherever a child is deterred from a bad habit\nor fault by corporal punishment, a real ethical result is not reached.\nThe child has only learnt to fear an unpleasant consequence, which lacks\nreal connection with the thing itself, a consequence it well knows could\nhave been absent. Such fear is as far removed as heaven from the\nconviction that the good is better than the bad. The child soon becomes\nconvinced that the disagreeable accompaniment is no necessary result of\nthe action, that by greater cleverness the punishment might have been\navoided. Thus the physical punishment increases deception not morality.\nIn the history of humanity the effect of the teaching about hell and\nfear of hell illustrates the sort of morality produced in children's\nsouls by corporal punishment, that inferno of childhood. Only with the\ngreatest trouble, slowly and unconsciously, is the conviction of the\nsuperiority of the good established. The good comes to be seen as more\nproductive of happiness to the individual himself and his environment.\nSo the child learns to love the good. By teaching the child that\npunishment is a consequence drawn upon oneself he learns to avoid the\ncause of punishment.\n\nDespite all the new talk of individuality the greatest mistake in\ntraining children is still that of treating the \"child\" as an abstract\nconception, as an inorganic or personal material to be formed and\ntransformed by the hands of those who are educating him. He is beaten,\nand it is thought that the whole effect of the blow stops at the moment\nwhen the child is prevented from being bad. He has, it is thought, a\npowerful reminder against future bad behaviour. People do not suspect\nthat this violent interference in the physical and psychical life of the\nchild may have lifelong effects. As far back as forty years ago, a\nwriter showed that corporal punishment had the most powerful somatic\nstimulative effects. The flagellation of the Middle Ages is known to\nhave had such results; and if I could publish what I have heard from\nadults as to the effect of corporal punishment on them, or what I have\nobserved in children, this alone would be decisive in doing away with\nsuch punishment in its crudest form. It very deeply influences the\npersonal modesty of the child. This should be preserved above everything\nas the main factor in the development of the feeling of purity. The\nfather who punishes his daughter in this way deserves to see her some\nday a \"fallen woman.\" He injures her instinctive feeling of the sanctity\nof her body, an instinct which even in the case of a small child can be\npassionately profound. Only when every infringement of sanctity\n(forcible caressing is as bad as a blow) evokes an energetic,\ninstinctive repulsion, is the nature of the child proud and pure.\nChildren who strike back when they are punished have the most promising\ncharacters of all.\n\nNumerous are the cases in which bodily punishment can occasion\nirremediable damage, not suspected by the person who administers it,\nthough he may triumphantly declare how the punishment in the specific\ncase has helped. Most adults feel free to tell how a whipping has\ninjured them in one way or another, but when they take up the training\nof their own children they depend on the effect of such chastisement.\n\nWhat burning bitterness and desire for vengeance, what canine fawning\nflattery, does not corporal punishment call forth. It makes the lazy\nlazier, the obstinate more obstinate, the hard, harder. It strengthens\nthose two emotions, the root of almost all evil in the world, hatred and\nfear. And as long as blows are made synonymous with education, both of\nthese emotions will keep their mastery over men.\n\nOne of the most frequent occasions for recourse to this punishment is\nobstinacy, but what is called obstinacy is only fear or incapacity. The\nchild repeats a false answer, is threatened with blows, and again\nrepeats it just because he is afraid not to say the right thing. He is\nstruck and then answers rightly. This is a triumph of education;\nrefractoriness is overcome. But what has happened? Increased fear has\nled to a strong effort of thought, to a momentary increase of\nself-control. The next day the child will very likely repeat the fault.\nWhere there is real obstinacy on the part of children, I know of cases\nwhen corporal punishment has filled them with the lust to kill, either\nthemselves or the person who strikes them. On the other hand I know of\nothers, where a mother has brought an obstinate child to repentance and\nself-mastery by holding him quietly and calmly on her knees.\n\nHow many untrue confessions have been forced by fear of blows; how much\ndaring passion for action, spirit of adventure, play of fancy, and\nstimulus to discovery has been repressed by this same fear. Even where\nblows do not cause lying, they always hinder absolute\nstraightforwardness and the downright personal courage to show oneself\nas one is. As long as the word \"blow\" is used at all in a home, no\nperfect honour will be found in children. So long as the home and the\nschool use this method of education, brutality will be developed in the\nchild himself at the cost of humanity. The child uses on animals, on his\nyoung brothers and sisters, on his comrades, the methods applied to\nhimself. He puts in practice the same argument, that \"badness\" must be\ncured with blows. Only children accustomed to be treated mildly, learn\nto see that influence can be gained without using force. To see this is\none of man's privileges, sacrificed by man through descending to the\nmethods of the brute. Only by the child seeing his teacher always and\neverywhere abstaining from the use of actual force, will he come himself\nto despise force on all those occasions which do not involve the defence\nof a weaker person against physical superiority. The foundation of the\ndesire for war is to be sought for less in the war games than in the\nteachers' rod.\n\nTo defend corporal discipline, children's own statements are brought in\nevidence, they are reported as saying they knew they deserved such\ndiscipline in order to be made good. There is no lower example of\nhypocrisy in human nature than this. It is true the child may be sincere\nin other cases in saying that he feels that through punishment he has\natoned for a fault which was weighing upon his conscience. But this is\nreally the foundation of a false system of ethics, the kind which still\ncontinues to be preached as Christian, namely; that a fault may be\natoned for by sufferings which are not directly connected with the\nfault. The basis of the new morality is just the opposite as I have\nalready shown. It teaches that no fault can be atoned for, that no one\ncan escape the results of his actions in any way.\n\nUntruthfulness belongs to the faults which the teacher thinks he must\nmost frequently punish with blows. But there is no case in which this\nmethod is more dangerous.\n\nWhen the much-needed guide-book for parents is published, the well-known\nstory of George Washington and the hatchet must appear in it,\naccompanied by the remark which a clever ten-year-old child added to the\nanecdote: \"It is no trouble telling the truth when one has such a kind\nfather.\"\n\nI formerly divided untruthfulness into unwilling, shameless, and\nimaginative lies. A short time ago I ran across a much better division\nof lying; first \"cold\" lies, that is, fully conscious untruthfulness\nwhich must be punished, and \"hot\" lies; the expression of an excited\ntemperament or of a vigorous fancy. I agree with the author of this\ndistinction that the last should not be punished but corrected, though\nnot with a pedantic rule of thumb measure, based on how much it exceeds\nor falls short of truth. It is to be cured by ridicule, a dangerous\nmethod of education in general, but useful when one observes that this\ntype of untruthfulness threatens to develop into real untrustworthiness.\nIn dealing with these faults we are very strict towards children, so\nstrict that no lawyer, no politician, no journalist, no poet, could\nexercise his profession if the same standard were applied to them as to\nchildren.\n\nThe white lie is, as a French scientist has shown, partly caused by pure\nmorbidness, partly through some defect in the conception. It is due to\nan empty space, a dead point in memory, or in consciousness, that\nproduces a defective idea or gives one no idea at all of what has\nhappened. In the affairs of everyday life the adults are often mistaken\nas to their intentions or acts. They may have forgotten about their\nactions, and it requires a strong effort of memory to call them back\ninto their minds; or they suggest to themselves that they have done, or\nnot done, something. In all of these cases, if they were forced to give\na distinct answer, they would lie. In every case of this kind, where a\nchild is concerned, the lie is assumed to be a conscious one, and when\non being submitted to a strict cross-examination, he hesitates, becomes\nconfused, and blushes, it is looked upon as a proof that he knows he has\nbeen telling an untruth, although as a rule there has been no instance\nof untruthfulness, except the finally extorted confession from the child\nthat he has lied. Yet in all these complicated psychological problems,\ncorporal punishment is treated as a solution.\n\nThe child who never hears lying at home, who does not see exaggerated\nweight placed on small, merely external things, who is not made cowardly\nby fear, who hears conscious lies always spoken of with contempt, will\nget out of the habit of untruthfulness simply by psychological means.\nFirst he will find that untruthfulness causes astonishment, and a\nrepetition of it, scorn and lack of confidence. But these methods should\nnot be applied to untruthfulness caused by distress or by richness of\nimagination; or to such cases as originate from the obscure mental ideas\nnoted above, ideas whose connection with one another the child cannot\nmake clear to himself. The cold untruth on the other hand, must be\npunished; first by going over it with the child, then letting him\nexperience its effect in lack of confidence, which will only be restored\nwhen the child shows decided improvement in this regard. It is of the\ngreatest importance to show children full and unlimited confidence, even\nthough one quietly maintains an attitude of alert watchfulness; for\ncontinuous and undeserved mistrust is just as demoralising as blind and\neasy confidence.\n\nNo one who has been beaten for lying learns by it to love truth. The\naccuracy of this principle is illustrated by adults who despise corporal\npunishment in their childhood yet continue to tell untruths by word and\ndeed. Fear may keep the child from technical untruth, but fear also\nproduces untrustworthiness. Those who have been beaten in childhood for\nlying have often suffered a serious injury immeasurably greater than the\ndirect lie. The truest men I ever knew lie voluntarily and\ninvoluntarily; while others who might never be caught in a lie are\nthoroughly false.\n\nThis corruption of personality begins frequently at the tenderest age\nunder the influence of early training. Children are given untrue\nmotives, half-true information; are threatened, admonished. The child's\nwill, thought, and feeling are oppressed; against this treatment\ndishonesty is the readiest method of defence. In this way educators who\nmake truth their highest aim, make children untruthful. I watched a\nchild who was severely punished for denying something he had\nunconsciously done, and noted how under the influence of this senseless\npunishment he developed extreme dissimulation.\n\nTruthfulness requires above everything unbroken determination; and many\nnervous little liars need nourishing food and life in the open air, not\nblows. A great artist, one of the few who live wholly according to the\nmodern principles of life, said to me on one occasion: \"My son does not\nknow what a lie is, nor what a blow is. His step-brother, on the other\nhand, lied when he came into our house; but lying did not work in the\natmosphere of calm and freedom. After a year the habit disappeared by\nitself, only because it always met with deep astonishment.\"\n\nThis makes me, in passing, note one of the other many mistakes of\neducation, viz., the infinite trouble taken in trying to do away with a\nfault which disappears by itself. People take infinite pains to teach\nsmall children to speak distinctly who, if left to themselves, would\nlearn it by themselves, provided they were always spoken to distinctly.\nThis same principle holds good of numerous other things, in children's\nattitude and behaviour, that can be left simply to a good example and to\ntime. One's influence should be used in impressing upon the child habits\nfor which a foundation must be laid at the very beginning of his life.\n\nThere is another still more unfortunate mistake, the mistake of\ncorrecting and judging by an external effect produced by the act, by the\nscandal it occasions in the environment. Children are struck for using\noaths and improper words the meaning of which they do not understand; or\nif they do understand, the result of strictness is only that they go on\nkeeping silence in matters in which sincerity towards those who are\nbringing them up is of the highest importance. The very thing the child\nis allowed to do uncorrected at home, is not seldom corrected if it\nhappens away from home. So the child gets a false idea that it is not\nthe thing that deserves punishment, but its publicity. When a mother is\nashamed of the bad behaviour of her son she is apt to strike\nhim--instead of striking her own breast! When an adventurous feat fails\nhe is beaten, but he is praised when successful. These practices produce\ndemoralisation. Once in a wood I saw two parents laughing while the ice\nheld on which their son was sliding; when it broke suddenly they\nthreatened to whip him. It required strong self-control in order not to\nsay to this pair that it was not the son who deserved punishment but\nthemselves.\n\nOn occasions like these, parents avenge their own fright on their\nchildren. I saw a child become a coward because an anxious mother struck\nhim every time he fell down, while the natural result inflicted on the\nchild would have been more than sufficient to increase his carefulness.\nWhen misfortune is caused by disobedience, natural alarm is, as a rule,\nenough to prevent a repetition of it. If it is not sufficient blows have\nno restraining effect; they only embitter. The boy finds that adults\nhave forgotten their own period of childhood; he withdraws himself\nsecretly from this abuse of power, provided strict treatment does not\nsucceed in totally depressing the level of the child's will and\nobstructing his energies.\n\nThis is certainly a danger, but the most serious effect of corporal\npunishment is that it has established an unethical morality as its\nresult. Until the human being has learnt to see that effort, striving,\ndevelopment of power, are their own reward, life remains an unbeautiful\naffair. The debasing effects of vanity and ambition, the small and great\ncruelties produced by injustice, are all due to the idea that failure or\nsuccess sets the value to deeds and actions.\n\nA complete revolution in this crude theory of value must come about\nbefore the earth can become the scene of a happy but considerate\ndevelopment of power on the part of free and fine human beings. Every\ncontest decided by examinations and prizes is ultimately an immoral\nmethod of training. It awakens only evil passions, envy and the\nimpression of injustice on the one side, arrogance on the other. After I\nhad during the course of twenty years fought these school examinations,\nI read with thorough agreement a short time ago, Ruskin's views on the\nsubject. He believed that all competition was a false basis of stimulus,\nand every distribution of prizes a false means. He thought that the\nreal sign of talent in a boy, auspicious for his future career, was his\ndesire to work for work's sake. He declared that the real aim of\ninstruction should be to show him his own proper and special gifts, to\nstrengthen them in him, not to spur him on to an empty competition with\nthose who were plainly his superiors in capacity.\n\nMoreover it ought not to be forgotten that success and failure involve\nof themselves their own punishment and their own reward, the one bitter,\nthe other sweet enough to secure in a natural way increased strength,\ncare, prudence, and endurance. It is completely unnecessary for the\neducator to use, besides these, some special punishments or special\nrewards, and so pervert the conceptions of the child that failure seems\nto him to be a wrong, success on the other hand as the right.\n\nNo matter where one turns one's gaze, it is notorious that the\nexternally encouraging or awe-inspiring means of education, are an\nobstacle to what are the chief human characteristics, courage in oneself\nand goodness to others.\n\nA people whose education is carried on by gentle means only (I mean the\npeople of Japan), have shown that manliness is not in danger where\nchildren are not hardened by corporal punishment. These gentle means are\njust as effective in calling forth self-mastery and consideration. These\nvirtues are so imprinted on children, at the tenderest age, that one\nlearns first in Japan what attraction considerate kindliness bestows\nupon life. In a country where blows are never seen, the first rule of\nsocial intercourse is not to cause discomfort to others. It is told that\nwhen a foreigner in Japan took up a stone to throw it at a dog, the dog\ndid not run. No one had ever thrown a stone at him. Tenderness towards\nanimals is the complement in that country of tenderness in human\nrelationship, a tenderness whose result is observed, among other\neffects, in a relatively small number of crimes against life and\nsecurity.\n\nWar, hunting for pleasure, corporal discipline, are nothing more than\ndifferent expressions of the tiger nature still alive in man. When the\nrod is thrown away, and when, as some one has said, children are no\nlonger boxed on their ears but are given magnifying glasses and\nphotographic cameras to increase their capacity for life and for loving\nit, instead of learning to destroy it, real education in humanity will\nbegin.\n\nFor the benefit of those who are not convinced that corporal punishment\ncan be dispensed with in a manly education, by so remote and so distant\nan example as Japan, I should like to mention a fact closer to us. Our\nGermanic forefathers did not have this method of education. It was\nintroduced with Christianity. Corporal discipline was turned into a\nreligious duty, and as late as the seventeenth century there were\nintelligent men who flogged their children once a week as a part of\nspiritual guardianship. I once asked our great poet, Victor Rydberg, and\nhe said that he had found no proof that corporal punishment was usual\namong the Germans in heathen times. I asked him whether he did not\nbelieve that the fact of its absence had encouraged the energetic\nindividualism and manliness in the Northern peoples. He thought so, and\nagreed with me. Finally, I might note from our own time, that there are\nmany families and schools, our girls' schools for example, and also\nboys' schools in some countries, where corporal punishment is never\nused. I know a family with twelve children whose activity and capacity\nare not damaged by bringing them under the rule of duty alone. Corporal\npunishment is never used in this home; a determined but mild mother has\ntaught the children to obey voluntarily, and has known how to train\ntheir wills to self-control.\n\nBy \"voluntary obedience,\" I do not mean that the child is bound to ask\nendless questions for reasons, and to dispute them before he obeys. A\ngood teacher never gives a command without there being some good reason,\nbut whether the child is convinced or not, he must always obey, and if\nhe asks \"why\" the answer is very simple; every one, adults as well as\nchildren, must obey the right and must submit to what cannot be avoided.\nThe great necessity in life must be imprinted in childhood. This can be\ndone without harsh means by training the child, even previous to his\nbirth, by cultivating one's self-control, and after his birth by never\ngiving in to a child's caprices.\n\nThe rule is, in a few cases, to work in opposition to the action of the\nchild, but in other cases work constructively; I mean provide the child\nwith material to construct his own personality and then let him do this\nwork of construction. This is, in brief, the art of education. The worst\nof all educational methods are threats. The only effective admonitions\nare short and infrequent ones. The greatest skill in the educator is to\nbe silent for the moment and then so reprove the fault, indirectly, that\nthe child is brought to correct himself or make himself the object of\nblame. This can be done by the instructor telling something that causes\nthe child to compare his own conduct with the hateful or admirable types\nof behaviour about which he hears information. Or the educator may give\nan opinion which the child must take to himself although it is not\napplied directly to him.\n\nOn many occasions a forceful display of indignation on the part of the\nelder person is an excellent punishment, if the indignation is reserved\nfor the right moment. I know children to whom nothing was more frightful\nthan their father's scorn; this was dreaded. Children who are deluged\nwith directions and religious devotions, who receive an ounce of\nmorality in every cup of joy, are most certain to be those who will\nrevolt against all this. Nearly every thinking person feels that the\ndeepest educational influences in his life have been indirect; some good\nadvice not given to him directly; a noble deed told without any direct\nreference. But when people come themselves to train others they forget\nall their own personal experience.\n\nThe strongest constructive factor in the education of a human being is\nthe settled, quiet order of home, its peace, and its duty.\nOpenheartedness, industry, straightforwardness at home develop goodness,\ndesire to work, and simplicity in the child. Examples of artistic work\nand books in the home, its customary life on ordinary days and holidays,\nits occupations and its pleasures, should give to the emotions and\nimagination of the child, periods of movement and repose, a sure contour\nand a rich colour. The pure, warm, clear atmosphere in which father,\nmother, and children live together in freedom and confidence; where none\nare kept isolated from the interests of the others; but each possesses\nfull freedom for his own personal interest; where none trenches on the\nrights of others; where all are willing to help one another when\nnecessary,--in this atmosphere egoism, as well as altruism, can attain\ntheir richest development, and individuality find its just freedom. As\nthe evolution of man's soul advances to undreamed-of possibilities of\nrefinement, of capacity, of profundity; as the spiritual life of the\ngeneration becomes more manifold in its combinations and in its\ndistinctions; the more time one has for observing the wonderful and deep\nsecrets of existence, behind the visible, tangible, world of sense, the\nmore will each new generation of children show a more refined and a more\nconsistent mental life. It is impossible to attain this result under the\ntorture of the crude methods in our present home and school training. We\nneed new homes, new schools, new marriages, new social relations, for\nthose new souls who are to feel, love, and suffer, in ways infinitely\nnumerous that we now can not even name. Thus they will come to\nunderstand life; they will have aspirations and hopes; they will\nbelieve; they will pray. The conceptions of religion, love, and art, all\nthese must be revolutionised so radically, that one now can only surmise\nwhat new forms will be created in future generations. This\ntransformation can be helped by the training of the present, by casting\naside the withered foliage which now covers the budding possibilities of\nlife.\n\nThe house must once more become a home for the souls of children, not\nfor their bodies alone. For such homes to be formed, that in their turn\nwill mould children, the children must be given back to the home.\nInstead of the study preparation at home for the school taking up, as\nit now does, the best part of a child's life, the school must get the\nsmaller part, the home the larger part. The home will have the\nresponsibility of so using the free time as well on ordinary days as on\nholidays, that the children will really become a part of the home both\nin their work and in their pleasures. The children will be taken from\nthe school, the street, the factory, and restored to the home. The\nmother will be given back from work outside, or from social life to the\nchildren. Thus natural training in the spirit of Rousseau and Spencer\nwill be realised; a training for life, by life at home.\n\nSuch was the training of Old Scandanavia; the direct share of the child\nin the work of the adult, in real labours and dangers, gave to the life\nof our Scandanavian forefathers (with whom the boy began to be a man at\ntwelve years of age), unity, character, and strength. Things specially\nmade for children, the anxious watching over all their undertakings,\nsupport given to all their steps, courses of work and pleasure specially\nprepared for children,--these are the fundamental defects of our present\nday education. An eighteen-year-old girl said to me a short time ago,\nthat she and other girls of the same age were so tired of the system of\nvigilance, protection, amusement, and pampering at school and at home,\nthat they were determined to bring up their own children in hunger,\ncorporal discipline, and drudgery.\n\nOne can understand this unfortunate reaction against an artificial\nenvironment; the environment in which children and young people of the\npresent grow up; an existence that evokes a passionate desire for the\nrealities of life, for individual action at one's own risk and\nresponsibility, instead of being, as is now the case, at home and in the\nschool, the object of another's care.\n\nWhat is required, above all, for the children of the present day, is to\nbe assigned again real home occupations, tasks they must do\nconscientiously, habits of work arranged for week days and holidays\nwithout oversight, in every case where the child can help himself.\nInstead of the modern school child having a mother and servants about\nhim to get him ready for school and to help him to remember things, he\nshould have time every day before school to arrange his room and brush\nhis clothes, and there should be no effort to make him remember what is\nconnected with the school. The home and the school should combine\ntogether systematically to let the child suffer for the results of his\nown negligence.\n\nJust the reverse of this system rules to-day. Mothers learn their\nchildren's lessons, invent plays for them, read their story books to\nthem, arrange their rooms after them, pick up what they have let fall,\nput in order the things they have left in confusion, and in this and in\nother ways, by protective pampering and attention, their desire for\nwork, their endurance, the gifts of invention and imagination, qualities\nproper to the child, become weak and passive. The home now is only a\npreparation for school. In it, young people growing up, are accustomed\nto receive services, without performing any on their part. They are\ntrained to be always receptive instead of giving something in return.\nThen people are surprised at a youthful generation, selfish and\nunrestrained, pressing forward shamelessly on all occasions before their\nelders, crudely unresponsive in respect of those attentions, which in\nearlier generations were a beautiful custom among the young.\n\nTo restore this custom, all the means usually adopted now to protect the\nchild from physical and psychical dangers and inconveniences, will have\nto be removed. Throw the thermometer out of the window and begin with a\nsensible course of toughening; teach the child to know and to bear\nnatural pain. Corporal punishment must be done away with not because it\nis painful but because it is profoundly immoral and hopelessly\nunsuitable. Repress the egoistic demands of the child when he interferes\nwith the work or rest of others; never let him either by caresses or by\nnagging usurp the rights of grown people; take care that the servants do\nnot work against what the parents are trying to insist on in this and in\nother matters.\n\nWe must begin in doing for the child in certain ways a thousand times\nmore and in others a hundred thousand times less. A beginning must be\nmade in the tenderest age to establish the child's feeling for nature.\nLet him live year in and year out in the same country home; this is one\nof the most significant and profound factors in training. It can be held\nto even where it is now neglected. The same thing holds good of making a\nchoice library, commencing with the first years of life; so that the\nchild will have, at different periods of his life, suitable books for\neach age; not as is now often the case, get quite spoilt by the constant\nchange of summer excursions, by worthless children's books, and costly\ntoys. They should never have any but the simplest books; the so-called\nclassical ones. They should be amply provided with means of preparing\ntheir own playthings. The worst feature of our system are the playthings\nwhich imitate the luxury of grown people. By such objects the covetous\nimpulse of the child for acquisition is increased, his own capacity for\ndiscovery and imagination limited, or rather, it would be limited if\nchildren with the sound instinct of preservation, did not happily smash\nthe perfect playthings, which give them no creative opportunity, and\nthemselves make new playthings from fir cones, acorns, thorns, and\nfragments of pottery, and all other sorts of rubbish which can be\ntransformed into objects of great price by the power of the imagination.