To one who has convinced himself that human nature is fundamentally good, in the sense that the new-born child is as a rule sound and healthy on all the planes of his being, it must be clear that the path of soul-growth or self-realisation is the only way of salvation. What salvation means, what the path of self-realisation will do for him who enters it, is a theme to which I could not hope to do justice within the limits of this work. I will therefore content myself with indicating certain typical aspects of the process which I have called self-realisation, and saying something about each of these. Four aspects suggest themselves to me as worthy of special consideration,—the mental, the moral, the social, and the religious.[26]
The Mental Aspect of Self-realisation.
There are two features of the process of self-realisation, on the importance of which I cannot insist too often or too strongly. The first is that the growth which the life of self-realisation fosters is, in its essence, harmonious and many-sided. The second is that the life of self-realisation is, from first to last, a life of self-expression, and that self-expression and perception are the face and obverse of the same mental effort.
If the life of self-realisation did not provide for the growth of the self in its totality, the self as a living whole, it would not be worthy of its name. One-sided growth, inharmonious growth, growth in which some faculties are hypertrophied and others atrophied, is not self-realisation. When trees are planted close together, as in the beech-forests of the Continent, they climb to great heights in their struggle for air and light, but they make no lateral growth. When trees are pollarded, they make abundant lateral growth, but they cease to climb upward. When trees are exposed to the prevailing winds of an open sea-coast, they are blown over away from the sea, and make all their growth, such as it is, on the landward side. When trees are on the border of a thick plantation, they make all their growth towards the open air, and are bare and leafless on the opposite side. In each of these cases the growth made is inharmonious and one-sided: the balance between the two intersecting planes of growth, or between the two opposite sides, has been lost. But when a tree is planted in the open, and when all the other conditions of growth are favourable, it grows harmoniously in all directions,—upward, outward, and all around. In other words, it is growing as a whole, growing, as it ought to grow, through every fibre of its being, and yet maintaining a perfect symmetry of form and the harmony of true proportion among its various parts.
This is the kind of growth which the soul makes in the life of self-realisation; and if it falls appreciably short of this standard, if it develops itself on this side or that, to the neglect of all other sides, then we must say of it that, though it is realising this or that faculty or group of faculties, it is not realising itself. I have spoken of the six great expansive instincts which indicate the main lines of the child's natural growth, and I have shown that in Utopia the cultivation of all those instincts is duly provided for. In the life of self-realisation the soul would continue to grow on the lines which those instincts had marked out for it. I do not mean that when the child goes out into the work-a-day world, he must give to all six instincts the systematic training which they received, or ought to have received, in school. The exigencies of the daily round of life are such as to make that impossible, in all but the most exceptional cases. But that is all the more reason why the expansive instincts should be carefully and skilfully trained in school. For where they are so trained, an impetus is given to each of them which will keep it alive and active long after the direct influence of the school has ceased, and will enable it to absorb and assimilate whatever nutriment may come in its way. If the Utopian training cannot be followed up, in its entirety, in the child's after-life, it can at least initiate a movement which need never be arrested,—a movement in the direction of the triune goal of Man's being, the goal towards which his expansive instincts are ever tending to take him, the goal of Love, Beauty, and Truth.
The life of many-sided growth is also a life of self-expression. This means that the self-expression, like the growth which it fosters, is many-sided; and this again means that the perceptive faculties, which unfold themselves through the medium of self-expression, are not so much separate faculties as a general capacity for getting on terms with one's environment and gaining an insight into its laws and properties. In a school which lays itself out to teach one or two subjects thoroughly, to the neglect of others, a sense, or special perceptive faculty, will gradually be evolved by the study of each subject, provided, of course, that the path of self-expression is followed,—a literary sense, a historical sense, a mathematical sense, and so on. But while these special senses are being developed, the remaining perceptive faculties are being starved, and no attempt is being made to cultivate that general capacity of which I have just spoken. The consequent loss to the child, both in his school-life and in his after-life, is very great. For not only is his mental growth one-sided and inharmonious, but even in the subjects in which he specialises he will lose appreciably, owing to his special perceptive faculties not having as their background any general capacity for seeing things as they are.
I will try to explain what I mean. In what is known as "Society" there is a valuable quality called "tact," in virtue of which the man or woman who is endowed with it always says and does "the right thing." This quality is compounded partly of sympathetic insight into the feelings, actual and possible, of others, and partly of a keen and subtle sense for all the nuances of social propriety. Like every other perceptive faculty, it is the outcome of self-expression,—of years of self-expression on the plane of social intercourse. That general perceptive faculty, or perceptive capacity, which is the outcome of years of self-expression on many sides of one's being, has so much in common with the tact of the man of society, that the epithet tactful may perhaps be applied to it. The larger, like the lesser, faculty is compounded, partly of sympathetic insight into latent possibilities, and partly of a delicate sense for nuances of all kinds. But even this formula does less than justice to its complex nature. Generated as it is by a life of many-sided self-expression, it reflects its origin in its internal constitution. Many elements of thought and feeling have woven themselves into it; and it is ready to take a colour from each new environment or even from each new situation. It can become emotional, for example, when the matter in hand appeals, in any sort or degree, to the emotions; and there are occasions when its latent sense of humour becomes an invaluable antidote to that over-seriousness which so often leads men astray. Above all, it is in its essence, imaginative, for it is ever learning to picture things to itself as they are or as they might be; and the higher the level and the wider the sphere of its activity, the more boldly imaginative it becomes. A faculty so subtle and so sympathetic must needs play a vitally important rôle, not only when its possessor is studying "subjects" or handling concrete problems, but also, and more especially, when he is dealing with the "affairs of life"; and we can understand that when it is wholly or largely lacking, each of the special faculties which specialising is supposed to foster will suffer from not being tempered and yet vitalised by its all-penetrating influence.
