But the same arguments that apply to physical discipline apply also to mental discipline. In the class-room there is practically no latitude given to the boy at all. In many schools, it is true, there is the choice of a classical or a modern side; but the choice is the parents', not the boy's. The latter is always treated, in reference to his school-work, as a machine. There is simply the offer of a classical strait-waistcoat or a modern strait-waistcoat; and the boy is put into one or the other according to the fancy of a third person.

Strait-waistcoats have long been discarded in lunatic asylums. It has been discovered by medical experts that anything like coercion is the worst possible treatment for the brain. Whilst our lunatics, however, are treated in this humane and rational spirit, the educational expert is busily occupied in destroying the delicate fabric of the schoolboy brain by the very methods that have been discontinued in the case of madmen.

The school curriculum, or any other arbitrary course of study, is a mental strait-waistcoat. It has a more immoral and degenerating effect upon the mind because it is applied directly. If physical restraint acts perniciously upon the reasoning powers, a far greater degree of harm must be caused by direct mental restraint. Yet nobody, from Arnold and Thring down to the professional crammer of to-day, seems to have grasped this simple fact.

Schoolmasters are like mothers. They imagine that because a boy happens to have survived their system of teaching the latter must necessarily be the one perfect method—just as the fond mother, whose infant has been enabled by means of a phenomenal digestion to outlive a particular food, believes that it is the only food upon which babies can possibly be brought up.

When we come to survey impartially the effects of this system of education upon boys in general, it must surely be brought home to us that something is radically wrong somewhere. If a few manage to survive the treatment and remain the ten righteous individuals, what is to be said of the degeneration of the majority? It is surely absurd, with the anomalies and defects of the whole method of educating youth staring one in the face, to ascribe it to mere boy nature.

The truth is that in boyhood the natural tendencies incline to push their way boisterously to the front. They are constantly trying to find an egress. But the parent and the pedagogue, in their blindness, can only see in this law of nature a wicked and perverse propensity that must be restrained at all hazards by a speedy application of the educational strait-waistcoat.



CHAPTER VIII

THE STRUGGLE OF THE EDUCATED

So far we have chiefly discussed the effect produced upon the individual by a compulsory course of study. It has been seen that he suffers in a number of ways, through being subjected, from his earliest childhood, to a more or less inflexible method of training. All of these, however, have been directly attributable to his education. We may now consider, before pursuing the subject any further, certain disabilities that may be traced to the same cause, but which are brought about indirectly.

It is bad enough, as most of us will have perceived, to compel a boy to learn certain things whether they are congenial to him or not. But it is preposterous that the same stock of knowledge should be forced upon all alike. This is, however, exactly what is being done in every educational establishment throughout the Empire, with the most disastrous consequences to the victims of the system.

Let us turn once more to the map of life for an illustration.

The average educated man begins to learn his alphabet at the age of four or five. During the following years he receives the necessary grounding to prepare him for the lower forms of a public school. At eleven, or thereabouts, he commences his school career. Throughout the whole of this period he is put through a course of study identical in every respect with that pursued by his schoolfellows. Every boy in the school is crammed with the same facts, and in the same way. The sixth-form boy is exactly like the rest of his class, exactly like the sixth-form boy of ten years ago, and probably exactly like the sixth-form boy of ten years hence. Not only does he possess precisely the same knowledge as his companions, hold the same opinions, and enjoy the same mental horizon, but he has acquired uniform tastes and habits. In other words, the school has stamped upon him a common individuality shared by all its pupils.

After he has left school the same process is carried on at the university. Here he is crammed again with the same facts, the same rules, and the same ideas, borrowed from the same people, that are being dinned into scores of other young men who are working for their degree. Having gone conscientiously through this routine, he takes his degree with the rest.

This aim being accomplished, his educational career is over. He has graduated; that is to say, he has obtained a certificate to the effect that he has acquired a certain regulation stock of knowledge.

What happens next?

The unhappy graduate suddenly makes the discovery that his university qualification is not the ready passport to employment that he had fondly imagined it to be. Unless he has a reasonable chance of a curacy and chooses to enter the Church, or can scrape together a few pupils to coach, or has the means to go on reading for the Bar or cramming for the public examinations, his prospects of immediate starvation are excessively favourable.

It was remarked some years ago by a writer who had spent a great deal of time in investigating life at common lodging-houses in the poorer districts of the Metropolis, that a startling number of university men seemed to drift into them. Yet these are the men who are supposed to have qualified themselves most highly for the holding of good positions. In some way, therefore, it is clear that this academic training has disadvantages which serve to handicap its victims severely in practical life. It cannot be mere accident that those who, according to all educational tradition, are classed as the most fit for responsible employment necessitating good mental ability, actually labour under obvious disabilities in this connection.

Nobody can urge that there is not enough work of a nature demanding high attainments to go round. Literature itself offers an enormous field for the exhibition of special talent; and there are many other walks in life where mental superiority is sadly needed, and which should therefore provide ample work and remuneration for those who show capability and resource. But in spite of all these openings some of our scholars are driven to eke out a miserable pauper's existence in the common lodging-house, or even in extreme cases to solicit parish relief.

The explanation of this strange anomaly lies simply in the fact that the educational mill not only manufactures dummies, but makes them all exactly alike. In the higher types of schools and colleges there is generally a choice of three patterns—the classical dummy, the modern language dummy, and the scientific dummy. But each pattern is very like the other, for all the practical purposes of this life; that is to say, they are all equally useless and equally unfitted for the task of moving forward with the times.

The result of fitting out everybody with a common stock of knowledge is to institute a disastrous form of intellectual competition. Thousands of young men are being equipped annually by our schools and universities for the performance of precisely the same functions. Intelligence brought wholesale to the market in this stereotyped form is in much the same unhappy condition as unskilled labour. There is a supply far in excess of the demand, and consequently employment cannot be found for all.

Perhaps the profession of literature and journalism affords the aptest illustration of the utter folly and uselessness of producing these machine-made scholars, all filled chock-full with the same ideas, facts, figures, and dates. Here, as in reality everywhere else, there is need of originality, intellectual independence, insight, judgment, and imagination. Journalism wants ideas; facts are amply provided by the news agency and the reporter. The gates of literature are opened wide for striking and vigorous thought, trenchant criticism, and imaginative flights of fancy.

What has the average academically-trained man to offer? He has an assortment of second-hand ideas borrowed from Plato and Socrates, from Ovid and Virgil and Horace; he can echo Voltaire, Goethe, Kant, Shakespeare, Dante; he can dish up Aristotle, Pythagoras, Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Davy, Faraday and Darwin. He can borrow illustrations from classical mythology; he knows the Dynasties of ancient Egypt; and he is able to furnish, without reference to history, the exact date upon which King John signed Magna Charta, and the precise number of battles fought in the Wars of the Roses.

Such are the literary accomplishments of numberless university graduates, and it is small wonder that they often lead to the workhouse. The demand for the dressed-up ideas of the poets, philosophers, and scientists of a former generation is not great. Those who like their literature at second hand prefer snippets from the Newgate Calendar to the wise saws of Bacon; and they would rather have their blood stirred by quotations from 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' or 'Pay, pay, pay,' than read a paraphrase of the combined wisdom of all the philosophers of the nineteenth century.

The same argument holds good in relation to other professions and occupations. The university graduate has no practical accomplishments. He may be an ornamental, but he is certainly not ipso facto a useful, member of society. The only thing for which he is pre-eminently fitted is to assist others, by means of extension lectures and cramming, to be his companions in misfortune. But this can hardly be designated a beneficial sphere of activity, and he is handicapped in all he undertakes by the fact that thousands of others possess the same educational equipment as himself.

Why should every educated man be like the other? There is absolutely no reason for it. The similarity is purely artificial. Nature never intended all men to be cast in the same mould, and it is only the perversity of man himself that has brought the human race down to such a level. The stupidity of giving every scholar the same mental outfit is so self-evident as scarcely to need further comment. Even following the modern plan of stuffing minds instead of developing them, one would have thought that common sense would dictate the necessity of manufacturing as much variety as possible.

The whole trend of evolution is to differentiate; and if natural laws were not completely disregarded by education systems, the absurdity of filling the world with two or three human species instead of a hundred thousand would never have been perpetrated. As long as this arbitrary interference with Nature is continued, educated men will not cease to be a drug in the market. Its immediate effect is not to endow the individual with special qualities, but to handicap him heavily for the real business of life.

Competition amongst the 'well-educated' is not the result of over-population or of a too liberal supply of competent men. It is caused by uniformity of attainment; and until this is generally realized, one of the most pressing social problems cannot hope to find a solution.