\n\nTo play with children in the right way is also a great art. It should\nnever be done if children do not themselves know what they are going to\ndo; it should always be a special treat for them as well as their\nelders. But the adults must always on such occasions, leave behind every\nkind of educational idea and go completely into the child's world of\nthought and imagination. No attempt should be made to teach them at\nthese times anything else but the old satisfactory games. The\nexperiences derived from these games about the nature of the children,\nwho are stimulated in one direction or another by the game, must be kept\nfor later use.\n\nGames in this way increase confidence between children and adults. They\nlearn to know their elders better. But to allow children to turn all the\nrooms into places to play in, and to demand constantly that their elders\nshall interest themselves in them, is one of the most dangerous species\nof pampering common to the present day. The children become accustomed\nto selfishness and mental dependence. Besides this constant educational\neffort brings with it the dulling of the child's personality. If\nchildren were free in their own world, the nursery, but out of it had to\nsubmit to the strict limits imposed by the habits, wills, work, and\nrepose of parents, their requirements and their wishes, they would\ndevelop into a stronger and more considerate race than the youth of the\npresent day. It is not so much talking about being considerate, but the\nnecessity of considering others, of really helping oneself and others,\nthat has an educational value. In earlier days, children were quiet as\nmice in the presence of elder persons. Instead of, as they do now,\nbreaking into a guest's conversation, they learned to listen. If the\nconversation of adults is varied, this can be called one of the best\neducational methods for children. The ordinary life of children, under\nthe old system, was lived in the nursery where they received their most\nimportant training from an old faithful servant and from one another.\nFrom their parents they received corporal punishment, sometimes a\ncaress. In comparison with this system, the present way of parents and\nchildren living together would be absolute progress, if parents could\nbut abstain from explaining, advising, improving, influencing every\nthought and every expression. But all spiritual, mental, and bodily\nprotective rules make the child now indirectly selfish, because\neverything centres about him and therefore he is kept in a constant\nstate of irritation. The six-year-old can disturb the conversation of\nthe adult, but the twelve-year-old is sent to bed about eight o'clock,\neven when he, with wide open eyes, longs for a conversation that might\nbe to him an inspiring stimulus for life.\n\nCertainly some simple habits so far as conduct and order, nourishment\nand sleep, air and water, clothing and bodily movement, are concerned,\ncan be made the foundations for the child's conceptions of morality. He\ncannot be made to learn soon enough that bodily health and beauty must\nbe regarded as high ethical characteristics, and that what is injurious\nto health and beauty must be regarded as a hateful act. In this sphere,\nchildren must be kept entirely independent of custom by allowing the\nexception to every rule to have its valid place. The present anxious\nsolicitude that children should eat when the clock strikes, that they\nget certain food at fixed meals, that they be clothed according to the\ndegree of temperature, that they go to bed when the clock strikes, that\nthey be protected from every drop of unboiled water and every extra\npiece of candy, this makes them nervous, irritable slaves of habit. A\nreasonable toughening process against the inequalities, discomforts, and\nchances of life, constitutes one of the most important bases of joy of\nliving and of strength of temper. In this case too, the behaviour of the\nperson who gives the training, is the best means of teaching children to\nsmile at small _contretemps_, things which would throw a cloud over the\nsun, if one got into the habit of treating them as if they were of\ngreat importance. If the child sees the parent doing readily an\nunpleasant duty, which he honestly recognises as unpleasant; if he sees\na parent endure trouble or an unexpected difficulty easily, he will be\nin honour bound to do the like. Just as children without many words\nlearn to practice good deeds when they see good deeds practised about\nthem; learn to enjoy the beauty of nature and art when they see that\nadults enjoy them, so by living more beautifully, more nobly, more\nmoderately, we speak best to children. They are just as receptive to\nimpressions of this kind as they are careless of those made by force.\n\nSince this is my _alpha_ and _omega_ in the art of education, I repeat\nnow what I said at the beginning of this book and half way through it.\nTry to leave the child in peace; interfere directly as seldom as\npossible; keep away all crude and impure impressions; but give all your\ncare and energy to see that personality, life itself, reality in its\nsimplicity and in its nakedness, shall all be means of training the\nchild.\n\nMake demands on the powers of children and on their capacity for\nself-control, proportionate to the special stage of their development,\nneither greater nor lesser demands than on adults. But respect the joys\nof the child, his tastes, work, and time, just as you would those of an\nadult. Education will thus become an infinitely simple and infinitely\nharder art, than the education of the present day, with its\nartificialised existence, its double entry morality, one morality for\nthe child, and one for the adult, often strict for the child and lax for\nthe adult and _vice versa_. By treating the child every moment as one\ndoes an adult human being we free education from that brutal\narbitrariness, from those over-indulgent protective rules, which have\ntransformed him. Whether parents act as if children existed for their\nbenefit alone, or whether the parents give up their whole lives to their\nchildren, the result is alike deplorable. As a rule both classes know\nequally little of the feelings and needs of their children. The one\nclass are happy when the children are like themselves, and their highest\nambition is to produce in their children a successful copy of their own\nthoughts, opinions, and ideals. Really it ought to pain them very much\nto see themselves so exactly copied. What life expected from them and\nrequired from them was just the opposite--a richer combination, a better\ncreation, a new type, not a reproduction of that which is already\nexhausted. The other class strive to model their children not according\nto themselves but according to their ideal of goodness. They show their\nlove by their willingness to extinguish their own personalities for\ntheir children's sake. This they do by letting the children feel that\neverything which concerns them stands in the foreground. This should be\nso, but only indirectly.\n\nThe concerns of the whole scheme of life, the ordering of the home, its\nhabits, intercourse, purposes, care for the needs of children, and their\nsound development, must stand in the foreground. But at present, in most\ncases, children of tender years, as well as those who are older, are\nsacrificed to the chaotic condition of the home. They learn self-will\nwithout possessing real freedom; they live under a discipline which is\nspasmodic in its application.\n\nWhen one daughter after another leaves home in order to make herself\nindependent they are often driven to do it by want of freedom, or by the\nlack of character in family life. In both directions the girl sees\nherself forced to become something different, to hold different\nopinions, to think different thoughts, to act contrary to the dictates\nof her own being. A mother happy in the friendship of her own daughter,\nsaid not long ago that she desired to erect an asylum for tormented\ndaughters. Such an asylum would be as necessary as a protection against\npampering parents as against those who are overbearing. Both alike,\ntorture their children though in different ways, by not understanding\nthe child's right to have his own point of view, his own ideal of\nhappiness, his own proper tastes and occupation. They do not see that\nchildren exist as little for their parent's sake as parents do for their\nchildren's sake. Family life would have an intelligent character if each\none lived fully and entirely his own life and allowed the others to do\nthe same. None should tyrannise over, nor should suffer tyranny from,\nthe other. Parents who give their home this character can justly demand\nthat children shall accommodate themselves to the habits of the\nhousehold as long as they live in it. Children on their part can ask\nthat their own life of thought and feeling shall be left in peace at\nhome, or that they be treated with the same consideration that would be\ngiven to a stranger. When the parents do not meet these conditions they\nthemselves are the greater sufferers. It is very easy to keep one's son\nfrom expressing his raw views, very easy to tear a daughter away from\nher book and to bring her to a tea-party by giving her unnecessary\noccupations; very easy by a scornful word to repress some powerful\nemotion. A thousand similar things occur every day in good families\nthrough the whole world. But whenever we hear of young people speaking\nof their intellectual homelessness and sadness, we begin to understand\nwhy father and mother remain behind in homes from which the daughters\nhave hastened to depart; why children take their cares, joys, and\nthoughts to strangers; why, in a word, the old and the young generation\nare as mutually dependent as the roots and flowers of plants, so often\nseparate with mutual repulsion.\n\nThis is as true of highly cultivated fathers and mothers as of simple\nbourgeois or peasant parents. Perhaps, indeed, it may be truer of the\nfirst class; the latter torment their children in a na\u00efve way, while the\nformer are infinitely wise and methodical in their stupidity. Rarely is\na mother of the upper class one of those artists of home life who\nthrough the blitheness, the goodness, and joyousness of her character,\nmakes the rhythm of everyday life a dance, and holidays into festivals.\nSuch artists are often simple women who have passed no examinations,\nfounded no clubs, and written no books. The highly cultivated mothers\nand the socially useful mothers on the other hand are not seldom those\nwho call forth criticism from their sons. It seems almost an invariable\nrule that mothers should make mistakes when they wish to act for the\nwelfare of their sons. \"How infinitely valuable,\" say their children,\n\"would I have found a mother who could have kept quiet, who would have\nbeen patient with me, who would have given me rest, keeping the outer\nworld at a distance from me, with kindly soothing hands. Oh, would that\nI had had a mother on whose breast I could have laid my head, to be\nquiet and dream.\"\n\nA distinguished woman writer is surprised that all of her\nwell-thought-out plans for her children fail--those children in whom she\nsaw the material for her passion for governing, the clay that she\ndesired to mould.\n\nThe writer just cited says very justly that maternal unselfishness alone\ncan perform the task of protecting a young being with wisdom and\nkindliness, by allowing him to grow according to his own laws. The\nunselfish mother, she says, will joyfully give the best of her life\nenergy, powers of soul and spirit to a growing being and then open all\ndoors to him, leaving him in the broad world to follow his own paths,\nand ask for nothing, neither thanks, nor praise, nor remembrance. But to\nmost mothers may be applied the bitter exclamation of a son in the book\njust mentioned, \"even a mother must know how she tortures another; if\nshe has not this capacity by nature, why in the world should I recognise\nher as my mother at all.\"\n\nCertain mothers spend the whole day in keeping their children's nervous\nsystem in a state of irritation. They make work hard and play joyless,\nwhenever they take a part in it. At the present time, too, the school\ngets control of the child, the home loses all the means by which\nformerly it moulded the child's soul life and ennobled family life. The\nschool, not father and mother, teaches children to play, the school\ngives them manual training, the school teaches them to sing, to look at\npictures, to read aloud, to wander about out of doors; schools, clubs,\nsport and other pleasures accustom youth in the cities more and more to\noutside life, and a daily recreation that kills the true feeling for\nholiday. Young people, often, have no other impression of home than that\nit is a place where they meet society which bores them.\n\nParents surrender their children to schools in those years in which\nthey should influence their minds. When the school gives them back they\ndo not know how to make a fresh start with the children, for they\nthemselves have ceased to be young.\n\nBut getting old is no necessity; it is only a bad habit. It is very\ninteresting to observe a face that is getting old. What time makes out\nof a face shows better than anything else what the man has made out of\ntime. Most men in the early period of middle age are neither\nintellectually fat nor lean, they are hardened or dried up. Naturally\nyoung people look upon them with unsympathetic eyes, for they feel that\nthere is such a thing as eternal youth, which a soul can win as a prize\nfor its whole work of inner development. But they look in vain for this\nsecond eternal youth in their elders, filled with worldly nothingnesses\nand things of temporary importance.\n\nWith a sigh they exclude the \"old people\" from their future plans and\nthey go out in the world in order to choose their spiritual parents.\n\nThis is tragic but just, for if there is a field on which man must sow a\nhundred-fold in order to harvest tenfold it is the souls of children.\n\nWhen I began at five years of age to make a rag doll, that by its weight\nand size really gave the illusion of reality and bestowed much joy on\nits young mother, I began to think about the education of my future\nchildren. Then as now my educational ideal was that the children should\nbe happy, that they should not fear. Fear is the misfortune of\nchildhood, and the sufferings of the child come from the half-realised\nopposition between his unlimited possibilities of happiness and the way\nin which these possibilities are actually handled. It may be said that\nlife, at every stage, is cruel in its treatment of our possibilities of\nhappiness. But the difference between the sufferings of the adult from\nexistence, and the sufferings of the child caused by adults, is\ntremendous. The child is unwilling to resign himself to the sufferings\nimposed upon him by adults and the more impatient the child is against\nunnecessary suffering, the better; for so much the more certainly will\nhe some day be driven to find means to transform for himself and for\nothers the hard necessities of life.\n\nA poet, Rydberg, in our country who had the deepest intuition into\nchild's nature, and therefore had the deepest reverence for it, wrote as\nfollows: \"Where we behold children we suspect there are princes, but as\nto the kings, where are they?\" Not only life's tragic elements diminish\nand dam up its vital energies. Equally destructive is a parent's want of\nreverence for the sources of life which meet them in a new being.\nFathers and mothers must bow their heads in the dust before the exalted\nnature of the child. Until they see that the word \"child\" is only\nanother expression for the conception of majesty; until they feel that\nit is the future which in the form of a child sleeps in their arms, and\nhistory which plays at their feet, they will not understand that they\nhave as little power or right to prescribe laws for this new being as\nthey possess the power or might to lay down paths for the stars.\n\nThe mother should feel the same reverence for the unknown worlds in the\nwide-open eyes of her child, that she has for the worlds which like\nwhite blossoms are sprinkled over the blue orb of heaven; the father\nshould see in his child the king's son whom he must serve humbly with\nhis own best powers, and then the child will come to his own; not to the\nright of asking others to become the plaything of his caprices but to\nthe right of living his full strong personal child's life along with a\nfather and a mother who themselves live a personal life, a life from\nwhose sources and powers the child can take the elements he needs for\nhis own individual growth. Parents should never expect their own highest\nideals to become the ideals of their child. The free-thinking sons of\npious parents and the Christian children of freethinkers have become\nalmost proverbial.\n\nBut parents can live nobly and in entire accordance to their own ideals\nwhich is the same thing as making children idealists. This can often\nlead to a quite different system of thought from that pursued by the\nparent.\n\nAs to ideals, the elders should here as elsewhere, offer with timidity\ntheir advice and their experience. Yes they should try to let the young\npeople search for it as if they were seeking fruit hidden under the\nshadow of leaves. If their counsel is rejected, they must show neither\nsurprise nor lack of self-control.\n\nThe query of a humourist, why he should do anything for posterity since\nposterity had done nothing for him, set me to thinking in my early youth\nin the most serious way. I felt that posterity had done much for its\nforefathers. It had given them an infinite horizon for the future beyond\nthe bounds of their daily effort. We must in the child see the new fate\nof the human race; we must carefully treat the fine threads in the\nchild's soul because these are the threads that one day will form the\nwoof of world events. We must realise that every pebble by which one\nbreaks into the glassy depths of the child's soul will extend its\ninfluence through centuries and centuries in ever widening circles.\nThrough our fathers, without our will and without choice, we are given a\ndestiny which controls the deepest foundation of our own being. Through\nour posterity, which we ourselves create, we can in a certain measure,\nas free beings, determine the future destiny of the human race.\n\nBy a realisation of all this in an entirely new way, by seeing the whole\nprocess in the light of the religion of development, the twentieth\ncentury will be the century of the child. This will come about in two\nways. Adults will first come to an understanding of the child's\ncharacter and then the simplicity of the child's character will be kept\nby adults. So the old social order will be able to renew itself.\n\nPsychological pedagogy has an exalted ancestry. I will not go back to\nthose artists in education called Socrates and Jesus, but I commence\nwith the modern world. In the hours of its sunrise, in which we, who\nlook back, think we see a futile Renaissance, then as now the spring\nflowers came up amid the decaying foliage. At this period there came a\ndemand for the remodelling of education through the great figure of\nmodern times, Montaigne, that skeptic who had so deep a reverence for\nrealities. In his _Essays_, in his _Letters to the Countess of Gurson_,\nare found all of the elements for the education of the future. About the\ngreat German and Swiss specialists in pedagogy and psychology, Comenius,\nBasedow, Pestalozzi, Salzmann, Froebel, Herbart, I do not need to speak.\nI will only mention that the greatest men of Germany, Lessing, Herder,\nGoethe, Kant and others, took the side of natural training. In regard to\nEngland it is well known that John Locke in his _Thoughts on Education_,\nwas a worthy predecessor of Herbert Spencer, whose book on education in\nits intellectual, moral, and physical relations, was the most noteworthy\nbook on education in the last century.\n\nIt has been noted that Spencer in educational theory is indebted to\nRousseau; and that in many cases, he has only said what the great German\nauthorities, whom he certainly did not know, said before him. But this\ndoes not diminish Spencer's merit in the least. Absolutely new thoughts\nare very rare. Truths which were once new must be constantly renewed by\nbeing pronounced again from the depth of the ardent personal conviction\nof a new human being.\n\nThat rational thoughts on the subject of pedagogy as on other subjects,\nare constantly expressed and re-expressed, shows among other things that\nreasonable, or practically untried education has certain principles\nwhich are as axiomatic as those of mathematics. Every reasonable\nthinking man must as certainly discover anew these pedagogical\nprinciples, as he must discover anew the relation between the angles of\na triangle. Spencer's book it is true has not laid again the foundation\nof education. It can rather be called the crown of the edifice founded\nby Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, and the great German specialists in\npedagogy. What is an absolutely novel factor in our times is the study\nof the psychology of the child, and the system of education that has\ndeveloped from it.\n\nIn England, through the scientist Darwin, this new study of the\npsychology of the child was inaugurated. In Germany, Preyer contributed\nto its extension. He has done so partly by a comprehensive study of\nchildren's language, partly by collecting recollections of childhood on\nthe part of the adult. Finally he experimented directly on the child,\ninvestigating his physical and psychical fatigue and endurance,\nacuteness of sensation, power, speed, and exactness in carrying out\nphysical and mental tasks. He has studied his capacity of attention in\nemotions and in ideas at different periods of life. He has studied the\nspeech of children, association of ideas in children, etc. During the\nstudy of the psychology of the child, scholars began to substitute for\nthis term the expression \"genetic psychology.\" For it was found that the\nbio-genetic principle was valid for the development both of the psychic\nand the physical life. This principle means that the history of the\nspecies is repeated in the history of the individual; a truth\nsubstantiated in other spheres; in philology for example. The psychology\nof the child is of the same significance for general psychology as\nembryology is for anatomy. On the other hand, the description of savage\npeoples, of peoples in a natural condition, such as we find in Spencer's\n_Descriptive Sociology_ or Weitz's _Anthropology_ is extremely\ninstructive for a right conception of the psychology of the child.\n\nIt is in this kind of psychological investigation that the greatest\nprogress has been made in this century. In the great publication,\n_Zeitschrift f\u00fcr psychologie_, etc., there began in 1894 a special\ndepartment for the psychology of children and the psychology of\neducation. In 1898, there were as many as one hundred and six essays\ndevoted to this subject, and they are constantly increasing.\n\nIn the chief civilised countries this investigation has many\ndistinguished pioneers, such as Prof. Wundt, Prof. T. H. Ribot, and\nothers. In Germany this subject has its most important organ in the\njournal mentioned above. It numbers among its collaborators some of the\nmost distinguished German physiologists and psychologists. As related to\nthe same subject must be mentioned Wundt's _Philosophischen Studien_,\nand partly the _Vierteljahrschrift f\u00fcr Wissenschaftlichie Philosophie_.\nIn France, there was founded in 1894, the _Ann\u00e9e Psychologique_, edited\nby Binet and Beaunis, and also the _Bibliotheque de Pedagogie et de\nPsychologie_, edited by Binet. In England there are the journals, _Mind_\nand _Brain_.\n\nSpecial laboratories for experimental psychology with psychological\napparatus and methods of research are found in many places. In Germany\nthe first to be founded was that of Wundt in the year 1878 at Leipzig.\nFrance has a laboratory for experimental psychology at Paris, in the\nSorbonne, whose director is Binet; Italy, one in Rome. In America\nexperimental psychology is zealously pursued. As early as 1894, there\nwere in that country twenty-seven laboratories for experimental\npsychology and four journals. There should also be mentioned the\nsocieties for child psychology. Recently one has been founded in\nGermany; others before this time have been at work in England and\nAmerica.\n\nA whole series of investigations carried out in Kraepelin's laboratory\nin Heidelberg are of the greatest value for determining what the brain\ncan do in the way of work and impressions.\n\nAn English specialist has maintained that the future, thanks to the\nmodern school system, will be able to get along without originally\ncreative men, because the receptive activities of modern man will absorb\nthe co-operative powers of the brain to the disadvantage of the\nproductive powers. And even if this were not a universally valid\nstatement but only expressed a physiological certainty, people will some\nday perhaps cease filing down man's brain by that sandpapering process\ncalled a school curriculum.\n\nA champion of the transformation of pedagogy into a psycho-physiological\nscience is to be found in Sweden in the person of Prof. Hjalmar Oehrwal\nwho has discussed in his essays native and foreign discoveries in the\nfield of psychology. One of his conclusions is that the so-called\ntechnical exercises, gymnastics, manual training, sloyd, and the like,\nare not, as they are erroneously called, a relaxation from mental\noverstrain by change in work, but simply a new form of brain fatigue.\nAll work, he finds, done under conditions of fatigue is uneconomic\nwhether one regards the quantity produced or its value as an exercise.\nRest should be nothing more than rest,--freedom to do only what one\nwants to, or to do nothing at all. As to fear, he proves, following\nBinet's investigation in this subject, how corporal discipline, threats,\nand ridicule lead to cowardice; how all of these methods are to be\nrejected because they are depressing and tend to a diminution of energy.\nHe shows, moreover, how fear can be overcome progressively, by\nstrengthening the nervous system and in that way strengthening the\ncharacter. This result comes about partly when all unnecessary\nterrorising is avoided, partly when children are accustomed to bear\ncalmly and quietly the inevitable unpleasantnesses of danger.\n\nProf. Axel Key's investigations on school children have won\ninternational recognition. In Sweden they have supplied the most\nsignificant material up to the present time for determining the\ninfluence of studies on physical development and the results of\nintellectual overstrain.\n\nIt is to be hoped that when through empirical investigation we begin to\nget acquainted with the real nature of children, the school and the home\nwill be freed from absurd notions about the character and needs of the\nchild, those absurd notions which now cause painful cases of physical\nand psychical maltreatment, still called by conscientious and thinking\nhuman beings in schools and in homes, education.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nHOMELESSNESS\n\n\nFrom time to time the present age is criticised, as if its corruption\ncontrasted with the moral strictness of earlier periods. Such charges\nare as crude and as groundless as is most of the same kind of criticism\nthat is common to every generation of man's history. They have been\nrepeated ever since man began to strive consciously for other ends than\nthe momentary gratification of his undisciplined impulses.\n\nOne need only to consult the men of the present generation and the still\nliving representatives of the past generation, to be assured that bad\nconduct at school is not characteristic of our time. Let any one read\nthe account of life at universities in earlier periods when the younger\nstudents were of the same age as schoolboys in high schools and it will\nsoon be plain that the cause of the evil is not modern literature nor\nmodern belief.\n\nThe really direct causes of this difficulty must be looked for in human\nemotions. This side of the question I do not intend to discuss here. It\ncan only be solved by an expert in psychology and physiology; by one\nwho, along with this capacity, is a pedagogical genius. There might not\nbe sufficient material for such a task, even if an individual could be\nfound able to put together the original elements in the systems of\nSocrates, Rousseau, Spencer, and give them life. Under no other\ncondition could a real contribution be made adequate to meet the\nrequirements of the present day in the field of education. My intention\nis only to make some remarks on the secondary cause of the evil, for not\nsufficient attention has been devoted to this side of the problem. The\ncause I have in view is the increasing homelessness of all branches of\nsociety. Living with one's parents as children do who go to school in\nthe city is not the same as living at home. Family life in the working\nclasses is unsettled by the mother working out of the house. In the\nupper classes the same result is produced by the constantly increasing\npressure of social pleasures and obligations.\n\nFormerly it was only the husband and father whom outside interests took\nfrom the home. Now the home is deserted by the wife and mother also,\nnot alone for social gatherings but for clubs for self-improvement,\nmeetings, lectures, committees; one evening after another, just at the\ntime which she should be devoting herself to her children who have been\noccupied in the morning at school.\n\nThe ever-growing social life, the incessant extension of club and\nout-of-door life, result in the mother sending her children as early as\npossible to school, even when there is nothing but the conditions above\nmentioned to prevent her from giving the children their first\ninstruction herself. As a rule the present generation of mothers who\nhave had school training could do this quite well, in the case of\nchildren who do not need the social stimulus of the school. Indeed\nbefore the school time begins, and in the hours out of school, children\nare as a rule taken by a maid servant to walk or to skate and so on.