Spontaneous Activity in Education Part 15

increases in degree as its dependent muscles perfect themselves and so achieve the necessary conditions for seconding its efforts.

It would certainly never occur to any one that in order to educate the voluntary motility of a child, it would be well first of all to keep it absolutely motionless, covering its limbs with cement (I will not say fracturing them!) until the muscles become atrophied and almost paralyzed; and then, when this result had been attained, that it would suffice to read to the child wonderful stories of clowns, acrobats and champion boxers and wrestlers, to fire him by such examples, and to inspire in him an ardent desire to emulate them. It is obvious that such a proceeding would be an inconceivable absurdity.

And yet we do something of the same kind when, in order to educate the child's "will," we first of all attempt to annihilate it, or, as we say, "break" it, and thus hamper the development of every factor of the will, subst.i.tuting ourselves for the child in everything. It is by _our_ will that we keep him motionless, or make him act; it is we who choose and decide for him. And after all this we are content to teach him that "to will is to do" (_volere e potere_). And we present to his fancy, in the guise of fabulous tales, stories of heroic men, giants of will, under the illusion that by committing their deeds to memory a vigorous feeling of emulation will be aroused and will complete the miracle.

When I was a child, attending the first cla.s.ses of the elementary schools, there was a kind teacher who was very fond of us. Of course, she kept us captive and motionless on our seats, and talked incessantly herself, though she looked pale and exhausted. Her fixed idea was to make us learn by heart the lives of famous women, and more especially "heroines," in order to incite us to imitate them; she made us study an immense number of biographies; in order to demonstrate to us all the possibilities of becoming ill.u.s.trious and also to convince us that it was not beyond our powers to be heroines, since these were so numerous. The exhortation which accompanied these narratives was always the same: "You, too, should try to become famous; would not you, too, like to be famous?" "Oh, no!" I answered one day, drily; "I shall never do so. I care too much for the children of the future to add yet another biography to the list."

The unanimous reports of the educationists from all parts of the world who attended the last pedagogic and psychological international congresses lamented the "lack of character" in the young as const.i.tuting a great danger to the race. But it is not that character is lacking in the race; it is that school distorts the body and weakens the spirit. All that is needed is an act of liberation; and the latent forces of man will then develop.

The manner in which we are to make use of our strong will is a higher question, which, however, can rest only upon one basis: that the will exists--that is, has been developed, and has become strong. One of the examples usually given to our children, to teach them to admire strength of will, is that of Vittorio Alfieri, who began to educate himself late in life, overcoming the drudgery of the rudiments by a great effort. He, who had hitherto been a man of the world, set to work to study the Latin grammar, and persevered until he became a man of letters, and, in virtue of his ardent genius, one of our greatest poets. The phrase by which he explained his transformation is just the phrase every child in Italy has heard quoted by his teachers: "I willed, perpetually I willed, with all my strength I willed."

Now, before he made the great "decision," Vittorio Alfieri was the victim of a capricious society lady whom he loved. Alfieri felt that he was ruining himself by remaining the slave of his pa.s.sion; an internal impulse urged him to raise himself; he felt the great man latent within him, full of powers not yet developed, but potential and expansive; he would fain have turned them to account, responded to their inner call, and dedicated himself to them; but then a scented note from the lady would summon him to join her in her box at the play, and the evening would be wasted. The power this lady exercised over him overcame his own will, which would gladly have resisted.

Nevertheless, the rage and weariness he endured as he sat through the silly performances at the theater caused him such acute suffering that at last he felt that he hated the fascinating lady.

His determination took a material form: he resolved to create an _insurmountable_ obstacle between himself and her; he accordingly cut off the thick plait of hair which adorned his head, the badge of gentle birth, without which he would have been ashamed to leave the house; then he had himself bound with ropes to his armchair, where he spent several days in such agitation that he was unable even to read a line; it was only the material impossibility of moving, and the thought of cutting a ridiculous figure, which kept him there, in spite of the impulse to hasten to the beloved one.

It was thus that he "willed, willed perpetually, with all his strength," and so left the man within him free to expand; it was thus he saved himself from futility and perdition and worked for his own immortality.

And it is something of the same sort that we desire to bring about in our children by the education of the will; we wish them to learn to save themselves from the vanities that destroy man, and concentrate on work which causes the inner life to expand, and leads to great undertakings; we wish them to work for their own immortality.