CHAPTER IX

WOMAN'S EMPIRE OVER MAN

Men have always been reluctant to acknowledge the truth about woman's real position in the world. They keep up a beautiful kind of masculine myth about the mastery of the sterner sex and their mental superiority, and they talk of woman in a patronizing way as man's helpmate.

There is no doubt—it is a physiological fact—that man possesses more brain-power or capacity than woman. But woman has, on the other hand, an enormous advantage in the use to which she has put her mental machinery from time immemorial. The truth is that women think out things for themselves a great deal more than does the average man. As, however, they concentrate their attention for the most part on what are called the minor interests of life, whilst men are occupied with bigger and more important things, it has come to be accepted that the mind of woman is inferior to the mind of man.

In one sense this is true. Potentially, woman's mind has not the capacity of man's. One has only to look for female Shakespeares, Newtons, Bismarcks, Raphaels, and Beethovens, to verify the fact beyond dispute. But we are dealing here with existing circumstances, not with potentialities. Therefore I have no hesitation in saying that, as a general rule, women use what brain power they have to much better advantage than men; which amounts to a confession that woman, apart from intellectual specialization, is, on the average, man's mental superior.

This is a sweeping statement to make, but it is made only in the interests of truth, and it admits of a great deal of plausible explanation.

Man's mental training, as has been fully pointed out, consists almost entirely in pouring facts into a vacuum created by the careful elimination of original thought. Until recently, women have not been subjected to this agreeable process. For a very long time they were not educated at all, and when governesses first came into fashion in better class families, the idea was rather to endow girls with a few graceful accomplishments than to cram them with dates and other kinds of mechanical knowledge.

This tradition is still kept up to a certain degree in the higher social circles; but there have also sprung up a large number of girls' colleges, in which all the bad points of masculine education are carefully copied. These colleges are frequented by girls of the upper and middle classes, chiefly the latter, and no doubt they are gradually working a revolution in feminine character. But heredity—especially when it is, within a generation or so, the heredity of long ages—is a very potent factor in the formation of both mind and body, and offers a steady resistance to innovation. The full effects, therefore, of this educational revolution in respect to womankind are not yet apparent.

The net result of this is that the majority of women are still addicted to thought. Facts have not yet entirely taken the place of ideas in their minds, except in extreme cases which may be called exceptional, although it must be confessed that they are becoming every day less rare. They think, no doubt, for the most part about the commonplace incidents of their daily life, and possibly they are given too much to morbid introspection. But anything that serves to make a human being exercise the function for which his brain was originally intended should be regarded with thankfulness. It is a thousand times better for the development of the mind to speculate about the motives of acquaintances, or to philosophize on the shortcomings of the maid-of-all-work, than to babble off the dates of the Sovereigns from William the Conqueror, or to construe Horace's Odes without taking in a syllable of their sense.

Women have thus formed a habit of reflection about trifles, which the more gifted amongst them extend to weightier topics. And it is in this way that they are able to gain an ascendancy over man that is the more potent because it is unobtrusive. The average woman sees things the subtleties of which escape man altogether, and she perceives them because her mind has been trained, by natural development, to observation.

The average man, on the other hand, is the most unobservant creature under the sun. He rarely understands even what is going on under his nose. It is all very well to say that his superior mind is wrapt up in percentages, or absorbed in grand schemes for the regeneration of mankind. The plain truth is that he does not possess the faculty of applying his intelligence to everything within his range of observation. Evolution intended him to possess it; but education systems, which harbour very little respect for the laws of Nature, have found ready means to curb the propensity or to destroy it altogether.

It is small matter for surprise, therefore, that woman should have succeeded in subjecting man to an empire as autocratic as it is, to all outward appearances, unsuspected. Some people maintain that this empire is gained solely by physical attraction; but this contention is disproved easily enough. All women do not possess the charm of beauty; yet there is scarcely a woman of any nationality, or belonging to any station in life, who does not exercise a more or less powerful influence over her menkind.

Husbands are guided by their wives, even in matters of business or affecting public interests, far more than they are generally ready to acknowledge. Staying at a seaside hotel some time ago, I made the acquaintance of a hard-headed Lancashire merchant who had amassed a comfortable independence. In an outburst of confidence he told me one day that he had never taken a single important step in the conduct of his business without consulting his wife, and he also acknowledged that he had never had to regret asking her advice.

The moral of this story is the more significant when it is recollected that in such a case the wife has not had the same opportunities as her husband of forming a correct judgment. The latter has the business details at his finger-ends; he is acquainted with the person or persons with whom the dealings are taking place; and he has his experience to fall back upon. But somehow or other the wife seems to grasp all the points, and to see more clearly into the motives of the person concerned. 'Why,' she will exclaim to her husband, 'can't you see that So-and-so is trying to bamboozle you?' And, the scales falling from the deluded husband's eyes, he suddenly makes the discovery that his wife thinks where his own powers of reflection are contented to remain dormant.

The fact is, that the habit of thinking cannot be acquired through exercise in mental gymnastics. Philosophers, mathematicians, and men of science are notoriously up in the clouds, and incapable often to a remarkable degree of managing the affairs of everyday life with common sense. Yet these are the individuals who have been subjected to the highest form of what is called mental training. If fact-cramming and mental gymnastics are the best developers of the human mind, these men ought to be perfect models of intelligence. But will any candid-minded person call it the highest form of intellectual development to have a clear conception of the precession of the equinoxes, or to manufacture metaphysical conundrums, whilst remaining utterly incapable of applying common sense to human affairs that demand at least an equal amount of attention?

It is clear that this type of mental training does not teach people to think at all, but has the contrary effect of restricting the intelligence to an altitude very far beyond the ordinary requirements of our social existence. Man may have a very broad horizon; but the broader it becomes, the further he seems to be transported from the capacity to exercise the normal functions of the brain. To designate this the proper development of the mind would be manifestly absurd; yet many people seem contented to regard it as such, and accept the anomaly without giving its obvious contradictoriness a second thought.

Of course it is not argued that woman's mental training is, or has been, all that can be desired. It is, in her case, more the neglect to apply severe educational methods, than anything else, that has permitted the negative development of her thinking faculties; and this tends to demonstrate all the more conclusively that the real use of the brain is practically destroyed by conventional modes of instruction.

Women, left to their own devices for countless generations, have acquired a faculty that all the education systems in the world have failed to pound into the mind of man. It is their superiority in this respect that has given them far-reaching empire over the opposite sex. That this should be generally appreciated is of the utmost importance, because the modern metamorphosis of woman, if rightly understood, is the best conceivable object-lesson in the evils brought about by the educational methods of the present day. It is not that the academically-trained woman threatens to push man out of his place in the world, but that she is herself in danger of losing the very weapon that has given her so large a share of power and influence.

A great deal of nonsense has been talked and written about the spectacled Girton girl competing with men in knowledge, at the expense of forfeiting their admiration and thereby losing her vantage-ground. Spectacles do not enter into the matter at all. As has already been pointed out, physical attraction has nothing, or very little, to do with feminine wire-pulling.

Women derive their real powers from a gift of trained observation, and from the subtlety conferred upon them by the capacity to apply their intelligence to the numerous small matters which go to make up the sum of human life. Their minds will no longer develop these powers when they are systematically subjected to a process of education which has invariably failed to evoke them in the opposite sex. And with the loss of them, woman is bound also to lose the empire which she has hitherto exercised over masculine nature.

From this point of view alone, the education of women on the modern system is much to be deplored. There is no doubt that women in general have always exercised their predominant influence for the good of mankind. Striking exceptions might easily be adduced from history; but, on the whole, it must be acknowledged that woman has seldom abused her power. Therefore, anything that is calculated to undermine or destroy this favourable influence on human affairs cannot be regarded as otherwise than pernicious.

The more the idea spreads that girls must be given the same educational equipment as boys, the more rapid will be the degeneration of woman. It is a well-known fact in the medical profession that weakly boys are often unable to withstand the strain of school cramming; therefore girls, with their more delicate organization, will suffer proportionately in a greater degree. Physical training, of course, obviates a great deal of this evil. But the same thing is bound to happen in the case of girls as has already been experienced where boys are concerned; that is to say, the most promising intellects will be sacrificed, partly through the ambition of the school authorities, whose principal anxiety is to see their pupils distinguish themselves in examinations, and partly owing to the fact that exceptional ability so often implies a nervous temperament and delicate physique.