That we may the better understand this, and the better understand what the path of self-realisation does for the mental development of him who walks in it, let us ask ourselves what type of mind the conventional type of education is likely to produce. And let us study the conventional type of education on what is supposed to be its highest level. Let us consider the education given to the sons of the "upper classes." And let us take this highest level at its own highest level. Let us take the case of those who go through that tri-partite course of education which begins in a high-class "Preparatory School," is continued in one of the "Great Public Schools," and is completed at Oxford or Cambridge. A boy enters a Preparatory School at the age of eight or nine, and is there prepared, in general for entrance into one of the Great Public Schools, and in particular for one of the competitive examinations on the results of which the entrance scholarships of the Great Public Schools are awarded. He enters one of the Great Public Schools at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and is there prepared, in general for admission to Oxford or Cambridge, and in particular for the scholarship examinations of the various Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. He enters Oxford or Cambridge at the age of eighteen or nineteen, and is there prepared, directly for his degree examination—"Pass" or "Honours" as the case may be—and indirectly for the public examination which admits to the Indian and Colonial, and the higher grades of the Home, Civil Service. This course of education lasts about fourteen years, and costs from £1,500 to £4,500.
What will it do for the boy who goes through it? The education given in the Preparatory School is completely dominated by the scholarship and entrance examinations at the Great Public Schools. The lines on which those examinations are conducted are the lines on which the Preparatory Schoolmaster must educate his pupils. He has no choice in the matter. The title "Preparatory" seals his doom. His business is, not to give his pupils the education that is best suited to their capacities and their years, but to prepare them for admission to a more advanced school. The more scholarships he can win at Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, and the rest, the higher will be the repute of his school; and as the competition between school and school is fierce and unintermittent, he cannot afford to throw away a single chance. In other words, he cannot afford to make a single serious experiment. The education given in the Great Public Schools is similarly dominated by the scholarship and entrance examinations held by the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. The lines on which those examinations are conducted are in the main the lines on which the boys must be educated. It is possible that the Great Public Schools are freer to go their own ways than are the Preparatory Schools; but if they are, they make but little use of their freedom.
So far as the rank and file of the boys are concerned, it may be doubted if the word "educative" is applicable, in any sense or degree, to the daily round of their work. Of the six great expansive instincts which are struggling to evolve themselves in every healthy child, not one can be said to find a congenial soil or a stimulating atmosphere in the ordinary classroom either of the Preparatory or of the Public School. Four of the six—the dramatic, the artistic, the musical, and the constructive—are entirely or almost entirely neglected. Music and Handwork[27] are "extras" (a fatally significant word); the teaching of Drawing is, as a rule, quite perfunctory; and Acting is not a recognised part of the school curriculum. The truth is that marks are not given for these "subjects"—for in the eyes of the schoolmaster they are all "subjects"—in any entrance or scholarship examination, and that therefore it does not pay to teach them. There remain two instincts,—the communicative and the inquisitive. The study of the "Humanities"—History and Literature, ancient and modern—ought to train the former; and the study of Science ought to train the latter. But in the case of the average boy, the study of the Humanities resolves itself, in the main, into a prolonged and unsuccessful tussle with the difficulties of the Greek and Latin languages, the mastering of which is regarded as an end in itself instead of as the gateway to the wonder-worlds of ancient life and thought; and the study of Science is, as a rule, a pure farce.[28] Not one, then, of the expansive instincts of the average boy receives any training during the nine or ten years of his school life; and as, in his struggle for the "Pass" degree of his University, he will follow the lines on which he has been accustomed to work in both his schools, he will go out into the world at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, the victim of a course of education which has lasted for fourteen years and cost thousands of pounds, and which has done nothing whatever to foster his mental or spiritual growth. It is true that in all the Public Schools a certain amount of informal education is done through the medium of Musical Societies, Natural History Societies, Debating Societies, School Magazines, and the like; that the discipline of a Public School, with its system of School and House prefects, has considerable educational value; that the playing fields do something towards the formation of character; that the boys, by exchanging experiences and discussing things freely among themselves, help to educate one another; and that during the four months of each year which the schoolboy spends away from school, he is, or may be, exposed to educative influences of various kinds.[29] But the broad fact remains that the studies of the youthful graduate, whether in school classroom or college lecture-room, have been wholly unformative and therefore wholly uneducative.