The Exclusion of Certain Children.—In the public elementary schools we find many children who ought not to be there—children, for example, with arrested development, abnormal, neglected, &c. If in any class there are many children suffering from arrest of mental development, one of two things may happen—the teacher may devote special attention to them, or he may not. In the former case, the progress of the whole class is hindered; in the latter case, the unfortunate backward children fall yet farther behind. Morally neglected children, and children with criminal tendencies, should be removed from the school, or they will corrupt the other children. But if they are excluded, we have to fear that we are depriving them of their last chance of improvement, and that they will become more neglected than ever. To-day we find that there is a most deplorable increase, above all in the large towns and manufacturing centres, in the number of children who habitually evade school attendance or play truant from school, idle about through the days, and then, after school hours, and in fear of punishment, keep also away from home. It has been proved that the great majority of these habitual truants are feeble-minded to a degree, and for this reason tend to adopt a vagabond life. If such a child is excluded from school, it legally attains the condition of liberation from the obligation of school attendance which it had previously attained illegally though in actual fact. Chiefly in consequence of the inadequate psychological training of the teachers, feeble-mindedness and other mental and moral abnormalities in children are apt to be overlooked. It is desirable that all teachers should receive a far more thorough training in the psychology of education than has hitherto been customary. It is necessary that for weak-minded children, or for those who are in other respects backward or abnormal, special schools, or in great educational institutions, special classes (disciplinary classes), should be founded. Of late years a start has been made in this direction.
Rewards and Punishments.—In the public elementary school of to-day, sound methods and principles in the matter of rewards and punishments find but little application. Corporal punishment is freely used, and in many cases the children are grossly ill-treated. In the United States of America, the general experience has been that in schools in which corporal punishment is unknown, better results are obtained and a higher general level is reached than in schools in which corporal punishment is customary. The mere knowledge that they are liable to such degrading punishment suffices to lower the children’s morale, whereas, when they feel themselves absolutely secure from the risk of such punishment, they feel themselves from the first to be honoured and respected. In the better elementary schools of the United States corporal punishment is in fact unknown.
The Constitutional Element.—In the order of the modern school no constitutional element is recognised; the teacher is an absolute ruler, and the pupils are subjects without rights. But this system is not one fitted to prepare the children for democratic social and political life. In the United States of America some of the elementary schools have a method of government which is quasi-parliamentary in character. It is desirable to introduce this system into Europe, although certain modifications may be necessary. The relationship between teacher and pupil should be as follows. The teacher does not work solely by authority. He explains in all cases the reasons for his commands and prohibitions; he recognises and admits his own mistakes, treats his pupils as equals, and makes common cause with the well-behaved children to keep the ill-behaved in order; just as in the education of the individual we counteract the morbid elements in the disposition by cultivating the healthy elements, so in his school the teacher uses the good elements to counteract the bad ones. By making common cause with the well-behaved children against the ill-behaved, he induces the former to become unconsciously the instructors and educators of the latter. He endeavours to effect the growth among the children of a public opinion, which shall warn transgressors and prescribe their punishment. He must also utilise free discussion among his pupils as a means of stimulation and instruction. (Parents should employ much the same methods in the upbringing of their own children.)
Parents and the School.—The view that the teacher need concern himself about the child only so long as the latter is within the four walls of the school, and that he is justified in completely ignoring all that happens to the child outside the school, is utterly false, and must be abandoned. To-day a question which attracts much attention is how parents may be induced to support the teacher. In this respect the conditions in Europe are worse than those in the United States of America. In Europe parents commonly rejoice when the school takes the burden of children off their hands. Many teachers, on the other hand, are instinctive bureaucrats, who regard it as wrong for the parents to exert any influence whatever upon the teacher’s relationship to his pupils. Quite recently the following view has begun to prevail—that it is the duty of the parents to send their children to the lowest class of the elementary school with such a grounding that the teacher may readily proceed to build thereon; the parents should remain throughout in contact with the teachers. This contact may be of a manifold kind: the teachers keep the parents acquainted with all the important details of the course of instruction, and at voluntary evening reunions explain to the parents the concrete problems of education. We can approve the conduct neither of those parents who always uphold the teacher against their children, nor of those, on the other hand, who always abuse the teacher to the child. The former procedure brings the children up as slaves, the latter undermines the foundations of the respect which every teacher should inspire in his pupils.
Sexual Education.—A thorough reform of sexual education is absolutely essential. 1. The question of co-education does not properly belong to this work, and can be touched on merely in passing. In the public elementary schools almost all over the world co-education is the rule; elementary schools for one sex only are exceptional.[5] 2. The Church regards the sexual life as something essentially immoral, of which the child is to know nothing whatever. Its motto is: Silence. The earlier elementary schools, owing to their intimate dependence on the Church, shared this view. The sexual enlightenment of children is recommended especially by the advocates of the emancipation of women. The question is even more important to women than it is to men, since the right solution of the sexual problem will entail for women greater advantages than for men.
