What Is and What Might Be

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WHAT IS AND WHAT
MIGHT BE

A STUDY OF EDUCATION IN GENERAL AND
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN PARTICULAR

BY

EDMOND HOLMES

AUTHOR OF
"THE CREED OF CHRIST," "THE CREED OF BUDDHA," "THE SILENCE
OF LOVE," "THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE," ETC.

LONDON
CONSTABLE & COMPANY
1912

First published, May 1911.
Second impression, July 1911.
Third impression, September 1911.
Fourth impression, November 1911.
Fifth impression, January 1912.
Sixth impression, October 1912.

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|Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All |
|other inconstancies in spelling or punctuation are as in the original.|
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PREFACE

My aim, in writing this book, is to show that the _externalism_ of
the West, the prevalent tendency to pay undue regard to outward and
visible "results" and to neglect what is inward and vital, is the
source of most of the defects that vitiate Education in this country,
and therefore that the only remedy for those defects is the drastic
one of changing our standard of reality and our conception of the
meaning and value of life. My reason for making a special study of
that branch of education which is known as "Elementary," is that I
happen to have a more intimate knowledge of it than of any other
branch, the inside of an elementary school being so familiar to me
that I can in some degree bring the eye of experience to bear upon
the problems that confront its teachers. I do not for a moment
imagine that the elementary school teacher is more deeply tainted
than his fellows with the virus of "Occidentalism." Nor do I think
that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other
educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because,
though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so
deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to
eradicate. Also there is at least a breath of healthy discontent
stirring in the field of elementary education, a breath which
sometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams of sunshine,
whereas over the higher levels of the educational world there hangs
the heavy stupor of profound self-satisfaction.[1] I am not
exaggerating when I say that at this moment there are elementary
schools in England in which the life of the children is emancipative
and educative to an extent which is unsurpassed, and perhaps
unequalled, in any other type or grade of school.

I am careful to say all this because I foresee that, without a
"foreword" of explanation, my adverse criticism of what I have called
"a familiar type of school" may be construed into an attack on the
elementary teachers as a body. I should be very sorry if such a
construction were put upon it. No one knows better than I do that the
elementary teachers of this country are the victims of a vicious
conception of education which has behind it twenty centuries of
tradition and prescription, and the malign influence of which was
intensified in their case by thirty years or more[2] of Code
despotism and "payment by results." Handicapped as they have been by
this and other adverse conditions, they have yet produced a noble
band of pioneers, to whom I, for one, owe what little I know about
the inner meaning of education; and if I take an unduly high
standard in judging of their work, the reason is that they
themselves, by the brilliance of their isolated achievements, have
compelled me to take it. I will therefore ask them to bear with me,
while I expose with almost brutal candour the shortcomings of many of
their schools. They will understand that all the time I am thinking
of education in general even more than of elementary education,
and using my knowledge of the latter to illustrate statements and
arguments which are really intended to tell against the former. They
will also understand that at the back of my mind I am laying the
blame of their failures, not on them but on the hostile forces which
have been too strong for many of them,--on the false assumptions of
Western philosophy, on the false standards and false ideals of
Western civilisation, on various "old, unhappy, far-off things," the
effects of which are still with us, foremost among these being that
deadly system of "payment by results" which seems to have been
devised for the express purpose of arresting growth and strangling
life, which bound us all, myself included, with links of iron, and
which had many zealous agents, of whom I, alas! was one.

PART I

WHAT IS

OR

THE PATH OF MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE

CHAPTER I

SALVATION THROUGH MECHANICAL OBEDIENCE

The function of education is to foster growth. By some of my readers
this statement will be regarded as a truism; by others as a
challenge; by others, again, when they have realised its inner
meaning, as a "wicked heresy." I will begin by assuming that it is
a truism, and will then try to prove that it is true.

