Part 9 (2/2)
The child with the cross was moving back and forth, carrying the objects with which he had been working, from his table to that of the teacher, and bringing others in their place. He was busy and happy. As he went back and forth he pa.s.sed by the armchair of the child who was being punished. The silver cross slipped from his neck and fell to the floor, and the child in the armchair picked it up, dangled it on its white ribbon, looking at it from all sides, and then said to his companion: ”Do you see what you have dropped?” The child turned and looked at the trinket with an air of indifference; his expression seemed to say; ”Don't interrupt me,” his voice replied ”I don't care.” ”Don't you care, really?” said the punished one calmly. ”Then I will put it on myself.”
And the other replied, ”Oh, yes, put it on,” in a tone that seemed to add, ”and leave me in peace!”
The boy in the armchair carefully arranged the ribbon so that the cross lay upon the front of his pink ap.r.o.n where he could admire its brightness and its pretty form, then he settled himself more comfortably in his little chair and rested his arms with evident pleasure upon the arms of the chair. The affair remained thus, and was quite just. The dangling cross could satisfy the child who was being punished, but not the active child, content and happy with his work.
One day I took with me on a visit to another of the ”Children's Houses”
a lady who praised the children highly and who, opening a box she had brought, showed them a number of s.h.i.+ning medals, each tied with a bright red ribbon. ”The mistress,” she said ”will put these on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those children who are the cleverest and the best.”
As I was under no obligation to instruct this visitor in my methods, I kept silence, and the teacher took the box. At that moment, a most intelligent little boy of four, who was seated quietly at one of the little tables, wrinkled his forehead in an act of protest and cried out over and over again;--”Not to the boys, though, not to the boys!”
What a revelation! This little fellow already knew that he stood among the best and strongest of his cla.s.s, although no one had ever revealed this fact to him, and he did not wish to be offended by this prize. Not knowing how to defend his dignity, he invoked the superior quality of his masculinity!
As to punishments, we have many times come in contact with children who disturbed the others without paying any attention to our corrections.
Such children were at once examined by the physician. When the case proved to be that of a normal child, we placed one of the little tables in a corner of the room, and in this way isolated the child; having him sit in a comfortable little armchair, so placed that he might see his companions at work, and giving him those games and toys to which he was most attracted. This isolation almost always succeeded in calming the child; from his position he could see the entire a.s.sembly of his companions, and the way in which they carried on their work was an _object lesson_ much more efficacious than any words of the teacher could possibly have been. Little by little, he would come to see the advantages of being one of the company working so busily before his eyes, and he would really wish to go back and do as the others did. We have in this way led back again to discipline all the children who at first seemed to rebel against it. The isolated child was always made the object of special care, almost as if he were ill. I myself, when I entered the room, went first of all directly to him, caressing him, as if he were a very little child. Then I turned my attention to the others, interesting myself in their work, asking questions about it as if they had been little men. I do not know what happened in the soul of these children whom we found it necessary to discipline, but certainly the conversion was always very complete and lasting. They showed great pride in learning how to work and how to conduct themselves, and always showed a very tender affection for the teacher and for me.
THE BIOLOGICAL CONCEPT OF LIBERTY IN PEDAGOGY
From a biological point of view, the concept of _liberty_ in the education of the child in his earliest years must be understood as demanding those conditions adapted to the most favourable _development_ of his entire individuality. So, from the physiological side as well as from the mental side, this includes the free development of the brain.
The educator must be as one inspired by a deep _wors.h.i.+p of life_, and must, through this reverence, _respect_, while he observes with human interest, the _development_ of the child life. Now, child life is not an abstraction; _it is the life of individual children_. There exists only one real biological manifestation: the _living individual_; and toward single individuals, one by one observed, education must direct itself.
By education must be understood the active _help_ given to the normal expansion of the life of the child. The child is a body which grows, and a soul which develops,--these two forms, physiological and psychic, have one eternal font, life itself. We must neither mar nor stifle the mysterious powers which lie within these two forms of growth, but we must _await from them_ the manifestations which we know will succeed one another.
_Environment_ is undoubtedly a _secondary_ factor in the phenomena of life; it can modify in that it can help or hinder, but it can never _create_. The modern theories of evolution, from Naegeli to De Vries, consider throughout the development of the two biological branches, animal and vegetable, this interior factor as the essential force in the transformation of the species and in the transformation of the individual. The origins of the _development_, both in the species and in the individual, _lie within_. The child does not grow _because_ he is nourished, _because_ he breathes, _because_ he is placed in conditions of temperature to which he is adapted; he grows because the potential life within him develops, making itself visible; because the fruitful germ from which his life has come develops itself according to the biological destiny which was fixed for it by heredity. Adolescence does not come _because_ the child laughs, or dances, or does gymnastic exercises, or is well nourished; but because he has arrived at that particular physiological state. Life makes itself manifest,--life creates, life gives:--and is in its turn held within certain limits and bound by certain laws which are insuperable. The _fixed_ characteristics of the species do not change,--they can only vary.
This concept, so brilliantly set forth by De Vries in his Mutation Theory, ill.u.s.trates also the limits of education. We can act on the _variations_ which are in relation to the environment, and whose limits vary slightly in the species and in the individual, but we cannot act upon the _mutations_. The mutations are bound by some mysterious tie to the very font of life itself, and their power rises superior to the modifying elements of the environment.
A species, for example, cannot _mutate_ or change into another species through any phenomenon of _adaptation_, as, on the other hand, a great human genius cannot be suffocated by any limitation, nor by any false form of education.
The _environment_ acts more strongly upon the individual life the less fixed and strong this individual life may be. But environment can act in two opposite senses, favouring life, and stifling it. Many species of palm, for example, are splendid in the tropical regions, because the climatic conditions are favourable to their development, but many species of both animals and plants have become extinct in regions to which they were not able to adapt themselves.
Life is a superb G.o.ddess, always advancing, overthrowing the obstacles which environment places in the way of her triumph. This is the basic or fundamental truth,--whether it be a question of species or of individuals, there persists always the forward march of those victorious ones in whom this mysterious life-force is strong and vital.
It is evident that in the case of humanity, and especially in the case of our civil humanity, which we call society, the important and imperative question is that of the _care_, or perhaps we might say, the _culture_ of human life.
CHAPTER VI
HOW THE LESSONS SHOULD BE GIVEN
”Let all thy words be counted.”
_Dante, Inf., canto_ X.
Given the fact that, through the regime of liberty the pupils can manifest their natural tendencies in the school, and that with this in view we have prepared the environment and the materials (the objects with which the child is to work), the teacher must not limit her action to _observation_, but must proceed to _experiment_.
In this method the lesson corresponds to an _experiment_. The more fully the teacher is acquainted with the methods of experimental psychology, the better will she understand how to give the lesson. Indeed, a special technique is necessary if the method is to be properly applied. The teacher must at least have attended the training cla.s.ses in the ”Children's Houses,” in order to acquire a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the method and to understand their application. The most difficult portion of this training is that which refers to the method for discipline.
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