The Havasupai Indian mother says: “I must not beat my boy. If I do, I will break his will.” Unlike her pale-faced friends, she is not obsessed with the mania for governing. We, in our insane subservience to traditions, continue to train our children to obey. Slaves they shall be; that is the slogan. We no longer whip men; we whip children only because they are weaker than we are. So, a child is the slave in successive stages of home, church, school, government, and either boss or “superior officer.” Could Europe be at war unless its men were made molluscous by discipline and their mental paralysis completed through respectability?
Children are born materialists, poets, and joy-worshippers. We tame them and they grow up philistines, supernaturalists, and respectable believers in the disinterested love of dullness. Instead of teaching them theories and superstitions, we should tell them that they are parts of the universe; that the carbon, iron, sulphur, phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, the zero-gases, and the dozen other elements of which our bodies are made are also the main elements of sun, moon, and stars,—of the whole material universe. The next step might be to show the child, through actual experiments, the known physical and chemical properties of these elements, thus preparing its mind for the greatest of all poetries—the poetry of evolution. These things need but be shown, not laboriously learned by rote; they need only to be told, not to be taught; and if the child’s healthy inquisitiveness has not been ruined by repression, it will delight in feeling the pull of the magnet; in watching the electric spark that unites oxygen and hydrogen into water; in drawing the marvelous beauties of snow flakes and other crystal formations; in watching and aiding the growth of birds, beasts, flowers, or fruits; in the thrill of blended voices or in other forms of voluntary co-operation. All these things, all the realities need but be shown to delight the untainted mind of childhood; while daily free association with other children will soon give to each child a practical working knowledge of ethics (quite impossible to attain under the boss-system of the government schoolmistress) from which, as a basis, the errors of our economic and social systems can be pointed out and discussed. In the minds and hearts of these free children, ideals can then be formulated which will tend toward their development into the free society of the future, whose coming their own efforts will hasten. For it is only through the successive enslavement of each succeeding generation that governments can retain their powers.
Such should be some of the activities of a Ferrer or Modern School, free from the noxious taint of authority, superstition, or respectability. If we cannot do better let us begin, at least, with a Sunday school. However that may be, and whatever the future of such a school, all those interested in establishing it are cordially invited to communicate with the editor of The Little Review, with William Thurston Brown, 1125 N. Hoyne Ave., with Anthony Udell, 817½ N. Clark St., or with the writer, 1240 Morse Ave.
The Old Spirit and the New Ways in Art
William Saphier
Full of visions and ideals and eager to express them in their own way, a group of striving young painters and sculptors in this city is working industriously without regard for applause from either the crowd or the few. Just as there are religious and social rebels—people who refuse to accept the old dogmas and habits merely because they were successful at a certain time and fit for a certain period in human history—these young artists refuse to adopt methods and views of the past for the purpose of expressing their views on modern subjects.
In striving to realize the new idea in form and color they are of necessity passing through that period in which the intellect discerns and style is chosen—the period of experiment. And if they do not achieve as great a success as the old masters, they certainly work in the spirit of a Monet or a Rembrandt. We print this month reproductions of work done by four of these artists. They have nothing in common except that they are all trying to express themselves in their own way.
Jerome S. Blum, the oldest and best known of the group, is an extraordinary painter of the usual. He does not rely on a dramatic subject, or on a sensational technic, to arouse interest in his work. It is his unusual way of looking at people and nature, and his vigorous and interesting color schemes, that have made his paintings notable. Mr. Blum is far too imaginative to be natural, far too poetic to be “real.” All his work strikes one as a spontaneous expression of almost childish delight in color.
The Orator is the work of Stanislaw Szukalski, a boy of nineteen, who comes from Russian Poland. He studied at the Krakau Academy, where he received two gold medals and five other prizes. On entering his studio your amazement grows as you wander from one thought or emotion to another in plaster. Each one grips and holds you vigorously. Impressions of Praying, Sleeping, Hurling, and Bondage, a few very interesting portraits of Max Krammer and Professor Chiio, and also a full figure of Victor Hugo tell of the spiritual insight of this young sculptor—the unexpected in every one. His works are full of life and imagination. The fact that some of our able nonentities have characterized them as caricatures proves how narrow-minded some of our sculptors are today.
C. Raymond Johnson is only twenty-three years old, and in all the work he has done so far purity, brilliance of color and spaciousness predominate. It is the suggestion in his present work of great possibilities in the near future that makes them interesting. The one in this issue shows the highly decorative effects of his ideas. Besides painting Mr. Johnson finds time to experiment with colored lighting and the making of most original posters for the Chicago Little Theatre.