The function of education is to foster growth. The end which
the teacher should set before himself is the development of
the latent powers of his pupils, the unfolding of their latent
life. If growth is to be fostered, two things must be liberally
provided,--nourishment and exercise. On the need for nourishment I
need not insist. The need for exercise is perhaps less obvious, but
is certainly not less urgent. We make our limbs, our organs, our
senses, our faculties grow by exercising them. When they have reached
their maximum of development we maintain them at that level by
exercising them. When their capacity for growth is unlimited, as in
the case of our mental and spiritual faculties, the need for exercise
is still more urgent. To neglect to exercise a given limb, or organ,
or sense, or faculty, would result in its becoming weak, flabby, and
in the last resort useless. In childhood, when the stress of
Nature's expansive forces is strongest, the neglect of exercise will,
for obvious reasons, have most serious consequences. If a healthy
child were kept in bed during the second and third years of his life,
the damage done to his whole body would be incalculable.

These are glaring truisms. Let me perpetrate one more,--one which is
perhaps the most glaring of all. The process of growing must be done
by the growing organism, by the child, let us say, and by no one
else. The child himself must take in and assimilate the nourishment
that is provided for him. The child himself must exercise his organs
and faculties. The one thing which no one may ever delegate to
another is the business of growing. To watch another person eating
will not nourish one's own body. To watch another person using his
limbs will not strengthen one's own. The forces that make for the
child's growth come from within himself; and it is for him, and him
alone, to feed them, use them, evolve them.

All this is--

"As true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth."

But it sometimes happens that what is most palpable is least
perceptible; and perhaps it is because the truth of what I say is
self-evident and indisputable, that in many Elementary Schools in
this country the education given seems to be based on the assumption
that my "truisms" are absolutely false. In such schools the one end
and aim of the teacher is to do everything for the child;--to feed
him with semi-digested food; to hold him by the hand, or rather by
both shoulders, when he tries to walk or run; to keep him under close
and constant supervision; to tell him in precise detail what he is to
think, to feel, to say, to wish, to do; to show him in precise detail
how he is to do whatever may have to be done; to lay thin veneers of
information on the surface of his mind; never to allow him a minute
for independent study; never to trust him with a handbook, a
note-book, or a sketch-book; in fine, to do all that lies in his
power to prevent the child from doing anything whatever for himself.
The result is that the various vital faculties which education might
be supposed to train become irretrievably starved and stunted in the
over-educated school child; till at last, when the time comes for him
to leave the school in which he has been so sedulously cared for, he
is too often thrown out upon the world, helpless, listless,
resourceless, without a single interest, without a single purpose in
life.

The contrast between elementary education as it too often is, and as
it ought to be if the truth of my "truisms" were widely accepted, is
so startling that in my desire to account for it I have had recourse
to a paradox. "Trop de verite," says Pascal, "nous etonne: les
premiers principes ont trop d'evidence pour nous." I have suggested
that the inability of so many teachers to live up to the spirit, or
even to the letter, of my primary "truism," may be due to its having
too much evidence for them, to their being blinded by the naked light
of its truth.

But there may be another explanation of the singular fact that a
theory of education to which the teacher would assent without
hesitation if it were submitted to his consciousness, counts for
nothing in the daily routine of his work. Failure to carry an
accepted principle into practice is sometimes due to the fact that
the principle has not really been accepted; that its inner meaning
has not been apprehended; that assent has been given to a formula
rather than a truth. The cause of the failure may indeed lie deeper
than this. It may be that the nominal adherents of the principle are
in secret revolt against the vital truth that is at the heart of it;
that they repudiate it in practice because they have already
repudiated it in the inner recesses of their thought. "This people
draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their
lips; but their heart is far from me." Tell the teacher that the
function of education is to foster growth; that therefore it is his
business to develop the latent faculties of his pupils; and that
therefore (since growth presupposes exercise) he must allow his
pupils to do as much as possible by and for themselves,--place these
propositions before him, and the chances are that he will say "Amen"
to them. But that lip assent will count for nothing. One's life is
governed by instinct rather than logic. To give a lip assent to the
logical inferences from an accepted principle is one thing. To give a
_real_ assent to the essential truth that underlies and animates the
principle is another. The way in which the teacher too often conducts
his school leads one to infer that the intuitive, instinctive side of
him--the side that is nearest to practice--has somehow or other held
intercourse with the inner meaning of that "truism" which he repeats
so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic to the traditional
assumptions on which he bases his life. Or perhaps this work of
subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being done for
him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by the
genius of the land in which he lives.

Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything)
for the children whom he professes to educate? One obvious answer to
this question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the
"Education Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him.
For a third of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to
examine every child in every elementary school in England on a
syllabus which was binding on all schools alike. In doing this, they
put a bit into the mouth of the teacher and drove him, at their
pleasure, in this direction and that. And what they did to him they
compelled him to do to the child.

So far as the action of the "Education Department" was concerned,
this policy was abandoned--in large measure, if not wholly--in 1895;
but its consequences are with us still. What conception of the
meaning and purpose of education could have induced "My Lords" to
adopt such a policy, and, having adopted it, to adhere to it for more
than thirty years? Had one asked "My Lords" at any time during those
thirty years what they regarded as the true function of education,
and had one suggested to them (as they had probably never turned
their minds to the question) that the function of education was to
foster the growth of the child, they might possibly have given an
indolent assent to that proposition. But their educational policy
must have been dictated by some widely different conception. They
must have believed that the mental progress of the child--the only
aspect of progress which concerned educationalists in those
days--would best be tested by a formal examination on a prescribed
syllabus, and would best be secured by preparation for such a test;
and they must have accepted, perhaps without the consent of their
consciousness, whatever theory of education may be implicit in that
belief.

In acting as they did, "My Lords" fell into line with the
Universities, the Public Schools, the Preparatory Schools, the Civil
Service Commissioners, the Professional Societies, and (to make a
general statement) with all the "Boards" and "Bodies" that
controlled, directly or indirectly, the education of the youth of
England. We must, therefore, widen the scope of our inquiry, and
carry our search for cause a step farther back. How did the belief
that a formal examination is a worthy end for teacher and child to
aim at, and an adequate test of success in teaching and in learning,
come to establish itself in this country? And not in this country
only, but in the whole Western world? In every Western country that
is progressive and "up to date," and in every Western country in
exact proportion as it is progressive and "up to date," the
examination system controls education, and in doing so arrests the
self-development of the child, and therefore strangles his inward
growth.

What is the explanation of this significant fact? In my attempt to
account for the failure of elementary education in England to foster
the growth of the educated child, I have travelled far. But I
must travel farther yet. The Western belief in the efficacy
of examinations is a symptom of a widespread and deep-seated
tendency,--the tendency to judge according to the appearance of
things, to attach supreme importance to visible "results," to measure
inward worth by outward standards, to estimate progress in terms of
what the "world" reveres as "success." It is the Western standard of
values, the Western way of looking at things, which is in question,
and which I must now attempt to determine.

That I should have to undertake this task is a proof of the
complexity of education, of the bewildering tanglement of its
root-system, of the depths to which some of its roots descend into
the subsoil of human-life. The defect in our system of education
which I am trying to diagnose is one which the "business man," who
may have had reason to complain of the output of our elementary
schools, will probably account for in one sentence and propound a
remedy for in another. But I, who know enough about education to
realise how little is or can be known about it, find that if I am to
understand why so many schools turn out helpless and resourceless
children, I must go back to the first principles of modern
civilisation, or in other words to the cardinal axioms of the
philosophy of the West.

This does not mean that I must make a systematic study of Western
metaphysics. Professional thinkers abound in the West; but the rank
and file of the people pay little heed to them. It is true that they
take themselves very seriously; but so does every clique of experts
and connoisseurs. The indirect influence of their theories has at
times been considerable; but their direct influence on human thought
is, and has always been, very slight. For the plain average man, who
cannot rid himself of the suspicion that the professional thinker is
a professional word-juggler, has a philosophy of his own which was
formulated for him by an unphilosophical people, and which, though it
is now beginning to fail him, was once sufficient for all his needs.

