If it were not for the school we should live like savages, walk naked, eat herbs and raw flesh, and dwell in caves and trees; that is to say, we should live a brutal life. In time, as a result of the school, [[92]]everybody will be more intelligent, and there will be no wars or inflamed populations, and people will look back on war with horror as a work of death and destruction. It is a great disgrace that there are children who wander in the streets and do not go to school, and when they become men it is more disgraceful. So let us be grateful to our teachers for the patience they show in instructing us, and let us regard the school with respect.
If that child preserves and develops the faculties it exhibits, it will know how to harmonise egoism and altruism for its own good and that of society. A girl of eleven deplores that nations destroy each other in war, and laments the difference of social classes and that the rich live on the work and privation of the poor. She ends:—
Why do not men, instead of killing each other in wars and hating each other for class-differences, devote themselves cheerfully to work and the discovery of things for the good of mankind? Men ought to unite to love each other and live fraternally.[1]
A child of ten, in an essay which is so good that I would insert it whole if space permitted, and if it were not for the identity in sentiment with the previous passages, says of the school and the pupil:—
Reunited under one roof, eager to learn what we [[93]]do not know, without distinction of classes [there were children of university professors among them, it will be remembered], we are children of one family guided to the same end.… The ignorant man is a nullity; little or nothing can be expected of him. He is a warning to us not to waste time; on the contrary, let us profit by it, and in due course we will be rewarded. Let us not miss the fruits of a good school, and, honouring our teachers, our family, and society, we shall live happily.
A child of ten philosophises on the faults of mankind, which, in her opinion, can be avoided by instruction and goodwill:—
Among the faults of mankind are lying, hypocrisy, and egoism. If men, and especially women, were better instructed, and women were entirely equal to men, these faults would disappear. Parents would not send their children to religious schools, which inculcate false ideas, but to rational schools, where there is no teaching of the supernatural, which does not exist; nor to make war; but to live in solidarity and work in common.
We will close with the following essay, written by a young lady of sixteen, which is correct enough in form and substance to quote in entirety:—
What inequality there is in the present social order! Some working from morning to night without more profit than enough to buy their insufficient food; others receiving the products of the workers in order to enjoy themselves with the superfluous. Why is this so? Are we not all equal? Undoubtedly we are; but society does not recognise it, while some are destined to work and suffering, and others to [[94]]idleness and enjoyment. If a worker shows that he realises the exploitation to which he is subject, he is blamed and cruelly punished, while others suffer the inequality with patience. The worker must educate himself; and in order to do this it is necessary to found free schools, maintained by the wages which the rich give. In this way the worker will advance more and more, until he is regarded as he deserves, since the most useful mission of society depends on him.
Whatever be the logical value of these ideas, this collection shows the chief aim of the Modern School—namely, that the mind of the child, influenced by what it sees and informed by the positive knowledge it acquires, shall work freely, without prejudice or submission to any kind of sect, with perfect autonomy and no other guide but reason, equal in all, and sanctioned by the cogency of evidence, before which the darkness of sophistry and dogmatic imposition is dispelled.