The sexual enlightenment of children is absolutely necessary for the following reasons. (a) The sexual life conceals many dangers for the child, and the latter will better be able to guard against those dangers if he is aware of their existence. No one has the right to put a sharp knife in a child’s hand without pointing out the dangers of the weapon. But the forces of the sexual life, when ill-understood and ill-controlled, are far more powerful and far more dangerous than the sharpest knife. He who will learn to walk and to run must risk stumbling and falling, and no one can learn to swim without swallowing a little water. (b) That which is half-concealed is far more stimulating than that which is revealed. If children are not properly enlightened concerning the sexual life, they become accustomed to regard matters of sex solely from the standpoint of personal desire and personal enjoyment, and to regard the sexual life and the other sex as something hateful and despicable. (c) If the child receives no enlightenment concerning the sexual life, its confidence in its teacher and its relatives is necessarily undermined. How shall a child retain confidence in those who give it no advice in a matter in which the need of advice is so urgently felt? Can the child be expected to follow their advice in other departments of life, when in this department it receives bad advice or none at all? Can a child give confidence to its elders in other matters, when in this matter it is fobbed off with lies and fables?
The following arguments are adduced against the sexual enlightenment of children. (a) It is better, supposing that the sexual impulse has not yet awakened in a child, that nothing should be done to direct its attention to the sexual life. (b) The enlightenment of children is a very difficult matter, and is, in fact, hardly practicable.
The former of these arguments is not altogether groundless. But in present conditions silence is impossible, and it is better that the child should obtain its information from a pure and trustworthy source. With regard to the alleged difficulty of effecting the sexual enlightenment, recent experience shows that the requisite instruction can be suitably and inconspicuously introduced into the natural history lessons, and adapted to the age and intelligence of the child, without any excessive detail being attempted. The stress has to be laid, not upon enlightenment as to the processes of sexual conjugation, nor upon detailed instruction as to the development of the human embryo, but rather upon a mainly hygienic enlightenment concerning the dangers attendant upon sexual intercourse.
Should the sexual enlightenment of children be the work of the school, or should it be, as many insist, the duty either of the parents or the medical adviser? The co-operation of parents and medical adviser is certainly indispensable, but the principal part in the work of enlightenment belongs to the school. One of the main difficulties in sexual enlightenment by the parents depends upon the fact that the majority of parents lack the requisite ability and the requisite biological knowledge. Of late the schools have actually begun to undertake this work of the sexual enlightenment of children. It is unquestionably the tendency of evolution that the sexual enlightenment of children up to a certain point should be effected in the school.
Religious and Moral Instruction.—It remains undecided whether the public elementary school of to-day was of ecclesiastical origin. But it is an unquestionable fact that from the first the Church exercised a great influence upon the public elementary school, and that the Church continues to struggle for the spread of its own ideas through the intermediation of the schools. The influence of the Church secures, not merely that religion shall be taught in the schools, but, in addition, that in the teaching of other matters, the ecclesiastical spirit shall have free play. This explains the fact that the teaching of natural science has been neglected in the schools, on the ground that it is antagonistic to religion. The alleged necessity of religious teaching is based upon the assertion that by such teaching children are guided in the paths of morality. But as religious instruction as at present administered, it is by no means adapted to produce this effect. To teach children difficult ethical concepts in an abstract form, and to make them commit these abstract formulations to memory, is a mode of ill-usage. We cannot teach a child to be moral by preaching to it a great deal, and by telling it many moral and religious stories and drawing for it many moral and religious conclusions, unless we take pains at the same time to find associations within the child’s own circle of interests for the ideas we are endeavouring to impart. It is impossible to induce in a child the habit of moral conduct by purely intellectual demonstrations, in connection with which the child’s interest in the processes and situations of the relation is perhaps wilfully mistaken for a desire to imitate the actions that are described. Moreover, in the religions that are taught in the modern public elementary schools, we find reflected the moral conceptions of days long past—conceptions whose interest is now historical merely. These religions deal only with the morals of adult persons—their examples relate only to adults; whereas the sound moral instruction of young people must pay attention above all to the numerous little needs and passions of the child. Religion and morality are two altogether different things. A knowledge of Bible history and of religious dogmas cannot make anyone more moral. There are many countries in which we find that the extent of immorality is directly proportional to the extent to which, in the various areas, a religious spirit prevails. Our general conclusion, therefore, is that the public elementary school should not be founded upon a religious basis, and that it should not undertake to give religious instruction. The standpoint of France, formerly so religious a country, is thoroughly sound. The principle of religious liberty allows everyone to profess whatever religion he pleases. It is a logical corollary of this principle that the public elementary school, which is open to all, should be neither religious nor anti-religious; that is to say, that it should be a secular, lay, neutral school, and that religious instruction should be left to the parents.