This loving and anxious desire inclines us to draw them along shielded by us. But is there not within the child himself a power which enables him to save himself? The child loves us with all his heart and follows us with all the devotion of which his little soul is capable; nevertheless he has something within himself which governs his inner life: it is the force of his own expansion. It is this force, for instance, which leads him to touch things in order to become acquainted with them, and we say to him, "Do not touch"; he moves about to establish his equilibrium, and we tell him to "keep still"; he questions us to acquire knowledge, and we reply, "Do not be tiresome." We relegate him to a place at our side, vanquished and subdued, with a few tiresome playthings, like an Alfieri in the box at the theater. He might well think: Why does she, whom I love so dearly, want to annihilate me? Why does she wish to oppress me with her caprices? It is caprice which makes her prevent me from developing the expansive forces within me, and relegate me to a place among vain and wearisome things, merely because I love her.

Thus, to save himself, the child should be a strong spirit, like Vittorio Alfieri; but too often he cannot.

We do not perceive that the child is a victim and that we are annihilating him; and then we demand _everything_ from his _nullity_ by a _fiat_, by an act of our omnipotence. We want the adult man, but without allowing him to grow.

Many will think, when they read the story of Vittorio Alfieri, that they would have wished something more in their sons; they would have wished it to be unnecessary to set up material obstacles against temptation, such as the cutting off of the hair and the binding to the armchair with ropes; and would have hoped that a spiritual force would have sufficed to resist it. Like one of our great poets who, singing of the Roman Lucrezia, reproves her for having killed herself; since she ought to have died of grief at the outrage, had she been even more virtuous than she was.

Now that father with the spiritual ideals would not, in all probability, ask himself what he himself had done to enable his son to become strong and rise to the level of spiritual aid. Very likely he is a father who did his utmost to break the will of his son and make him submissive to his own will. No earthly father can make the spirit rise to such heights; this can only be accomplished by the mysterious voice which speaks within the heart of the man in the silence. A voice which is strident because it is raised against the laws of Nature, like the voice of the father who wishes to subdue another creature to himself, disturbs that "silence" where, in peace and liberty, the divine works are being accomplished. Without the "strong man" all is vain.

It is recorded that a priest once presented to Saint Teresa a young girl who wished to become a Carmelite nun, and who, according to him, had angelic qualities. Saint Teresa, accepting the neophyte, replied: "See, my father, our Lord has given this maiden devotion, but she has no judgment, and never will have any; and she will always be a burden to us."

One of the greatest of contemporary theologians, who during the proceedings to obtain the canonisation of Joan of Arc had made a profound study of her personality, says, in reference to the suggestion that she was simply the instrument of divine inspiration: "Let no one deceive himself. Joan of Arc was no blind and pa.s.sive instrument of a supernatural power. The liberator of France _had entire command of her personality_; she gave proof of this by her independent action, both in decisions and in deeds."

I believe that the work of the educator consists primarily in protecting the powers and directing them without disturbing them in their expansion; and in the bringing of man into contact with the spirit which is within him and which should operate through him.

VIII

INTELLIGENCE

Let us pause a moment to consider what is the "key" by means of which we may bring about the realization of the liberty of the child; that key which sets in motion the mechanisms essential to education.

The child who is "free to move about," and who perfects himself by so doing, is he who has an "intelligent object" in his movements; the child who is free to develop his inner personality, who perseveres in a task for a considerable time, and organizes himself upon such a fundamental phenomenon, is sustained and guided by an intelligent purpose. Without this his persistence in work, his inner formation, and his progress would not be possible. When we refrain from guiding the subjugated child step by step, when, liberating the child from our personal influence, we place him in an environment suited to him and in contact with the means of development, we leave him confidently to "his own intelligence." His motor activity will then direct itself to definite actions: he will wash his hands and face, sweep the room, dust the furniture, change his clothes, spread the rugs, lay the table, cultivate plants, and take care of animals. He will choose the tasks conducive to his development and persist in them, attracted and guided by his interest towards a sensory material which leads him to distinguish one thing from another, to select, to reason, to correct himself; and the acquirements thus made are not only "a cause of internal growth" but a strong propulsive force to further progress.

Thus, pa.s.sing from simple objects to objects of ever increasing complexity, he becomes possessed of a culture; moreover, he organizes his character by means of the internal order which forms itself within him, and by the skill which he acquires.

