What Is and What Might Be | Page 3

in my desire to account for it I have had recourse to a
paradox. "Trop de vérité," says Pascal, "nous étonne: les premiers
principes ont trop d'évidence pour nous." I have suggested that the
inability of so many teachers to live up to the spirit, or even to the letter,
of my primary "truism," may be due to its having too much evidence
for them, to their being blinded by the naked light of its truth.
But there may be another explanation of the singular fact that a theory
of education to which the teacher would assent without hesitation if it
were submitted to his consciousness, counts for nothing in the daily
routine of his work. Failure to carry an accepted principle into practice
is sometimes due to the fact that the principle has not really been
accepted; that its inner meaning has not been apprehended; that assent
has been given to a formula rather than a truth. The cause of the failure
may indeed lie deeper than this. It may be that the nominal adherents of
the principle are in secret revolt against the vital truth that is at the heart
of it; that they repudiate it in practice because they have already
repudiated it in the inner recesses of their thought. "This people
draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their
lips; but their heart is far from me." Tell the teacher that the function of
education is to foster growth; that therefore it is his business to develop
the latent faculties of his pupils; and that therefore (since growth
presupposes exercise) he must allow his pupils to do as much as
possible by and for themselves,--place these propositions before him,
and the chances are that he will say "Amen" to them. But that lip assent
will count for nothing. One's life is governed by instinct rather than
logic. To give a lip assent to the logical inferences from an accepted

principle is one thing. To give a real assent to the essential truth that
underlies and animates the principle is another. The way in which the
teacher too often conducts his school leads one to infer that the intuitive,
instinctive side of him--the side that is nearest to practice--has
somehow or other held intercourse with the inner meaning of that
"truism" which he repeats so glibly, and has rejected it as antagonistic
to the traditional assumptions on which he bases his life. Or perhaps
this work of subconscious criticism and rejection has been and is being
done for him, either by the spirit of the age to which he belongs or by
the genius of the land in which he lives.
Why is the teacher so ready to do everything (or nearly everything) for
the children whom he professes to educate? One obvious answer to this
question is that for a third of a century (1862-1895) the "Education
Department" did everything (or nearly everything) for him. For a third
of a century "My Lords" required their inspectors to examine every
child in every elementary school in England on a syllabus which was
binding on all schools alike. In doing this, they put a bit into the mouth
of the teacher and drove him, at their pleasure, in this direction and that.
And what they did to him they compelled him to do to the child.
So far as the action of the "Education Department" was concerned, this
policy was abandoned--in large measure, if not wholly--in 1895; but its
consequences are with us still. What conception of the meaning and
purpose of education could have induced "My Lords" to adopt such a
policy, and, having adopted it, to adhere to it for more than thirty years?
Had one asked "My Lords" at any time during those thirty years what
they regarded as the true function of education, and had one suggested
to them (as they had probably never turned their minds to the question)
that the function of education was to foster the growth of the child, they
might possibly have given an indolent assent to that proposition. But
their educational policy must have been dictated by some widely
different conception. They must have believed that the mental progress
of the child--the only aspect of progress which concerned
educationalists in those days--would best be tested by a formal
examination on a prescribed syllabus, and would best be secured by
preparation for such a test; and they must have accepted, perhaps

without the consent of their consciousness, whatever theory of
education may be implicit in that belief.
In acting as they did, "My Lords" fell into line with the Universities,
the Public Schools, the Preparatory Schools, the Civil Service
Commissioners, the Professional Societies, and (to make a general
statement) with all the "Boards" and "Bodies" that controlled,