The Salvaging Of Civilisation Part 7

They must have some idea of it. Otherwise they must be imposters. I am loth to believe them imposters, mere adventurers who have blundered into positions of power and honour with no idea of what they are doing to the world. But if they have an idea of what they are doing to the world, they foresee and intend a Future. That, I take it, is sound reasoning and the inference is plain.

They ought to write down their ideas of this Future before us. It would be helpful to all of us. It might be a very helpful exercise for them.

It is, I think, reasonable for Americans to ask the great political personages of America, the president and so forth, for example: whether they think the United States will stand alone in twenty-five years'

time as they stand alone now? Or whether they think that there will be a greater United States--of all America--or of all the world? They must know their own will about that. And it is equally reasonable to ask the great political personages of the British Empire: what will Ireland be in twenty-five years' time? What will India be? There must be a plan, an intended thing. Otherwise these men have no intentions; otherwise they must be, in two words, dangerous fools. The sooner we subst.i.tute a type of man with a sufficient foresight and capable of articulate speech in the matter, the better for our race.

And again every statesman and every politician throughout the world says that the relations of industrial enterprise to the labour it employs are unsatisfactory. Yes. But how are those relations going to develop? How do they mean them to develop?

Are we just drifting into an unknown darkness in all these matters with blind leaders of our blindness? Or cannot a lot of these things be figured out by able and intelligent people? I put it to you that they can. That it is a reasonable and proper thing to ask our statesmen and politicians: what is going to happen to the world? What sort of better social order are you making for? What sort of world order are you creating? Let them open their minds to us, let them put upon permanent record the significance of all their intrigues and manoeuvres. Then as they go on we can check their capacity and good faith. We can establish a control at last that will rule presidents and kings.

Now the answer to these questions for statesmen is what I mean by a _Book of Forecasts_. Such a book I believe is urgently needed to help our civilization. It is a book we ought all to possess and read. I know you will say that such a _Book of Forecasts_ will be at first a preposterously insufficient book--that every year will show it up and make it more absurd. I quite agree. The first _Book of Forecasts_ will be a poor thing. Miserably poor. So poor that people will presently clamour to have it thoroughly revised.

The revised _Book of Forecasts_ will not be quite so bad. It will have been tested against realities. It will form the basis of a vast amount of criticism and discussion.

When again it comes to be revised, it will be much nearer possible realities.

I put it to you that the psychology, the mentality of a community that has a _Book of Forecasts_ in hand and under watchful revision will be altogether steadier and stronger and clearer than that of a community which lives as we do to-day, mere adventurers, without foresight, in a world of catastrophies and accidents and unexpected things. We shall be living again in a plan. Our lives will be shaped to certain defined ends. We shall fall into place in a great scheme of activities. We shall recover again some or all of the steadfastness and dignity of the old religious life.

-- 5 Today

Let me with this _Book of Forecasts_ round off my fantasy. I would picture to you this modern Bible, perhaps two or three times as bulky as the old Bible, and consisting first of

The Historical Books with maps and the like; The Books of Conduct and Wisdom; The Anthologies of Poetry and Literature; and finally the Book of Forecasts, taking the place of the Prophets and Revelations.

I would picture this revivified Bible to you as most carefully done and printed and made accessible to all, the basis of education in every school, the common platform of all discussion--just as in the past the old Bible used to be. I would ask you to imagine it translated into every language, a common material of understanding throughout all the world.

And furthermore, I imagine something else about this--quite unlike the old Bible--I imagine all of it periodically revised. The historical books would need to be revised and brought up to date, there would be new lights on health and conduct, there would be fresh additions to the anthologies, and there would be Forecasts that would have to be struck out because they were realized or because they were shown to be hopeless or undesirable, and fresh Forecasts would be added to replace them. It would be a Bible moving forward and changing and gaining with human experience and human destiny....