\nChildren of the upper classes in most cases receive just as much,\nperhaps more, of their education from the nursery maid or from the\nschool than from the mother. The father need not be mentioned at all,\nfor as a rule he is an only occasional and unessential factor in the\neducation of the child.\n\nMany will say by way of objection, that at no time has so much been\ndone for the education of children as at present; that parents were\nnever so watchful over the physical and psychical needs of the children;\nthat at no time has the intercourse between children and parents been so\nfree; at no time have schools been so actively at work.\n\nThis is true but much of this tends to increase the homelessness of\nwhich I am speaking. The more the schools develop the more they are\nburdened with all the instruction for children, the more hours of the\nday they require for their demands. The school is expected to give\ninstruction even in such simple matters as making children acquainted\nwith their national literature, and handwork, which mothers could do\nperfectly well, certainly as well as our grandmothers. The greater the\nattention given at school to such essentially good things as gymnastics,\nhandwork, and games, the more children are withdrawn from home. And even\nwhen at home, they are hindered by lessons and written exercises from\nbeing with their father and mother, on those exceptional occasions when\nthe parents are at home. If we take into consideration the way in which\nthe modern school system uses up the children's time, and present\nsocial and club life take up the time of parents, we come to the\nconclusion I began with, that domestic life is more and more on the\ndecline.\n\nThe reforms that must be demanded from the schools in order to restore\nthe children to the home cannot be discussed now, since it is my\nintention to deal here only with those matters which must be reformed by\nthe family itself, if reforms at school are to really benefit the young.\n\nReforms of this kind have been made in schools but mothers complain that\nchildren have too little work at home or too few hours at school; that\nthey, the mothers, absolutely do not know how they can keep the children\noccupied in so much free time.\n\nWhat may justly be considered the great progress in the family life of\nthe present day, the confidential intercourse between parents and\nchildren, has not taken an entirely right direction. The result has been\nthat children have been permitted to behave like grown people, sharing\nthe habits and pleasures of their parents, or that the parents have\nceased to live their own life. In neither of these two ways can a deep\nand sound relation between children and parents be produced.\n\nWe see on the one side a minority of conscientious mothers and fathers,\nwho in a real sense live only for the children. They mould their whole\nlife for the life of the children; and the children get the idea that\nthey are the central point of existence. On the other side, we see\nchildren who take part in all the life and over-refinements of the home.\nThey demand like adults the amusements and elegancies of life; they even\ngive balls and suppers at home or in hotels for their school companions.\nIn these social functions, the vanity and stupidity of adults are\nconscientiously imitated.\n\nThen we require from these boys and girls, when they reach a time of\nlife in which the passions awake, a self-control, a capacity of\nself-denial, a stoicism towards temptations to which they have never\nbeen trained, and which they have never seen their parents exercise.\n\nMost homes of the upper classes have not the means to keep up the life\nthat is lived in them. By the money of creditors, or by an exorbitant\nprofit made at the cost of working people, or by careless consumption of\nthe very necessary savings to be laid by for hard times, or against the\ndeath of the family provider, a luxurious style of living is maintained.\nBut even when in rare cases there is real ability to live in this way,\nparents would not do it, if the best interests of the children were\ntaken into account.\n\nElders may speak of industry as much as they like; if the father's and\nmother's work for children has no reality about it, the parents would do\nbest to be silent. The same must be said of warnings and arbitrary\nprohibitions to children concerning the satisfaction of their desire for\nenjoyment, if the parents themselves do not influence the children by\ntheir own example.\n\nOn the other hand there are just as disturbing consequences when\nindustrious parents conceal their self-denial from their children, when\nthey deprive themselves in the effort to spare their children the\nknowledge that their parents are not in a position to clothe them as\nwell as their companions or to give them the same pleasures. Least of\nall is home life successful in helping children through the difficulties\nof their earlier years, when discipline has killed confidence between\nthem and their parents, when they become insincere from want of courage\nand careless from want of freedom; when parents present themselves to\nthe children as exceptional beings, asking for blind reverence and\nabsolute subjection. From such homes in old days fine men and women\ncould proceed, but now extremely seldom. Young people recognise in our\ndays no such requirements; confidential intercourse with parents has\nrobbed them of this nimbus of infallibility.\n\nHomes which send out men and women with the strongest morality, with the\nfreshest stimulus to work, are those where children and parents are\ncompanions in labour, where they stand on the same level, where, like a\ngood elder sister or an elder brother, parents regard the younger\nmembers of the household as their equals; where parents by being\nchildren with the children, being youthful with young people, help those\nwho are growing up, without the exercise of force, to develop into human\nbeings, always treating them as human beings. In a home like this\nnothing is especially arranged for children; they are regarded not as\nbelonging to one kind of being while parents represent another, but\nparents gain the respect of their children by being true and natural;\nthey live and conduct themselves in such a way that the children gain an\ninsight into their work, their efforts, and as far as possible into\ntheir joys and pains, their mistakes and failures. Such parents without\nartificial condescension or previous consideration gain the sympathy of\nchildren and unconsciously educate them in a free exchange of thought\nand opinions. Here children do not receive everything as a gift;\naccording to the measure of their power they must share in the work of\nthe home; they learn to take account of their parents, of servants, and\none another. They have duties and rights that are just as firmly fixed\nas those of their parents; and they are respected themselves just as\nthey are taught to respect others. They come into daily contact with\nrealities, they can do useful tasks, not simply pretend that they are\ndoing them; they can arrange their own amusements, their own small money\naccounts, their own punishments even, by their parents never hindering\nthem from suffering the natural consequences of their own acts.\n\nIn such a home a command is never given unless accompanied at the same\ntime with a reason for it, just as soon as a reason can be understood.\nSo the feeling of responsibility is impressed upon the children from the\ntenderest age. The children are as seldom as possible told not to do\nthings, but such commands when given are absolute because they always\nrest on good reasons, not on a whim. Mother and father are watchful, but\nthey do not act as spies on their children. Partial freedom teaches\nchildren to make use of complete freedom. A system of negative commands\nand oversight produces insincerity and weakness. An old illiterate\nhousekeeper who earned a living by taking school children to board was\none of the best educators I have ever seen. Her method was loving young\npeople and believing in them--a confidence that they as a rule sought to\ndeserve. Moreover a good home is always cheerful, its affection real,\nnot sentimental. No time is wasted in it in preaching about petty\ndetails or prosing. Mother and sisters do not look shocked when the\nsmall boy tells a funny story or uses strong language. A joke is not\nregarded as evidence of moral corruption, nor keen views as an\nindication of depravity. Liveliness, want of prudishness, which can be\ncombined, so far as the feminine part of the household is concerned,\nwith purity of mind and simple nobility, are characteristics for which\nthere can be no substitutes. In such a household concord prevails, the\nyoung and old work, read, and talk together, together take common\ndiversions; sometimes the young people, sometimes their elders, take the\nlead. The house is open for the friends of the children; they are free\nto enjoy themselves as completely as possible but in all naturalness\nwithout allowing their amusements to change the habits of the home.\n\nIt is told of the childhood of a great Finnish poet, Runeberg, that his\nmother when she invited the young guests of her son to dance as long as\nthey could, added, \"When you are thirsty, the water cooler is there, and\nby it hangs the cup\"; and more delightful dances, the old lady who told\nthe story never remembered to have seen. This old-fashioned distinction,\nthe courage to show oneself as one is, is absent from modern homes, and\nlack of courage has resulted in lack of happiness.\n\nThe simple hospitable homely pleasures that have now been superseded by\nchildren's parties, lesson drudgery, and by parents living outside of\nthe home must come back again if what is bad now is not to become worse.\nEvil is not to be expelled by evil; it is to be overcome by good. If the\nhome is not to be again sunny, quiet, simple, and lively, mothers may go\nout as much as they like to discuss education and morality in the\nevening. There will be no real change. Mothers must seriously perceive\nthat no social activity has greater significance than education, and\nthat in this nothing can replace their own appropriate influence in a\nhome. They must make up their minds to real reform, such reforms as\nthose introduced by a lady in Stockholm; burdened though she was with\nsocial engagements and public obligations, she refused to accept any\ninvitation except on one day of the week, in order to spend her evenings\nquietly with her children. How long will the majority of mothers\nsacrifice children to the eternal ennui and vacuity of our modern social\nand club life?\n\nThere is no intention here to recommend that social life and public\nactivities shall be deprived of the influence of experienced and\nthinking mothers. But I only wish to point to the cases of overstrain\nnow caused by the stress of excessive sociability and outside activity.\nThis kind of over-exertion, more especially, injures the home through\nthe mother. In our day as in all other periods, be our opinions in other\nrespects what they may, pagan, Christian, Jewish, or free thinking, a\ngood home is only created by those parents who have a religious\nreverence for the holiness of the home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nSOUL MURDER IN THE SCHOOLS\n\n\nAny one who would attempt the task of felling a virgin forest with a\npenknife would probably feel the same paralysis of despair that the\nreformer feels when confronted with existing school systems. The latter\nfinds an impassable thicket of folly, prejudice, and mistakes, where\neach point is open to attack, but where each attack fails because of the\ninadequate means at the reformer's command.\n\nThe modern school has succeeded in doing something which, according to\nthe law of physics, is impossible: the annihilation of once existent\nmatter. The desire for knowledge, the capacity for acting by oneself,\nthe gift of observation, all qualities children bring with them to\nschool, have, as a rule, at the close of the school period disappeared.\nThey have not been transformed into actual knowledge or interests. This\nis the result of children spending almost the whole of their life from\nthe sixth to the eighteenth year at the school desk, hour by hour,\nmonth by month, term by term; taking doses of knowledge, first in\nteaspoonfuls, then in dessert-spoonfuls, and finally in tablespoonfuls,\nabsorbing mixtures which the teacher often has compounded from fourth-\nor fifth-hand recipes.\n\nAfter the school, there often comes a further period of study in which\nthe only distinction in method is, that the mixture is administered by\nthe ladleful.\n\nWhen young people have escaped from this r\u00e9gime, their mental appetite\nand mental digestion are so destroyed that they for ever lack capacity\nfor taking real nourishment. Some, indeed, save themselves from all\nthese unrealities by getting in contact with realities; they throw their\nbooks in the corner and devote themselves to some sphere of practical\nlife. In both cases the student years are practically squandered. Those\nwho go further acquire knowledge ordinarily at the cost of their\npersonality, at the price of such qualities as assimilation, reflection,\nobservation, and imagination. If any one succeeds in escaping these\nresults, it happens generally with a loss of thoroughness in knowledge.\nA lower grade of intelligence, a lower capacity for work, or a lower\ndegree of assimilation, than that bestowed upon the scholar by nature,\nis ordinarily the result of ten or twelve school years. There is much\ncommon-sense in the French humourist's remark. \"You say that you have\nnever gone to school and yet you are such an idiot.\"\n\nThe cases in which school studies are not injurious, but partially\nuseful, are those where no regular school period has been passed\nthrough. In place of this there was a long period of rest, or times of\nprivate instruction, or absolutely no instruction at all, simply study\nby oneself. Nearly every eminent woman in the last fifty years has had\nsuch self-instruction, or was an irregularly instructed girl. Knowledge\nso acquired, therefore, has many serious gaps, but it has much more\nfreshness and breadth. One can study with far greater scope and apply\nwhat one studies.\n\nYet it is still true to-day that, however vehemently families complain\nabout schools, they do not see that their demands in general education\nmust change, before a reasonable school system, a school system in all\nrespects different from the prevailing one, can come into existence. The\nprivate schools, few in number, that differ to a certain extent from the\nordinary system are swallows that are very far from making a summer.\nRather they have met the fate of birds who have come too early on the\nscene.\n\nAs long as schools represent an idea, stand for an abstract conception,\nlike the family and the state, so long will they, just as the family and\nthe state, oppress the individuals who belong to them. The school no\nmore than the family and the state represents a higher idea or something\ngreater than just the number of individuals out of which it is formed.\nIt, like the family and the state, has no other duty, right, or purpose\nthan to give to each separate individual as much development and\nhappiness as possible. To recognise these principles is to introduce\nreason into the school question. The school should be nothing but the\nmental dining-room in which parents and teachers prepare intellectual\nbills-of-fare suitable for every child. The school must have the right\nto determine what it can place on its bill-of-fare, but the parents have\nthe right to choose, from the mental nourishment supplied by it, the\nfood adapted to their children. The phantom of general culture must be\ndriven from school curricula and parents' brains; the training of the\nindividual must be a reality substituted in its place; otherwise reform\nplans will be drawn up in vain.\n\nBut just as certain simple chemical elements are contained in all\nnourishment, there are certain simple elements of knowledge that make up\nthe foundation of all higher forms of learning. Reading and writing\none's own language, the elements of numbers, geography, natural science,\nand history, must be required by the schools, as the obligatory basis\nfor advanced independent study.\n\nThe elementary school beginning with the age of nine to ten years, I\nregard as the real general school. The system of instruction must assume\nthat the children have breadth, repose, comprehensiveness, and capacity\nfor individual action. All these qualities are destroyed by the present\n\"hare and hound\" system and by its endless abstractions. Such are the\nresults of course readings, multiplicity of subjects, and formalism, all\ndefects that have passed from the boys' schools into the girls' schools,\nfrom the elementary schools into the people's schools. They too are\nburdened by all these faults, which, though deplored by most people, can\nonly be cured by radical reform.\n\nThe instruction must be arranged in groups, certain subjects placed\namong the earlier stages of study while others are put aside for a\nlater period. And in this connection it is not sufficient to consider\nthe psychological development of the child. Certain subjects must be\nassigned to certain times of the year.\n\nThe courses in these schools must come to an end at about the age of\nfifteen or sixteen. From them our young people can pass either into\npractical life, or go on to schools of continuation and application. It\nwould be desirable to adopt the plan recommended by Grundtvig, that one\nor more vacation years should follow, before studies are taken up again.\nGirls, especially, would then come back to their studies with\nstrengthened bodily powers and an increased desire for knowledge. It is\nnow a common experience that the desire to learn, even in the case of\ntalented young people, becomes quiescent, if they go on continuously\nwith their studies, as they often do, from the sixth to the twentieth\nyear and longer.\n\nTo mark out the courses of such a school would offer tremendous\ndifficulties. But these difficulties will not be found insuperable,\nafter people have agreed that the souls of children require more\nconsideration than a school programme.\n\nAmong objections coming from parents, may be heard the following: That\nwhile the state refuses to take initiative in school reform, no one\nwould dare to embark on a road which makes the future of their children\nso uncertain. In the meantime children must be allowed to learn what all\nothers learn. When the state has taken the first step, the parents would\nbe willing they say to follow with remarkable eagerness.\n\nWhat, I ask, has been always the right way to carry out reforms? There\nmust be first an active revolt against existing evils. This particular\nrevolt is yet not sufficiently supported, especially on the part of\nparents. The children themselves have begun to feel the need of protest,\nand, if not earlier, I hope that when the present generation of school\nchildren become fathers, mothers, and teachers, a reform will come\nabout.\n\nNo one can expect a system to be changed, until those who disapprove of\nit show that they are in earnest, show that they are taking upon\nthemselves the sacrifices necessary to protect themselves from the\nunhappy results of the system. Families complain of the excessive\naggregation of subjects, and yet they constantly burden the school with\nnew subjects, even when these subjects are things the family can\nundertake itself. While families complain of overstrain, but make no use\nof the elective system in schools, where it has been introduced, while\nparents are willing to risk nothing to realise their principles, we\ncannot wonder that the state does not embark on reforms of any kind.\n\nThere is an old pedagogical maxim, \"Man learns for life not for school.\"\nWhile, for a great part of their time, the sexes are separated from one\nanother, boys studying by themselves and the girls by themselves, the\ntraining for their future life is a bad one--a life in which the common\nwork and co-operation between man and woman is, according to nature's\nordinance, the normal thing. So long as the general school is a school\nfor a special class, and not for everybody, it is no general school in\nthe high sense of the word, and besides no school in which people learn\nfor life.\n\nI have therefore always warmly held that the school should be no boys',\nno girls' school, no elementary and no people's school, but should be a\nreal general or public school as in America, where both sexes, the\nchildren of all grades of society, will learn that mutual confidence,\nrespect, understanding, by which their efficient co-operation in the\nfamily and state may be made possible. The common school, so arranged,\nis perhaps the most important means to solve definitely the problem of\nmorality, the woman question, the marriage question, the labour\nquestion, in less one-sided and more human ways. From this point of view\nthe establishment of the common school is much more than a pedagogical\nquestion; it is the vital question of our social order.\n\nMen and women, upper and lower classes, are walking on different sides\nof a wall. They can stretch their hands over it; the important thing to\nbe done is to break the wall down. The school, as described above, is\nthe first breach in this wall.\n\nA school like this would be like leaven. The many never reform the few;\nit is the few who gradually introduce reforms for the many. Because the\nfew have strong enough dissatisfaction with present defects, courage\ngreat enough to show their disgust, a belief in the new truths real\nenough, they are ready to prepare the ground for the future.\n\nSuch a school must be guided by the same principle which has humanised\nmorality and law in other spheres. It must consider individual\npeculiarities. Personal freedom will thus have as few hindrances as\npossible to obstruct it. The rights of others must not be approached\ntoo close. The limits, where the rights of others can be affected, must\nbe maintained, even enlarged.\n\nThis humanising process will be introduced into the schools, when\nscholars are no longer regarded as classes, but each individual for\nhimself. The schools will then commence to fulfil one of the many\nconditions necessary to give young people real nourishment and so\ndevelop them and make them happy.\n\nSuch a school life will make its first aim to discover in early years\nuncommon talent, to direct such talent to special studies.\n\nSecondly, for those who lack definite talent, a plan of study will be\narranged, in which their individuality too can be developed, and their\nintellectual tension increased. This condition is, if possible, more\nimportant than the first, for unusual talents are accompanied by greater\npower of self-conservation. Ordinary or lesser talented people, _i.e._,\nthe larger majority, are rather confused by a plurality of studies and\nare much easier impaired, as personalities, by the uniformity of the\nprevailing system.\n\nThe rights of unusually gifted people, and those of other classes too,\ncan be considered when, as mentioned above, the school curriculum is so\narranged, that certain subjects are studied during part of the school\nyear, another class of subjects during another part. Moreover, certain\nsubjects are to be studied at different times, not finished once for\nall.\n\nThe instruction must be so arranged that real independent study, under\nthe direction of the teacher, will be the ordinary method. The\npresentation of the subject by the teacher will be the exception, a\ntreat for holidays, not for every day.\n\nThe instruction too must take the scholar to the real thing, as far as\npossible, not direct him to report about the thing. Such a school must\nbreak up absolutely the whole system of lecturing, arranged in\nconcentric circles. In certain cases, it must return to the methods of\nthe old-fashioned school, which concentrated its attention on humanistic\nstudy. But dead languages should not be the subjects around which its\nstudies should centre.\n\nEarly specialisation must be allowed, where there are distinct\nindividual tendencies for such work;\n\nConcentration on certain subjects at certain points of time;\n\nIndependent work during the whole period of school;\n\nContact with reality in the whole school curriculum;--these must be the\nfour corner-stones of the new school.\n\nBut the time is far distant still, when government schools will begin to\nbuild on this basis. What follows is meant, therefore, to apply, not to\nthe great revolutions of school systems indicated above, but deals with\nimprovements to take place at present.\n\nLearning lessons should be assigned to school hours as in France.\nChildren should have an entirely free day in the week; study at home\nshould be confined to the reading of literary works, tales of travel,\nand the like, which teachers can recommend in combination with the\nstudies pursued at school.\n\nTasks done at home are inconvenient; they do not increase the\nindependence of the scholar; they are prepared as a rule with\nexcessively free and often unwise help from the parents. At school such\nwork would be done as a rule without help; besides, it is individual and\nquickly finished.\n\nIn the school, time can be taken for study selected at the scholar's\nfree choice. It can be arranged for in the following way. Take a class\nof about twelve scholars; in larger classes no reasonable or personal\nmethod of instruction is possible. There may be three scholars with\ndistinct tastes, one for history, one for languages, one for\nmathematics. There may be two without any distinct talent for\nmathematics or languages. The other seven may have ordinary capacities.\nThe first three must, during the whole term, apply themselves specially\nin certain hours, set aside for independent study, each in his chosen\nsubject. The first will read some historical work on the periods taken\nup in the history class; the second will devote this time to\nmathematics; the third will read the books in foreign languages,\nmentioned in the language course. The other seven with ordinary gifts\ncan devote this time to ordinary reading and handwork. In this way all\nwill get some portion of history, mathematics, and languages, but those\nwho are specially interested will have the opportunity of going deeper\ninto the subject. If one of the three gifted scholars shows a great\ninclination for and a ready comprehension of all three subjects, he\nshould study by himself at home, provided the more thorough study of one\nsubject does not impair work on the other. The two who have special\ndifficulty in mathematics or languages could either substitute one\nsubject wholly for the other, or in those periods remain away from\nschool, or, finally, the hours used by gifted scholars for individual\nstudy beyond the requirements of the common course could be devoted by\nthese to work, under the teacher's supervision, in the course common to\nthe whole class.\n\nTo carry out this plan, there is need of such concentration of subjects\nas I have mentioned; there should be never more than one or at most two\nmain subjects--history, geography, natural science--studied at once.\nMoreover no more than one language should be studied at the same time;\npractice in those already learnt is to be acquired by literary readings,\nwritten r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, and conversation.\n\nAnother kind of concentration is necessary. Not every subject should be\nsplit up into subdivisions but history should be made to include\nliterary history, church history, etc. In geography at the early stage,\na part of natural science should be included, and the history of art\ncombined with both. Another not less important method implied in\nconcentration is in all general courses to direct one's attention to the\nmain questions, and to sacrifice the mass of details. Detailed work\nshould not have been incorporated, as indispensable for general culture\n(from generation to generation), during the constant growth of the\ncontents of knowledge.\n\nIn regard to instruction, methods now popular should be forced out of\nthe field. The two obligatory features, the careful hearing of lessons\nby the teacher, and the equally careful preparation of the next lesson,\nmust be changed for other methods according to the age of the scholar,\nthe special character of the subject, and of the scholar himself; or\naccording to the particular stage of the subject. At one time the\nteacher should give an attractive, comprehensive account of a period, a\ncharacter, a land, a natural phenomenon. Another time it will be enough\nto give a simple, introductory reference to the reading of one or more\nworks on the subject, best of all an original authority. Sometimes he\nshould require an oral account of what he has said, or what has been\nread; sometimes this should be done in writing. When the lesson is\nfilled with many facts the scholar should write them down in the hour;\nanother time he should summarise them from memory. An assigned amount\ntoo can be gone through along with the teacher's explanation; on another\noccasion, the assignment need not be gone over at all, but the scholars\ncould show their capacity to understand it and comprehend it without\nassistance. Occasionally the task might be done in a short time from one\nday to another, sometimes it might take a longer period.\n\nBut this work would, as has been said, take place ordinarily in the\nschool. Purely literary readings and books of a similar type must be\nassigned for work at home, to be done during a considerable length of\ntime. For we all know that the reading which has made a deep impression\non us was only what was read freely; reading for which we ourselves\ncould set the time, place, and inclination. And since, in this case, the\nimportant thing is the impression, not the knowledge, freedom is more\nimportant than in other subjects. Individual initiative can be furthered\nby having the teacher, as is done in France, explain in passing all\nwords and subjects in a poem difficult to understand. The teacher too\nshould now and then, by reading poetry aloud, stimulate the desire of\nthe scholar to learn more of the same poet. A poem has the greatest\neffect when it is presented unexpectedly. When a history lesson is ended\nthere should be read aloud a passage from an historical poem. Scholars\ndo not forget either the poem, or the episode handled in it, even if\nthey forget everything else. But test questions, used in the period of\nliterature-study, go in at one ear and out at the other.