At the present moment there are two schools of popular thought in the
West. For many centuries there was only one. For many centuries men
were content to believe that the outward and visible world--the world
of their normal experience--was the all of Nature. But they were not
content to believe that it was the "all of Being." The latter
conception would have said "No" to certain desires of the heart which
refuse to be negatived,--desires which are as large and lofty as they
are pure and deep: and in order to provide a refuge for these,
men added to their belief in a natural world which was bounded
by the horizon of experience (as they understood the word), the
complementary belief in a world which transcended the limits of
experience, and in which the dreams and hopes for which Nature could
make no provision might somehow or other be realised and fulfilled.
With the development of physical science, the conception of the
Supernatural has become discredited, and a materialistic monism has
begun to dispute the supremacy of that dualistic philosophy which had
reigned without a rival for many hundreds of years. But antagonistic
as these philosophies are to one another, they have one conception in
common. The popular belief that the world of man's normal experience
is the Alpha and Omega of _Nature_, is the very platform on which
their controversies are carried on. Were any one to suggest to them
that this belief was without foundation, that there was room and to
spare in Nature for the "supernatural" as well as for the normal,
that the supernatural world (as it had long been miscalled) was
nothing more nor less than "la continuation occulte de la Nature
infinie,"--they would at once unite their forces against him, and
assail him with an even bitterer hatred than that which animates them
in their own intestine strife.

The dualistic philosophy which satisfied the needs of the West for
some fifteen centuries was systematised and formulated for it, in the
language of myth and poetry, by an Eastern people. The acceptance of
official Christianity by the Graeco-Roman world was the result of
many causes, two of which stand out as central and supreme. The first
of these was the personal magnetism of Christ, in and through which
men came in contact with, and responded to, the attractive forces of
those moral and spiritual ideas which Christ set before his
followers. The second was the readiness of the Western mind to accept
the philosophy of Israel,--a philosophy with the master principles of
which it had long been subconsciously familiar, and for the clear and
convincing presentation of which it had long been waiting. Of the
personal magnetism of Christ and the part that it has played in the
life of Christendom, I need not now speak. My present concern is to
show how the philosophy of Israel--accepted nominally for Christ's
sake, but really for its own--has influenced the educational policy
of the West.

In the Old Testament the Western mind found itself face to face with
the philosophical theories--theories about the world and its origin,
about Man and his destiny, about conduct and its consequences--to
which its own mythologies had given inadequate expression, but which
the poetical genius of a practical people was able to formulate to
the satisfaction of a practical world. In the philosophy of Israel
"Nature" was conceived of, not as animated by an indwelling life or
soul, but as the handiwork of an omnipotent God. In six days--so runs
the story--"God created the heavens and the earth." Whether by the
word which we translate as "days" were meant terrestrial days or
cosmic ages matters nothing, for in either case the broad fact
remains that according to the Biblical narrative the work of creation
occupied a definite period of time, and that on a certain day in the
remote past the Creator rested from his labours, surveyed his
handiwork, and pronounced it to be very good.

His next step was to stand aside from the world that he had made,
leave it to its own devices and see how it would behave itself in the
person of its lord and his viceroy,--Man. That the Creator should
place Creation on its trial and that it should speedily misbehave
itself, may be said to have been preordained. The idea of a Creator
postulates the further idea of a Fall. The finished work of an
omnipotent Creator is presumably good,--good in this sense, if in
no other, that its actualities must needs determine the creature's
ideals and standards of good. But the world, as Man knows it, seems
to be deeply tainted with evil. How is this anomaly to be accounted
for? The story of the Fall is the answer to this question. Whether
modern theology regards the story of the Fall as literally or only as
symbolically true, I cannot say for certain. The question is of minor
importance. What is of supreme importance is that Christian theology
accepts and has always accepted the consequences of the _idea_ of the
Fall, and that in formulating those consequences it has provided the
popular thought of the West with conceptions by which its whole
outlook on life has been, and is still, determined and controlled.