Therefore, when we leave the child to himself, we leave him to his intelligence, not, as is commonly supposed, "to his instincts,"

meaning by the word "instincts" those designated as animal instincts.

We are so accustomed to; treat children like dogs and other domestic animals, that a "free child" makes us think of a dog, barking, jumping, and stealing dainties. And so accustomed are we to regard as manifestations of evil instincts the _rebellions_ of the child treated as a beast, his obscure protests and desperations, or the protective devices he has to invent to save himself from such a humiliating situation, that, by way of elevating him, we first compare him to plants and flowers, and then actually try to keep him as far as possible in the state of physical immobility of vegetables, subjecting him to the same sensations, reducing him to slavery. But he never becomes the "plant with angelic perfume" we would fain believe him to be; rather do signs of corruption gradually manifest themselves as his "human substance" mortifies and dies.

But when we leave the child "free as a man" in the palestra of his own intelligence, his type changes entirely. It is of this type we must form new conceptions in discussing the question of "liberty."

That of intelligence should also, I believe, be the key to the problem of the social liberty of man. We have heard much talk of late years, of a very superficial kind, concerning "liberty of thought." The issue being obscured by prejudices akin to those prevalent concerning children, it has been supposed that man would be "liberated" were he "abandoned" to his own thoughts. But was he capable of "thinking"? Was not the epoch of such "freedom" also that of cerebral neurasthenia?

Was it not also that epoch when laws for extending social rights to illiterates were under discussion?

Now let us take an example: if we told a sick person to choose between disease and health, would this make him free to do so? If we offer an uneducated peasant good and bad paper money, leaving him "free to choose" which he will take, and he chooses the bad notes, he is not free, he is cheated; if he chooses the good, he is not free, he is lucky. He will be free when he has sufficient knowledge not only to distinguish the good from the bad, but to understand the social utility of each. It is the giving of this "internal formation" which makes a man free, irrespective of a "social sanction" which is merely an external conquest of liberty. If the liberty of man were such a simple problem, we should only need to pa.s.s a law, enabling the blind to see and the deaf to hear, in order to restore "poor humanity" to health.

Our honesty ought to make us recognize one day that the fundamental rights of man are those of his own "formation," free from obstacles, free from slavery, and free to draw from his environment the means required for his development. In short, it is in education that we shall find the fundamental solution of the social problems connected with "personality."

Deeply instructive is the revelation made to us by the children, that "the intelligence" is the key which reveals the secrets of their formation, and is the actual means of their internal construction.

The hygiene of the intelligence thus a.s.sumes cardinal importance. When intelligence is recognized as the means of formation, the pivot of life itself, it can no longer be exhausted for dubious ends, or oppressed and suffocated without discernment.

At a not-far-distant day, the intelligence of children must become the object of treatment much wiser and more elaborate than that which we now bestow on their bodies, to adjuncts of which, such as teeth, nails, and hair, we devote costly and laborious processes. When we reflect that a mother who is perfectly conscious of the dangers and remedies connected with the hair of her child, can oppress and enslave his intelligence quite unknowingly, we are at once obliged to admit that the new road leading to civilization must needs be a long one, if such contrasts in our att.i.tude to the superfluities and the essentials of life are still possible at the present day.

What is intelligence? Without rising to the heights of the definitions given by the philosophers, we may, for the moment, consider the sum of those reflex and a.s.sociative or reproductive activities which enable the mind to construct itself, putting it into relation with the environment. According to Bain, the consciousness of difference is the beginning of every intellectual exercise; the first step of the mind is appreciation of "distinction." The bases of its perceptive functions towards the external world are the "sensations." To collect facts and distinguish between them is the initial process in intellectual construction.

Let us try to infuse a little more precision and clarity into the a.n.a.lysis of intelligence.