\n\nA teacher who wishes to use this concentrated system in detail, that\nrests on the intelligent co-operation of the scholar, will naturally\nfind that the method is to be derived from the personality of the\nteacher himself. I think the teacher of history should not take up the\nprehistoric period, but should give the scholar some good popular work\non it and let him go to a museum; he should then require a written\nessay, to be illustrated by the scholar with drawings of characteristic\ntypes of arch\u00e6ological specimens. In the same way, he could give a\ncomparative view of the same period among other people. Then, if there\nwere a scholar especially anxious to learn, he could put in his hands a\nwork about the primitive condition of man. Every teacher, man or woman,\ncan easily think out, for the subjects they teach, analogous methods.\nThe teacher of geography who is talking about Siberia can give some good\ngeneral description of it to all the scholars for their private study.\nThose particularly interested would be recommended to read a narrative\nof travels in Siberia, Dostojewsky's _Out of the Dead House_, and so\non. If the teacher of history were taking up Napoleon, he could read in\nthe French hour a work like Vigny's _Servitude et Grandeur Militaire_.\nFor the Dutch War of Independence, Motley's history, Goethe's _Egmont_,\nand Schiller's _Don Carlos_ could be read. A whole book could be written\non plans like these, with indications how the different fields of\nknowledge could supplement one another, how history, geography,\nliterature, and art could be intertwined just as on the other side\ngeography and natural science. Similarly it would show how different\nteachers could be of use to one another in communicating to their\nscholars a fuller knowledge.\n\nI should like to propose an hypothesis for discussion and examination\nthat I have formulated, after a wide experience in story-telling, both\nas a listener and as a narrator. If I might put together in a statement,\nwithout intending to prove it, the result of my experience in the\nsubject named, I should say that the mental food which is most\nattractive for the child, also gives the most nourishment. This is the\nfact that the physiology of our day has proved in the case of the\norganic existence of the child. Pedagogy is beginning, consciously or\nunconsciously, to apply it to the mental sphere, yet without daring to\nhold that nature is so simple, that need and inclination can be so\nnearly related. Naturally, it cannot be maintained that what is most\nattractive for children's stories should constitute their whole\ntraining, as physiology maintains that what tastes most agreeable to the\nchild, for example sugar, should form his sole nourishment.\n\nWhat every story-teller finds as specially attractive to children, is\nthe epic smoothness, the clear comprehensiveness of the tale, its\nconsistent objectivity. Every narrative which will win the attention of\nthe child, whether it be from Scandinavian, classical, or biblical\nhistory, must have these characteristics of the tale. There are hardly\nany story-tellers who so completely absorb children as old nurses. They\nnever forget any picturesque trait in the tale, they always give the\nsame broad, full narrative. They tell their stories without explanations\nand without applications, with the real direct feeling of the child for\ngrasping the subject. Everything which disturbs the smooth flow of the\nnarrative, above all, when the narrator puts himself outside of it by\nindulging in a joke, strikes the child as a profound incongruity.\nChildren are always more or less artistic in their nature, in the sense\nthat they desire to receive an impression in its purity, not as a means\nto something else. They wish through the story to go through a real\nexperience; at the same time they will say \"No,\" if they are asked\nwhether they would prefer to hear a real history to a story. This\napparent contradiction can be explained in this way: the tale presents\nreality, as reality is conceived of by the na\u00efve fancy of early ages,\nand is in just the form in which the imagination of the child can\nreceive it.\n\nIn telling stories, we find, besides, that what attracts children is the\nnarrative of actions; in this roundabout way they get hold of emotions\nand sentiments. The development of the child--this is a truth which has\nto be worked out before it can really be taken in--answers in miniature\nto the development of mankind as a whole. And it follows from this that\nchildren combine idealism and realism, as epic national poetry does.\nGreat, good, heroic, supernatural traits affect them most; but only in a\nconcrete shape sensibly perceived, with the richness of the power which\ncomes from life, without any adaptation to our present conceptions.\n\nWe can test this by telling a real folk-lore tale, and Anderson's\nversion of it. With a few exceptions children are unanimous in calling\nthe first type the most beautiful.\n\nBesides what is attractive for lively children, with sound appetites, is\nquantity, but in no way multiplicity.\n\nFirst of all they ask whether the story is long after they have begun to\nhope that it is beautiful. They are glad to hear the same story\ninnumerable times; they have an unconscious need for thorough\nassimilation, just as soon as what is given to them harmonises with\ntheir stage of development. This is true of all subjects. I know\nchildren who detest the \"choice stories\" from the Bible, with which\ntheir morning prayers are commenced, but who read the New Testament as a\nstory-book. In this respect, all small children are like great ones, the\nartists. The imagination of children requires full, entire, deep\nimpressions, as material for their energies that are incessantly\ncreating and reconstructing. And if their sound feeling has not been\ndisturbed by a dualism foreign to them it brings them with remarkably\nsure instinct to choose the sound, pure, and beautiful, and to reject\nthe unsound, hateful, and crude. Finally, we find in story-telling that\nchildren much prefer continuity of impressions though they are said to\nexpress preference for change. We never hear children say, \"Now tell a\nfunny story, the one before was too gloomy.\" But if we commence telling\ngloomy stories they want one after another of the same type. If we had\nbegun telling amusing stories, they never tire of laughing. The\nchangeableness of children in playing, reading, and working is not so\ngeneral a characteristic of childish nature as is believed. It is true\nonly of children whose readings and games are not adapted to their\nnature and inclinations. Changeableness is, in a certain way, nature's\nself-defence against what is unconsciously injurious.\n\nAs to comic narratives, it is found in story-telling that the child has\nthe most keen sense for the humour of a situation. On the other hand\nthey have hardly a trace of feeling for the humour that rests on deep\nintellectual contrasts, least of all for humour of the ironical type. If\na narrative out of their own world is really to make impression on them,\nit must be like a tale, full of life, with action and surprises, broad\nand na\u00efve in its style, without any noticeable aim. All the children's\nbooks which children through their life recollect and by which they are\nimpressed, are those that at least in one way or another fulfil these\nconditions. The rest give other impressions, but even so they become no\nmore harmless than arsenic wall-paper covered by fresh undyed layers. As\nto the humour of children, it can be easily tested. We can tell them the\nmost comic psychological children's stories; ninety-nine out of a\nhundred they will declare to be terribly stupid, while a simple history\npresenting a funny situation doubles them up with laughter.\n\nChildren do not feel drawn to abstract things; this is an old truth,\nwhose correctness is established best by story-telling. All virtues and\nqualities, no matter how well concealed they may be, are very quickly\npronounced stupid by children. For fables, children have seldom any\ntaste, least of all for essays. The introduction of a fox or a bear into\nthe story or in a real adventure makes the story-teller the dearest\nfriend of children. But the most lively and childish essay on the bear\nor the fox leaves them cold, unless it is made real by some personal\nexperience in the country or by a visit to a zo\u00f6logical garden. This\ntruth is so recognised and proved from so many points of view, that I\nwill simply say here that experience in story-telling gives additional\nevidence of it. Children show, in listening to stories, a finely\ndeveloped sensitiveness to all attempts to descend to, or to adopt, the\nstandpoint of the child, to everything that is artificial in the\nnarrative. In intercourse with children, especially with those who\nrepresent progressive methods, can be seen how the reaction against the\nold lesson and hidebound methods has produced an artificial na\u00efvet\u00e9, a\nrichness of illustrations, and a liveliness that children soon feel as\nsomething specially prepared for them, something not quite real. This\nway of partially giving to children their own imaginative power puts\nthem to sleep, even when it succeeds at first in giving them a good\nentertainment in their lessons. For the illustrations and comparisons,\nas well as the consequences which another has thought out for them,\nobstruct the initiative of the child; besides they are all soon\nforgotten. It is the same with playthings; those they make themselves\ngive inexhaustible pleasure, while those that are ready made only confer\njoy once or twice. They are shown and then broken in pieces in order to\nextract the clockwork, for this is the only possible way for the child\nto do something with it himself. Instruction is beginning to resemble\nchildren's playthings and children's books; it is too complete, too\nrichly illustrated. It hinders individual free voyages of discovery of\nthe imagination. Even good illustrations are often injurious; but we do\nnot intend to speak at length on this subject. As a matter of fact\nchildren often feel themselves deceived by illustrations.\n\nThe reserve in a story is also a property that attracts the child. Its\npictures are indicated with a few definite but repeated details. The\nimagination is allowed to fill the picture with colours. The uniformity,\nthe rhythm, and the symmetry, all qualities belonging to the folk-lore\ntale, are for the child extremely absorbing. They enjoy such repetitions\nas \"the first, second, and third year\" and so on, quite like the refrain\nin rhyme and poetry.\n\nBut all these observations lead to a final result. The present\nreading-book system is neither the most attractive for children, nor\ndoes it best supply them with what they want. Instead of epic smoothness\nand unity, reading-books bring a confused mixture of all kinds, nursery\nrhymes, religious teaching, poetry, natural history, and history.\nOccasionally there comes a tale or a real poem, standing apart\ndistinctly from its neighbours, in tone and in comprehensiveness.\nInstead of clear impressions, children get through the reading-book a\ndisturbing jumble; instead of objectivity, they get instructive\nchildren's stories; instead of poetry, edifying versification; instead\nof action, reflection; instead of much of one thing, a little of\neverything; instead of continuity of impressions, constant change;\ninstead of concrete impressions of life, essays; instead of na\u00efve tales,\nthings written down to their level.\n\nI ask what is the result of this reading-book system on the development\nof the child from six to sixteen years old?\n\nWhat, in general, is the result on the development of character when one\nflits from impression to impression, nipping in flight at different\nthings, letting one picture after another slip away, making no halt\nanywhere?\n\nAs to the effect on adults, immediate answers can be given. These\nanswers are so unfavourable that they do not need to be repeated. But,\nshould a principle which applies to the adult be less suitable for the\nchild? It really applies much more to the child. Adults generally have\nsome work, some occupation, some one centre around which they can\narrange manifold events, change may often be advantageous for them; but\nthe whole school day of the child is change; the way the child absorbs\nknowledge is by the teaspoonful. Is not this condition enough to urge us\nto work with all our might against the system of diffusion wherever it\nis unnecessary?\n\nIn reading-books diffusion is not necessary; in foreign languages, as in\nhis own tongue, the interest of the child is much more stimulated by a\nbook than by a reader; his vocabulary is increased. But even if this\nwere not the case, what the child gains through reading-books, in quick\nreadiness in the mother tongue or in foreign languages, does not\ncompensate for the loss their use signifies in development in the way\nalready mentioned.\n\nThe schools deal improperly with the mental powers of youth, through\ntheir lack of specialising, of concentration, in their depreciation of\ninitiative, in their being out of touch with reality.\n\nHigh schools and colleges are absolutely destructive to personality.\nHere, where only oral examinations should take place from time to time,\nwhere all studies should tend to be individual, the hunger of the\nscholar for reality is hardly satisfied in any direction. Nothing is\ndone to help his longing to see for himself, to read, to judge, to get\nimpressions at first-hand, not from second-hand reports.\n\nCertainly here, too, the direction of the teacher is necessary. He can\neconomise superfluous work by clarifying generalisations; he can\ncriticise a one-sided account in order to complete the picture fully\nhimself. Often the teacher must excite interest by a vigorous account\nfrom his own point of view; by a fine psychological study, he can\nillustrate a complex historical picture. He will help the scholar to\nfind laws, governing the phenomena which he has come to know by his own\nexperiments, or he can suggest comparisons which lead to such\nexperiments. Here, also, oral and written exercise must have great\nweight.\n\nBut the end of all instruction in college, as in the school, should not\nconsist in examinations and diplomas; these must be obliterated from the\nface of the earth. The aim should be that the scholars themselves, at\nfirst hand, should acquire their knowledge, should get their\nimpressions, should form their opinions, should work their way through\nto intellectual tastes, not as they now do, taking no trouble\nthemselves, but being supposed to acquire these gifts through\ninteresting lectures given by the teacher on five different subjects,\nheard every morning while the students are dozing, and soon forgotten.\nFacts slip away from every one's memory, quickest from the memory of\nthose who have learned according to the dose and teaspoonful system. But\neducation happily is not simply the knowledge of facts, it is, as an\nadmirable paradox has put it, what is left over after we have forgotten\nall we have learnt.\n\nThe richer one is in such permanent acquisitions, the greater the profit\nof study. The more subjective pictures we have; the more numerous our\nvibrating emotions and associations of ideas are; the more we are filled\nwith suggestively active impressions;--so much the more development we\nhave, won by study for our personality. The fact that our students\nacquire so little, even if they have passed through every school with\nexcellent marks, is a serious injustice they feel during their whole\nlife. The beautifully systematised, ticketed, checkerboard knowledge\ngiven by examinations soon disappears. The person who has kept his\ndesire for knowledge and his capacity for work by his free choice and by\nhis independent labor can easily fill out the gaps left by this method\nof study in the knowledge he has acquired.\n\nOnly the person who by knowledge has obtained a view of the great\nconnected system of existence, the connection between nature and man's\nlife, between the present and the past, between peoples and ideas,\ncannot lose his education. Only the person who, through the mental\nnourishment he has received, sees more clearly, feels more ardently, has\nabsorbed completely the wealth of life, has been really educated. This\neducation can be gained in the most irregular way, perhaps around the\nhearth or in the field, on the seashore or in the wood; it can be\nacquired from old tattered books or from nature itself. It can be\nterribly incomplete, very one-sided, but how real, personal, and rich it\nappears to those who for the period of fifteen years in school have\nground out the wheat on strange fields, like oxen with muzzled mouths!\nOur age cries for personality; but it will ask in vain, until we let our\nchildren live and learn as personalities, until we allow them to have\ntheir own will, think their own thoughts, work out their own knowledge,\nform their own judgments; or, to put the matter briefly, until we cease\nto suppress the raw material of personality in schools, vainly hoping\nlater on in life to revive it again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE\n\n\nI should like to set down here briefly my dreams of a future school, in\nwhich the personality may receive a free and complete self-development.\nI purposely say \"dreams,\" because I do not want any one to believe that\nI am pretending in the following outline to give a reformed programme\nfor the present time.\n\nMy first dream is that the kindergarten and the primary school will be\neverywhere replaced by instruction at home.\n\nUndoubtedly a great influence has proceeded from that whole movement\nwhich has resulted, among other things, in the Pestalozzi-Froebel\nkindergartens, and in institutions modelled after them. Better teachers\nhave been produced by it; but what I regard as a great misfortune, is\nthe increasing inclination to look upon the cr\u00e8che, the kindergarten,\nand the school as the ideal scheme of education. Every discussion\ndealing with the possibilities of women working in public life exalts\nthe advantage of freeing the mother from the care of children,\nemancipating children from the improper care of their mothers, and\ngiving women possibilities of work outside of the home. Mrs. Perkins\nStetson proposes as a compromise, that every mother, pedagogically\nqualified, shall take care of a group of children along with her own.\nBut what her own children will receive under such conditions is\nsufficiently shown in the case of those poor children who grow up in\neducational institutions presided over by their parents; and also by the\nexperience of the poor parents who are not able under these conditions\nto look after their own children.\n\nThe cr\u00e8che and the kindergarten were and continue to be a blessing\nundoubtedly for those innumerable mothers who work outside of their\nhomes and are badly prepared for their duties. Some type of kindergarten\nwill perhaps be necessary under particular circumstances as a partial\nsubstitute for the home, as, for example, when a child has no companions\nto play with, or when the mother herself is disinclined or not able to\neducate the child. This incapacity is ordinarily the result of an\nextremely nervous temperament, caused by weak will or depression.\n\nMary Wollstonecraft's remarks, made more than a hundred years ago, still\ncall for our approval. \"If children are not physically murdered by their\nignorant mothers, they are ruined psychically by the inability of the\nmother to bring them up. Mothers, in those first six years that\ndetermine the whole development of the child's character, turn them over\nto the hands of servants, whose authority is often undermined by the way\nin which they are treated. Then children are passed on to school to\ncontrol the bad behaviour which the vigilance of the mother could have\nprevented, and which she controls with means that become the basis for\nall kinds of vices.\" But because such cases are still frequent and\nbecause there will always be mothers incapable of bringing their\nchildren up, it would be a premature assumption to believe that the\nmajority of women cannot be trained to become parents, if the\ndevelopment of the woman has this end in view. One of the tasks of the\nfuture is the creation of a generation of trained mothers, who among\nother things will emancipate children from the kindergarten system.\nChildren are handled in crowds from two and three years up, they are\nmade to appear before the public in crowds, made to work on the one\nplan, made to do the same petty, idiotic, and useless tasks. In this\nway, we believe at the present time that we are forming men, while\nactually we are only training units. Any one who remembers how, as a\nchild, he played on the beach or in the wood, in a big nursery or in an\nold-fashioned attic, or has seen other children playing in these\nsurroundings, will know how such unrestrained play deepens the soul,\nincreases the capacity for invention, and stimulates the imagination a\nhundredfold more than children's games and occupations devised by the\narrangement, and promoted by the interference, of elder persons. Adults\nare accustomed to amuse children in crowds, a custom which comes from\nintellectual vulgarity, instead of leaving them alone to amuse\nthemselves. Besides this system encourages children to produce what they\ndo not need, and leads them to imagine that they are working by so\ndoing. Children should be taught to despise all the numerous unnecessary\nthings which put life on a false level and make it artificial. They\nshould be taught to try to simplify it, to aim for its supreme values;\nthis should be the end of education. The kindergarten system is, on the\ncontrary, one of the most effective means to produce the weak dilletante\nand the self-satisfied average man.\n\nIf there is any further need for the kindergarten in the near or distant\nfuture, let it be a place where children may have the same freedom as\ncats or dogs, to play by themselves, and for themselves, to think out\nsomething of their own, where they can be provided with means to carry\nout their own plans, where they have companions to play with them. A\nsensible woman may be near at hand to look on or to supervise, but only\nto interfere when the children are likely to hurt themselves. Let her\ndraw something for them occasionally, tell them a story, or teach them\nan amusing game, but otherwise let her be apparently quite passive and\nyet untiringly active in the observation of the traits of character and\nof disposition which play of this free type reveals. In like manner the\nmother should observe the play of children, their treatment of their\ncompanions at play, their inclinations, and collect as much material as\nshe can but interfere as little directly as possible. The mother finally\nby this constant, many-sided, strenuous, yet passive kind of observation\ngets a knowledge of the child that is partially exact. One being never\nlearns to know another being entirely, not even when that being has\nreceived its life from the other, not even when that life is daily\nrenewed by the other being, in order to reach the full happiness of\nspiritual motherhood. It has been well said that as people regard the\nbirth of a child as the sign of physical maturity, the education of a\nchild is regarded as a sign of psychical maturity. But through lack in\npsychological insight, most parents remain their whole life immature.\nThey can have the best principles, the most zealous fidelity to duty,\ncombined with absolute blindness to the nature of children, the real\ncauses of their actions, and the different combinations of different\ncharacteristics.\n\nTake some examples of the worst blunders of this type; the small child\nis often called vain who studies, full of interest, his own identity in\nthe glass; the child who, from fear or confusion at a hard or\nincomprehensible question, does not answer or obey is called stubborn;\nthe child that cannot explain his actions in those small things which\nadults every day entirely forget is looked upon as lying; and even\nbefore the child has a conception of the right of property, when he\npilfers, he is called thievish. The child who says that he knows that\nhe is naughty, and wants to be naughty, is called obdurate and\nimpertinent, while this statement is really a self-confession and shows\na character to which one may appeal with the best results. The child,\nsunk in thought, who forgets the small things of daily life, people call\nthoughtless. Even when a child is really selfish and is really lying or\nlazy, these characteristics are treated as if they were something\nindividual, while actually they are caused often by some serious fault\nwhich must be dealt with. These characteristics can proceed from a good\nquality which may be destroyed, if the fault is not treated suitably.\n\nBut even parents who now observe their children with more psychological\ninsight than was used in earlier times are not able to study them, if\ntheir children go to school and kindergarten at an early age. This want\nof insight produces mistakes which often cause deep antagonisms between\nchildren and their parents, the sort of thing which now embitters so\nmany households. Only fathers and mothers who reverence the\nindividuality of their children, and combine with this feeling a careful\nobservation of them through their whole life, are able to avoid this\ntypical fault of our own time. People expect to gather grapes from\nthistles, instead of being satisfied with haws. Parents must see that\nthey cannot create where there is no material to be created. But they\nmust be capable of developing the characteristics which they discover in\nthe nature of their children. This work they must undertake with\noptimism and resignation, for it represents the teaching of real\npsychological study. This will stop those efforts, painful alike for\nchildren and parents, that are applied in directions which offer no\nreward to effort.\n\nBut the study of the psychology of the child, begun at its birth,\ncontinued in its play, its work, its rest, means a daily comparative\nstudy, and requires the undivided attention of one person. It can only\nbe done by a person who has charge of but a few children; in a crowd it\nis impossible. It is all the more impossible because children in a crowd\nresemble one another more or less; and this makes observation more\ndifficult.\n\nThe kindergarten is only a factory. Children learn in it to model,\ninstead of making mud pies according to their own taste. This process is\ntypical of what these small atoms of humanity go through themselves.\nFrom the first floor of the factory the objects that have been turned\nout there are sent to the next floor above, the school; and from this\nthey then go out put up in packages.\n\nThe aim of school training is to carry out, with all its might,\nproduction by quantities that expresses the demands of our time in all\nspheres. The invention of individual school methods may reduce the\ninfluence of \"canned education.\"\n\nAs long as there are large cities, poor children in them must be able to\nobtain the possibilities of country children. Their playthings must be\nmade out of the world which surrounds them. The obligations of their own\nhome must supply them with work. This is altogether different from the\nplay work of the kindergarten that has no connection with the\nseriousness of reality. A wise mother or teacher will adopt from the\nkindergarten system just so much as will enable her to teach children to\nobserve nature and their surroundings; will take from it what enables\nher to make them combine their activity with some useful end; their\namusement with some kind of knowledge.\n\nThe Froebel dictum, \"Let us live for the children,\" must be changed into\na more significant phrase, \"Let us allow the children to live.\" This,\namong other things, means \"let them be emancipated from the burden of\nlearning by heart,\" from the forms of system, from the pressure of the\ncrowd, in those years while the quiet, secret work of the soul is as\nvital for them as the growing of the seed in the earth. The kindergarten\nsystem is opposed to this; it is forcing up the seed to life on a plate,\nwhere it looks very pretty, but only for the time being.\n\nThe school with its _esprit de corps_ opens the way public lack of\nconscience. Modern society manages thus to reproduce the crimes of every\npast period; manages too, to reproduce them through men who are\nconscientious in their own private life. For those without consciences,\nwho lead criminal movements, would never be able to put the masses of\npeople in motion, unless they were just masses and nothing more; unless\nthey were made to follow collective laws of honour, collective patriotic\nfeelings, collective conceptions of duty. The child learns to be\nobedient to his school, to be loyal to his comrades, just as later on in\nlife he learns these qualities as they are presented in his university,\nhis student society, and his profession. All of this he learns sooner\nthan to reverence his conscience, his feeling of right, his individual\nimpulse. He learns to wink at, pardon, and disguise the sins committed\nby his own circle of companions, his own club, and his own country.\n\nThis is the way the world produces its \"Dreyfus Affairs,\" its Transvaal\nWars. If the aim is to create men and not masses, we should follow the\neducational programme of the great statesman Stein--\"to develop all\nthose impulses on which the value and strength of mankind depend.