The Vitalized School

by Francis B. Pearson

Restricted concepts.—We lustily proclaim our country to be the land of the free, but our notion of freedom is much restricted. In the popular conception freedom has reference to the body. A man can walk the streets without molestation and can vote his sentiments at the polls, but he may not be able to take a day’s ride about Concord and Lexington with any appreciable sense of freedom. He may walk about the Congressional Library and feel himself in prison. He may desert a lecture for the saloon in the interests of his own comfort. He may find the livery stable more congenial than the drawing-room. His body may experience a sort of freedom while his mind and spirit are held fast in the shackles of ignorance. A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, might have his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as this. He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes blindfolded, and that condition of mind precludes freedom.

Real freedom.—We shall not attain our high privileges as a free people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical restraint. Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free. We have only to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublime heights mind can attain in its explorations of the realms of truth, and, since the boys and girls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedom to emulate the mental achievements of those who have gone before. They have a right to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of mind and spirit can make them such. Every man should be larger than his task, and only freedom of mind and spirit can make him so. The man who works in the ditch can revel among the sublime manifestations of truth if only his mind is rightly furnished.

Spelling.—The man who is deficient in spelling inevitably confines his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and nicety of diction. Accordingly, he suffers by comparison with others whose vocabulary is more extensive and whose diction is, therefore, more elegant. The consciousness of his shortcomings restricts the exuberance of his life, and he fails of that sense of large freedom that a knowledge of spelling would certainly give. So that even in such an elementary study as spelling the school has an opportunity to generate in the pupils a feeling of freedom, and this feeling is quite as important in the scheme of life as the ability to spell correctly. In this statement, there is no straining for effects. On the contrary, many illustrations might be adduced to prove that it is but a plain statement of fact. A cultured lady confesses that she is thrown into a panic whenever she has occasion to use the word Tuesday because she is never certain of the spelling.

The switchboard.—Life may be likened to an extensive electric switchboard, and only that man or woman has complete freedom who can press the right button without hesitation or trepidation. The ignorant man stands paralyzed in the presence of this mystery and knows not how to proceed to evoke the correct response to his desires. It has been said that everything is infinitely high that we cannot see over. Hence, to the man who does not know, cube root is infinitely high and, as such, is as far away from his comprehension as the fourth dimension or the precession of the equinoxes. In the presence of even such a simple truth as cube root he stands helpless and enthralled. He lives in a small circle and cannot know the joy of the man whose mind forgathers with the big truths of life.

Comparisons.—The ignorant man cannot accompany this man upon his mighty excursions, but must remain behind to make what he can of his feeble resources. The one can penetrate the mysteries of the planets and bring back their secrets; the other must confine his thinking to the weather and the crops. The one can find entertainment in the Bible and Shakespeare; the other seeks companionship among the cowboys and Indians of the picture-films. The one sits in rapt delight through an evening of grand opera, reveling on the sunlit summits of harmony; the other can rise no higher in the scale of music than the raucous hand organ. The one finds keen delight among the masterpieces of art; the other finds his definition of art in the colored supplement. The one experiences the acme of pleasure in communing with historians, musicians, artists, scientists, and philologists; the other finds such associations the very acme of boredom. The one finds freedom among the big things of life; the other finds galling bondage.

Three elements of freedom.—There are three elements of freedom that are worthy of emphasis. These are self-reliance, self-support, and self-respect. These elements are the trinity that constitute one of the major ultimate aims of the vitalized school. The school that inculcates these qualities must prove a vital force in the life of the pupil; and the pupil who wins these qualities is well equipped for the work of real living. These qualities are the golden gateways to freedom, nor can there be a full measure of freedom if either of these qualities be lacking. Moreover, these qualities are cumulative in their relations to one another. Self-reliance leads to and engenders self-support, and both these underlie and condition self-respect. Or, to put the case conversely, there cannot be self-respect in the absence of self-reliance and self-support.

Self-reliance.—It would not be easy to over-magnify the influence of the school that is rightly conducted in the way of inculcating the quality of self-reliance and in causing it to grow into a habit. Every problem that the boy solves by his own efforts, every obstacle that he surmounts, every failure that he transforms into a success, and every advance he makes towards mastery gives him a greater degree of self-reliance, greater confidence in his powers, and greater courage to persevere. It is the high privilege of the teacher to cause a boy to believe in himself, to have confidence in his ability to win through. To this end, she adds gradually to the difficulties of his work, always keeping inside the limits of discouragement, and never fails to give recognition to successful achievements. In this way the boy gains self-reliance and so plumes himself for still loftier flights. Day after day he moves upward and onward, until at length he exemplifies the sentiment of Virgil, “They can because they think they can.”

This quality in practice.—The self-reliance that becomes ingrained in a boy’s habits of life will not evaporate in the heat of the activities and competition of the after-school life. On the contrary, it will be reënforced and crystallized by the opportunities of business or professional life, and, in calm reliance upon his own powers, he will welcome competition as an opportunity to put himself to the test. He is no weakling, for in school he made his independent way in spite of the lions in his path, and so gained fiber and courage for the contests of daily life. And because he has industry, thrift, perseverance, and self-reliance the gates of success swing wide open and he enters into the heritage which he himself has won.

The sterling man.—His career offers an emphatic negation to the notion that obtains here and there to the effect that education makes a boy weak and ineffective, robbing him of the quality of sterling elemental manhood, and fitting him only for the dance-hall and inane social functions. The man who is rightly trained has resources that enable him to add dignity and character to social functions in that he exhales power and bigness. People recognize in him a real man, capable, alert, and potential, and gladly pay him the silent tribute that manhood never fails to win. He can hold his own among the best, and only the best appeal to him.

Self-respect.—And, just as he wins the respect of others, so he wins the respect of himself, and so the triumvirate of virtues is complete. Having achieved self-respect he disdains the cheap, the bizarre, the gaudy, and the superficial. He knows that there are real values in life that are worthy of his powers and best efforts, and these real values are the goal of his endeavors. Moreover, he has achieved freedom, and so is not fettered by precedent, convention, or fads. He is free to establish precedents, to violate the conventions when a great principle is at stake, and to ignore fads. He can stand unabashed in the presence of the learned of the earth, and can understand the heartbeats of life, because he has had experience both of learning and of life. And being a free man his life is fuller and richer, and he knows when and how to bestow the help that will give to others a sense of freedom and make life for them a greater boon.