The first characteristic which presents itself to us as an indication of intellectual development is related to _time_. The ma.s.ses are so much alive to this primitive characteristic, that the popular expression "quick" is synonymous with intelligent. To be rapid in reacting to a stimulus, in the a.s.sociation of ideas, in the capacity of formulating a judgment--this is the most obvious external manifestation of intelligence. This "quickness" is certainly related to the capacity for receiving impressions from the environment, elaborating images, and externalizing the internal results. All these activities may be developed by means of an exercise comparable to a system of mental "gymnastics" to collect numerous sensations, to put them constantly in relation one with another, to deduce judgments therefrom, to acquire the habit of manifesting these freely, all this ought, as the psychologists would say, to render the conductive channels and the a.s.sociative channels more and more permeable, and the "period of reaction" ever briefer. As in intelligent muscular movement, the repet.i.tion of the act not only renders it more perfect in itself, but more rapid in execution. An intelligent child at school is not only one who understands, but one who understands quickly. On the other hand, one who learns the same things, but who takes a longer time in so doing, say two years instead of one, is _slow_. Of a "quick" child, the people say that "nothing escapes him"; his attention is always on the alert, and he is ready to receive every kind of stimulus: as a sensitive scale will show the slightest variation in weight, so the sensitive brain will respond to the slightest appeal. It is Equally rapid in its a.s.sociative processes: "He understands in a flash" is a familiar saying to indicate accurate conception.

Now an exercise which "puts in motion" the intellectual mechanisms can only be an "auto-exercise." It is impossible that another person, exercising himself in our stead, should make us acquire skill.

The sensory exercises arouse and intensify the central activities in our children. When, sense and stimulus duly isolated, the child has clear perceptions in his consciousness; when sensations of heat, cold, roughness, smoothness, weight, and lightness, when a sound, an isolated noise, are perceived by him, when, in almost complete silence, he closes his eyes and waits for a voice to murmur a word, it is as if the external world had knocked at the door of his soul, awakening its activities. And further, when the mult.i.tudinous sensations are all contained in the richness of the environment, the two react harmoniously one upon the other, intensifying the activities that have been awakened: this is exemplified in the case of the child absorbed in coloring his designs, who will choose the most beautiful tints while music is being played, or in that of another who, contemplating the gay and gracious environment of the school and the flowering plants, will sing his song to perfection.

The first characteristic which manifests itself in our children, after their process of auto-education has been initiated, is that their reactions become ever more ready and more rapid: a sensory stimulus which might before have pa.s.sed un.o.bserved or might have roused a languid interest, is vividly perceived. The relation between things is easily recognized, and thus errors in their use are quickly detected, judged, and corrected. By means of the sensory gymnastics the child carries out just this primordial and fundamental exercise of the intelligence, which _awakens and sets in motion_ the central nervous mechanisms.

When we see these external manifestations of our quick and active children--sensitive to the slightest call, ready to run swiftly towards us without relaxing the attention they give to their own movements and to all the external objects they encounter--and compare them with the torpid children in the ordinary schools--clumsy in their movements, indifferent to stimuli, incapable of spontaneous a.s.sociation of ideas--we are led to think of the civilization of our own days as compared with that of olden times. The civil environment of bygone years, as compared with our own, was more leisurely: we have learnt how to save time. The stage-coach was once the means of transport, whereas now we travel in motor-cars and even in aeroplanes; the voice was the medium of speech from a distance, whereas now we speak through the telephone; men killed each other one by one, whereas now they kill each other _en ma.s.se_. All this makes us realize that our civilization is not based upon "respect for life" and "respect for the soul," but rather is it based upon "respect for time." It is solely in an external sense that civilization has pursued its course.

It has become more rapid, it has set in motion _machinery_.

But man has not had the same preparation to keep up with it: individuals have not _accelerated_ themselves methodically; the children of this bewildering environment are not new men, more active, readier, more intelligent. The transformed human personality has not yet arisen ready to meet all eventualities and to utilize for his own benefit the external conquests of his environment. Torpid man saves time and money in this civilization; but his soul remains defrauded and oppressed.

If he does not rise to the task of reforming himself in harmony with the new world he has created, he runs the risk of being some day overthrown and crushed by it.

The swift reactions occurring among our children are not merely an external manifestation of the intelligence. They are related not only to the _exercise_, but also to the _order_ which has been established within: and it is this intimate work of rearrangement which is in itself a more exact indication of intellectual formation.

Order is, in short, the true key to rapidity of reaction. In a chaotic mind, the recognition of a sensation is no less difficult than the elaboration of a reasoned discourse. In all things, social as well as others, it is organization and order which make it possible to proceed rapidly.

"To be able to distinguish" is the characteristic sign of intelligence: to _distinguish_ is to arrange and also, in life, it is to prepare for "creation."