\" This\nis only possible when the child is taught, at the earliest age, the\nfreedom and danger of his own choice, the right and responsibility of\nhis own will, the conditions and duties of being put to the test\nhimself. All of these elements of character are unconsciously opposed by\nthe kindergarten; the home alone can develop them. The highest result of\neducation is to bring the individual into contact with his own\nconscience. This does not mean that the individual cannot experience by\ndegrees the happiness and the necessity of being a factor in the service\nof the whole, first in his home, then among his companions and in his\ncountry, and finally in the world. The difference is this: in the first\ncase the man is a living cell, co-operating and building up living\nforms; in the other he is a piece of cut stone used in artificial\nconstruction.\n\nBoth for the development of individuality, as well as for the\ncultivation of the emotions, the home is to be preferred to the\nkindergarten and to the school. In the limited small circle of the home\nthe emotional element can be deepened and tenderness can be developed,\nby the acts called for in the realities of domestic life. The\nkindergarten first, and then the school, free children from their\nnatural individual obligations and put in their place demands that can\nonly be fulfilled _en masse_. The child enters into a number of\nsuperficial relations. This situation tends to make his emotions\nsuperficial; here is the great danger of beginning school life at a\ntender age. On the other hand a one-sided home life brings with it the\ndanger of concentrating the emotions to an excess. Education at home in\nthe years when the emotions become harmonious and receive their decisive\ntraining is just as important for the child as is later on a pleasant\nsociable life with others of the same age, after the twelfth year is\npassed. All intellectual cultivation done according to the most\nexcellent method, all social feelings, are worthless unless they have as\ntheir basis an individual development of the emotions. Somewhere in our\nbody we must have a heart, to act as a real balance against our head.\nOnly the man who has learnt to love a few, deep enough to die for them,\nis able to live profitably for the many.\n\nI should like to see not only the kindergarten but the preparatory\nschool transferred to the home. There things can be considered that are\nnever taken into account in a general school. The child need not have\nthe nourishment he does not want, and which he does not need, at the\ntime he now generally receives it. In the home school, one child can put\noff reading to a later age, another can be taught reading early. The\ndesire for action in one child can be satisfied; the book-hunger of the\nother encouraged. Bodily development, the desire to make a real\nacquaintance with external nature can be considered in home work, play,\nand out-of-door activities. Then we can begin to teach when the child\nhimself asks for teaching; that is, when he wishes to hear or do\nsomething in which knowledge alone can assist him. The child can twice\nas easily learn at ten years, under these conditions, what he now learns\nat eight; at eight what he now learns at six, if he comes to his study\nwith developed powers of observation and an eager desire for action.\nSchools can never attain a full insight into the peculiar character of\npersonality, into the ways in which knowledge must be placed before\ndifferent individuals, into the right time for taking a subject or\ngiving it up. The home school must be considered the ideal method where\nthe child studies with a small group of well-selected companions.\nIndividuality can be considered, plans of study and courses can be\nneglected. Through such neglect only, is a real living instruction\npossible. The advantages the modern school has over the home are hardly\nworth discussing. The order of the school, its method, system, and\ndiscipline, so much praised by its advocates as advantages, are, from my\npoint of view, nothing but disadvantages. Habits of fulfilling duties,\nor work, orderly and punctual activity, that belong to a sound\neducation, can be attained in the home school through far less\nartificial means. Of course it is urged as another advantage of the\nschool that the school child becomes a member of a small community where\nhe learns social duties. But the home is the natural community where the\nchild, in full seriousness, learns the real social duties of readiness\nto help, and readiness to act, while the present-day school artificially\nreplaces that domestic social education, of which the child is now\nrobbed by studies at school and preparation at home. The real value of\nschool life among companions can be had from the home school without its\nordinary dangers. These dangers are not only evil influences, but, more\nthan anything else, that collective process of reaching a standard of\nstupidity, due to the pressure of public opinion that comes from\nassociation in masses. The fear of common opinion, of being laughed at,\nis created in the receptive years of childhood, so open to such\ninfluences. The slightest deviation in dress, or taste, is criticised\nunsparingly. If an investigation were conducted on the sufferings of\nchildren through the tyranny of their fellows, a tyranny which sometimes\ntakes harsher, sometimes milder forms, it would upset the prejudice that\nthe usefulness of the school in this respect cannot be replaced.\n\nBesides there is the levelling pressure of a uniform discipline, which\nstunts personality from above, while life with school companions\nrestricts it on all sides. Every criticism on this formal pedantry is\nmet with the answer, \"In a school it is absolutely impossible to permit\nchildren to do what can be done in the household; only fancy if all\nchildren in the school were to sharpen their lead pencils or erase\nwords in their exercises.\" There is no need to insist further on this\npoint. Hundreds of petty rules must exist, we are told, for the sake of\ndiscipline. And even if the rules could be reduced to a fourth of their\npresent cubic contents, even the best schools would still feel the\npressure of uniformity. The more this pressure is resisted by\nindividuals, so much the better.\n\nEducation in the first years must aim to strengthen individuality. The\nwhole of biographical literature supplies an almost uniform proof of the\nimportance of not commencing too early the levelling social education of\nthe school. Early attendance at school is one of the reasons why we so\nfrequently meet, as Dumas says, so many clever children, and so many\nstupid adults.\n\nAlmost all great men and women, who have thought and created for\nthemselves, have received either no education in school at all, or have\ngone to school at a rather later period, with longer or shorter\ninterruptions, or have been trained in different schools. In most cases\nit was an accident, some living point of view, a book read in secret, a\npersonal choice of subject that gave these exceptional beings their\ntraining. In this respect Goethe's education was ideal, considered apart\nfrom some pedantry due to his father's influence. At his mother's\nwork-table he learnt to know the Bible; French he learnt from a\ntheatrical company; English from a language master, in company with his\nfather; Italian, because he heard his sister being taught the language;\nmathematics from a friend in the household, a study which Goethe applied\nimmediately, first in cardboard diagrams, later in architectural\ndrawings. His essays he prepared in the form of a correspondence in\ndifferent languages between different relatives, scattered in various\nparts of the world. Geography he eagerly studied in books of travel in\norder to be able to give his narrative local colour. He knocked about\nwith his father, learnt to observe different kinds of handwork, and also\nto try himself small experiments of his own skill.\n\nBut some one may say, all men are not geniuses, and accordingly the\nmajority without distinct talent need the school. Is it possible that\nthe connection between originality and irregular attendance at school is\nmerely accidental? How often does the school sin in its watering down of\noriginality! As for unoriginal people, the argument urged here is an\napplication of the biblical axiom, that from him who has nothing even\nthe little will be taken away. I mean the individual who has no distinct\npersonality will be forced in the school to give up the little that he\ncan call his own. The old-fashioned school where a few subjects were\nlearnt by heart, where the teachers were often badly prepared, where the\nstudents could go to sleep or pretend to learn, where the courses were\nsimple and attention concentrated on Latin, seems barbarous to us. But\nit had less danger for the personality than the present-day school with\nits thorough preparation, its interest in readings, its perfected\nmethods, its capital instructors who take every little stone out of the\nstudent's road, and prepare as much delightful intellectual nourishment\nas possible, sometimes even in a cooked-up form. This \"good school\" with\nits over-insistence on versatility is responsible for the nervousness of\nour day. Its general intellectual apathy has caused the negativeness of\nour times.\n\nThe quietest, most obedient child is thought the best pupil, that is,\nthe most impersonal individual is the model. So we see how the school\nconfuses its conception of values. The more the soul and body are\npassive, are willing to be controlled and receptive, so much the better\nare the results from the school standpoint. Mischievous children,\nobstinate characters, one-sided and original natures, are always martyrs\nat school because of their desire for action, their spirit of\nopposition, their so-called \"stupidity.\" Only the easy-going, amiable,\ncommonly endowed natures can keep some of their own individual\ntendencies, slip through the school, and at the same time get good\ncertificates of industry, moral character, order, and progress. In the\nfirst-class modern school, the mobile structure of personality is forced\ninto shape--or rather it is knocked about by wind and waves, like a\npebble on the seashore. It is struck by one wave after another, day by\nday, term by term; on they come--forty-five minutes for religious\ninstruction, the same period for history, then French, then sloyd, then\nnatural history; the next day new subjects in new, small doses. In the\nafternoon, there is preparation at home, and writing exercises,\npreviously arranged and marked out, then corrected with care, and the\nprepared readings made the basis of questioning by the most approved\nmethods, the mother having at home first gone over them with the child.\nThese powerful billows stupefy the brain, and take the edge off the\nsouls of both teacher and scholar. Even the most active teachers move\nalong fettered by requirements and prejudices, unconditional necessities\nand methodical principles. Only occasionally is a soul saved from this\nfate by total skepticism. Some exalt this pettifogging professionalism\nto a plan of salvation, others are untiringly busy in changing details,\nin discussing minor improvements. Every real thoroughgoing reform\naffecting the principle, not the methods alone, goes to pieces, because\nit conflicts with the system supported by the state. It fails, through\nthe obedient acceptance of the system on the part of parents, through\nthe incapacity of teachers to look at the whole results of the system,\nthrough their disinclination to all radical methods of improvement.\n\nThe school, like the home and society, in general should aim to fight\nmore vigorously and more successfully the influences belittling life,\nand should further its development towards ever higher forms. This end\nis opposed by the modern schools. It is a gross mistake to hold up their\nexcellent material and their number as proofs of popular culture. How\nthe people are educated in the schools, how the material is used, what\nsubjects are pursued in them are the momentous questions.\n\nGoethe's saying that \"fortune is the development of our capacities\" is\nas applicable to children as to adults. What these capacities are can be\ndetermined soon in the case of the talented child; his future can be\nsecured by obtaining for him the possibility of such a development. But\nthere are common capacities, proper to every normal human being, and\nfrom their development, fortune too can be the outcome. Among such\ncapacities is memory, which modern man has nearly destroyed. \"We throw\nashes,\" says Max Muller, \"every day on the glowing coals of memory while\nmen of past ages could retain in their minds the treasures of our\npresent literature.\" To these capacities belong, among others, power of\nthought, not in the sense of philosophic thinking, but in the simpler\nuse of the word, gifts of observation, ability to draw conclusions and\nto exercise judgment. Of the common universal human faculties the\nemotions suffer most at the hand of the modern school.\n\nOne of the fundamentally wrong pedagogical assumptions, is that\nmathematics and grammar develop the understanding. This is only true\nafter a higher stage is reached in these courses. But there is no one\nwho seriously maintains that, so far as nature or man is concerned, he\nhas used directly or indirectly, in a single observation, conclusion, or\nexercise of judgment, the theses, hypotheses, statements, problems, the\nrules and exceptions, of mathematics and grammar, with which his\nchildish brain was burdened. I have heard from mathematicians and\nphilologians the same heresy that I am proclaiming, that mathematics and\ngrammar, when they are not pursued as sciences, must be reduced to a\nminimum. Provided a person has mathematical talent, the study of\nmathematics is naturally agreeable, through the development of a\ncapacity in a certain direction. If one has the gift for languages, the\nsame is true of linguistic study. But without such special talent, these\nsubjects have no educational value, because the powers of observation,\ndrawing conclusions, exercising judgment, are just as undeveloped as\nthey were before the mathematical problem was solved or the grammatical\nrules learned.\n\nLife--the life of nature and of man--this alone is the preparation for\nlife. What the world of nature and the world of man offers in the way\nof living forms, objects of beauty, types of work, processes of\ndevelopment, can, by natural history, geography, history, art, and\nliterature, give real value to memory; can teach the understanding to\nobserve, to judge and distinguish; can train the feeling to become\nintense, and through its intensity combine the varying material in that\nunity which alone is education. In brief, real things are what the home\nand school should offer children in broad, rich, and warm streams. But\nthe streams should not be taken off in canals and dammed up by methods,\nsystems, divisions of courses, and examinations.\n\nI never read a pedagogical discussion without the fine words\n\"self-activity, individual development, freedom of choice,\" suggesting\nto me the music which accompanies the sacrificial feasts of cannibals.\nThe moment these words are used, limitations and reservations are\nintroduced by their advocates. Their proposed application is ludicrously\ninsignificant, in contrast with the great principle in the name of which\nthey urge these changes. And so the pupil continues to be sacrificed to\neducational ideals, pedagogical systems, and examination requirements,\nthat they refuse to abandon. The everlasting sin of the school against\nchildren is to be always talking about the child.\n\nThe sloyd system (manual dexterity, handwork, artistic production) has\ncertain good results on children. Accordingly the sloyd must be\nintroduced into the school, and all must be made to share the advantages\nof this training; but there are children for whom the sloyd is as\ninappropriate and as useless a requirement as learning Latin. The child\nwho wants to devote himself to his books should be no more forced to\ntake up the sloyd, than the child who is happy with his planing table\nshould be dragged to literature.\n\nAll talk about \"harmonious training\" must be given the place where it\nbelongs--in the pedagogical culinary science. Certainly harmonious\ndevelopment is the finest result of man's training, but it is only to be\nattained by his own choice. It implies a harmony between the real\ncapacities of the individual, not a harmony worked up from a pedagogical\nformula. The results from the school kneading trough with its mince-meat\nprocesses are something quite different.\n\nIsolated reforms in the modern school have no significance; they will\ncontinue to have none, until we prepare for the great revolution, which\nwill smash to pieces the whole present system and will leave not one\nstone of it upon another. Undoubtedly a \"Deluge\" of pedagogy must come,\nin which the ark need only contain Montaigne, Rousseau, Spencer, and the\nmodern literature of the psychology of the child. When the ark comes to\ndry land man need not build schools but only plant vineyards where\nteachers will be employed to bring the ripe grapes to the children, who\nnow get only a taste of the juice of culture in a thin watery mixture.\n\nThe school has only one great end, to make itself unnecessary, to allow\nlife and fortune, which is another way of saying self-activity, to take\nthe place of system and method.\n\nFrom the kindergarten period on the child is now, as has been said, a\nmaterial moulded, sometimes by hostile, sometimes by friendly hands. The\nmildest, the apparently freest methods produce uniformity by insisting\non the same work, the same impression, the same regulations, day by day,\nyear by year. Besides in the school, classes are never arranged\naccording to the child's temperament and tendency, but according to his\nage and knowledge. So he is condemned in deadly tediousness to waste an\ninfinite amount of time while he is waiting for others.\n\nThe very earliest period of instruction should use the power the child\nhas for observation and work. These capacities should be made the means\nof his education, the standard for using his own observation. If the\npower of observation is vigorous, no general rules are to be drawn, but\nonly particular ones. One child must read, play, or do handwork in a\ndifferent degree to another. One can at an early age, the other only at\na later period, take advantage of the education to be obtained from\ngoing to museums or from travel (the best of all travel is tramping).\nThe indispensable elements will be reduced to their lowest measure; for\nwhat any one man needs to be able to do, in order to find himself at\nhome in life, is not considerable. The minimum is to read well, to spell\nproperly, to write with both hands, to copy simple objects, so that one\nlearns picture writing just as alphabet writing. This skill is quite\ndifferent from artistic gifts. Besides there must be instruction in\nlooking at things geometrically, the four simple rules of arithmetic and\ndecimal fractions, as much geography as will help one to use a map and a\ntime-table, as much knowledge of nature as will give one a fundamental\nconception of the simplest requirements of hygiene; and finally, the\nEnglish language, in order to put one in touch with the increasing\nintercourse in the great world. Through these requirements the child\nwill be endowed with what he needs, in order to find himself at home in\nthe world of books and of life. Let there be added to these the ability\nto darn a stocking, sew on a button, and thread a needle.\n\nOnly the indispensable should be the obligatory foundation of further\nculture, which is only the trimming on a simple garment. The trimming\nreceives its entire value because the individual has prepared it\nhimself; it must not be made by a machine according to a model prepared\nin a factory.\n\nWhat is mentioned here supplies the same basis for all, but children\nshould be able to throw themselves into the pastoral life of the Old\nTestament, into the life of the Greek and Scandinavian gods and heroes,\ninto the life of popular legends and national history; but this should\nbe done only through the books which they get for their amusement. At\nthe present time all of these things are made pure subjects of study!\n\nAssume, then, that this foundation is laid. The school of the future,\nwhich will be a school for all, will advance general education, but the\nplan it follows will be adapted to every individual. In the school of my\ndreams there will be no report books, no rewards, no examinations; at\ngraduation time examinations will be arranged for but they will be oral.\nIn them detailed knowledge will not be considered; education as a whole\nwill determine the decision of the examiners, who will personally\naccompany the children in the open air in order to become quietly\nacquainted with what they know of mankind, of past and present history.\n\nAnd the education which will make the training aim at this end will be\ndiametrically opposed to that given by the teacher of the present day.\nThe teacher will be required to make his own observations, he will guide\nthe scholar in the choice of books, and show him how to work. But he\nwill not give first his own observation, judgment, and knowledge in the\nform of lectures, preparations, and experiments. Occasionally he will\nwithout giving notice ask for an oral or written account of work, and so\nascertain how thoroughly the scholar has gone into the subject. At\nanother time, when he knows that the scholar is prepared for it, he\nwill give a general treatment, a comprehensive review of the subject, a\nstimulating and stirring impression, as a reward for independent work.\nFinally, when the scholar wishes it, he will examine him formally, but\nhis real work will be to teach the scholar to make his own observations,\nto solve his own problems, to find his own aids to study in books,\ndictionaries, maps, etc., to fight his way through his own difficulties\nto victory and so reach the only moral reward for his trouble with\nbroadened insight and increased strength.\n\nThe scholar who sits down and listens to, or looks at, the demonstration\nor experiment of the teacher does not learn to observe, nor does he\nwhose exercise book is corrected with painful accuracy learn to write;\nnor does the one who pedantically carries out the system of models in\nthe sloyd system learn to make articles fit for every-day use. The\nstudent must make his investigations himself, he must find the mistakes\nhimself when their presence is indicated to him, he must himself think\nout the objects brought before him. Above all, the separate errors must\nnot be corrected except when they are so constant and serious that they\nwaste time. But the scholar himself must try to find out the correct and\ncomplete method of work and of expression. This is what training, what\neducation is.\n\nText-books will be attractive and virile, the \"Reader\" will disappear,\nthe complete books in the original (the text may be revised if it is\nfilled with confusing details) will be placed in the hands of children.\nThe school library will be the largest, most beautiful, and important\nroom; lending books in the schools will be an essential part of the\ncurriculum.\n\nThe future school of my dreams will be surrounded by large gardens,\nwhere, as in already-existing schools in some places, the feeling for\nbeauty will be directly encouraged. The individual scholars will arrange\nthe flowers in the school and at home. They will take them home in order\nto adorn the window garden, and every schoolroom in winter will have a\ngarden of this kind. This will be the natural method of making the\nsimplest of all esthetic enjoyments a universal need. But taste must not\nbe developed by instruction in the art of arranging flowers; this is to\nbe attained only by pointing out those that have been arranged in the\nmost beautiful way. In this as in all other things, self-help is\nessential.\n\nNatural dexterity will be attained by book-binding, turning, and other\nkinds of handwork, also by gardening and play. Such training has far\ngreater educational value than the systematic types. The purposelessness\nand the uniformity of these are the terror of youth. Gymnastics should\nonly be used on days when the weather makes bodily exercise in the open\nair impossible; they can certainly be made more living by being\nconnected with physiology and hygiene, just as mathematics can be made\nreal by being combined with handwork and drawing. But nothing can equal\nthe value of movement in the open air.\n\nBesides its garden, the future school will have its hall. Outside it\nwill have a playground for dancing and really free play--I mean the kind\nof play where children, after they have learnt the game, are left to\nthemselves. Games constantly accompanied by a teacher make play a\nparody.\n\nThe development of beauty will become the aim of physical instruction as\nit once was with the Greeks, not simply physical strength.\n\nThrough different kinds of hand and garden work, the child will be\nspared from a number of requirements in mathematics and physics, because\nhe will in many things make discoveries himself. In the methods of\nschool drudgery the child learns that a seed grows by warmth and\nmoisture. In real training, the child himself sows the seed and sees\nwhat happens to it; this system is followed I believe in many schools,\nbut only as proofs of a given abstract statement. The mistake of the\nmodern school is really just here; it illustrates its course of\ninstruction by, as it were, over-charging the child's attention, instead\nof giving him time and opportunity to originate for himself.\n\nIn the future school-building, there will be no class-rooms at all, but\ndifferent halls with ample material provided for different subjects,\nand, by the side of them, rooms for work where each scholar will have a\nplace assigned to him for private study. Common examinations will only\ntake place when several scholars are ready and willing, anxious to be\nexamined on the same subject; and each student can ask for the\nexamination independent of the rest.\n\nIn every room, on the outside of the building, architecture and\ndecoration will form a beautiful whole; and the artistic objects,\ndetached from the building, for the adornment of the school will be\npartly originals, partly casts and copies of famous originals.\n\nThe sense for art will not be awakened by direct artistic instruction,\neither in the school or when visiting museums. Classes can perhaps get\nsuch knowledge when taken around museums; but love for art can only be\ngained when the scholar is surrounded by art; when he can absorb it in\npeace and freedom. Let this quiet progress be anticipated by\ninstruction--I don't mean the admiring criticism of the teacher himself,\nwhich he in passing expresses without explanation or questioning--and\nthe inevitable result is troubling the water of a living well.\nInterference here, as in all other cases, destroys the individual\npleasure of discovery. Constantly being taken about really impairs the\ncapacity for seeing for oneself. In art, in literature, and in religion,\nall instruction is a mistake until the young mind has chosen some part\nof it as an object to be known. Knowledge destroys, feeling creates,\nlife. But the roots of feeling are easily injured.\n\nAs to visits to museums under the direction of a teacher, they are only\nof use when the scholar has previously made, on his own account, his own\ndiscoveries. To these he should be stimulated by the teacher. When\noccupied in the study of Greek history, he will be asked for a\ndescription of Greek sculpture that is to be found in such and such a\nmuseum. When lectures are given on the Dutch War of Independence, Dutch\npictures will be described. Only after the scholar has used his own\neyes, and formed his own judgments, will a synthesis of his experiences\nunder external guidance be of use. The same holds good of\nnatural-history, historical, and ethnographical museums. Taking children\naround in herds produces very slight results unless they have been put\nin the way of noticing things by themselves.\n\nAmong the books of the school, the best literature in the original and\nin good accessible translations should be found. Works should be at hand\ncapable of giving aid to those who have artistic interests. There is no\ngreater fault in modern education than the care spent in selecting books\nfor different ages. This is essentially an individual matter, and can\nonly be decided by the choice of the child himself. A general crusade\nagainst all children's books, and freedom for the young to read great\nliterature, is essential to the sound development of the modern child.\nWhat is too old for him may be set aside according to the taste of the\nchild himself. Suppose at the age of ten years, the child is absorbed in\n_Faust_ (I know such cases); the child then gets at this age an\nimpression for life that does not prevent him receiving from the same\npoem another impression at twenty years, or again another at thirty or\nforty years. The so-called dangers in standard literature are, for the\nchild, almost nil. Incidents that excite adults, his calm feelings pass\nover entirely. And even if children reach the emotional period of youth,\nonly rarely does the plain downright expression of a great mind about\nnatural things stain the imagination, falsify reality, and spoil taste.\nIt is the modern romance, women's novels, just as much as French novels,\nthat do this.\n\nChildren cannot in these days, even if parents are unreasonable enough\nto wish it, be kept in ignorance. Crude or stolen impurity gets a\ngreater power over a mind that has not absorbed respect for the absolute\nseriousness of natural processes. This reverence is sure to come from\neducation, and through the impressions of standard literature and\nfirst-class art.\n\nVeiling this subject is apt to lead astray and to vulgarise. To those\nwho can be harmed in this way the Bible is as suggestive as any of the\ncrudities of modern literature. In the temperament which quietly accepts\nnatural things as a matter of course, is laid the foundation of real\npurity, and only through real purity can life, like art and literature,\nbecome great and sound.