Women, it must be acknowledged, by no means use their faculties of thinking and observation to the best advantage. The conclusions at which they arrive are often far too definite, and have been formed in too great haste. So rapid is this operation of thought that it often becomes a mere intuition. Yet the remarkable accuracy of a woman's intuitions is evidence that there underlies them some intellectual process resting on a more solid basis than conjecture or guesswork.

It is the crude and untutored stage of development of the thinking faculty in woman that causes it to work intuitively, instead of by the slower and sounder processes of logic. To neglect a faculty is by no means synonymous with developing it. Hence woman's powers of thought and observation are embryonic rather than matured. The work they perform is not a tithe of what would be accomplished by them under the auspices of judicious encouragement and skilled training. The faculty has neither been destroyed by over-cramming nor fostered by enlightened treatment. It has simply been allowed to lie more or less dormant, according to the natural environment of the individual.

If man, with his superior brain capacity, were encouraged to cultivate the habits of observation at present restricted to woman, and to apply his intelligence to everything, instead of to a few selected objects, the ratio of the world's progress would be enormously increased. Who first started the notion that man is being manufactured into a superior article, and that woman cannot do better than submit herself with all haste to the same process, I do not know. At any rate, it is a disastrous doctrine, and the sooner the fallacy of it is perceived the more chance there will be of saving future generations of women from the blunder that is handicapping the masculine sex at the present moment.

It would be a grand thing if educationists could be persuaded to open their eyes to the fact that women, having been providentially saved from school instruction for past generations, have been enabled to preserve mental faculties that no amount of cramming and corporal punishment has ever succeeded in awakening in man. They would then cease from their ignorant attempt to deprive woman of her intellectual gift, and possibly even do something towards securing man a little mental room for the installation of his own thinking faculty.



CHAPTER X

YOUTH AND CRIME

We now come to the consideration of an aspect of the educational problem that involves questions of great difficulty and importance. The discussion has hitherto been limited to the lesser evils attributable to the forcing upon the masses of the people a useless and unsuitable kind of education. But there are far graver possibilities than the mere unfitting of large numbers of individuals for the occupations their natural propensities intended them to pursue.

People are, as has been pointed out, driven by the stupidity of the teaching system into all kinds of uncongenial employment. The suffering and waste caused by this constant production of the unfit are incalculable. It is scarcely to be wondered at that some persons have formed the ingenious theory that this world is hell itself, and that we are now actually undergoing our punishment in purgatory. Certainly there is some ground for the supposition in the fact that the lives of so many of us seem to have been ordered in direct opposition to our individual tastes and wishes.

This is bad enough. The question we have to face now is whether we have not to thank education systems for something a great deal worse. Mere unhappiness is not necessarily soul-destroying. But there is only too good reason to suppose that the evil effects of the mock education provided by the State do not stop at making its victims unhappy, but even go so far as to plunge a certain proportion of them into actual crime.

At the outset it must be acknowledged that the allegation is very difficult to prove. No satisfactory evidence on the point is derivable from published statistics. It is quite possible to determine by means of the latter how many young persons between the ages of twelve and twenty-one have been convicted of indictable offences during the year. But everybody who is acquainted with criminology, or who is conversant with the compilation of statistical information, must be well aware of the futility of depending upon the apparently clear testimony of official figures.

It would be extremely useful to find out whether juvenile offenders have increased or decreased since the institution of compulsory education. Statistics relating to this subject are procurable, but it is impossible to place any reliance upon them.

In the first place, there is nothing to show the cause of any such increase or decrease in the offences committed by young persons. It may be due to a variety of circumstances, none of which can be accurately determined. For instance, it is a well-known fact that youthful offenders have of late years been treated by magistrates with ever-increasing leniency. Consequently, fewer convictions take place now, in regard to this class of offence, than was the case some years ago. The number of the convictions is, therefore, no guide at all as to the increasing or diminishing proportion of youthful criminals.

Then there is the increased vigilance of the police, which leads to the more frequent detection of crime; whilst, as a set-off against this, there is the fact that education teaches the criminal, by assisting him to the reading of police-court reports and sensational storyettes, to be more wary.

Besides these, there is the important consideration that by far the larger number of young persons guilty of offences of various kinds are not prosecuted at all. This is due to two causes: firstly, to the fact that in the majority of cases they are not found out; and secondly, that many people are reluctant to bring youthful offenders within the meshes of the criminal law, as a conviction, whether or not it be followed by punishment, generally spells ruin to the person who has been found guilty.

There may be, and there probably are, many other and even more substantial reasons for discrediting statistics that are commonplaces to experts in crime. But those that have been cited, and which are at once suggested by common sense, fully suffice to show the impossibility of arriving at satisfactory conclusions on the basis of statistical tables published by the authorities.

The Blue-book containing the latest judicial returns attempts to deal with this question of the increase or decrease of juvenile crime; figures being only available, however, from the year 1893. 'To answer this question,' it is stated, 'it is necessary to ascertain the proportion which youthful offenders bear to the total number of convicted persons. This is given in the following table, where it will be seen that the proportion of offenders under the age of twenty-one remains almost constant:

'PROPORTION OF YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS CONVICTED OF INDICTABLE OFFENCES TO TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS CONVICTED.

- - - - - - - Age. 1893. 1894. 1895. 1896. 1897. 1898. - - - - - - - Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Under 12 4.6 4.9 4.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 12 and under 16 15.0 15.2 13.4 14.5 14.0 14.5 16 and under 21 21.2 22.0 21.8 19.7 19.5 20.2 - - - - - - - Total under 21 40.8 42.1 39.8 39.8 39.1 40.3 - - - - - - -

'The general result is that the number of youthful offenders has diminished with the general diminution of crime, but that they still bear almost the same ratio as before to the total of criminals.'

All this is, as has been pointed out, absolutely misleading. The number of persons convicted has nothing whatever to do with the increase or decrease of crime; and the proportion of youthful offenders to the total number of persons convicted is only calculated, in view of the great amount of clemency shown to young people both by magistrates and by the public, to give one a wholly false impression as to the prevalence of juvenile crime.

It would be easy to take the criminal statistics of foreign countries, and to prove from them that the education of the masses there has brought about an overwhelming increase in the proportion of crimes and offences committed by young persons under the age of twenty-one.

In Germany, Austria, France, Russia, Italy, Holland, and the United States juvenile crime has, according to statistical information, largely increased during the last quarter of a century. But, without making an exhaustive inquiry into the alterations that may have taken place in the law, the relative activity of the police, and a dozen other contingencies, it would not be honest to attempt to draw definite conclusions from these figures.

One has, after all, in these matters to fall back upon logic and common sense. There is the solid fact that youthful criminals abound in spite of education systems, and although there is a considerable leakage in respect to school-attendance, it does not follow that juvenile offenders are drawn from this truant class to a disproportionate extent. It must be remembered, on the contrary, that a great amount of non-attendance at school is due to the employment of children—especially in rural districts, where the members of School Boards are often the very people who extract most profit from child labour.

A prison chaplain of great experience, the Rev. J. W. Horsley, wrote, in his interesting work on 'Prisons and Prisoners': 'While covetousness is a factor of crime, the tools education places in the hands make crimes of greed more possible, and possible at an earlier age than in past generations. This week I got the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society to take under its care a child of ten, who had written, filled up, and cashed, a postal order that it might buy more lollipops. Increased knowledge, especially when not adequately accompanied by moral and religious education, will create new tastes, desires, and ambitions, that make for evil as well as for good. Let instruction abound, let education in its fullest sense more abound, but let us be aware of the increased power for evil as well as for good that they produce, and at any rate let us not imagine that education and crime cannot co-exist. Crime is varied, not abolished, not even most effectually decreased, by the sharpening of wits.'

Speaking of intemperance in relation to crime, he states that: 'Brain-workers provide the most hopeless cases of dipsomania. Increased brain-power—more brain-work; more brain-exhaustion—more nervous desire for a stimulant, more rapid succumbing to the alcoholic habit—these are the stages that can be noted everywhere among those who have had more "schooling" than their fathers. Australia consumes more alcohol per head than any nation. In Australia primary education is more universal than in England, and yet there criminals have increased out of all proportion to the population. Of much crime, of many forms of crime, it is irrefragably true that crime is condensed alcohol, and it is certainly not true that the absolutely or comparatively illiterate alone comprise those who swell these categories.'

I have taken pains to ascertain the opinions of several of the chaplains attached to the great convict prisons, and they are practically unanimous in condemning the present system of education.

