Part 9 (1/2)

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Referring to the old phrase, _purus mathematicus, purus asinus_

CHAPTER XI

CONCLUSION

We eneral exa on the e have always perfor our purposes, and by scrutinising the internal logic of our task And our investigation has been eminently human, since indeed man's essence, we have now come to understand, is to acquire self-consciousness

The patriotic character of the event which was the immediate cause of this work induced ether was not a mere political senti the threshold of the school For we could not but bring into the classroo personality, in which the content of our teaching and of all education must live This personality, however it arded, has no particular substance which is not also at the same time universal,--domestic as the case may be, or social, political, or whatever may be the phase in which it is determined in its historical development And since, in this historical development of our universal personality, there is Italy with her memories perpetuated by our immanent sentiment, by our immanent consciousness and by our immanent will, we could not possibly be ourselves e not at the sa attentively at this universal foundation on which our own huic, laere led to study the relationshi+p existing between individuality, which is the aim of all forms of education, and this universal spirit which here intervenes as it does in every moment of the human life It intervenes in education, as the science and the conscience and the entire personality of the teacher This personality seems to be violently imposed upon the pupil in such a way as to check or hinder his spontaneous developical opposition between teacher and learner gradually resolves itself into the unity of the spiritual process in which education becomes actual

Education therefore appeared to us, not as a fact which is empirically observable, and which may be fixed and looked upon as subject to natural laws, but rather as a mystical formation of a super-individual spirituality, which is the only real, concrete personality actualised by the individual In order to understand it, we had to liberate it from every kind of contact with culture in its materialistic acceptance; and we therefore insisted on the speculative inquiry into e called the realistic point of view We endeavoured to explain how and why culture is the very process of education, and the very process of the personality in which education takes place This conception would have lacked the necessary support, had we not carried our investigation further, and shown that this culture in which the spirit unfolds itself is not the attribute of aa nature, but is instead the nification of All For it is the life of the spirit in which everything gathers to find its support and becoorously considered as spirit,--spirit which is free, because infinite and truly universal in every one of its moments and attitudes This the educator must intently consider if he wants to conceive adequately his task and its enormous responsibilities, which become evident when he reflects how in the monad of the individual, in the simple soul of the child entrusted to his creative care, the infinite vibrates, and a life is born at every instant, which thence throbs over the boundless expanse of space, of time, and of all reality

This adequate conception need not be elaborated into a corasp this infinite over which every word of his is carried, every glance of his, every gesture

As he enters the classroona reverentia_ is due, but the very cult which is shown to things divine, he cannot but feel himself exalted; he cannot but be fully conscious of the difficulties of his lofty station, and of the duty of overco them He must therefore dismiss from within himself all that is petty in his particular personality, all his preoccupations and passions, all his co burden of the flesh, which pulls hi Faith, to the ruling and inspiring Deity Thein the School the sanctity of the place and of his work is not fit to be an educator

The spirituality of education becomes however an empty formula, and a motif for rhetorical variations, if on the one hand we do not possess the concept of the essence or of the attributes of the spirit, and if on the other we do not sharply expose those realistic prejudices of pedagogy which have been maintained in the field of education by the materialistic conception ofand alien to all radical criticis the reflection and i it on a journey which must be undertaken with due preparation

And finally, in the effort to provide ourselves with abanner, I set forth the doctrine of educational unity--of the education which is always at all moments education of the spirit For even physical culture is conceivable only as formation of the mind, and more properly of character Education, , may be made actual in a thousand different ways, only always on condition that we observe the lahich proceeds from its innermost essence and constitutes its iood, provided it is education--philosophical, hu atrophy to any necessary function of the spirit, does not crush the spirit under the weight either of things or of the divinity, nor excessively exalt it in the consciousness of its own personal power; provided it neither hurls it into the free abstract world of dreams nor fetters it in the iron chains of an inhuman reality; and provided it does not shatter it and scatter its frags innu satisfaction For it is the function of education to enable the centralising unity of the reflective spirit to becoh the multiplicity of life and of experience, which is the actuality of the spirit itself Opposition to all abstractions, in behalf of the concrete spirit and of liberty--that is our educational ideal

THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY

Edited by J E SPINGARN

This series is intended to keep Americans in touch with the intellectual and spiritual ferment of the continent of Europe to-day, by or and charive what Americans miscall ”the best books,” if by this is reatness; any twentieth-century book which displays creative power or a new outlook or ible for inclusion Nor will the attempt be made to select books that merely confirm American standards of taste or morals, since the series is intended to serve as a h which it may be seen darkly All for fiction, belles lettres, poetry, philosophy, social and econoraphy, etc; and special attention will be paid to authors whose works have not hitherto been accessible in English

”The first organized effort to bring into English a series of the really significant figures in conte as creditable and as ambitious as any of its kind on the other side of the Atlantic”--_New York Evening Post_

THE WORLD'S ILLUSION By JACOB WassERMANN Translated by Ludwig Lewisohn Two volumes

One of theabout the experiences of a e yet finds the

PEOPLE By PIERRE HAMP Translated by Jaeant