\n\nIn the works of great minds, one meets an infinite world in which the\nerotic element is only one factor. This gives them great repose.\nMoreover imagination must have nourishment outside of itself; otherwise\nit will live upon its own product. Its nourishment should be what is\nmost readable. The child's mind should be first fed on legends and then\non great literature. This should be all the more insisted on because\ngreat literature often remains unread, when modern literature in its\nvaried types begins later on to be absorbing.\n\nTo be able to use one's eyes in the worlds of nature, man, and art, to\nbe able to read good things--these are the two great ends to which home\nand school education should direct their course. If the child has these\ncapacities, he can learn almost everything else himself. I may remark in\npassing, that a sound development of the imagination has not only an\n\u00e6sthetic but an ethical significance. It is really the foundation for\nactive sympathy all round. Numerous cruelties are committed now by\npeople who have not sufficient imagination to see how their acts affect\nothers.\n\nIn my dreamed-of school, founded along these lines, there is perfect\nfreedom in selecting subjects. The school offers the subjects, but it\nforces no one to take them. English, German, French, natural science,\nmathematics, history, and geography are taught. The mother tongue is\npracticed fluently in speaking, reading, and writing. But in this case\ngrammar is superfluous both for general education and for using a\nlanguage; it belongs to scientific study, not to general culture.\nGrammar should be applied in the case of foreign languages, only so far\nas it is absolutely necessary to appreciate the literature. This is the\nsole aim general culture has in view. Those who wish to speak the\nlanguages fluently, and write them correctly, must attain facility by\ncontinual study. Those who have mastered the literature very easily\nlearn the rest. Those who are familiar with the literature of a foreign\nlanguage, write it, even with the mistakes they make, better than the\nperson who has put together a perfectly correct composition according to\ngrammatical rules. After the child, in his language study, has made\nenough progress to understand a fairly easy book, he ought to work\nthrough one book after another, with the help of a dictionary and\nexplain in his own language extempore what he reads. In this way is laid\nthe foundation of a knowledge of literature, not the ready-made opinions\nof the histories of literature. Both in their own and in foreign\nliteratures, the young must be lead to reality, not, as now, to its\ncopy; to the sea, not to the water pipe. While the teacher is directing\nthe study of language, he should try at the same time to help the\nscholar to a definite choice of books, and his choice should if possible\nbe brought into relation with other subjects. So he will recommend\nliterature connected with historical, scientific, or geographical study.\nAfterwards he will give a general analysis, and will read a passage\naloud, or will encourage the scholar to read some favorite poem. But all\npoetry mongering--such as hacking a poem to pieces by divisions into\nstrophies and sections--is to be forbidden.\n\nSince childhood is the best time for securing the familiar use of\nlanguages, after parents and teachers agree which scholars shall take up\nlanguages, children so selected will study English and French, each for\ntwo years successively, then let them have two years of German, or\nreverse this arrangement. In this way a language will always be studied\nwith other subjects, never three languages together. It is really only\npossible to take in a language, as a possession to be kept through the\nfuture, and never lost, by giving to it alone two years of really\nthorough study.\n\nScholars who want to continue their drawing or learn any kind of\nhandwork, can combine it with the study of the main subjects. Chorus\nsinging should be practised every day for the whole year, indoors and in\nthe open air. It should be treated as a means of expressing the\nfeelings, not as an introduction for developing musical capacities,\nthough for that matter singing can give a lead to the discovery of\nmusical talent.\n\nAs to the four principal subjects, history, geography, natural science,\nand mathematics, they should not be studied at the same time. The\nshallow multiplicity of the present system is a burden to all; it works\nlike the \"water torture\" on talented individuals. It wears out their\ndesire to learn, their initiative, their individuality, their joy of\nliving. Those under this torture never get a breathing spell, are never\nable to do thorough work, and so become superficial.\n\nIn my ideal school, mathematics will be learnt in winter, as it is\nsuitable for the cold and clear winter air. In spring and in autumn,\nnature, out of doors, in nature itself, will be studied, not each\ndepartment of nature as a special subject. An insight into geology,\nbotany, and the animal world will be attained in their close natural\nunion. The scholar will learn separate objects through the actual\nobservation of life. In the text-book of life they will gain in its\nbroad outlines a combined sketch of what they have acquired through\nintellectual processes. On rainy days they will construct for themselves\nin writing and in drawing a general sketch of what they have seen.\nGeneral culture does not mean knowing the number of stamens or the\nnumber of articulations of a hundred flowers or skeletons. What educates\nand acts on the feelings and imagination, on thought and character, too,\nfor that matter, is observing and combining natural phenomena; the\nability to follow the laws of life and development in the natural world\nabout us. The last member in the scheme of development is man. So the\nstudy of man from the standpoint of physiology and hygiene, should come\nlast; consideration for the psychology of the child, urges too, that\nthe foundation for the knowledge of organic nature, physics, and\nchemistry, should complete the educational structure.\n\nAs in natural sciences we are beginning to give up false methods, and\nmake the student return to the same subject, with a broader point of\nview, in the same way the child should at certain periods devote his\nattention to history and geography, and then leave them entirely alone.\nThe endless circle, the drudgery, the repetitions, all looking to\nexaminations as the end, will with the examinations be abolished. It is\na matter of experience that the small details of all subjects slip from\nthe memory two months after examinations. Most educated men have no\nrecollection of the detailed knowledge they acquired in school, while\nthe general impressions of that period still influence soul, heart,\ncharacter, and will. This experience will be used, not as is done now,\nsimply recognised as a common one.\n\nIn my school the scholar interested in history will apply himself to it\nin the winter months; will read works about it, while others are\ndevoting themselves to mathematics or geography. In spring these two\nclasses of students can share in the excursions without active\nparticipation in the studies, while those who are inclined to natural\nscience will draw, make collections, and use the microscope. One group\ncan by studying geography bring themselves into contact with the life of\nnature and the life of man. So they will be led next year to study\nhistory in winter and to take part in science study during the spring\nand autumn. All these different combinations are to be thought out by\nparents, teachers, and scholars; they can only be indicated here. The\nfinal principle is that only two subjects can be studied at the same\ntime. After the scholar has acquired from these all the education he can\nabsorb at this stage, these subjects will be dismissed and taken up\nagain by those who wish to specialise in one direction or the other.\nInstead of the separation of subjects that divides interest and strength\nin our present schools, in the new ones the chief aim will be\nconcentration. In history, the space devoted to work will be limited to\nthe amount demanded by present-day culture. History will then be the\nonly subject suitable for general intellectual training,--the history of\nman's development. It will bring out the great principles of ethnography\nand sociology, of political economy, the lives of great men, the history\nof the church, art, and literature. In scientific study and in teaching\nmathematics, the men prominent in science and in discovery will find a\nplace. Geography brings up points of view related to almost every study,\nand experience already acquired gives good reason for making this\nsubject the centre of all instruction.\n\nWhat are the results of the present-day school? Exhausted brain power,\nweak nerves, limited originality, paralysed initiative, dulled power of\nobserving surrounding facts, idealism blunted under the feverish zeal of\ngetting a position in the class--a wild chase in which parents and\nchildren regard the loss of a year as a great misfortune. After the\nexaminations have been passed and the year gone by, the best students\nrealise the need of beginning their studies in a living way at almost\nevery point. The majority of students are unable to read even a paper\nwith any real profit, and those who are given a book in a foreign\nlanguage to which they have devoted innumerable hours, very seldom\nunderstand it completely, unless the language instruction of the school\nhas been supplemented at home. The incapacity to observe for one's self,\nto get at the bottom of what is observed and reflect upon it, is\nconstantly more remarkable, as a result of the preparation system at\nschool, even when this is aided by the mothers hearing lessons at home.\nThe late Professor Key said that it was his experience, as teacher in a\nmedical institution, that scholars in school were incapable of seeing,\nthinking, or working. I have heard the same observation made in\nStockholm lately in a government office, that the young men were\nincapable of taking up practical duties in which they should have shown\nthe knowledge they were supposed to have after the fine examination they\nhad passed. The system then does not serve even secondary ends; to all\nthe higher aims of human existence it is directly opposed.\n\nIn the course of a hundred years or so, experience of this sort will\ncause the downfall of the system. Then, perhaps, these dreamed-of\nschools will arise. In them, the youth will learn first of all to\nobserve and to love life, and their own powers will be consciously\ncultivated as the highest values in life. By mixing children of all\nclasses together, the upper class, provided it still exists, will get\nthat \"colouring of earnest character which it now lacks,\" as Almquist\nsaid long ago; the lower classes will get the polish, that general\ncultivation they now lack. Through these schools, where common training\nis given to all, the natural circulation between all classes will be\nfurthered. The aristocrat's son and the workingman's son will change\nplaces, if nature has made the first adapted for the position of the\nsecond, and _vice versa_. Through these schools the country child will\nalways be able to grow up in the country, and need not be sent for\neducational purposes into the city, provided there are still great\ncities. Finally boys and girls will enjoy in them all the advantages of\nco-education, without the particular capacities of each being forced\ninto the uniformity of a common examination system.\n\nAfter the children all over the country have been educated to about\nfifteen years of age, in such real common schools, some working more\nwith the brain, others with their hands, the application schools will\nbegin--schools for classical studies, for exact, for social or \u00e6sthetic\nsciences; for handicrafts and handwork; for different professions and\nstate positions; schools with different principles and methods, schools\nwhich can produce manifold differing forms of training and\nindividuality. Education then, instead of being as now, the creator of\nservile souls, the devotees of formalism, or of characters who hate all\nforms in a spirit of revolt, will bring fresh personal powers to\nintellectual and material culture alike, to the sciences and the\ninventive faculties, to artistic talent and to the whole art of life. It\nwill awaken and encourage capacity to find out new scientific methods,\nto think youthful thoughts, to make clever discoveries. Educated human\nbeings will apply to the whole sphere of culture their experience in\ntheir own experiments, their own activity, their own efforts; for all of\nwhich the school and the home will have already laid the foundation.\n\nIn the school, the painful restlessness of the present \"to get\nsomewhere\" will disappear entirely. In the calm, profound atmosphere of\nmy school, the young generation will be trained to believe that the most\nimportant thing for man is not to do something, but to be something. It\nmay be harsh to say that common natures are reckoned by what they do,\nnoble natures by what they are; yet it is a deep truth, forgotten in\nthis century of activity, in this age of woman. But it is bound to be\nremembered in the century of contemplation, in the century of the child.\n\nThese principles will be applied, too, perhaps, in the field of\npractical work. Machines and electricity accomplish work that can give\nno creative enjoyment; handwork will be again a portion of man's\nhappiness; we shall live through a second Renaissance, the renewal of\nthe personal joy which the man of earlier times experienced when the\nartistic moulding, when the rich, coloured tapestry, the beautiful piece\nof carving came from his own hand. The present school system leads to\nthe fabrication of unnecessary articles by the dozen. It does not lead\nto a true love and appreciation of professional work, that love and\nappreciation from which, in the great period of art, artistic production\norganically arose.\n\nThe present system, in all fields of study, limits the natural capacity\nof the child in the concentration, the combination, and development of\nits powers. When it produces its best results, it turns children at the\nclose of their school years into pocket encyclopedias, representing\nhumanity's progress and knowledge. Only when such results as these cease\nto be called a harmonious development, will it be conceded that the\nschool can and should have no other meaning than to give the child a\npreparation for continuing, through his whole life, the work of training\nand education. Only then will the school become a place where\nindividuals get learning to last a lifetime, not as now, even when the\nbest face is put upon it--where they are impoverished for life. Through\nthe victory of these convictions alone will each individual get his\nrights at school; both the person who does not want to study, as well as\nthe one who does. Consideration will be given to the individual who has\nto have books as means of training and to the other case where the\nactivity of the eye and hand is required as a means to the same end. It\nwill be a place for the person with practical talent and for the\ntheorist, for the realist as well as for the idealist. Both classes can\nfreely do what they can do best; the members of each class will often\nfeel tempted to test their powers by doing what the other class is able\nto do. One-sidedness will be corrected naturally, not, as it is now,\nmercilessly flattened out through the steam-roller methods of the\n\"harmonious ideal of training.\"\n\nTo supply workers in these future schools, new normal schools must be\nprovided. Patented pedagogy will give place to a type of teaching which\nconsiders the individual. Only the person who naturally or by training\ncan play with children, live with children, learn from children, is fond\nof children, will be placed in the school to develop there for himself\nhis individual methods. Positions will be given only after a year's\ntrial. When this period is passed the teachers will not be tested by the\nexaminer alone, one who has followed the instruction given by them\nduring the year, but the children themselves will also be heard from on\nthis question. Of course, no absolute value can be assigned to the\njudgment of children, but nevertheless it has a really great importance.\nThe instinct of the child chooses with astonishing accuracy what is\nfirst-class. But what, in the case of the child, has this character?\nThis question has been answered by Goethe, \"The greatest fortune of the\nearth's children is personality alone.\"\n\nAt the present time objectivity in instruction is exalted, but every\ngreat educator has achieved success by being entirely subjective. The\nteacher should be a lover of truth. Therefore he should never force a\nresisting object to serve his own views. As a result of this attitude,\nthe more subjective he is, the better. The fuller and richer he\ncommunicates to the children the essence and power of his own view of\nlife and his own character, so much the more will he forward their real\ndevelopment, provided, however, that he does not force upon them his\nopinions with the claim of infallibility. In this as in all other\nmatters, the young should be allowed to exercise free choice.\n\nThe teachers of both sexes in my school will have short hours of work, a\nlong time to rest, and a large salary; that is, they will have the\npossibility of a continuous development. The limit of their service will\nbe twenty years. After this period, they will become members of a school\njury composed of parents and teachers, or they will assist in final\nexaminations, as censors. These will be conducted as indicated above, in\nsuch a way that each censor shall pass a summer either at home or\nabroad, in company with young people, not more than five in number. By\nliving with them the censor will be able to measure their capacity for\nabsorbing an education; he can direct them in the choice of a\nprofession. By a \"Socratic\" communication of practical wisdom, he will\nsupply a substitute for the Confirmation Instruction which will no\nlonger be given. The psychological value of this instruction is not to\nbe actually found in what one learns from it, but in the direction of\nthe mind to the serious questions and pursuits of life, in the awakening\nof ethical self-development, which is the factor of supreme importance\nin passing from childhood to youth. In this way the young will be\ninitiated into the art of life. I mean by this the art of making one's\nown personality, one's own existence, an object of artistic interest and\npursuit. The initiation will be conducted by a wise man, or by a woman\nwho has kept her youthfulness, so that she understands the joys and\npains of the young, their play and their seriousness, their dreams and\naspirations, their faults and their dangers--leaders who can give\nindirect suggestions how young people should play their own melodies in\nthe orchestra of life.\n\nMy school will not come into existence while governments make their\ngreatest sacrifices for militarism. Only when this tendency is overcome,\na point in development will be reached, where one can see that the\ndearest school programme is also the cheapest. People will realise that\nstrong manly brains and heart have the greatest social value. I have\nalready said that this is no reform plan for the present that I am\noutlining here, only a dream for the future. But in our wonderful\nexistence dreams are becoming at last actual realities.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Since I wrote the above, there have been founded in\nEngland, France, also in Norway, reformed schools, working more or less\nin the direction I have outlined.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nRELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION\n\n\nAt the present moment the most demoralising factor in education is\nChristian religious instruction. What I mean by this is principally\ncatechism, Scripture history, theology, and church history. Even earnest\nChristians have said, regarding the ordinary instruction in these\nsubjects, that nothing shows better how deeply religion is rooted in\nman's nature than the fact that \"religious education\" is not able to\ndestroy religion.\n\nBut beside this, I believe that even a more living, a more actual\ninstruction in Christianity injures the child. Children should bring\nthemselves by themselves to live in the patriarchal world of the Old\nTestament; indeed, in the world of the New Testament as well. This can\nbe done best in the form of children's Bibles. These works will be\ntreasured by children; they will find in them infinite material for\nnourishing the imagination and the emotions. But this can only be done\nby allowing children to read the Bible undisturbed, without the need of\npedagogical or dogmatic explanation. At home this book, like other\nchildren's books, should be only talked about and explained when the\nchild requests it. It should never be treated as a school book or appear\non the school desk. If the child gets impressions in this way from the\nBible, freed from all other authority, apart from the subjective one of\nthe impressions themselves, the myths of the Bible will no more\ncontradict the rest of his instruction, than the Scandinavian story of\ncreation or the Greek legends of the gods.\n\nBut the most dangerous of all educational mistakes in influencing\nhumanity, is due to the fact, that children are now taught the Old\nTestament account of the world as absolute truth, although it wholly\ncontradicts their physical and historical instruction. Besides children\nlearn to regard the morality of the New Testament as absolutely binding,\nwhile its commands are everywhere seen to be transgressed by the child,\nthe moment he takes his first step into life. Our whole industrial and\ncapitalistic society rests on a contradiction of the Christian command\nto love one's neighbour as one's self. The capitalistic axiom is that\nevery man is nearest neighbour to himself.\n\nThe eyes of children are here and in similar cases, clear-sighted in\ntheir simplicity. At a tender age they are able to observe whether their\nsurroundings are in living accord with Christian teaching. From a\nfour-year-old child, with whom I was talking about Jesus' commandment to\nlove one another, I received the reply, \"If Jesus really said so, Papa\nis no Christian.\" Before long the child gets into conflict with his\ninstructors and with the commands of Christianity. A small child in a\nSwedish city took the word of Jesus about charity to heart. Not only his\nplaythings, but his clothes he gave to the poor; his parents cured, by\ncorporal punishment, this practical type of Christianity. A teacher who\nwas impressing on a small girl in a Finnish city the commandment to love\none's enemies, received as an answer that this was impossible, for no\none in Finland could love Bobrikoff.\n\nI know the sophism used in both cases to overcome the invulnerable logic\nof the child; but I also know how these sophisms make hypocrisy so\nnatural among Christians, that it is now unconscious. It would take a\nnew Kirkegaard to shake up our consciences. Everywhere Rousseau's words\nhold true, \"The child gets high principles to direct him, but he is\nforced by his surroundings to act according to petty principles, every\ntime he wishes to put the high ones into practice.\" He goes on to say\npeople have innumerable \"ifs\" and \"buts,\" by which the child has to\nlearn that great principles are only words, that the reality of life is\nsomething quite different.\n\nThe dangerous thing is not that the ideal of Christianity is high; it\ncomes from the fact that every ideal in its essence is unattainable. The\nnearer we get to it the more lofty it is. This is the characteristic of\nevery ideal. But the demoralising feature in Christianity as an ideal\nis, that it is presented as absolute, while man as a social being is\nobliged to transgress it every day. Besides he is taught in his\nreligious instruction, that as a fallen being he cannot in any case\nattain the ideal, although the only possibility of his living\nrighteously in temporal things, and happily in the world to come,\ndepends on his capacity for realising it.\n\nIn this net of unsolvable contradictions, generation after generation\nhas seen its ideal of belief obscured. Gradually each new generation has\nlearned not to take its new ideal seriously. As to the cowardly or\nbraggart concessions to the idiocies of fashion, and the follies by\nwhich people are ruined in order to live according to their position,\namong other psychological grounds for man's lack of steadiness must be\nplaced, as its ultimate cause, the following: The child, along with\nreligion, has breathed in the conviction that opinions are one thing,\nactions another. This experience goes through the whole of life, even in\nthe case of those who have lost the conviction that the Christian\nreligion is absolute. The free-thinker is married, has his children\nbaptised, and allows them to be confirmed, without considering whether\nhe is forced to it by his own wish, or the wish of doing like other\npeople. The republican sings the royal hymn, sends loyal salutations by\ntelegraph, accepts decorations,--but I must break off, otherwise I\nshould have to enumerate all the small acts of insincerity to one's\nself, of which the daily life of most people consists, and which are\ndefended under the name of non-essentials; I could never get to the end.\nThis is not the way the Christian martyrs thought who might have freed\nthemselves from death by casting a few grains of incense on the\nemperor's altar. Two grains of incense,--what an unimportant matter,\nthinks the modern man, and with quiet conscience he daily sacrifices to\nmany gods in whom he does not believe.\n\nHow illogical Protestantism is too, and yet for so long it possessed a\nspiritually educative power, while its dualism was unsuspected, while\none with full sincerity gave to holiday and work day its due share. But\nnow that a new Protestantism is come to life within the fold of\nProtestantism, this method of speaking in two voices is deeply\ndemoralising.\n\nPiece by piece has been torn down that system of teaching which the\nCatholic church built up, so wonderfully adapted to the psychological\nneeds of the majority of people. It formed its fundamental creeds, just\nas they still remain, on the deepest experiences of mankind. But\nProtestantism is ever looking back from the results of its own\nhandiwork.\n\nIn home, in the school, in the high school, during military service, in\noffice work, everywhere passive dependence is insisted on under the name\nof discipline, discretion, faithfulness to duty. And like all the fine\nwords, by which the living souls of men are turned into the slaves of\ndiscipline, these terms exalt _esprit de corps_, and pass over really\nserious faults. Discipline means subordinating one's self to every crude\nforce. Only when all Protestants really become actual Protestants, and\nrefuse to receive the greatest good of life, their religion, through\nauthority, will they begin even in social and political questions to\nattain an independent opinion of their own. As teachers and leaders,\nthey will secure for school children, and for students, for officers and\nfor officials, the freedom in word and deed that is the right of the\ncitizen and the man. Men and women, who in their private life are\nstrictly honourable, have learnt, in general questions, to put their\nthoughts, their acts, under the command of a leader, and above all they\nhave learnt to do this in the name of religious belief.\n\nThe courage to construct one's own opinion in everything that makes the\nessential worth of life, but chiefly in one's religious belief, the\npower to express it, the will of making some sacrifice for it, all these\ngive man a new share of civilisation and culture. As long as education\nand social life do not consciously forward this kind of courage, power,\nand will, the world will remain as it is, a parade ground of stupidity,\ncrudeness, force, and selfishness, no matter whether radicals or\nconservatives, the democratic or aristocratic elements, have the upper\nhand.\n\nThe most demoralising of all principles of belief was the discouraging\nteaching that human nature was fallen and incapable of reaching holiness\nby its own effort--the teaching that one could only come through grace\nand forgiveness of sins into a proper relation with temporal and eternal\nthings. For those below the ordinary level, this position of grace\nproduced spiritual stagnation, not to speak of the business people, who\ndaily allowed the blood of Jesus to wipe out their day's debit in the\nscore of morality. Only those who were naturally superior increased in\nholiness on being convinced that they were children of God in Christ.\nMankind, on the whole, showed the deep demoralisation of a double\nmorality. This dualism commenced as soon as the first Christians ceased\nto expect the return of Jesus,--an expectation which brought their life\ninto real unity with his teaching. But this double morality has for\nnineteen hundred years retained man's soul and the social order in\npractical heathenism. Although some pure and great spirits really\nreceived aid from Christianity in their longings for infinity, and\nalthough in the Middle Ages many strong hearts tried seriously to\nrealise its teaching, yet the majority of mankind lived and lives still\nin wavering irresolution. This is the result of having no place to\nanchor to while the citizens of antiquity had an ethic, which could be\ntranslated into reality and could turn them into sincere, steadfast\npersonalities.\n\nSince nineteen hundred years have proved that there is no possibility,\nin a humanly constructed society, of living according to the teaching of\nJesus, as a practical, infallible rule of holiness, man can escape this\nimmoral duplicity only in one way: the way already travelled over by\nmany separate individuals, who with Prometheus cry out, \"Hast thou not,\nthyself, completed all, O holy glowing heart!