The idea of the Fall, as dramatised by Israel and interpreted by the
"Doctors" of the West, gives adequate expression--on the highest
level of his thinking--to the crude dualism which constitutes the
philosophy of the average man. Hence the immense attractiveness of
the idea to the practical races of the West,--to peoples whose chief
idea is to get their mental problems solved for them as speedily, as
authoritatively, and as intelligibly as possible, that they may thus
be free to devote themselves to "business," to the tangible affairs
of life.

Let us follow the philosophy of the Fall into some of its more
obvious consequences. The Universe (to use the most comprehensive
of all terms) is conceived of as divided into two dissevered
worlds,--the world of Nature, which is fallen, ruined, and accursed,
and the Supernatural world, which shares in the perfection and
centres in the glory of God. Between these two worlds intercourse is,
_in the nature of things_, impossible. But Man is not content that
his state of godless isolation should endure for ever. As a thinker,
he has exiled God from Nature and therefore from his own daily life.
But, as a "living soul," he craves for reunion with God; and so long
as the gulf between the two worlds remains impassable, his philosophy
will be felt to be incomplete. A supplementary theory of things must
therefore be devised. Corrupt and fallen as he is, Man cannot hope
to climb to Heaven; but God, with whom nothing is impossible, can at
his own good pleasure come down to earth. And come he will, whenever
that sense of all-pervading imperfection which exiled him, in its
premature attempt to explain itself, to his supernatural Heaven, is
realised in man's heart as a desire for better things. But what will
be the signs of his advent? The philosophy of the Fall is at no loss
for an answer to this question. There was a time when Nature was
the mirror of God's face. But it is so no longer. The mirror was
shattered when Adam fell. Henceforth it is only by troubling the
waters of Nature, by suspending the operation of its laws, by turning
its order into confusion, by producing _supernatural_ phenomena, or
"miracles" as they are vulgarly called, that God can announce his
presence to Man.

The question of the miraculous is one into which we need not enter.
Let us assume that God can somehow or other come to Man, and that
Man can somehow or other recognise God's presence and interpret his
speech. We have now to ask ourselves one vital question. With what
purpose does God visit the world which has forfeited his favour, and
what does he propose to do for ruined Nature and fallen Man? For
Nature, nothing. For Man, to provide a way of escape from Nature.
The dualism of popular thought must needs control the very efforts
that men make to deliver themselves from its consequences. The
irremediable corruption of Man's _nature_ is the assumption on which
the whole scheme of salvation is to be hinged. His deliverance from
sin and death will be effected, not by the development of any natural
capacity for good, but by his being induced to quit the path (or
paths) of Nature, and to walk, under Divine direction, in some new
and narrow path.

But how will this end be achieved? That Man cannot discover the path
of salvation for himself will, of course, be taken for granted. The
catastrophe of the Fall has corrupted his whole nature, and has
therefore blinded him to the light of truth. "The way of man is not
in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." The
promptings of his own nature, which he would follow if left to
himself, can do nothing but lead him astray. It will also be taken
for granted that the path of salvation is a path of action. When the
whole inward disposition is hopelessly corrupt, the idea of achieving
salvation by growing, by bringing one's hidden life to the perfection
of maturity, must perforce be abandoned. It is only by _doing_ God's
will that Man can hope to regain his favour. One thing, then, is
clear. Man must be told in exact detail what he is to do and also
(should this be necessary) how he is to do it. In other words, an
elaborate Code of Law, covering the whole range of human life and
regulating all the details of conduct, must be delivered by God to
Man. If Man will obey this Law he will be saved. If he will not obey
it, he will be lost.

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