To enrich the child, who is the poorest among us, because he has nothing and is the slave of all—this is our first duty towards him. It will be said: Must we, then, give horses, carriages, and pianos to all children? By no means. Remedies are never direct when a complex life is in question. The child who has nothing is the one who dreams of things the most impossible of attainment. The destitute dream of millions, the oppressed of a throne. But he who possesses something attaches himself to that which he possesses to preserve and increase it reasonably.
A person without employment will dream of becoming a prince; but a teacher in a school dreams of becoming a head master. Thus the child who has a "house" of his own, who possesses brooms, rubbers, pottery, soap, dressing-tables and furniture, is happy in the care of all these things. His desires are moderated, and the peace he derives from them opens up a life of expansion to his internal creative activities.
It is "living among real possessions of his own" which calms the child, and assuages those desires which consume his precious powers in the vanity of illusion. Such a result is not to be achieved by imagining that he is living among possessions of his own. Some teachers in charge of a model orphanage once said to me: "We too make our children perform the exercises of practical life which you describe; come and see." I went. Some of the authorities were also present, and a university professor of pedagogy.
Some children seated at a little table with playthings were laying the table for a doll's meal; their faces were quite without expression. I looked in amazement at the persons who had invited me; they seemed quite satisfied; they evidently thought that there was no difference between laying a table in play and laying it for an actual meal; for them imaginary life and real life were the same thing. May not this subtle form of error be instilled in infancy and afterwards persist as a mental attitude? It was perhaps this error which caused a famous Italian pedagogist to say to me: "Liberty a new thing? Pray read Comenius—you will find that it was already discussed in his times." I replied: "Yes, many talk of it, but the liberty I mean is a form of liberty actually realized." He seemed not to understand the difference. I ought to have asked: "Do you not believe that there is any difference between him who talks of millions and him who possesses them?"
To be contented with the imaginary, and to live as if what we imagine actually existed; to run after illusion, and "not to recognize" reality, is a thing so common that scarcely is it apprehended, and the cry of alarm raised: "Awake to truth, O man!" when the consciousness becomes aware of a kind of gnawing parasite which has wormed itself subtly into our intelligence.
The power to imagine always exists, whether or not it has a solid basis on which to rest and materials with which to build; but when it does not elaborate from reality and truth, instead of raising a divine structure it forms incrustations which compress the intelligence and prevent the light from penetrating thereto.
How much time and strength man has lost and is losing by this error! Just as vice, which is an exercise of function without purpose, wastes the body until it becomes diseased, so imagination unsustained by truth consumes the intelligence until it assumes characteristics akin to the mental characteristics of the insane.
Fable and religion.—I have frequently heard it said that the education of the imagination on a basis of fancy prepares the soul of the child for religious education; and that an education based on "reality," as in this method we would adopt, is too arid, and tends to dry up the founts of spiritual life. Such reasoning, however, will not be accepted by religious persons. They know well that faith and fable are "as the poles apart," since fable is in itself a thing without faith, and faith is the very sentiment of truth, which should accompany man even unto death. Religion is not a product of fantastic imagination, it is the greatest of realities, the one truth to the religious man. It is the fount and basis of his life. The man without religion is not, certainly, a person without imagination, but rather one who lacks internal equilibrium; compared with the religious man he is less calm, less strong in adversity; not only this, but he is more unsettled in his own ideas. He is weaker and more unhappy; and it is in vain that he catches at imagination to create a world for himself outside reality. Something within him cries aloud in the words of David: "My soul is a-thirst for God." And if he hopes to reach the goal of his real life by the help of imagination alone, he may feel his feet giving way among quicksands at a supreme moment of effort.