'It is liable,' writes one of these experienced clergymen, 'to foster conceit, discontent, a disinclination to submit to discipline and authority, and a dangerous phase of ambition, which are fruitful sources of that kind of crime which is in these days most prevalent.... This superficial education causes, I think, self-deceit as well as self-conceit, and makes young people imagine that because, in addition to what they have learnt, they can present a good outward appearance, they are qualified to fill any kind of appointment with success.

'I think, also,' he goes on to say, 'that it leads them in their desire to rise in the social scale to attempt by dishonest means to live at a higher rate than is justifiable, to gamble and speculate, in order to keep up a false position. I have come across those who have fallen where this has confessedly been the case, and who have lamented that such wrong ideas had been put into their heads. Young people now look upon many honourable and useful employments as beneath them, and there is a general rush for those which seem to offer a better social position.'

The conventional belief in the efficacy of cramming boys with moral platitudes and all kinds of commonplace facts and theoretical knowledge is so ingrained that there is a natural reluctance to ascribe any evil effects to the process of education. I am contented, however, to let the facts speak for themselves. It cannot well be disputed that unsuitable education, or sham education, or whatever one may like to call it, is the direct cause of widespread dissatisfaction amongst the very classes from which the majority of criminals are recruited. Whilst vast numbers of people are constantly being unfitted for the commonest occupations of life, there must result an overcrowding of the callings which are considered suitable to the dignity of those who have eaten the unripe fruit of the elementary tree of knowledge.

It is self-evident that the unsuitably educated have much greater incentive to wrong-doing than the merely illiterate, and it is also a corroborative fact that by far the greater proportion of criminals have been taught at least to read and write. Given two boys, one of whom had acquired a smattering of facts at school and had learnt the Catechism very perfectly by rote, whilst the other had merely been encouraged to apply a little common sense to manual labour, who would have any hesitation in pointing out the former as the more likely to fall into evil ways?

Therein lies the supreme foolishness of modern methods of instruction. All the moral aphorisms in the world will not help a boy to be honest if he is at the same time unfitted for his station in life. People do not need moral instruction; they acquire all their morality in the school of life. It is impossible to teach boys and girls theoretically to be virtuous. All that can be done is to turn them into first-class hypocrites, ready to quote texts and to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, whilst they are busy breaking the Ten Commandments every day of the week.

A surprising amount of virtue would come into the world of its own accord if a little more pains were taken to preserve for each individual the environment to which he is adapted by nature. This life has become such a mockery that people talk of heaven as a state in which every person will be free to do the things he likes best—as if that blissful condition were utterly unattainable here.

Whilst such anomalies exist as those which curse the existence of the majority upon this earth, criminals will continue to be produced. And if we concede that these anomalies are directly or indirectly brought about by false and irrational methods of educating the youth of the country, we must also allow that education helps to manufacture criminals and to encourage crime.



CHAPTER XI

MENTAL BREAKDOWN

It was frankly stated in the last chapter that there is no concrete evidence of a reliable nature as to the immoral effects of our education system. The inquirer has to depend rather upon the logic of philosophical speculation than upon the testimony of our available statistics, common sense being generally a far more truthful witness than figures that can be manipulated to mean almost anything.

But when we come to inquire into the physical evils that are produced by cramming and injudiciously-applied instruction, it must be acknowledged that the evidence as to their existence rests upon a much more solid foundation. Clever brain specialists, who have made a lifelong study of mental diseases and the causes of mental breakdown, are in a position to state very definitely, from actual experience, whether or not the cramming system of modern education is productive of physical ill on a large scale.

We all of us know, probably, of some isolated instances here and there where the severe strain of cramming for a competitive examination has resulted in loss of health and physical breakdown. Some are even aware of cases in which the unhappy victim of overwork has lost his reason altogether, and has been compelled to be placed under restraint. But it is only the physician who has made a special study of mental diseases that is in a position to form wide and accurate generalizations on the subject.

In approaching this question, therefore, I have realized the importance of obtaining the opinions of experts who are alone qualified to express a well-balanced judgment upon a matter demanding knowledge and opportunities of observation of a very special nature. Accordingly, I have consulted some of the greatest brain specialists in this country, and the brief remarks that I am enabled to make on the subject of educational cramming and mental breakdown are chiefly based upon the valuable hints for which I am indebted to them.

To take the case of healthy children first, it is satisfactory to learn upon high authority that they do not suffer much physical harm from the effects of overwork. What happens in their case is that the vigorous and healthy brain offers a sound resistance to the stuffing process, and speedily forgets what has been forced into it. From an educational point of view this is, of course, very disastrous; but as far as health considerations are concerned it affords a certain amount of consolation.

This is to say, one must bear in mind, that modern methods of education are only salutary as long as they fail altogether to affect the intelligence. The moment they prove themselves to be efficacious they become an immediate source of danger.

It follows from this fact that stupid children are as well protected against the evil effects of the education system as the healthy children. In fact, to a large extent the stupid children are the healthy ones by reason of their stupidity. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose that a stupid child necessarily implies one that is in any sense deficient mentally. The dull schoolboy often proves in after life to be the brilliant man. All that his dulness need be taken to signify is that his mind is not receptive to the subjects which are being forced upon it. Linnaeus was very stupid at Latin until an enlightened physician, who was aware of his passion for botanical study, suggested his reading Plinius; and although he may not have imbibed very accurate information about natural history from that philosopher, he succeeded in making immediate progress in the Latin language.

There should be, under a rational system of education, no such thing as a stupid child. What is, after all, stupidity or dulness in a schoolboy? It simply means that the boy's faculties are undeveloped, and that no amount of fact-cramming has succeeded in developing them. The whole mischief lies, of course, in the fact that the school is not trying to develop the boy's own faculties at all, but merely to force him to adapt himself to its own curriculum and conventionality.

The danger to the brain of the healthy or stupid child is not over-development but under-development. It is not they who suffer in the worst sense from the evil effects of over-education, but the gifted children, as they are called, or those whose quick, nervous intellects are most susceptible to the process of receiving any kind of instruction.

It is the nervous boy or girl who generally makes the most promising pupil. A natural inclination to study leads children of this type to prefer the schoolroom to the playground. The boy who works hard to get to the top of his class, or to pass an examination, or to obtain a scholarship, is the one least given to games, and, in consequence, the weakest physically.

These are the very children whom the teacher is most tempted to encourage to do more work than is good for them. The process of their mental development is so rapid that it needs no stimulation from outside. But that is not, unfortunately, the concern of the school authorities. The anxiety to produce scholars who will distinguish themselves in public examinations, and thereby advertise the school, invariably leads the schoolmaster to cram and stuff the brains of the brightest and most forward boys.

There is special danger in over-working boys or girls of this type, because the brain is not strong enough to withstand the pressure. The result is never good, and in extreme cases it is as bad as it could possibly be. It follows, in fact, as a matter of course, that the finest and most sensitive intellects are the first to succumb to the pernicious effects of over-cramming the brain. There is a strain that can only be endured by second-rate minds, and it is not, therefore, the intellectually fittest who are encouraged to survive under the present system.

What has been stated above refers rather to the higher class of schools and colleges, which prepare boys for examinations and academic distinctions of various kinds, than to the elementary schools to which the children of the poor are commandeered. In the latter establishments a special barbarity takes place which has been so widely discussed in Parliament and in the newspapers that I will do no more here than allude to it in passing.

I refer to the forcing of instruction upon under-fed school-children.

Apart from the gross inhumanity of the proceeding, there is the indisputable fact that the compulsory teaching of children whose bodies have not been properly nourished tends to weaken the intellect. If these children were subjected to a process of cramming such as is usual in the higher schools, their minds would undoubtedly break down altogether. As it is, the comparatively mild method of the elementary school does not effect anything worse in such cases than the prevention of the development of the mind, which is one degree better than complete breakdown or insanity.

'The School Board system of cramming with smatterings,' wrote one of the greatest mental specialists in the world in reply to my inquiries, 'instead of teaching their victims to think—even if only by teaching one subject well—is perhaps responsible for some positive mental breakdown; but probably the main harm of it is that it stifles and strangles proper mental development.' 'Undeveloped mentality,' he says in conclusion, 'is perhaps the principal fault of our educational system (so-called).'

Another distinguished physician writes to me from a lunatic asylum:

'We have had a few cases who have broken down, the results of working for scholarships; also we have had one or two cases of ladies who have broken down working for higher examinations. Dr. —— and myself both feel certain that there is a good deal to be said against the increased pressure put upon young adolescents at schools. From my own experience I know that boys who were considered especially clever, and were high up in forms in the public school I was at, have most of them now dropped back, and are very mediocre. On the other hand, many who matured slowly have continued to advance. This is only an observation, and has many exceptions; but it is an observation that, as time passes, is more fully confirmed.'