Well, that is my dream of a Bible of Civilization. Have I in any way carried my vision out to you of this little row of four or five volumes in every house, in every life, throughout the world, holding the lives and ideas and imaginations of men together in a net of common familiar phrases and common established hopes?

And is this a mere fantastic talk, or is this a thing that could be done and that ought to be done?

I do not know how it will appear to you, but to me it seems that this book I have been talking about, the Bible of to-day's civilization, is not simply a conceivable possibility, it is a great and urgent need. Our education is, I think, pointless without it, a sh.e.l.l without a core. Our social life is aimless without it, we are a crowd without a common understanding. Only by means of some such unifying instrument, I believe, can we hope to lift human life out of its present dangerous drift towards confusion and disaster.

It is, I think therefore, an urgently desirable undertaking.

It is also a very practicable one. The creation of such a Bible, its printing and its translation, and a propaganda that would carry it into the homes and schools of most of the world, could I think all be achieved by a few hundred resolute and capable people at a cost of thirty or forty million dollars. That is a less sum than that the United States--in a time when they have no enemy to fear in all the world--are prepared to spend upon the building of what is for them an entirely superfluous and extravagant toy, a great navy.

You may, you probably will, differ very widely upon much that I have here put before you. Let me ask you not to let any of the details of my sketching set you against the fundamental idea, that old creative idea of the Bohemian educationist who was the pupil of Bacon and the friend of Milton, the idea of Komensky, the idea of creating and using a common book, a book of knowledge and wisdom, as the necessary foundation for any enduring human unanimity.

VI

THE SCHOOLING OF THE WORLD

And now I am going on to a review of the broad facts of the educational organization of our present world.

I am myself a very under-educated person. It is a constant trouble to me. Like seeks like in this world. I propose to ask the question whether the whole world is not under-educated, and I warn you in advance that I am going to answer in the affirmative.

I am going to discuss the possibility of raising the general educational level very considerably, and I am going to consider what such a raising of the educational level would mean in human life.

I propose to adopt rather a vulgar, business-like tone about all this. I am going to apply to the human community much the same sort of tests that a manufacturer applies to his factory. His factory has some distinctive product, and when he looks into his affairs he tries to find out whether he gets the utmost quant.i.ty of the product, whether he gets the best possible quality of the product, whether he gets it as efficiently and inexpensively as possible, and constantly how he can improve his factory and his processes in all these matters.

Now the human community may be regarded as a concern engaged in the production of human life. And it may be judged very largely by the question whether the human life it produces is abundant and full and intense and beautiful.

Most of the tests that we apply to a state or a city or a period or a nation resolve themselves, you will find, into these questions:--

What was the life it produced?

What is the life it produces?

Now I will further a.s.sume that as yet the community has little or no control over the raw product, over the life, that is to say, that comes into it. I admit that from at least the time of Plato onward the possibility has been discussed of _breeding_ human beings as we do horses and dogs. There is an enormous amount of what is called eugenic literature and discussion to-day. But I will set all that sort of thing aside from our present discussion because I do not think anything of the kind is practicable at the present time.

Quite apart from any other considerations, one has to remember one entire difference between the possible breeding of human beings and the actual breeding of dogs and horses. We breed dogs and horses for uniformity, for certain very limited specified _points_--speed, scent and the like. But human beings we should have to breed for variety: we cannot specify any particular _points_ we want. We want statesmen and poets and musicians and philosophers and swift men and strong men and delicate men and brave men. The qualities of one would be the weaknesses of another.

It is really a false a.n.a.logy, that between the breeding of men and the breeding of horses and dogs. In the case of human beings we want much more subtle and delicate combinations of qualities. For any practical purposes we do not know what we want nor do we know how to get it. So let us rule that theme out of our present discussion altogether.

And I also propose to rule out another set of topics from this discussion--simply because if we don't do so we shall have more matter than we can handle conveniently in the time at our disposal. I propose to leave out all questions of health and physical welfare. There is, as you know, a vast literature now in existence, concerned with the health and welfare of children before and after birth, concerned with infantile life, with social conditions and social work directed to the production of a vigorous population. I am going to a.s.sume here that all that sort of thing is seen to--that it is all right, that somebody is doing that, that we need not trouble for the present about any of those things.