\" In other words, these\nindividuals have become convinced that Christianity is the product of\nhumanity. Just as little as any other product of humanity does it\nexhaust absolute and eternal truth.\n\nWhen men cease to teach their children belief in an eternal providence,\nwithout whose will no sparrow falls from the roof, they will be able,\ninstead of this, to imprint on the minds of children the new religious\nconception of the divinity of a world, proceeding according to law. The\nnew morality will be built on this new religious idea. It will be filled\nwith reverence for the absolute conjunction of cause and effect--a\nconnection which no grace can remove. Man's actions will really be\ndirected by this certainty. He will not rock himself to sleep in any\nsort of hope, based on providence or a reconciliation, able to defer\nsurely fixed effects. This new morality, strengthened by the realities\nof life, admits of logical consequences. No single command of this\nteaching needs to remain an empty phrase. In its system, too, there will\nbe a place to apply all the eternal profound words uttered by Jesus or\nby other great human souls. These words will ever furnish further\nmaterial for application, which is the same as saying material for\nself-application. Yet the application will be worked out in complete\nfreedom. Each word will be used as furnishing the material just suited\nto that style which men wish to apply to the architecture of their\npersonality. Yet neither the words nor the examples of one or the other\nteacher will be taught as absolutely binding.\n\nThe soul of the child will not be stained by tears of repentance for\nsins nor by the fear of hell. It will not be stained by a realism\nwithout ideas and without ideals, by the contemptuous mistrust, which\nthe mouldering effects of fine words leave behind, like cold damp\nspots. The weak, as well as the strong, will progress in the happy and\nresponsible belief in their own personality, as their only source of\nhelp. The pulse of their purpose will be strong and warm with red blood.\nThey will not be forced to humility; they will not accept even equality\nwith all others, or with any other one. On the contrary they will be\nstrengthened in their right, to give their own individual stamp to their\njoys, their sufferings, and their works. They will be warned to do their\nbest because it is their own; to seek their highest good, by drawing\ntheir own boundaries at the place where the rights of others begin.\n\nWhile the home and the school make compromises between two opposed views\nof life, people obtain from neither of them any real good for the\neducation of children. I have already shown how in one and the same\nschool religious instruction and a certain amount of knowledge and love\nfor nature as well as history can be communicated. In one and the same\nschool the course of natural development and history can be taught in\nconnection with instruction in religious history. In this instruction\nJudaism and Christianity will receive the first place. So the reverence\nand love children were wont to acquire for the personality and morality\nof Jesus, previously obtained in the Bible, can be increased. Guided by\nsincere and serious purposes one can select either plan. But, during\nreligious instruction, to make Moses and Christ the absolute teachers of\ntruth, and in the hours devoted to natural history, to expound\nDarwinism, cause more than anything else that want of logic, that moral\nlaxity and flaccidity that can effect nothing and want nothing.\nEverything I have learnt, since these words were written, has\nstrengthened a hundred fold my previous convictions that the most\nessential thing is not, what kind of view of life we have--this may be\nimportant enough too--but that we have enough capacity of faith to\nappropriate for ourselves some view of life, enough force to bring it to\nreality in life. But nothing works more depressingly on the ethical\nenergy of growing generations than the dualistic view of life, received\nat the present time at school. The school too must exercise its choice;\nthere must be no compromise between two schemes of education and two\nviews of life, if the strength of will and the power of faith in young\npeople is not to be broken. The question of a compromise is in this\ncase not a question of application; it is a most important question of\nprinciple in education.\n\nSince I set down these words, many points of view have been brought out\nin this connection. One which made a sensation when it was published, in\n1890, was Professor Dodel's book, _Moses or Darwin?_ The author showed\nhow deeply Darwinism was implanted in science and in civilisation; how\npopular education was restricted, because it was kept remote from the\nscientific views of the present day and forced into the circle of\necclesiastical ideas. Religious instruction is simply a crime against\nthe psychological law of development. For children are taught by a\ntheological system to think about abstract conceptions, while they are\nin no condition to do it. The worst is, he said, that in high schools\nthe theory of development is now taught as scientific truth, while in\nthe common schools, built and maintained by the same government, the\nmyth of the Mosaic story of creation continues to be taught, in the\nsharpest contrast with what science and living nature teach the child.\nThis is an immoral and dishonest state of affairs that must be brought\nto an end.\n\nIt is my deepest conviction that man, without religion in the emotional\nelement of his nature, can pursue no ideal ends, cannot see beyond his\nown personal interest, cannot realise great purposes, cannot be ready to\nsacrifice himself. Religious enthusiasm broadens our soul, binds us to\nthe acts we hold as ideals. But because Christianity weighs upon the\nsoul and can no longer be the connecting link of all factors in our\nconduct, earnest men are abandoning it more and more, influenced by\npurely religious reasons. Such men should not have their children\nbrought up as Christians, under the excuse that the child requires\nChristianity. Here, as in other cases, in which adults are not agreed\nabout what the child needs, we should try to get, not from adults but\nfrom children themselves, some information about their real needs. In\nthis way we can learn that the child himself begins at a very early\nperiod to be concerned with the eternal riddles of mankind, to be\ntroubled with the questions of whence and whither. At the same time one\ndiscovers that the sincere and honest childish nature is opposed to the\nChristian explanation of the world, until the child's sincerity is\ndulled and he either takes without question what is taught, or in his\nown soul denies what his lips must repeat, or finally allows his heart\nto be possessed by the only nourishment offered to his religious needs.\n\nMy own recollections of childhood caused me to make observations of the\nreligious ideas of children at an early period. I have now before me\ncomprehensive accounts of this investigation, going back twenty-five\nyears. I recollect my own fierce hate against God, when I, at the age of\nsix years, heard of the death of Jesus being caused by God's demand for\nan atonement, and at ten years I recall my denial of God's providence,\nwhen a young workman died far away from his wife and his five children,\nto whom his existence was so necessary. My brooding about the existence\nof God took on this occasion the form of a challenge. I wrote in the\nsand, \"God is dead.\" In doing so I thought, If there is a God, he will\nkill me now with a thunderbolt. But since the sun continued to shine,\nthe question was answered for the time being; but it soon turned up\nagain. I had no other religious instruction than reading the Bible on\nSunday, preaching on Sunday, and reading from the catechism, which, by\nthe way, was never explained. Yet the New Testament belonged to my play\nbooks; I learnt in it to love Jesus as profoundly as other great\npersonalities of whom I read. But during the confirmation period, I\nreceived explanations of the Bible; in them every point, every name in\nthe Gospel was explained, every sentence made the basis of\nhair-splitting distinctions, to show the fulfilment of prophecies and\nthe edifying hidden meaning of every word, that formerly seemed so\nsimple. The dogma of the Trinity for example was shown to be contained\nin the second verse of Genesis. This was a terribly sad discovery for\nme, that the living book of my childish heart and my childish\nimagination could be so stone dead. That religious indifference is a\nfrequent result of religious instruction, that spiritual maladies come\nfrom the desire to convert the souls of children, numerous proofs can be\ngiven. I have heard children of six years speak with holy horror of\ntheir four-year-old brother who dug with a spade on Sunday. On the other\nhand I have heard a six-year-old child who was dragged in one day to\nthree church services ask after reflection whether it was not more\ntolerable to go to hell immediately.\n\nThe Judaic Christian conception of a creative and sustaining providence,\nwhich gives the fullest perfection to all things, is so absolutely\nopposed to all that experience and evolution teaches us about existence,\nthat one cannot even conceive of the possibility of holding both ideas\ntheoretically at the same time. Much less can one practically unite them\nby the paste of compromise. The child with sharp-sighted simplicity does\nnot allow himself to be deceived. If we do not wish to speak the truth\nthen let us not speak to children about life at all--life in its unity\nand diversity, its manifold creative acts, its process of continuous\ncreation, its eternal divine subjection to law.\n\nBut this means that it is impossible to save the Christian God for\nchildren, after the child begins to think about this God, in whom he is\ntaught blind confidence. Nor can the child be prepared in this way for\nthe new conception of God with its religious, its uniting and elevating\npower, I mean for the conception of a God whose revealed book is the\nstarry heavens, and whose prophetic sight is in the unfathomable sea,\nand in the deeps of man's heart, the God who is in life and is life.\nNothing shows better how imperfect is the real belief of modern\nthinkers, than the fact that they always teach their children a system\nwhich they do not wish to live by spiritually themselves, but which\nthey hold as indispensable for the moral and social future of the child.\n\nWhen we pass from the conception of providence to the conception of sin,\nwe find in children the same natural logic. A small girl, an only child,\nasked: \"How could God allow his only child to be killed? You could not\nhave done it to me!\" And a small boy said, \"It is a very good thing for\nus that the Jews crucified Christ, so that nothing happened to us.\"\nThese are both poles of an emotional and a practical way of looking at\nthe Atonement. Within them all similar circumferences are drawn. To a\nmore comic and na\u00efve sphere of ideas belongs the proposal of a small\ngirl to call the Virgin Mary God's wife. Also there is the story of a\nboy who spoke in school of Our Lord and the two other Lords, meaning the\nTrinity.\n\nFrom the classes in Bible history and catechism, there are innumerable\nexamples of children reading the words incorrectly, and misunderstanding\nthe ideas they stand for. A boy, warned to keep the lamps burning,\nanswered contentedly, \"We have petroleum gratis.\" Another, asked whether\nhe would like to be born again, said, \"No, I might be turned into a\ngirl.\" These are typical examples. There is an anecdote of a child,\nwho, on being consoled with the statement that God was in the dark near\nher, asked her mother to put God out and light the lamp. Another child,\nseeing the pictures of the Christian martyrs in the arena, cried out\nsympathetically, \"Look at that poor tiger; he hasn't got a Christian.\"\nThese are a few out of a mass of examples, typical of the explanation\ngiven by children to the religious ideas they receive, notions forcing\nthem into a world of ideas which they either accept in a material sense,\nor by which they are absolutely nonplussed.\n\nThe childish circle of ideas is revealed by anecdotes of this kind, or\nby the comment of a small girl who asked when she heard that she had\nbeen born about eleven o'clock at night, \"How could I have remained out\nso late?\" These examples show that such conceptions as original sin, the\nfall of man, regeneration and salvation, are first necessarily\nmeaningless words, and afterwards terribly difficult words. In my whole\nlife fear of hell never absorbed my attention for five minutes, but I\nknow children and grown people who are martyrs to this terror. I know\nchildren too who, when belief in hell was presented to them in school as\nabsolutely necessary, bewailed that their mother had said she did not\nbelieve in hell, and therefore thought she must be very wicked.\n\nWe are certainly a long way off from those times when, to use the\npicturesque expression of an historian of civilisation, \"The fear of the\ndevil constantly darkened the life of men, as the shadow of the sails of\na windmill darkens the windows of the miller\"; far from the times, too,\nwhen divine persons constantly revealed themselves to the believer, and\nwhen miracles belonged just as really to the daily habits of thought as\nto-day they are disregarded even by the believer. But so long as belief\nin the devil, providence and miracles is upheld in religious\ninstruction, it will be impossible for the sunshine of the civilised\nview, which is the scientific as opposed to the superstitious view, to\npenetrate the darkness where the bacilli of cruelty and insanity are\nnurtured.\n\nThe ideas children form of heaven are generally fine examples of\nchildish realism. A child thought his brother could not be in heaven,\nbecause he would have to climb a ladder, and so would be disobedient,\nfor he had been forbidden to climb one. A girl asked, when she heard\nthat her grandmother was in heaven, whether God was sitting there and\nholding her from falling out. These are a few of the many proofs of the\nchild's sense of reality, that leads to mistaken answers here, as in so\nmany other instances. If it is said by way of protest that the childish\nimagination needs myths and symbolism, the answer is an easy one. We\ncannot and should not rob the child of the play of imagination, but play\nshould not be taken in earnest. It is not to be wondered at that\nchildren construct for themselves realistic ideas about spiritual\nthings. This practice is no more to be opposed, than any of the other\nexpressions of the life of the child's soul. But when these false ideas\nare presented as the highest truth of life, they must disturb the sacred\nsimplicity of the child.\n\nI know children in whom the origin of unbelief is to be traced to the\nwords of Jesus, that everything asked for by the believing heart will be\nreceived. A small child, locked up in a dark room, prayed that God might\nshow people how badly he was being treated, by causing a lamp of\nprecious stones to be lit in the dark. Another asked to have a sick\nmother saved; another prayed by the side of a dead companion that she\nmight rise again. For all these three, the experience of having their\nmost believing, most fervent prayer unanswered, was the great turning\npoint in their spiritual life. I can authenticate from my own experience\nand the experiences of others the ethical revolt which the cases of\ninjustice in the Old Testament--for example God's preference of Jacob\nover Esau--occasion in a healthy child. The explanations offered in this\ncase and in others like it fill the child with silent contempt. When the\nchild ends in finding that adults themselves do not believe the religion\nthey teach, the childish instinct for belief and for reverence, that\ncapacity which is the real ground for all religious feeling, is injured\nfor life.\n\nI will say nothing of the heroes and heroines of the pious literature\nwritten for children, with their stories of conversion and holiness.\nParents are able to protect their children from them. I speak here only\nof that way of looking at the world, which is forced on children with or\nagainst the will of their parents. This degrades their conceptions of\nGod, of Jesus, of nature. These conceptions, the child if left to\nhimself can develop simply or powerfully. It is this way of looking at\nthe world that causes unnecessary suffering and dangerous prejudices.\nThe inclination of the child to deep religious feeling, sound faith,\nand ardent zeal for holiness will be strengthened by an ability to draw\nthe standards of life as freely from the Bible as from the world's\nliterature. The same result will be produced by books on other\nreligions, like Buddhism, from the great religious personalities who\nillustrate the struggle for an ideal, and from such children's books as\nshow like efforts in a healthy form. No child has the slightest need of\nthe catechism or theology for his religion or for his training; no other\nchurch history is needed than that connected with the general history of\nthe world. In this last study the chief stress should be laid in\nteaching on the errors, in order to impress on the young the conviction,\nthat all new truths are called by their contemporaries \"errors.\" In\nother words these \"errors\" are the best negative material man has for\ndiscovering the truth.\n\nWorking over and explaining the contradictions met with by the child in\nsuch religious instruction, as I am outlining here, belongs to the\npreparation for a true life, in which people have to put up with\ninnumerable contradictions. But this personal work injures neither the\npiety nor the soundness of the child's soul. Such injuries come rather\nfrom irritating pietism or vain hypocrisy, from spiritual fanaticism,\nfrom deceits of the reason, barrenness of soul, or perverted feeling of\nright, all of which are the notorious results of Christian training and\nChristian instruction, given according to the usual methods of the\npresent day. For the present as well as for the future, a child will be\nable to solve more easily these spiritual problems if his fine feeling\nfor right and his quick logic have not been dulled by the dogmatic\nanswers to those eternal problems, that place him in as much difficulty\nas the thinker.\n\nKant exposed long ago the most serious injuries of the kind of religious\ninstruction which still prevails. He showed that by making the church's\nteaching the basis of morality, improper motives were assigned to\naction. A thing must be avoided, not because God has forbidden it, but\nbecause it is in and for itself wrong. Man must aim at good, not because\nheaven or hell awaits the good or the bad, but because good has a higher\nvalue than evil. To this point of view of Kant there must be added the\ntruth, that a position is ethically weakening, when man is presented as\nincapable of doing good by his own power. So he is told in this as in\nall other cases, he must be humble and trust in God's help. Confidence\nin our strength and the feeling of our own responsibility have a strong\nmoral influence. The belief that man is sin-laden, without chance of\nchange, has led him to remain where he is.\n\nIf the future generation is to grow up with upright souls, the first\ncondition of such growth is to obliterate from the existence of children\nand young people, by a mighty scratch of the pen, the catechism, Bible\nhistory, theology and church history.\n\nWe must bow down before the infinities and mysteries of our earthly\nexistence and of the world beyond. We must distinguish between and\nselect real ethical values; we must be convinced of the solidarity of\nmankind, of man's individual duty, to construct for the benefit of the\nwhole race a rich and strong personality. We must look to great models.\nWe must reverence the divine and the regular in the course of the world,\nin the processes of development of man's mind. These are the new lines\nof meditation, the new religious feelings of reverence and love, that\nwill make the children of the new century strong, sound, and beautiful.\n\nThese changes will destroy that idea of God that combines \"God help us\"\nwith our victories, that has increased the national lust for conquest,\nthe passion for mastery, the instinct of gain. It will be felt that\nmixing up God in the standards of human passions is blasphemous. People\nwill see, that patriotism, nourished on egoism and ambition, is the most\ngodless thing because the most inhuman of all the life-perverting sins\nwith which man outrages the holiness of life.\n\nIntellects which can now pass over the contradiction between\nChristianity and war, which can even derive strength and consolation\nfrom them, have been depraved by the ideas forced upon mankind through\nthousands of years. Nothing more can be expected from men of such\nbrains, than that they should die in the wilderness, without ever\nobtaining a sight of the promised land.\n\nBut the brains of children can be protected from the most unholy of all\nmental misconceptions, from the superstition that the patriotism, and\nthe nationalism, which injures the rights of others, have something in\ncommon with ideas about God.\n\nLet children be taught that national characteristics, the use of force,\nthe right of independent action, is as essential for a people as for an\nindividual, that it is worth every sacrifice. Let them be taught that,\non their appreciation of the nature of their country, of its life in\nthe past and in the present, depends their own development. Let them be\ntaught to dream beautiful inspiring dreams of the future of their\ncountry, of their own work, as the necessary foundation of this future.\n\nThey should be taught at an early age to understand the deep gulf\nbetween patriotic feeling and the egoism which is called patriotism.\nThis is the patriotism in whose name small countries are oppressed by\ngreat countries, in whose name nineteenth-century Europe has armed\nitself under the stimulus of revenge, in whose name the close of the\ncentury witnessed the extension of violence in north and south, in west\nand east.\n\nMilitarism and clericalism, both principles presenting authority as\nopposed to individual standards of right, are ever closely combined; but\nthey are not what they are called. They are not patriotism and religion.\nThese two words involve a sense of common citizenship, of freedom, of\njustice, exalted above the narrow sphere of the individual, of the\ninterests of class, of the interests of one's own country. Such are the\nprinciples which unite different groups within a land in great interests\ncommon to all, just as they unite different peoples in great vital\nquestions common to all. But militarism and clericalism oppress freedom\nby the principles of authority, oppress the idea of individual\ndevelopment, by that of discipline, oppress the feeling of common weal\nby the desire for glory and war, oppress the feeling for right by the\nfeeling for military honour. In Germany under the badge of Christianity\nand militarism, the civil rights of the citizen, his claims for social\nfreedom, have been seriously menaced. Hypnotised by these principles\nmany members of the Russian, French, and English nations, respectable as\nthey are individually, have gloated over the deeds of unrighteousness\ncommitted by their respective governments.\n\nAll this will go on; people will continue to be burdened to the ground\nby ever increasing military preparations. The rights of the small\nnations will be constantly encroached upon by the larger ones, even\nafter the present world powers, like those that have preceded them, have\nbroken down under the burden of their own expansion. It will continue to\nbe so, until mothers implant in the souls of their children the feeling\nfor humanity before the feeling for their country; until they strive to\nexpand the sympathies of their children to embrace all living things,\nplants, animals, and men; until they teach them to see, that sympathy\ninvolves not only suffering with others but rejoicing with others, and\nthat the individual increases his own emotional capacity, when he learns\nto feel with other individuals and with other peoples. It will go on, as\nit is now, until mothers implant in the souls of their children the\ncertainty, that the patriotism which, in the name of national interests,\ntreads under foot the rights of other people, is to be condemned. The\nmoment children undertake to act as adults, we shall see a harmony\nbetween ideas so taught and facts. When the conception of nationalism in\nthe child's mind is freed from injustice and arrogance; when the idea of\nGod is freed from its debased union with a selfish patriotism, then the\nidea of the soldier will be ennobled. It will no longer be identified\nwith blind obedience and limited class courage. The word will come to\nmean a man and a fellow-citizen with the same civilised interests, the\nsame conception of law, the same need of freedom, the same feeling for\nhonour, as all other fellow-citizens. The soldier will be a defender of\nhis fatherland, whose character will have no other warlike traits, than\nthose called forth for the protection of sacred human and civil rights.\n\nSelf-defense, personal or national, will be imprinted on the child as\nthe first of duties, not as it is represented in the commands of\nChristianity. Or to speak more accurately the child has this instinctive\nfeeling; all that need be done is not to confuse this instinct. The\nchild understands quite well, that evil men, when not resisted, become\nlords over the property of others. He knows that the low and the\nunrighteous get the victory, and that right-thinking and high-minded\npeople are sacrificed by unrighteous and low-thinking people. The\nimpulse to resistance is the first germ of the social feeling for\nrighteousness, and by this feeling will the unreflecting judgment of the\nchild be led also in the study of history. The child never doubts that\nWilliam Tell was right, even when, in his instruction in religion, he\nhas been definitely taught obedience to the powers that be, that come\nfrom God. Every straight childish soul applauds Andreas Hofer, despite\nhis uncompromising conflict with lawful authority. With his natural\ndirectness the child cuts off all sophisms; at least all children do who\nare not irrevocably stupefied by Christian principles.\n\nTo conclude what I have said against religious instruction, I will add a\nstatement of a ten-year-old child, made after three years struggling\nwith the catechism and biblical history: \"I do not believe any of this,\nbut I hope, when men are some day wise enough, each person may have his\nown belief, just as each one has his own face.\"\n\nThis small philosopher in these words hit unconsciously upon the most\nserious spiritual injury done by religious instruction. It forces on\nman's mind a special view of the world, like a conventional mask on a\nman's face. But freedom and the rights of the soul's life can only be\nsecured by its own reflections. The soul itself must work out that\nassurance of belief in which man can live and die. For generations the\ngreat spiritual dangers of mankind have been caused by looking backwards\nto find the ideal and the truth, by regarding both as once for all\ngiven, as absolutely limited.\n\nAs soon as a child becomes conscious of himself he should feel that he\nis a discoverer with infinities before him. The king's son, in the realm\nof life, will no longer do menial service as a prodigal son in a foreign\nland. With the whole power of his will, he can repeat those old words,\n\"I will arise and go to my father.\"\n\nWhen Jaquino di Fiori in the Middle Ages preached of the Kingdom of the\nFather, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, till his hair became as silvery\ngrey as the leaves of the olive tree, he compared these three realms\nwith the nettle, the rose, and the lily, the light of the stars, the\nsunlight, and the sun.\n\nIn all the ends of the world this preaching is being heard now. But that\ndream of a Third Kingdom, pure as the lily, warm as the sun, can only be\nrealised in the temper of the child who looks for life and happiness,\nwho brushes away joyously and frankly the clouds of man's fall and man's\nhumiliation.\n\nWithout becoming as little children, men cannot enter into the Third\nKingdom, the Kingdom of the Holy Ghost, the Kingdom of the human\nspirit.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCHILD LABOUR AND THE CRIMES OF CHILDREN\n\n\nLeaving aside questions of heredity and kindred topics, and considering\nonly the conditions under which the child is born, developed, and\nreared, it is terrible to contemplate the misfortunes which happen to\nchildren through lack of insight on the part of their mothers. Doctors\nare never tired of telling what malformations tight-lacing causes. How\nmany children in the first year of their life become blind through\nneglect. We only mention here some of the troubles which crude ignorance\nor lack of conscience on the part of the mothers inflict on themselves\nor on their children. There must be noticed too the uncertainty and the\nwant of system in the care of children that come from such ignorance. A\nthorough improvement in all these things is not to be expected until\nwomen have secured universal suffrage, and until they, at the same age\nin which men serve their years of military service, are legally obliged\nto pass through a period of training lasting just as long, devoting\nthemselves to the care of children, hygiene, and sick nursing. No other\nexceptions must be made, except those which exempt a man from military\nservice. Such duties done for one's country would come for many women\njust at the time in which their interest in the subject is awakened by\nmarrying or the thought of marrying. This training would give a\nprofounder meaning to their thoughts on this subject. But even women who\nnever become mothers themselves would in this way learn certain general\nprinciples of psychology, hygiene, and care of the sick, that they might\nmake use of afterwards in every station of life. Further, I look for\nincreasing limitations of the right of parents over children. Such\nlimitations I mean as those which have forbidden the exposure of\nchildren, have imposed penalties for child murder, for cruelty towards\nchildren, and the laws which have enforced obligatory attendance at\nschool. In England there are organisations which investigate the\ntreatment of children at home and which prevent cruelties against them.