It is not necessary to add anything to these valuable expressions of opinion, proceeding from eminent men of wide experience, who are far more capable judges than the layman who has no scientific knowledge and a necessarily limited range of observation.

Facts speak very eloquently for themselves. If brain specialists are continually coming across cases of mental breakdown resulting from cramming or over-education, it is quite clear that a system which is productive of such evils must be altogether defective in principle and wanting in common sense.



CHAPTER XII

EVIDENCE OF HISTORY

After an exhaustive inquiry into the multifarious evils which must be laid at the door of education, it is refreshing to turn to history for illustrious examples of men who not only did not owe their greatness to academic training, but who actually owed it to what would nowadays be designated a neglected education.

The chronicles of the past teem with instances of youths who have developed into brilliant men, in spite of the fact that they had either had no schooling at all, or had been considered the dunces of their class. It would, in fact, be far more difficult to supply illustrations of great men who have succeeded on account of their academic distinction, than to give examples of those who failed to distinguish themselves at school, but who nevertheless became famous afterwards as men of unusual talent.

When Napoleon Bonaparte, at the age of fifteen, left the military college of Brienne, where he had been a pupil for five years and a half, the inspector of military schools gave him the following certificate:

'M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born August 15, 1769; height 4 feet 10 inches 10 lines; is in the fourth class; has a good constitution, excellent health, character obedient, upright, grateful, conduct very regular; has always been distinguished by his application to mathematics. He knows history and geography very passably. He is not well up in ornamental studies or in Latin, in which he is only in the fourth class. He will be an excellent sailor. He deserves to be passed on to the military school of Paris.'

This was an optimistic description of the youthful Napoleon's accomplishments, for he was, as a matter of fact, so backward in Latin that his removal to Paris was opposed by the sub-principal of the college. According to the testimony of his schoolfellow and biographer, M. de Bourrienne, he exhibited backwardness in every branch of education except mathematics, for which he showed a distinct natural bent.

The only professor at Brienne who took any notice of Napoleon was the mathematical master. The others thought him stupid because he had no taste for the study of languages, literature, and the various subjects that formed the curriculum of the establishment; and as there seemed no chance of his becoming a scholar, they took no interest in him.

'His superior intelligence was, however, sufficiently perceptible,' writes M. de Bourrienne, 'even through the reserve under which it was veiled. If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment was confided had understood the organization of his mind, if they had engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career more brilliant, it is true, but less useful to mankind. Unfortunately, the monks did not perceive this, and were too poor to pay for good masters.... The often-repeated assertion of Bonaparte having received a careful education at Brienne is therefore untrue.'

Napoleon's military bent showed itself whilst he was at the College of Brienne. Heavy snow fell during one winter, and prevented him from taking the solitary walks that were his chief recreation. He therefore fell back upon the expedient of getting his school companions to dig trenches and build snow fortifications. 'This being done,' he said, 'we may divide ourselves into sections, form a siege, and I will undertake to direct the attacks.' In this way he organized a sham war that was carried on with great success for a fortnight.

This brief sketch of Napoleon Bonaparte's schooldays has been given in order to show that the development of his genius owed nothing to academic training. Without being actually a dunce, he was backward in all the subjects except the one in which he took a vivid interest; and, doubtless, had he cared as little for mathematics as for Latin, he would have left Brienne with a reputation for profound stupidity.

The school career of his great opponent, Wellington, was even less distinguished. Tradition has handed down to posterity no further details regarding his Eton days beyond the record of a fight with Sydney Smith's elder brother 'Bobus.' Alluding to him as a dull boy, Mr. Smiles states, in a footnote, in his book on 'Self-Help': 'A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, 1859) observes that "the Duke's talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only 'food for powder.' He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angiers." It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded him from the army.'

Lord Clive was a perfectly hopeless youth from the schoolmaster's point of view. He loathed work, and was always up to some prank or other. In the vain hope of inducing him to learn something, he was sent to four schools in succession; but, with a single exception, every master under whom he was placed declared him to be an incorrigible idler. The exception was Dr. Eaton of Lostock, who predicted a great career for Clive, provided an opportunity were afforded him for the exercise of his talents.

At Market Drayton he amused himself by organizing a band of idle scamps, who went about threatening to smash the windows of tradespeople unless they paid a fine of apples or pence; and on one occasion he alarmed the inhabitants of the town by climbing a church steeple and seating himself upon a stone spout near the top.

A man of the same stamp who received the scantiest education was George Washington. He is described as having been given a common-school education, with a little mathematical training, but no instruction whatever in ancient or modern languages.

Christopher Columbus, another adventurous spirit, owed very little to his schooling. 'He soon evinced a strong passion for geographical knowledge,' writes Washington Irving in his interesting Life of the explorer, 'and an irresistible inclination for the sea.... His father, seeing the bent of his mind, endeavoured to give him an education suitable for maritime life. He sent him, therefore, to the university of Pavia, where he was instructed in geometry, geography, astronomy and navigation.... He remained but a short time at Pavia, barely sufficient to give him the rudiments of the necessary sciences; the thorough acquaintance with them which he displayed in after-life must have been the result of diligent self-schooling, and of casual hours of study amidst the cares and vicissitudes of a rugged and wandering life.'

No better instance of the advantage of natural development and self-culture could be afforded than by the career of Dr. Livingstone. Working in a cotton factory as a boy of ten, he studied scientific works and books of travel, besides the classics, not only at night, but during the hours of labour.

'Looking back now at that life of toil,' he wrote afterwards, 'I cannot but feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early education; and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training.'

Dr. Adam Clarke, the celebrated divine, scholar, and philanthropist, was a regular dunce in his early youth. It was only with difficulty, and an undue proportion of whacking, that the elements of the alphabet were driven into his head by an impatient teacher—a mode of instruction that probably caused him to remark, in after life, that 'many children, not naturally dull, have become so under the influence of the schoolmaster.'

It is related of Dr. Clarke that when he reached the middle of 'As in praesenti,' in Lilly's Latin Grammar, he came to a dead stop and could get no further. His fellow-pupils, however, jeered him to such an extent that he determined to go on and conquer the difficulty. And this resolution seems to have helped him considerably, as, instead of the grammar being forced into him, he began to study and think for himself.

Nevertheless, he always found great difficulty in learning anything at school, but was passionately devoted to reading imaginative books and stories of adventure, such as 'Jack the Giant-killer,' 'Arabian Nights,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Sir Francis Drake,' and a host of similar works. To these, in fact, and not to his painfully acquired school education, he was wont to attribute the formation of his literary taste.

Disraeli's education was by no means thorough. There is no record of his having distinguished himself academically in the slightest degree. It is related of him, on the contrary, that he was such a duffer at classics as to be incapable of grasping the rule that 'ut' should be followed by the subjunctive mood. The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, given by one of his school-fellows, is quoted by Sir William Fraser:

'I cannot say that Benjamin Disraeli at this period of his life exhibited any unusual zeal for classical studies; and I doubt whether his attainments in this direction, when he left the school for Mr. Cogan's at Walthamstow, reached higher than the usual grind in Livy and Caesar. But I well remember that he was the compiler and editor of a school newspaper, which made its appearance on Saturdays, when the gingerbread-seller was also to be seen, and that the right of perusal was estimated at the cost of a sheet of gingerbread, the money value of which was in those days the third of a penny.'

Turning to literary men, we find an imposing array of dunces. I have not had time to examine into the school experiences of more than a limited number of great names. If the reader is anxious to pursue the investigation further, he will doubtless find that there is scarcely a famous man of letters who made his mark at school or university.

The first person to teach Oliver Goldsmith his letters was a woman, who afterwards became village schoolmistress, named Elizabeth Delap. She did not form a very flattering opinion of her young pupil. 'Never was so dull a boy,' she was wont to declare; 'he seemed impenetrably stupid.' From this kind but undiscriminating teacher Oliver gravitated to the village school, where he learnt nothing. Thence he was sent to Elphin; and of this period of his school life Dr. Strean says: 'He was considered by his contemporaries and school-fellows, with whom I have often conversed on the subject, as a stupid heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom every one made fun of.'

Goldsmith has himself, in his 'Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,' recorded some very striking impressions as to the value of academic success. 'A lad whose passions are not strong enough in youth,' he writes, 'to mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance, probably obtains every advantage and honour his college can bestow. I forget whether the simile has been used before, but I would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispassionate prudence to liquors that never ferment, and consequently continue always muddy. Passions may raise a commotion in the youthful breast, but they disturb only to refine it. However this be, mean talents are often rewarded in colleges with an easy subsistence.'

