“That is the idea on which this whole revelation is based,” she returned. “These things have always been true. They would not have sounded true in the year one, any more than a lot of the ‘truths’ of that day are true now.”
A night or two after this, he said he would like more light on the practical application of these principles, especially those in relation to freedom. “How, for instance, would you go about helping a school?” he asked. “Take, as concrete examples, a University like ——, its Faculty held in subjection by hidebound trustees, and the proposed People’s University, to be governed from day to day by plebiscite or referendum, with no defined policy for procedure beyond a general idea of freedom. ‘You may lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.’ Should the construction of the trough be left to chance, or should it be planned carefully? In other words, should mundane provision and prevision be employed in building it?”
“It has been said already that men must first learn to think, and to govern themselves, before they can be free.” It was Mary K. who answered. “If experience were not taken into consideration, progress would be impossible. Mundane prevision and provision is essential to all constructive activity on your plane. Opinions will differ as to ways and means of applying principles of progress. The first way to help a school is to establish unity among the teachers. Not only unity of purpose, but a certain large unity of method, that one may not tear down what his brother builds. Ideals of freedom have been confused by men resenting the first law of freedom—discipline. Lack of discipline, carried to its logical conclusion, would return the world to chaos. The school that is free in its teaching must be carried on by disciplined teachers, united in a purpose of progress clearly recognized and agreed upon, to teach discipline that the minds of men may dare to be free.”
“The idea underlying that, I take it, is that as the athlete whose body is thoroughly trained and co-ordinated dares to jump an abyss, without fear of falling, so the man whose mind and spirit are disciplined can jump an intellectual abyss, without losing balance or sanity.”
“Yes. And as a man trained to carry great weights on his shoulders must be trained to it from youth, so the man who would carry government and freedom of thought must train his mind to carry its weight—not alone to hold it briefly, but to carry it on.”
“Is it true, then,” he asked, “that safe freedom and constructive freedom are only possible after prior discipline and self-control?”
“How can undisciplined freedom be safe or constructive? It makes the wilderness. It makes the jungle. It makes the uncharted and devouring sea.”