This leaves us with the mental life only of our community and its individuals to consider. On that I propose to concentrate this discussion.

Now the human mind in its opening stages in a civilized community pa.s.ses through a process which may best be named as _schooling_. And under schooling I would include not only the sort of things that we do to a prospective citizen in the school and the infant school but also anything in the nature of a school-like lesson that is done by the mother or nurse or tutor at home, or by playmates and companions anywhere. Out of this schooling arises the general mental life. It is the structural ground-stuff of all education and thought.

Now what is this _schooling_ to do--what is it doing to the new human being?

Let us recall what our own schooling was.

It fell into two pretty clearly defined parts. We learnt reading and writing, we made a certain study of grammar, the method of language, perhaps we learnt the beginnings of some other language than our own; we learnt some arithmetic and perhaps a little geometry and algebra; we did some drawing. All these things were ways of expression, means of expressing ourselves, means of comprehending our thoughts in terms of other people's minds, and of understanding the expressions of others.

That was the basis and substance of our schooling; a training in mental elucidation and in communication with other minds. But also as our schooling went on there was something more; we learnt a little history, some geography, the beginnings of science. This second part of education was not so much expression as _wisdom_. We learnt what was generally known of the world about us and of its past. We entered into the common knowledge and common ideas of the world.

Now, obviously, this _schooling_ is merely a specialization and expansion of a parental function.

In the primitive ages of our race the parent, and particularly the mother, out of an instinctive impulse and practical necessity, restrained and showed and taught, and the child, with an instinctive imitativeness and docility, obeyed and learnt. And as the primitive family grew into a tribe, as functions specialized and the range of knowledge widened, this primitive schooling by the mother was supplemented and extended by the showing of things by companions and by the maxims and initiations of old men.

It was only with the development of early civilizations, as the mysteries of writing and reading began to be important in life, that the school, _qua_ school, became a thing in itself. And as the community expanded, the scope of instruction expanded with it. Schooling is, in fact, and always has been, the expansion and development of the primitive savage mind, which is still all that we inherit, to adapt it to the needs of a larger community. It makes out of the savage raw material which is our basal mental stuff, a citizen. It is a necessary process of fusion if a civilized community is to keep in being. Without at least a network of schooled persons, able to communicate its common ideas and act in intelligent co-operation, no community beyond a mere family group can ever hold together.

As the human community expands, therefore, the range of schooling must expand to keep pace with it.

I want to base my inquiry upon that proposition. If it is sound, certain very interesting conclusions follow.

I have already shown in the preceding discussions that the _range_ of the modern state has increased at least ten times in the past century, and that the scale of our community of intercourse has increased correspondingly. I want now to ask if there has been any corresponding enlargement of the scope of the schooling--either of the community as a whole or of any special governing cla.s.ses in the community--to keep pace with this tremendous extension of range. I am going to argue that there has not been such an enlargement, and that a large factor in our present troubles is the failure of education and educational method to keep pace with the new demands made upon them.

Now I will first ask what would one like one's son or daughter to get at school to make him or her a full living citizen of this modern world.

And at first I will not take into consideration the question of expense or any such practical difficulties. I will suppose that for the education of this fortunate young citizen whose case we are considering we have limitless means, the best possible tutors, the best apparatus and absolutely the most favourable conditions. The only limits to the teaching of this young citizen are his or her own limitations. We suppose a pupil of fair average intelligence only.

Now first we shall want our pupil to understand, speak, read and write the mother tongue well. To do this thoroughly in English involves a fairly sound knowledge of Latin grammar and at least some slight knowledge of the elements of Greek. Latin and Greek, which are disappearing as distinct and separate subjects from many school curricula, are returning as necessary parts of the English course.