Another 'impenetrable dunce,' according to the opinion of his tutor, an eminent Dublin scholar, was Richard Sheridan. He was afterwards sent to Harrow, where he earned for himself a great reputation for idleness. Dr. Parr, one of the under-masters, wrote to Sheridan's biographer the following expression of opinion:

'There was little in his boyhood worth communication. He was inferior to many of his schoolfellows in the ordinary business of a school, and I do not remember any one instance in which he distinguished himself by Latin or English composition, in prose or verse.... He was at the uppermost part of the fifth form, but he never reached the sixth, and, if I mistake not, he had no opportunity of attending the most difficult and the most honourable of school business, when the Greek plays were taught—and it was the custom at Harrow to teach these at least every year. He went through his lessons in Horace and Virgil and Homer well enough for a time. But, in the absence of the upper master, Dr. Sumner, it once fell in my way to instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly in construing, but unusually defective in his Greek grammar.... I ought to have told you that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency.'

The latter statement speaks volumes for a method of teaching which failed to evoke, even in such a master of English literature as Sheridan eventually proved himself to be, a proper development of his greatest talent. No doubt the exercises in which so little proficiency was shown were compulsorily executed against the grain, being of such a pedantic character that no sane schoolboy could possibly be found to evince the smallest interest in them.

Dean Swift and Sir Walter Scott were both dull boys. The former says of himself that he was 'stopped of his degree for dulness and insufficiency.' Scott, in his autobiographical sketch, does not make himself out to have been the dunce that he really was supposed to be at school. If not bright at his lessons, however, he was certainly clever in other ways and capable of thinking for himself. An excellent illustration of this is contained in the story that though Scott, as a boy, used invariably to go to sleep in church in the course of the sermon, yet, when questioned about the latter afterwards, he was generally able to sketch out most of the points dwelt upon by the preacher—the explanation being, of course, that, given the text, he was able to follow the probable train of thought inspired by its wording. Summing up Scott's attainments, a biographer gives expression to the opinion that he was 'self-educated in every branch of knowledge he ever turned to account in the works of his genius.'

Neither Burns nor Carlyle was a scholar. The former received a grounding in grammar, reading, and writing. He acquired a little French, but learnt no Latin at all. Whatever he knew he owed to the fact that he exercised his own taste for knowledge by choosing his own books and devouring only what appealed to his mind. Carlyle, like many another famous man of letters, had little Latin and less Greek. 'In the classical field,' he wrote, 'I am truly as nothing.' For mathematics he showed a certain amount of inclination, but even in that field did not succeed in carrying off any prizes. His own opinion of a conventional education is very tersely rendered by his exclamation: 'Academia! High School instructors of youth! Oh, ye unspeakable!'

The poet Wordsworth was educated at the grammar school at Hawkshead. He always declared that the great merit of the school was the liberty allowed to the scholars. No attempt was made to cram or to produce model pupils. Within limits they appear, in fact, to have been allowed to read precisely what they pleased. In this way Wordsworth received in every sense of the term a liberal education; and when he went to Cambridge, 'he enjoyed even more thoroughly than at Hawkshead whatever advantages might be derived from the neglect of his teachers.'

The poet had a great contempt for academical training, and refused to go through the usual Cambridge course. He finally graduated as B.A. without honours, afterwards recording his indifference to academic distinction in the well-known lines:

Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room, All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand, With loyal students faithful to their books, Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants, And honest dunces—of important days, Examinations, when the man was weighed As in a balance! Of excessive hopes, Tremblings withal and commendable fears, Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad— Let others that know more speak as they know. Such glory was but little sought by me, And little won.

More forcibly expressed was Rousseau's derision of ordinary educational methods. Writing in his 'Confessions' about the school days of his cousin and himself, he says: 'We were sent together to Bossey, to board with the Protestant minister Lambercier, in order to learn, together with Latin, all the sorry trash which is included under the name of education.... M. Lambercier was a very intelligent person who, without neglecting our education, never imposed excessive tasks upon us. The fact that, in spite of my dislike to restraint, I have never recalled my hours of study with any feeling of disgust, and also that, even if I did not learn much from him, I learnt without difficulty what I did learn, and never forgot it, is sufficient proof that his system of instruction was a good one.'

As far as the history of science is concerned, there is a long array of self-cultured men to whom most of the discoveries that have been made are due. In no other occupation is the faculty of thinking originally and independently more essential than in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and it is significant that amongst famous scientists more instances are to be found of men who owe nothing to school instruction or academic training than in almost any other walk of life.

In this connection mention has already been made of the famous botanist Linnaeus. The whole of his school life was one unremitting protest against the usual educational methods of endeavouring to force the mind away from its natural bent. Linnaeus detested metaphysics, Latin, Greek, and every subject except physics and mathematics, in which he usually outstripped his fellow-pupils. But his nose was kept to the grindstone until the authorities informed his father that he was not fit for a learned education, and recommended his being given some manual employment. Thus were twelve precious years of the life of one of the most gifted men of science, save for what he accomplished out of school hours, wasted to no purpose. It is not to be wondered at that he spoke of one of his masters as 'a passionate and morose man, better calculated for extinguishing a youth's talents than for improving them.'

One of the greatest anatomists that ever lived, John Hunter, who numbered Dr. Jenner amongst his pupils, was scarcely educated at all for the first twenty years of his life. Mr. Smiles states that 'it was with difficulty that he acquired the arts of reading and writing.' Originally a carpenter, he became assistant to his brother, who was established in London as a surgeon. He acquired all his knowledge of anatomy in the dissecting-room, and owed everything he had learnt to his own hard work and habit of thinking things out for himself.

'The brilliant Sir Humphry Davy,' says Mr. Smiles, 'was no cleverer than other boys. His teacher, Dr. Cardew, once said of him, "While he was with me I could not discern the faculties by which he was so much distinguished." Indeed, Davy himself in after life considered it fortunate that he had been left to "enjoy so much idleness" at school.'

Newton was always at the bottom of his class, until he suddenly took it into his head to give a boy, whom he had already thrashed in another sense, an intellectual beating. 'It is very probable,' writes Sir David Brewster in his biography, 'that Newton's idleness arose from the occupation of his mind with subjects in which he felt a deeper interest.' Nobody could have penned a more incisive indictment against the imbecility of an education system that forces all boys, irrespective of their wishes or talents, into a fixed groove. It was Newton who, in answer to an inquiry as to how the principle of gravity was discovered, replied: 'By always thinking of it.'

When Watt, as a boy, was engaged in investigating the condensation of steam, his aunt, who was sitting with him at the tea-table, exclaimed:

'James, I never saw such an idle boy! Take a book or employ yourself usefully. For the last half hour you have not spoken a word, but taken off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and counting the drops of water.'

In this sympathetic way children are usually encouraged to think by their elders. Watt's faculties were developed entirely at home. He was sent to a public elementary school in Scotland; but, fortunately for science, he was so delicate that he was nearly always absent through indisposition. A visitor, who found the boy drawing lines and circles on the hearth with a piece of coloured chalk, once remonstrated with Mr. James Watt, senior, for allowing his son to waste his time at home. Watt had the good fortune, however, to possess an intelligent father, who encouraged the boy as far as it lay in his power.

Left to his own devices, Watt not only contrived to make himself the foremost engineer of his time, but he also developed his talents in many other directions. Sir Walter Scott says of him that 'his talents and fancy overflowed on every subject.' And M. Arago, the French scientist, in his memoir of Watt, expresses the view that the latter, in spite of his excellent memory, 'might, nevertheless, not have peculiarly distinguished himself among the youthful prodigies of ordinary schools. He could never have learned his lessons like a parrot, for he experienced a necessity of carefully elaborating the intellectual elements presented to his attention, and Nature had peculiarly endowed him with the faculty of meditation.'

This is only a roundabout way of saying that the conventional process of cramming would have destroyed the fine intellectual faculties possessed by Watt. But if in his case, why not in that of another? That is the strange thing about the light shed upon educational problems by cases like that of Watt, Newton, and other men of commanding genius. People only perceive in it a half-truth. They think that it is only in these exceptional instances that the mind is incapable of being developed by ordinary rough-and-ready methods.

Upon what grounds is such an absurd deduction founded? It is true that individuals differ widely as to the capabilities of their mental machinery; but it does not follow that the intellectual fibre of one person is more delicate than that of another.

