Part 20 (2/2)

Just as vice, which is an exercise of function without purpose, wastes the body until it becoination unsustained by truth consuence until it assumes characteristics akin to the ion=--I have frequently heard it said that the education of the iination on a basis of fancy prepares the soul of the child for religious education; and that an education based on ”reality,” as in this method ould adopt, is too arid, and tends to dry up the founts of spiritual life Such reasoning, however, will not be accepted by religious persons They knoell that faith and fable are ”as the poles apart,” since fable is in itself a thing without faith, and faith is the very sentiment of truth, which should accoion is not a product of fantastic ireatest of realities, the one truth to the religious man It is the fount and basis of his life The ination, but rather one who lacks internal equilibriuiousin adversity; not only this, but he is more unsettled in his own ideas He is weaker and ination to create a world for hi within him cries aloud in the words of David: ”My soul is a-thirst for God” And if he hopes to reach the goal of his real life by the help of i quicksands at a supreme moment of effort

When an apostle seeks to win a soul to religion, wherefeet on a rock, he appeals to understanding, not to iination, for he knows that his task is not to create so in the depths of the heart He knows that he must shake off the torpor fro body buried in a drift, not build up a puppet of ice which will melt under the rays of the sun

It is true that fantastic iuise of error In the Middle Ages, for instance, epidereat simplicity, to a direct act of divine chastisement; to-day they are attributed to the direct action of ested diabolical intervention

But these are precisely the kind of prejudices which, like all fantasies, swarion is not thus constructed like a fantastic castle erected on a basis of ignorance Othere should see savage peoples religious and civilized peoples without religion; whereas savages have a frail and fantastic religion, mainly constructed upon the terror inspired by the mysterious activities of Nature, and civilized peoples have a positive religion, which becoer as it beco into Nature, serves to exalt and illustrate its mysteries

And, above all, to-day, when there is a ether fro _fable_? It is such a siion itself and allow its radiance to penetrate, war life

But it should enter like the sun into creation, not like the Befana from the chian religion, which split up the divinity into innu the external world; this, being apprehended by the senses, may lend itself to illusion; but fable could certainly never prepare for Christianity, which brings God into contact with the inner life of man, ”one and indivisible,” and teaches the laws of a life which is ”felt” by ion, it cannot be said that it is the study of reality in itself which alienates us therefrom Hitherto the positive sciences have studied the ”external world” in its analytical details, and if they could have an creed

Indeed, so far science has brought a very perceptive breath of paganis the innerreat Christian light will surely shi+ne upon els over Bethlehe peace between science and faith

Saint John in the desert ”rossest errors And thus a rossest errors which suffocate the spiritual energies, nition of the ”way of life”

=The education of the iination in schools for older children=--What is the method adopted in the ordinary eleination?

The school is, in ray color of the walls and the white muslin curtains over the s preclude any alleviation for the senses The object of this depressing environment is to prevent the distraction of the scholar's attention by stimuli, and concentrate it upon the teacher who speaks The children, seated, listen motionless hour after hour When they draw, they have to reproduce another drawing exactly When they iven by another person Their personalities are appraised solely by the standard of passive obedience; the education of their wills consists of the y,” said Claparede, ”oppresses children with a mass of information which can never help them to direct their conduct; we make them listen when they have no desire to hear; speak, write, narrate, co to say; we make them observe when they have no curiosity, reason when they have no desire to discover anything We incite them to efforts which are supposed to be voluntary without the prelio_ in the task iives moral value to submission to duty”

The children thus reduced to slavery use their eyes to read, their hands to write, their ears to hear what the teacher says Their bodies, indeed, are stationary; but theirTheythemselves to run after the raardless of childish tendencies The itive and uncertain as dreams appear from time to tile on the blackboard and then erases it; it was a momentary vision represented as an abstraction; those children have never held a concrete triangle in their hands; they have to reeoather thickly; such a figure will never achieve anything within them; it will not be _felt_, combined with others, it will never be an inspiration It is the saue for its own sake, that fatigue which has engrossed aly

In this environment, where free exercise is prohibited, as also the choice of work, and meditation, where every sentiment is oppressed, and froht enrich the intelligence with spontaneous acquisitions is eliiving ”compositions” to be written Thisthe necessary ; achieve internal activities which he is prevented fro And _production_ is to come from the _exercise of production_; ”constant practise in coination; from the sterility of the void the ence are to be evolved!

It is well known that ”coreat difficulty of our schools All teachers have declared that children are ”poor in ideas,” that they have ”disorderly inality” The examination in written composition has always been the most painful of all; every one knows the expression of the child who hears the title of an obligatory theme dictated; and who in a few hours ination; it is with anguish, with oppression of the heart, with cold hands and eyes anxiously interrogating the clock in terror of the fleeting hour, under the distrustful surveillance of a teacher who for the occasion is transformed into a spy-warder like those in penal prisons, that he undergoes his torture to the end Woe to him if he does not hand in his composition! He will be ruined, for this is the principal test, the one in which he is _free_ to ive the true individual fruit by which others will enerations often find neurasthenia and even suicide Scholars cannot answer as did the greatest poet of our times, Carducci, when he was requested to write an ode on the occasion of the death of a personage: ”It is inspiration, not an occasion, which wouldto study the methods by which, in ”iene have penetrated, atte their exhausting effort and leading theradually to composition Composition (we must pass over the contradiction in terives collective lessons in composition, just as she would explain arithmetic: this is called ”collective oral composition”

We will allow specialists in thisa preparation of teachers for such lessons:

METHOD TO BE FOLLOWED IN THE MANNER OF INDICATING THE THEME

”Let us take, by way of illustration, the following brief narrative, which consists of three phases: 1 Ernesto did not know his lesson; 2 The teacher scolded the child severely; 3 Ernesto wept and promised to do better If we indicate the narrative by the words: 'Ernesto did not know his lesson'

(first fact, cause), the pupil will go on easily to the effect, consisting of the two other phases which, logically and in chronological order, follow the cause If, on the other hand, we give as the the to the second phase: 'The teacher scolded the child,' we oblige the pupil to go back to the cause and to make the third phase follow upon the second We place the pupil in a ive as the theme: 'Ernesto wept and proo back to the second and thence to the first phase

”Hence the first phase in every brief narrative ought to serve to indicate the theme