\nMothers who forget their duties can be reported and punished with\nimprisonment; neglectful fathers can be made to support their children,\netc.; and where parents show themselves hopelessly incompetent children\ncan be taken from them by law. In the different states of Germany there\nare also laws which allow children to be taken from parents who, through\nmisuse of that relationship, injure the child's spiritual or bodily\nwelfare. Children receive this so-called compulsory training in cases,\ntoo, where it is necessary to preserve them from moral destruction. The\ncompulsory training may be carried out either in a suitable family or in\ninstitutions; it continues up to the eighteenth year. A notable\nprovision is that which places the supervision over such children, in\nthe hands of women.\n\nAn increased extension of the right of society in this direction is one\nof its most important provisions for self-protection, and is just as\nlegitimate a limitation of individual freedom, as the laws to prevent\nthe extension of contagious diseases. Unfortunately such regulations are\noften made ineffective by red tape. The parents or guardians of the\nneglected child must be admonished; the unruly child must be warned, and\nif this is not sufficient, the law provides that it must be disciplined.\nAll of these provisos are absolutely senseless in such cases. By such\nwarnings bad parents are not instructed in the art of training their\nchildren, nor is an incorrigible child to be led by admonitions to\nchange its character, if he is left in the surroundings which have\ncaused his degeneration. By corporal punishment administered in the\npresence of witnesses, a child already accustomed to cuffs and blows is\nmade more hardened and shameless. A person with only a superficial\nknowledge of the subject, enough to understand the causes which produce\nsuch parents and such children, soon realises that he is concerned in\neach detail with the infinite horizon of the social question. It is\nclear for example that low wages, combined with the work of women and\nchildren, are the main factors in poor dwellings, insufficient food, and\nbad clothing. The fact that the wife works out of the house causes the\nneglect of the children and the home. The lodging-house system is the\nresult of the lack of dwellings; want of comfort at home causes the\nhusband to frequent saloons and public houses. All these factors, taken\ntogether, cause immorality and intemperance; these last again produce\nthose physical and mental diseases to which children are often heirs at\ntheir birth.\n\nLeaving out of discussion the notion that by God's help the\nbattlefields are covered with torn, maimed beings, with whose destroyed\nbrains innumerable thoughts and feelings are extinguished which could\nhave enriched humanity, I know no more abnormal idea than the custom of\npeople speaking of a guardian angel when a chance has kept two children\nfrom an accident. Where is this guardian angel in the innumerable other\ncases of misfortune: when children remain alone because their mother\nmust go to work and they fall out of the window or into the fire? When\nthey lose their eyesight in dark cellars? When they are pressed to death\nbecause in miserable lodgings they have to share a bed with their\nparents? When the parents are drunk and the children lose their lives?\nWhere is this guardian angel when parents murder their children, from\nreligious fanaticism or disgust of life: when the children themselves,\ntired of life or through fear of parental cruelty, take their own lives?\nWhere are these protective angels on the occasions when they are most\nwanted?--in the narrow streets of great cities, in the great industrial\ncentres where lack of sunlight, of pure air, and of all the other\nprimary conditions for the development of soul and body, undermines the\nbodily strength and efficiency of children before their birth?\n\nTo see the hand of Providence in an accidental case of preservation,\nwhile the same Providence is released from all share in natural\noccurrences, from all part in the terrible phenomena of society, that\nfill every second of the earth's existence with terror, is a relic of\nsuperstition to be overcome if man is to be filled with a sense of\nobligation to conditions he must master and mould. Modern man is ever\nbecoming more and more his own Providence; he has already protected\nhimself against fire by fire engines and fire insurance; against the sea\nby life-saving stations; against smallpox and cholera, diphtheria and\ntuberculosis, he has found other means of defence. The blind belief that\ndeath is dependent on God's will man is losing by the witness of\nstatistics which declare that duration of life increases with improved\nsanitary condition; which show that when disease or summer heat mows\ndown the children of the poor in dark tenements the rich man can\npreserve his own children in his healthy, light dwelling.\n\nEvery man who has his heart in the right spot does not wait for an\nangel, but rushes to save a child from danger. But the superstitious\nbelief of the majority of people in God's Providence perhaps will cause\nthe same man to regard with complete apathy conditions by which millions\nand millions of children are yearly sacrificed. Doctors know that the\ndestruction caused by bacteria is insignificant, as compared with\npauperism as a cause of disease. Mothers who have over-exerted\nthemselves, drunken fathers, bad dwellings, like those where the poor\ndry out newly built houses for the rich, induced by the low rate of\nrents, insufficient nourishment, inherited diseases, especially\nsyphilis, too early work,--all this shows its result in the emaciated,\nshrivelled, ulcerated bodies of children who occasionally are cured of\ntheir momentary disease in hospitals, but cannot be freed from the\nresults of the conditions of life under which they were born and brought\nup. The efforts of doctors will be in vain while they, like the other\nfactors in society, do not devote their whole energy to avoiding\ndiseases, instead of healing them. What they can now do in the way of\nprevention is but a palliative in comparison with the incurable evil\nwhich flourishes in abundance. The situation will remain as it is so\nlong as hygiene does not receive the same attention in society as the\nsoul. This solicitude may take the form of religious edification, or\nintellectual enlightenment, but it remains nothing but a cut flower,\nstuck in a dust heap.\n\nIt is possible, with sufficient certainty, to show from criminal\nstatistics that degenerate children are the creation of society itself.\nBy allowing them to be forced into \"the path of virtue,\" by punishment,\nsociety behaves like a tyrant, who has put out a man's eyes and then\nbeats him because he cannot by himself find his road.\n\nThe categorical imperative for the social consciousness at the present\nmoment, is an effective legislation for the protection of children and\nwomen.\n\nWherever industry is developed, the woman is taken away from the home,\nthe child from play and school. In the period of guilds, women and\nchildren worked in the house, and in the workshop of the husband. But\nsince the factory system has constantly restricted the household work of\nwoman, industrial occupations on the scale of modern capitalism can\nsatisfy its needs for cheaper work by woman's work. This like children's\nwork has forced down in many places the pay of adult workmen. The pay\nwith which a married man can care for his family by his work is now\ndivided among several members of the family. As long as special work\nrequired great personal bodily strength or developed manual dexterity,\nit fell as a rule to the men, not to women or children. But the natural\nprotection of women and children disappeared with the introduction of\nmachinery. In many cases working a machine required neither strength nor\ndexterity. In other cases, like cotton spinning or mining, delicate\nfingers were more valued because they were more adaptable, tender bodies\nmore desirable because they were smaller.\n\nIn England the work of women and children first reached its highest\npoint. The poorhouses sent crowds of children to the wool weaving\nindustry in Lancashire, children who worked in shifts at the same\nmachine and slept in the same dirty beds. The population in the\nindustrial districts pined away, as the result; diseases unknown before\ncame into existence; ignorance and roughness increased. Women and\nchildren from four to five years old worked fourteen to eighteen hours.\nThe report of the investigations made on this subject caused Elizabeth\nBarrett to write her poem, \"The Cry of the Children\" that made the\nemployers of children so indignant, but which helped to produce the Ten\nHour bill. This bill laid down that women, children, and young persons\nshould not work more than ten hours a day in textile factories. This law\nwas succeeded by others of the same type. Similar conditions in other\nlands have produced similar legislation. In Saxony, Belgium, Alsace, and\nthe Rhine Provinces the results of the system seemed to be just as\nfrightful as in England. On the Rhine, as early as the year 1838, a\nPrussian army officer noticed that the number of those able to bear arms\nhad diminished as a result of the degenerating influence of woman and\nchild labour. But notwithstanding the introduction of this legislation\ngenerally, the labour of women and children continues. It takes the most\ndestructive forms in those occupations which lie outside of the sphere\nof legislation. There are places in which child labour is as shocking as\nit was in England in 1848. In Russia, in the Bastmat weaving industry,\nchildren of three or four years have been found at work; and masses of\nchildren under ten working as much as eighteen hours a day. In Germany\nthe toy industry can show as cruel figures in connection with children's\nwork, all the more cruel because in order to provide enjoyment for happy\nchildren the living energy of others is forced out of existence.\nIndustrial work at home is done by children four to five years old,\nwhile the age limit for child labour in factories, both in Germany and\nin Switzerland, is fourteen years. The government of Denmark has\nproposed the same limit of age. In Italy most of the crippled young\nchildren were brought up in the sulphur districts of Sicily, crowded\ntogether in low galleries, burdened with heavy sacks at an age at which\ntheir tender limbs under such conditions must inevitably and incurably\nbe contorted. As early as twelve and thirteen years old many of them are\nincapable of work. In the magnesium mines of Spain, quantities of\nchildren six to eight years old are kept at work; through the poisonous\nodours they fall victims to severe diseases. Other children carrying\nheavy pitchers on their head are employed to water dry places. The child\nis a cheaper means of transportation than the ass.\n\nDespite protective legislation the average of height and weight in the\nLancashire children is and continues to be lower than anywhere else. Of\nthe two thousand children investigated in this district only one hundred\nand fifty-one were really sound and strong; one hundred and ninety-eight\nwere seriously crippled; the rest more or less under the standard of\ngood health. All work in the cotton industry done from six o'clock in\nthe morning till five in the evening changes, so this doctor says, the\nhopeful ten-year-old child into the thin pallid thirteen-year-old boy.\nThis degeneration of the population in industrial districts is becoming\na serious danger for England's future.\n\nAfter people are convinced that all civilised nations are exposed to\nthis same danger, industrial and street work of children will be\neverywhere forbidden. This will be a victory for the principle of child\nprotection, which, in this as in other like spheres, was opposed at\nfirst on both economic and industrial grounds. Among these was the\nuncontested right of fathers to decide on the work of their children.\n\nIt is not alone the question of child labour that reveals the low\nstandpoint taken by the civil authorities of Europe, but it is proved\nalso by the introduction of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is\nas humiliating for him who gives it as for him who receives it; it is\nineffective besides. Neither shame nor physical pain have any other\neffect than a hardening one, when the blow is delivered in cold blood\nlong after the act occasioning it has been done. Most of the victims\nare so accustomed to blows already that the physical effect is little or\nnothing, but they awaken feelings of detestation against a society which\nso avenges its own faults. If the soul of the child is sensitive,\ncorporal punishment can produce deep spiritual torment, as was the case\nwith Lars Kruse, the hero of Skagen, who some years ago met his death by\ndrowning. Everybody knows his story from the fine account of him by the\nDanish poet, Drachmann. Lars, in his childhood, had taken a plank, a\npiece of driftwood, and sold it. For this he was condemned to be\npunished. Till late in life, what he had suffered was ever present with\nhim. He was not ashamed of his action but of his punishment--a\npunishment which embittered the whole life of a really great character.\n\nThe blows administered by society are inflicted on children whose\npoverty and neglected education are in most cases responsible for their\nfaults. The victims, often emaciated by hunger, and trembling with shame\nor terror, can experience no spiritual emotion fit to be the basis of\nmoral shame.\n\nIf the statistics of the life-history of those who are so disciplined\nwere revealed, we should find that the majority come from, and return\nto, a home where the mother, as a result of working out of the home, is\nhindered from caring for her children. They have suffered from the\ncustom of sleeping together, the result of overcrowded dwellings, with\nits demoralising influence. It may be the child has commenced to make\nhis living on the street as messenger, cigar picker, or newspaper boy,\nor has been engaged in such like occupations, and so in his immediate\nneighbourhood has seen the luxurious living of the upper classes, which\nhe strives to imitate. Hardly a week passes that the street youngster\ndoes not read about the embezzlements, fraudulent acts in the\ncapitalistic classes, frequently committed by grey-headed men, whose\nchildish impressions go back to the good old time, on whom the lax\neducation of the present could not have any influence. No day passes in\nwhich he does not see how the representatives of the upper classes, old\nand young alike, satisfy their desires for pleasure. But from the child\nof the tenement and the street, people expect Spartan virtue or try to\nthrash it into him. It is hard to say which is greater here, stupidity\nor savagery.\n\nWhile the upper classes show that they are crude, immoderate, lazy,\ndevoted to enjoying themselves; while the majority are aiming at\ngetting and spending money; while so many are able to eat without\nworking, and so few can find work who look for it; while careless luxury\nlives side by side with careless necessity, the upper class has not the\nshadow of right to expect an improved lower class. The society of the\npresent day creates and maintains a social system whose effects are\nnotorious in the economic crimes of the upper and lower class alike. It\nis not surprising that great cities are full of tramps and street\nurchins, like a spoilt cheese full of maggots.\n\nA destroyed home life, an idiotic school system, premature work in the\nfactory, stupefying life in the streets, these are what the great city\ngives to the children of the under classes. It is more astonishing that\nthe better instincts of human nature generally are victorious in the\nlower class, than the fact that this result is occasionally reversed.\n\nThere is another argument against child labour, to be found in its\nimmediate effect on industry itself.\n\nWorking men trained in the schools are everywhere notoriously most\nefficient; even in Russia, where popular education is still so\ndefective, this experience has been noted. The working man able to read\nand to write receives without exception on that account a higher pay\nthan the illiterate ones who can be only used for the coarsest kind of\nwork. The present development of German industry, as compared with\nEnglish, is to be ascribed among other things to the superior\neducational training of the German people. The intensive and intelligent\nwork of the American working man has apparently the same cause. But when\nchildren made sleepy by work in the factory enter evening schools, or\nwhen children are taken too early from school, they lose under\ncontinuous hard work the desire and possibility of adapting themselves\nto a higher education; they become organic machines which feed the\ninorganic ones. This must cause the value of their work to decline.\nThese organic machines are passive, they do not try to improve their\ncondition of life, as do the higher workmen. Besides living machines\ncannot increase the product of labour. Intelligent working men who watch\nover their own rights and increase them are also those who learn easiest\nnew methods of work, discover new inventions which are of advantage to\ntheir line of work, and so increase the value of their product. It is\nonly by the growth of this class of workmen, that any country to-day\ncan stand the pressure of foreign competition. But the chief condition\nof this growth is that the bodily and mental powers of the child shall\nbe used for his own development in school games and play; at the same\ntime his capacity for work must be trained by occupation at home and in\nthe technical school, not by work in a factory.\n\nSome years ago, a poem created a furore over the whole civilised world,\nfrom Canada to the islands of Polynesia. The author of this poem, Edwin\nMarkham, was inspired by Millet's simple and wonderful picture, _The Man\nwith the Hoe_. An agricultural labourer with bowed back stands there,\none hand folded on the other, supported on the handle of the hoe. Millet\nin him has eternalised the expression so often observed in old workmen,\nespecially in those who are worn out by day labour. The man's face is\nempty, says nothing, every human aspect has disappeared; we only see in\nhis face the look of the patient beast of burden. For while moderate\nwork ennobles the animal in man, immoderate work kills humanity in the\nbeast.\n\nMillet's picture was to the poet, who was once himself a slave to bodily\nlabor, a revelation, the eternal artistic type of the generation of man\nbowed down from childhood under the yoke of labour. In one strophe after\nanother of that finely conceived poem he pictures this being that does\nnot sorrow, and never hopes, his destroyed soul for which Plato and the\nPleiades, the sunrise and the rose, all the treasures of mind and\nnature, are nothing. The poet asks sovereigns, masters, and governors\nhow they will restore to this thing a soul, how they will give it music\nand dreams. What, he asks, will become of the people who have made this\nbeing what it is now; when after a thousand years' silence God's\nterrible question is answered,--What has become of his soul.\n\nMany such employers of labour go to church, they hear explanations of\ntexts like these, \"Inasmuch as ye did it unto ... even the least of\nthese, ... ye did it unto me. All that ye wish others should do to you,\nthat do to them.\" It does not occur to them to think how Jesus, the most\ninconsiderate of men, at the right place, would have characterised their\ndemands to have small children employed in glass works at ten years of\nage. It never occurs to them to ask whether they would like to see their\nown children in these factories or others like them.\n\nThis complete dualism between life and teaching in our present-day\nsociety will continue to exist until people realise that the opinions\nabout life which are expressed by the lips, but are denied by deeds,\nshould no longer be proclaimed as an absolute explanation of life and\nrule of life. The permanent element in Christianity can only be realised\nthrough the conviction that mankind is master of Christianity just as it\nis over all its other creations. The ardent idea of the Galilean\ncarpenter, fraternity among men, will give man no rest until man has\nwiped out the last trace of injustice in his social relations. But the\nthought will not be realised by those ideals regarded by Jesus as\nabsolute. This is the point of view which has crippled man's conscience\nand it applies equally to the realisation of this and all other ideals.\nAn ideal impossible to carry out under the ordinary assumptions of human\nlife, yet to which men have given the authority of a divine revelation,\nand which they conceive of as absolute, this is the main cause for the\ndemoralisation which has gone on for nineteen hundred years. The history\nof humanity has really revealed to men how this absolute ideal of theirs\nhas been betrayed. The cause of this demoralisation must cease before\nexistence can be remodelled seriously by those who are convinced that\nideals can really be binding.\n\nPeople will then not do as they do now, misuse the name of the Father,\nwhom Jesus has taught men to proclaim with their lips, will not murder\none another _en masse_ on the battlefield, to solve political and\neconomic questions of supremacy. A society which calls itself Christian\nwill no longer tolerate capital punishment, prostitution, stock exchange\ngambling, and child slavery. Men will not then as they do now, learn on\ntheir mother's breast to love their neighbours as themselves, and then\ntread in the footsteps of their fathers, trampling one another down in\nthe struggle for bread.\n\nOur reverence for God will then be found in our capacity to humanise\nexistence by humanising the human race.\n\nThe youth of our day have not always successfully passed out of the\nChristian circles of ideals into another circle. The successful method\nwould be to face immediately new purposes and aims that are really\nbelieved, and for which men wish to live. But many of our young\ngeneration know of no new purposes and aims in which they can believe.\nHence comes that spiritual apathy which has mastered a great part of\nthe young generation. Without undervaluing the influences of\nenvironment, I still believe that young people who have lost their\nideals without getting new ones in their place are to be pitied. The\nyoung who are not making ideals out of their own souls will have no\nother time than this to find ideals. A generation of young men of this\ntype laughed at Socrates. They would have nailed Jesus of Nazareth to\nthe Cross, with a shrug of the shoulders; they would have become,\nundoubtedly, in 1789, _emigr\u00e9s_ with the Bourbons.\n\nWhen the youth of any period remains without ideals, we pass through a\n_fin de si\u00e8cle_ period no matter what the exact date may be. But when\nthe young generation is inspired with the feeling of having great acts\nto do, a new century begins. It is always the fortunate right of young\npeople to stimulate individualism before everything else. This is done\nevery time a young person full of sound egoism develops his own\npersonality completely and powerfully, throws himself keenly into the\nstruggle for his own fortune. Any one who takes his individual\ndevelopment seriously will find that it is hard to become an\nindependent, noble, and exalted personality by treading underfoot other\nindividuals. He will moreover see that it makes more demands on his\npersonal powers to try to create new values by new means, to devote his\nyouthful energy to new tasks, than to look back to ideas that are\nalready exhausted. There is another truth the young man will soon find\nto be valid. If an individual throws himself into the struggle of life\nwithout consideration for any one else, he is all the more likely to get\nhurt in the struggle. The more developed, too, an individual is, the\nmore assailable points there are about him to be wounded. Great pain, as\nwell as great happiness, is for great men a part of the fulness of life.\nFailures of a personality are often better proofs that it is above the\naverage than its victories. But failures, even if they frequently leave\nour innermost personality shattered, can be borne, when we have learnt\nthat there is a bandage to heal our own wounds, the bandage, I mean,\nthat we lay on the wounds of others.\n\nNo real man needs to wait until life has taught him, to sympathise with\nothers. The inspiring age of youth may experience this, as well as the\nstrong individual feeling of power. In this sense, many remain ever\nyoung, always able to pass through inspired moments, such moments when\na great action, a great truth, a great and beautiful thing, or great\ngood fortune, absorbs our whole existence; moments when our eyes fill\nwith tears, when our arms stretch out to embrace the world and the\nthoughts which it contains. Such moments include the most intensive\nemotion of our own personality; at the same time they bring the fullest\nabsorption in the common feeling of existence as a whole. A great life\nmeans giving continuity of action to such inspired moments.\n\nThere are young people who can look back on no such moments, who\narrogantly look down on the problems of their times from the height of\ntheir \"superman\" theories or from their superior learning; who measure\nthem by the iron law of historical development. At all times there have\nbeen such people. There is no question in which it is more fatal for\nyoung people to isolate themselves, than that which deals with social\nconflicts. This age requires the young above all others to test this\nquestion from all points of view, to investigate all other ideas in\nconnection with it. Every reform plan must be investigated in connection\nwith its influence on the problems of individualism and socialism. From\nyouth we have a right to expect something for the future. This hope\nimplies that youth, in approaching it, in thinking and acting for the\nmany whose lot it is the immediate task of the future to improve, adopt\nas their own the words of Walt Whitman, \"I do not ask whether my wounded\nbrother suffers; I will myself be this wounded brother.\"\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENTS\n\n\n_A Selection from the Catalogue of_\n\nG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS\n\nComplete Catalogues sent on application\n\n\n_Clever, original, and fascinating_\n\n\nThe Lost Art of Reading\n\n_Mount Tom Edition_\n\nNew Edition in Two Volumes\n\nI. The Child and the Book\n\nA Manual for Parents and for Teachers in\nSchools and Colleges\n\nII. The Lost Art of Reading\n\nor, The Man and The Book\n\n_Two Volumes, Crown 8vo. Sold separately._\n\n_Each net, $1.50_\n\nBy Gerald Stanley Lee\n\n\"I must express with your connivance the joy I have had, the enthusiasm\nI have felt, in gloating over every page of what I believe is the most\nbrilliant book of any season since Carlyle's and Emerson's pens were\nlaid aside. The title does not hint at any more than a fraction of the\ncontents. It is a highly original critique of philistinism and\ngradgrindism in education, library science, science in general, and life\nin general. It is full of humor, rich in style, and eccentric in form\nand all suffused with the perfervid genius of a man who is not merely a\nthinker but a force. Every sentence is tinglingly alive, and as if\nfurnished with long antenn\u00e6 of suggestiveness. I do not know who Mr. Lee\nis, but I know this--that if he goes on as he has been, we need no\nlonger whine that we have no worthy successors to the old Brahminical\nwriters of New England.\n\n\"I have been reading with wonder and laughter and with loud cheers. It\nis the word of all words that needed to be spoken just now. It makes me\nbelieve that after all we haven't a great kindergarten about us in\nauthorship, but that there is virtue, race, sap in us yet. I can\nconceive that the date of the publication of this book may well be the\ndate of the moral and intellectual renaissance for which we have long\nbeen scanning the horizon.\"--WM. SLOANE KENNEDY in _Boston Transcript_.\n\nNew York--G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS--London\n\n\n_A Book for Parents and Teachers_\n\n\nUp Through Childhood\n\nA Study of Some Principles of Education in\nRelation to Faith and Conduct\n\nBy\n\nGeorge Allen Hubbell, Ph.D. (Columbia)\n\nVice-President of Berea College\n\nWith Introduction by\n\nDr. Frank M. McMurray\n\nTeachers College, N. Y.\n\n_12mo. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.40_\n\nThe book is divided into four parts: Part I., dealing with the School of\nLife, in which are discussed (1) life as opportunity, (2) that aim of\neducation which will make it possible to use this opportunity aright,\nand (3) the institutions of education which, as environment, contribute\nto the unfolding and instruction of the child. Part II. deals with the\nteacher in relation to his work as a quickener, and then passes to the\nteacher's preparation, his relation to the Bible, and last and best his\nrelation to the child. Part III. deals with the young being in all\nstages of his growth from birth to adult life, first taking up the broad\nquestion of man's place in nature, and dealing with that as fundamental\nto all further interpretation. The other topics concern themselves with\nman's reaction on environment, with the development of the mental powers\nand the placing of these in due relation to each other, with the\ntraining of the child's faith, with the specific consideration of the\nboy's and girl's experiences to adult life, and with the rounded life.\n\nNew York--G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS--London","title":"The Century of the Child","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":70178}