The difference is not mental, but physical. It is because a boy is healthy, and not because his intellectual fibre is coarse, that he is better able to withstand the strain of an educational training than a weaker and more nervous boy.

Until the discovery is made that all minds are sensitive, when they have been actually reached, people will go on ignorantly destroying the finer faculties under the impression that genius or talent is a very rare thing, and can always shift for itself.

Yet, as I have attempted to show, the evidence of history points conclusively to the fact that the contrary is the case.

Is it really supposed that the great names that have been handed down to posterity represent all the genius to which the world has given birth?

The idea is preposterous.

For every man of genius or talent who has been permitted to survive, education systems have killed a hundred.

If it had not been for Dr. Rothmann, there would probably have been no Linnaeus to revolutionize the system of botanical classification. Had tyrannical parents and schoolmasters compelled Watt and Newton to give up mechanics and scientific study for a thorough cramming in Latin grammar and Greek roots, we might to-day be without a steam-engine or a theory of the law of gravitation. Even the genius of Napoleon and Wellington might easily have been crushed under the auspices of a modern competitive examination.

Would stupid Oliver Goldsmith have written his immortal 'Vicar of Wakefield' and 'She Stoops to Conquer,' or would idle Sheridan have penned the exquisite comedies that have not to this day been approached by any subsequent writer, if their idleness and stupidity had been submitted to the test of an enforced academic training for classical or mathematical honours?

Surely the evidence of history points to only one conclusion—namely, that all the genius in the world cannot survive the hopeless imbecility of educational methods, except by successfully dodging them through stupidity and idleness, whilst the faculties develop themselves at stolen intervals.



CHAPTER XIII

THE APOTHEOSIS OF CRAM

We have reached a point at which it is advisable to take a broad survey of the direction in which education systems are hurrying the world. Have these educational methods a definite objective, or is their sole purpose the production of scholars manufactured en bloc?

These are important questions that need careful answering. Upon the face of it, there is no doubt that in this country, at least, educational establishments have, up to the present, aimed only at turning out scholars of certain intellectual types. The result of this process has been shown in the preceding pages to be sufficiently disastrous in its effects upon its victims. There are, in fact, few social evils which cannot be traced, directly or indirectly, to its agency.

But as yet there has been no dominant motive-power, working invisibly towards a definite end, behind the educational machinery of the country.

A general feeling has been fomented of late, however, that all education, from the lowest step to the highest, ought to be co-ordinated and organized into a single piece of State-directed machinery. The danger of this can only be appreciated by an examination of the effects already produced by such a system in other countries.

Germany offers in this connection the best possible example. The interference of the State in educational matters has there been brought to perfection. Absolute control is exercised by the Government in everything appertaining to the instruction of youth all over Germany. The Emperor has become so autocratic in the exercise of this control in the kingdom of Prussia, that he talks openly about manufacturing this or that kind of educational article exactly in the manner in which a manufacturer would discuss putting some commodity upon the market.

There is not the slightest attempt on the part of the Prussian Government to disguise the political uses to which their supreme authority in educational matters is put. One of the first acts of the Emperor William II., on succeeding to the throne, was to issue the most plain-spoken instructions to the Government of Prussia in reference to State interference with the schools for political purposes.

'For a long time,' it was declared in the royal decree,[A] 'I have been occupied with the thought how to make the school useful for the purpose of counteracting the spread of socialistic and communistic ideas.... The history of modern times down to the present day must be introduced more than hitherto into the curriculum, and the pupils must be shown that the executive power of the State alone can protect for each individual his family, his freedom, and his rights.'

[A] For information on this and many other points connected with the subject of education in Prussia, I am indebted to Mr. Michael E. Sadler's special report to the Board of Education on 'Problems in Prussian Secondary Education for Boys.'

Later on follows the recommendation that, 'by striking references to actual facts, it should be made clear even to young people that a well-ordered constitution under secure monarchical rule is the indispensable condition for the protection and welfare of each individual, both as a citizen and as a worker; that, on the other hand, the doctrines of social democracy are, in point of fact, infeasible; and that, if they were put into practice, the liberty of each individual would be subjected to intolerable restraint, even within the very circle of the home. The ideas of the Socialists are sufficiently defined through their own writings for it to be possible to depict them in a way which will shock the feelings and the practical good-sense even of the young.'

The danger of this direct State control is obvious. It renders all liberty of thought absolutely impossible. Politics, religion, social views—all are systematically worked into the curriculum for the object of stifling independent ideas, criticisms, and whatever else may be of value to the interests of the community at large, although possibly highly inconvenient to the established order.

To cram the youth of the nation after this fashion with all the facts and fancies that may happen to suit the weaknesses of the national constitution, is exactly the way in which to bring about the decay of both Government and country. Merely from a political standpoint, therefore, nothing could be more disastrous to the State than to make use of its power of educational control in order to stifle opposition and independent criticism.

It is equally clear that, wherever the Government possesses this power, it will use it as far as is practicable for the purpose of self-preservation. Almost for a century the Prussian authorities have been getting the control of their national schools more and more into their own hands. They have now succeeded in bringing the application of the theory of State interference to the high-water mark of practicability. From the rudiments of the alphabet to the history of economics, everything in the Prussian curriculum may be suspected of serving some political purpose. The schoolboy is regarded by the authorities as a mere pawn, to be moved on the national board in strict accordance with the political necessities of the hour.

For some years past, the attention of Prussia and of the whole German Empire has been concentrated upon the commercial rivalry of the different nations of the world. The chief, if not the sole, educational aim has been to produce a percentage-calculating machine on a wholesale plan, equipped with certain devices for the successful carrying on of trade. The German authorities became impregnated with the belief that commercial supremacy could best be attained by organizing the whole nation into a uniform body of workers trained to co-operation. Everything of late years has been subordinated to this design.

The commercial success of the scheme has been notorious. German manufacturers have been gaining ground in all parts of the world. The consular reports at the Foreign Office are filled with pessimistic warnings about the decline of British trade at various points where it was once supreme, and with significant statistics that show the rapid advance of German commercial enterprise.

But it does not follow, because Germany seems to have shot ahead of us by leaps and bounds of late years, that she has adopted sound means to accomplish this end. On the contrary, if the expedients by which this commercial supremacy has been attained are an exaggeration of the worst evils of education systems, then Germany has started upon a downward path which must eventually lead her to the brink of ruin.

And this is precisely the case. Cramming has been brought throughout Germany to the level of a fine art. It is done, I must confess—for I was myself subjected to the process for some years—more completely and effectively than in this country. That is to say, the pupil is not crammed in such an idiotic fashion that he forgets all that has been stuffed into him immediately he has left school. The drilling, however wrong it may be in principle, is thorough enough, in all conscience. It may be, as it is elsewhere, the pestle and mortar system. But at least the pestle is applied consistently, and each ingredient is perfectly mixed before the next component is introduced.

If, therefore, the object of education be to produce an article of a certain type or consistency, then the Prussian school stands far in advance of our own cramming institutions. It may well be taken in that case as a model for us to copy.

People should, however, ask themselves these questions: Is it international commercial rivalry that produces the necessity of a State system of education to equip the nation for the struggle? Or is it the State system of education, with its organized attempt to manufacture a race of traders, which has artificially created the state of commercial warfare into which we are rapidly drifting?

The answer seems to me to be plain enough.

The individuality of individuals is rapidly disappearing throughout that part of the world which has chosen to subject itself to uniform education systems. One Englishman is much like another, in the same way that Russians, or Germans, or Frenchmen resemble each other. In other words, the only individuality which education is leaving us is that of nationality; and the reason of this is because the manners, the customs, and the school systems of various countries still differ to a certain extent.

Instead, therefore, of the individual competing against the individual, we are rapidly approaching the point where the whole strength and resources of each nation will be employed to co-operate against the rest of the world. And this is no mere natural outcome of evolution. Germany, with her extraordinary cuteness and foresight, invented the game for her own benefit a generation or two ago. She has spent the best part of half a century equipping herself, hand over fist, for this kind of commercial contest.

But what is she sacrificing in order to obtain this triumph of the trader?

There cannot be a question that she is deliberately and systematically throwing away the most precious of all human possessions—the character of the individual. At the Berlin Conference on Secondary Education, held in 1890, Dr. Virchow observed: 'I regret that I cannot bear my testimony to our having made progress in forming the character of pupils in our schools. When I look back over the forty years during which I have been Professor and Examiner—a period during which I have been brought in contact not only with physicians and scientific investigators, but also with many other types of men—I cannot say that I have the impression that we have made material advances in training up men with strength of character. On the contrary, I fear that we are on a downward path. The number of "characters" becomes smaller. And this is connected with the shrinkage in private and individual work done during a lad's school life. For it is only by means of independent work that the pupil learns to hold his own against external difficulties, and to find in his own strength, in his own nature, in his own being, the means of resisting such difficulties and of prevailing over them.'

