Part 19 (2/2)

Straight to theit in twain; I was as one who sees Death face to face; No word I spake--so great h theof the lordly tower Theall within, So did the arrow enter through my eye;

Bereft of life and spirit in that hour I stood there, to a man of brass akin, That mocks with semblance of humanity

(Guinizelli, 1300)

If, then, the true basis of the iination is reality, and its perception is related to exactness of observation, it is necessary to prepare children to perceive the things in their environment exactly, in order to secure for theination

Further, the exercise of the intelligence, reasoning within sharply defined li froinative constructions; because these are the more beautiful the ical they are in the association of individual ierates and invents coarsely does not put the child on the right road

A true preparation digs the beds where the waters which well up fro orthe beauty of internal order

In thewaters of internal creation we are powerless ”Never to obstruct the spontaneous outburst of an activity, even though it springs forth like the humble trickle of some almost invisible source,” and ”to wait”--this is our task Why should we delude ourselves with the idea that we can ”create an intelligence,” ho can do nothing but ”observe and await” the blade of grass which is sprouting, theitself?

We ination must rise like an illuminated palace, on dark foundations deeply i but a house of cards, an illusion, an error; and the salvation of the intelligence is ”to be able to plant the feet on firination in children=--It is a very co child is characterized by a vivid iination, and therefore a special education should be adopted to cultivate this special gift of nature

His ly marked and restricted li worlds of unreality, a tendency which is also characteristic of savage peoples

This childish characteristic, however, gave rise to the generalization of a enesis suenesis”: that is, the life of the individual reproduces the life of the species; just as the life ofchildren we find the psychical characteristics of savages Hence the child, like the savage, is attracted by the fantastic, the supernatural, and the unreal

Instead of indulging in such flights of scientific fancy as these, it would be anism as yet immature, like that of the child, has remote affinities with es But even if we refrain fro with the belief of those who interpret childish e state,” we e state is transient, and must be superseded, education _should help the child_ to overcoe state_, nor _keep_ the child therein

All the forms of imperfect development we encounter in the child have soe; for instance, in language, poverty of expression, the existence only of concrete terle word serves several purposes and indicates several objects, the absence of inflections in verbs, causing the child to use only the infinitive But no one would ht to restrict the child artificially to such prih his prehistoric period easily

And if soination in which unrealities predos to a people for whoreat works of art, and the civilizing constructions of science, and in those products of the higher iination which represent the environence of our child is destined to form itself It is natural that in the hazy period of his mental development the child should be attracted by fantastic ideas; but this et that he is to be our continuator, and for that reason should be superior to us; and the least we ought to give him to this end is the ination supposed to be ”proper” to childhood, and alination, is that spontaneous work of the infant mind by which children attribute desirable characteristics to objects which do not possess the his father's walking-stick, as if he were ination” in the child! What pleasure it gives to children to construct a splendid coach with chairs and arht at an i crowd, other children, perched on the backs of chairs, beat the air as if they hipping fiery horses Here is another proof of ”iination”

But if we observe rich children, n quiet ponies, and drive out habitually in carriages and motor-cars, we shall find that they look with a touch of contereat exciteht of children who i by stationary armchairs They would say of such children: ”They are very poor; they act thus because they have no horses or carriages” An adult resigns himself to his lot; a child creates an illusion But this is not a proof of iination, it is a proof of an unsatisfied desire; it is not an activity bound up with gifts of nature; it is a manifestation of conscious, sensitive poverty No one, we may be sure, will say that in order to educate a rich child we should take away his pony and give him a stick Nor is it necessary to prevent the poor child froar, had nothing but dry bread to eat, and if he placed hiround kitchen because when he s excellent dishes together with his bread, who could prevent hiinative activity of the fortunate persons for whom the actual dishes were destined, it would be well to take away their rance

A poor mother as devoted to her little child offered hiive in this ave the: ”This is the bread, this is the meat” The child was quite content But no mother would deprive her child of food in order to develop his iination in this way

And yet I was once seriously asked by soive a piano to a child as continually practising with his fingers upon the table, as if he were playing the piano

”And why should it be injurious?” I asked ”Because, if I do so, he will learn er be exercised, and I do not knohich would be best for hiaiven to a child with the words: ”This is a horse” Bricks are then arranged in a certain order, and he is told: ”This is the stable; now let us put the horse into the stable” Then the bricks are differently arranged: ”This is a tower, this is the village church, etc” In such exercises the objects (bricks) lend themselves to illusion less readily than a stick used as a horse, which the child can at least bestride and beat,of towers and churches with horses brings the mental confusion of the child to its culines spontaneously” and works with his brains, for at the ests And it is impossible to knohether the child really thinks that the stable has become a church, or whether his attention has wandered elsewhere He would, of course, like to ed to conteraph of which the teacher speaks in the series of ih they exist only in the shape of pieces of wood all of the sa cultivated in these immature minds? What do we find akin to this in the adult world which will enable us to understand for what definitive forms we prepare the mind by such a method of education? There are, indeed, men who really take a tree for a throne, and issue royal commands: some believe theraver for, and the conco, nor can those children, condemned to the immobility of an education which tends to _develop_ their innocent manifestations of unsatisfied desires intoeither for themselves or others

We, however, suppose that we are developing the is as realities Thus, for instance, in Latin countries, Christly woh the walls and down the chi only lulo-Saxon countries, on the other hand, Christe basket containing toys for children, and who really enters their houses by night But how can the _iination_ of children be developed by what is, on the contrary, the fruit of _our_ iine, not they; they _believe_, they do not iine

Credulity is, indeed, a characteristic of ie of realities, and are as yet devoid of that intelligence which distinguishes the true froly, the possible from the impossible

Is it, then, _credulity_ ish to develop in our children, e when they are naturally ignorant and immature? Of course, credulity may exist in adults; but it exists in _contrast_ with _intelligence_, and is neither its foundation nor its fruit It is in periods of intellectual darkness that credulity germinates; and we are proud to have outlived these epochs We speak of credulity as a mark of the uncivilized

Here is a piquant anecdote of the seventeenth century The Pont Neuf in Paris was the -place for loungers Many led with the crowd