Part 9 (1/2)

What it does notthe faculties of each individual

There is, in fact, a wide difference bethat education is and what it should be If every school and college throughout the country were closed to-ood within an appreciable measure of time, and it would certainly abolish ly produced by the present methods of instruction If no effort be made to develop the faculties of each individual, then it is better to leave the can be more pernicious than to take the youth of the nation wholesale, and to destroy ood that is latent in the which Nature never intended them to be

This is not education, but fabrication It is destruction, not develop every individual to develop the faculties hich Nature had endowed hihest capacity any special talents that s, real education would encourage the utilization of the brain for purposes of thought and reflection, instead of trying to e

It is absurd to assume that this simple educational aim is beyond the reach of humanity That its introduction into the practical affairs of life would cause a stupendous revolution cannot be denied But it does not follow, on that account, that it should be conveniently consigned, like eon-hole of the i that is required to carry out the true principle of education is more individual common sense and less State interference

The mischievous enactment that children should coe of five should be at once struck off the statute-book No doubt so children of the poorest class, in large towns at least, from the influence of sordid homes for a certain period of the day It does not folloever, that they should be subjected to the routine of an elementary school and crae

Children want roorow up as well as their bodies Mental nourishment is quite as necessary as physical nourishment; but it is nonsensical to apply them both in the same fashi+on The mind has to be fed in a totally different manner to the body The former is a delicate operation, that requires farof milk or the preparation of an infant food

The child'smay be written at will; it is scored invisibly with heredity and individual tendencies

The function of the parent is to see that nothing is done to destroy this delicate fabric, and to watch carefully for revelations of natural bent and character, in order to encourage and develop the or instruction ought to be rigorously avoided Facts should be regarded as poisons, to be used sparingly and with discrimination Every time that a fact is imparted an idea is driven out That should be carefully borne in ence is highly co to i thought into the channels of the coination

To take an illustration, let us suppose someone to iical is as well as arence would, in one moment, annihilate most of the roination ht never recover The child would, by a rapid process of thought, lose all faith in fairyland, and in the thousand and one fancies of the youthful brain that are the ination

Why is it that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred lose this faculty in the earliest period of their childhood? It is si-up has consisted in a persistent inoculation with the ly persistent eliinative ideas 'Don't let the children believe such rubbish!+' is a constant ejaculation of the mechanical-minded person who does not per since 'done with romance and all that kind of twaddle'

At any cost the ied and developed It is the richest vein in the whole enius most frequently lurks, and where it can be most easily and permanently destroyed Grown-up people should remember that an indiscreet answer to a childish question, or a snub ad ht

It should be ination in young children, recollecting that up to a certain age its development depends upon all the absurdities and fantastic notions of childhood which the average adult is so fond of repressing

By the exercise of prudence and so a child up to the age of seven or eight without da its faculties Froht to depend upon the individual hi as instruction, in the sense which i of the brain with inforular verbs and hunting for the least common multiple

The position of teacher and pupil would have to be practically reversed

The pupil would lead, and the teacher follow In fact, the latter should beco those studies, or those arts or crafts, which are to be made the principal objective of its education, whilst to thethe course of study or practice at a irls would then not learn, but investigate The process of learning should be got rid of altogether, being a clue, and one that tends to keep the brain in a perpetual state of dependence

Ignorance, one ought to re people should be left as s out for the forward in the dark; and only so ht to be let in upon the process as seems desirable in each individual case In that way, at least, the pupil would learn to think for himself; and even if little more were accoreater value to the individual, and to the coe stock of facts at the price of losing all power of reflection and initiative

Letmethods of education

We will suppose, for the sake of argument, that the only available book for the instruction of a class of boys was that excellent but abstruse work known as 'Bradshaw's Railway Guide' The modern schoolmaster would draw up an exhaustive and co every sentence through the book The figures would be added up, and subtracted, and divided He would concoct neat little ton travelled to Swindon at fifty miles an hour and broke down half-way, at what o'clock would the 1215 parliamentary train overtake it? and so forth But-- tables of trains would be learnt off by heart, with the na places and the prices of the first-class tickets

A genuine educationist would set to work in a much siood train froham to Newcastle Each boy would be free to tackle the problem in his own fashi+on, and the task--if successfully acco faculties

In any system of real education it would be impossible for the schoolive his attention, and it would be equally impossible for the parent to say 'I intend my son to enter such-and-such a profession' nobody can settle beforehand what talents the child is to develop That is a private ht to interfere between the child itself and Nature

Modern education consists entirely of interference There is, in the first place, the interference of the parent, who insists upon an artistic boy beco a banker, puts an incipient tradesman into the army, or tries to make a scholar out of a mechanic Then there comes the interference of the schoolmaster, who has his favourite recipe of Latin verses, quadratic equations, and what not, to stuff into every head he can get hold of for a few terms Lastly appears the Government, which declares that nobody shall enter the ar his best years to being crammed in such a scandalous fashi+on, that it is a toss-up whether he breaks down altogether under the ordeal, or siets, a few months after the consummation of the process, all that has been pitchforked into his brain

When a baby is brought into the world the parents spend the first year of its life in wondering and speculating about its future Will it be a great author, or a Bishop, or a Lord Chancellor? If its les happily when a note is struck on the piano, they declare it has genius for music; and if it aures with distorted faces and distorted ars, they juio