The inevitable result of this sacrifice of individuality must be the intellectual decay of the nation, or at least its degeneration into a state of hopeless mediocrity. Unless, therefore, Germany can persuade other countries to adopt similar tactics, and to meet her on the plane where she has already obtained the start of a generation, she must come hopelessly to grief in the future.

Unfortunately, there seems every indication that the statesmen who lead rival nations are only too ready to follow Germany's blind lead. In this country it is only the blessed ignorance of the people which is holding back those who are anxious to commit the folly that has put pounds, shillings, and pence into German pockets, at the cost of taking originality and character out of German heads.

This educational suicide, it must also be remembered, can only be committed without serious social disturbance in a despotically-governed country like the German Empire. In England, with our system of party government, a complete measure of State control in educational matters would create a political pandemonium that would be little short of appalling.

The party struggles of the future would, if this Prussian system were transplanted here, centre round educational control. The schools would no longer be regarded as establishments for the instruction of youth; they would be looked upon simply as the nursery of the future voter. A Conservative Government would cram everything into the curriculum calculated to stifle inconveniently progressive ideas, whilst a Radical Government would try to banish from the schools all established beliefs and conventions.

Between these opposing stools the manufactured scholar would fall lamentably to the ground. He would be neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. There would be a perpetual chopping and changing in the methods of his education, from which he would not even derive the benefit, so gratefully acknowledged by Wordsworth, of being neglected by his teachers.

To talk of beating Germany at her own game is, therefore, the height of absurdity. Nothing could result from such an endeavour but ruin to the country. Under our party system it is obvious that it could not be done with the remotest chance of success. And even if it were possible to obtain steady uniform State interference, working always towards a specific end, German methods would only be adopted at the expense of increasing the pressure of cramming en bloc, and thereby multiplying the evils which have been but faintly depicted in the foregoing pages.



CHAPTER XIV

THE GREAT FALLACY

That the world is badly ordered for humanity is a self-evident truth of which the observant scarcely need reminding. It is equally obvious, from the exquisite order and symmetry of animal and vegetable life, that Providence is not to blame for the colossal mess into which civilization has managed to lead the majority of mankind.

Man is himself responsible for the present state of human affairs; and although great things have been undeniably accomplished during the progress of the nations, the magnificent achievements of exceptional individuals pale beside the stupendous blundering of the many.

It must surely be clear to everybody that there has been some evil influence at work to arrest the fair promise and development of the human race. The splendid march of intellectual progress from the dark ages to the brilliant dawn of the nineteenth century, with its glittering array of master minds and its titanic roll of genius, has been suddenly brought to a dead halt. Here and there, during the past generation, great figures have struggled up on to the world's stage and grappled with the ebb-tide. But the majestic stream of mediocrity has swept away their dykes, and obliterated their landmarks with its increasing volume.

The remarkable fact can hardly have escaped attention that the more humanity attempts to equip itself for the serious business of life, by forcing itself into an educational strait-waistcoat, the more rapid becomes the disappearance of character and genius, and even of ordinary talent. Everybody is getting ground down to a level. It is scarcely possible to point to a single civilized man and say: 'There is somebody in whom every faculty has been developed and natural talent perfected to its utmost capability.' The most that can be said of the individual is: 'There goes a Cambridge man or a grammar-school man, and when you have knocked all the nonsense out of him you'll find he's not a bad fellow at bottom.'

We are not what we have made ourselves, but what we have chosen to allow others to make us. Whatever may once have been the nursery of the human race, it is now to a great extent the school. Some part—it generally is the best part—of education takes place outside the class-room; but it must be remembered that the atmosphere of home is generally impregnated with the conventional traditions of the school and of the university.

The evil influence that is so obviously undermining social and national life must, therefore, first be sought in the principles upon which education systems have been founded.

Nothing is more astonishing than to reflect upon the unintelligent grounds on which people base their adherence to the principles of modern education. They are unable, in the first place, to get over the fact that their forefathers were brought up in the same fashion before them. It is a sheer impossibility for most people to question anything that has been going on for any length of time unchecked.

The undisputed possession of a custom for so many years converts it into the legal property of the nation, whence it derives a sacred character, and nobody dreams of meddling with it. Any abuses it may bring in its train are then conveniently ascribed to the perversity of Providence. The cherished convention is never questioned. That is the remarkable thing about it. People can be brought to understand, by means of a flourish of dazzling prospectuses and newspaper advertisements, that a bicycle is an improvement on a bone-shaker, or that pneumatic tyres are more comfortable on rough roads than iron-rimmed wheels. But that appears to be the set limit of their comprehension.

They are capable of being made to grasp, after nearly exhausting the resources of a wealthy syndicate, something that obviously affects their material comfort. But progress in ideas, or anything in the shape of moral revolution, has to undergo a thousand-fold more tortuous process before it can be made to filter through a convention. The academic product is, it must be remembered, a bundle of conventions. If the article has been properly manufactured, and bears the hall-mark of the maker and the stamp of the country of its origin, there is nothing else there for the truth to filter into. It simply drops through and vapourizes without disturbing anything.

Conventionality is therefore an insuperable obstacle, as far as the majority of minds are concerned, to the discovery that the established principles of education are absolutely false. These principles will never be questioned. It is good enough for the average man that his fellow-creatures have been contented with them since time immemorial, and that they are diligently practised in the schools and colleges whose names have been household words for generations past.

Next to this antiquated conservatism of the least intelligent and most dispiriting type, comes the false shame that the majority of people exhibit when caught displaying ignorance of any of the facts which cramming systems have pronounced to be indispensable to a general education. Probably more real culture is nipped in the bud by the ridiculous assumption that everybody must be a walking encyclopaedia, than by all the Philistine conventions and stupidities put together.

In the course of a recent conversation with an exceptionally brilliant woman of my acquaintance, it transpired that she believed Winchester and Cambridge to be in the same county. This lack of geographical knowledge did not appear, however, to have impaired her intellectual faculties. There are many persons who can accurately locate any town in England, and yet are vastly inferior in mental capacity to the lady who thought that Cambridge was in Hampshire.

Why should an individual know more than it is useful and convenient for him to know? For the student of foreign politics it is essential to be aware of the geographical difference between Tokio and Peking; but of what earthly use would this knowledge be to a man who devoted the whole of his life to inquiring into the domestic routine of the extinct dodo, or to the improvement of agriculture by the application of scientific manures?

Life is short, and it is only possible within the limits of the brief span allotted to us upon earth to acquire a certain number of facts. It is monstrously absurd to sacrifice our best years in stuffing so many facts into the brain, in order to avoid being laughed at by a few thin-minded pedants as an ignoramus. Some consolation, at least, might surely be derived from the reflection that many of the greatest geniuses whom the world has produced were profoundly ignorant as to ninety per cent. of the things which are considered to be indispensable knowledge at the present day.

Nobody can hope to read all the books that are popularly supposed to have been digested by the well-educated man. It would be impossible to get through a tithe of them. Yet how many people there are who will sooner tell a deliberate lie, than acknowledge having omitted to read some classic that happens to be mentioned in the course of conversation! And this is simply due to the infatuated belief that culture consists in stuffing one's self with the ideas of other people. A man whose brain was teeming with his own thoughts and creations, but who had neglected to stock it with the hundred thousand conventional facts culled from the hundred best books selected for him by other people, would be looked upon as an uneducated boor by cultured pedants of the conventional type.

It will be seen, therefore, that this false shame, inspired by an unwholesome terror of public ridicule, plays a very important part in tying people to the apron-strings of education, and warping their judgment.

But there is also a third factor which must be taken seriously into account. This is the widespread credulousness not only as to the efficacy, but as to the indispensability, of the ordinary methods of instruction as mental training. People have actually come to believe that no one can think without being taught to do so by means of all kinds of mathematical and classical gymnastics.

Whence comes this monstrous notion I do not pretend to be capable of explaining—I merely note its universal existence. Probably no doctrine is more deeply ingrained in the mind of the average person. There does not seem to be any logic or sense in it; but somebody with a huge sense of humour must have once started the craze—much in the way that a practical joker will stare intently at nothing in a London street until he has collected a large and inquisitive crowd, and will then steal quietly away, leaving everybody looking vacuously at the same spot.