Love, the Law of Life

Paul Natorp, the advocate of educational socialism, says that trueworld reconstruction will be accomplished, not by political or economic reconstruction, but solely through educational reorganization. I concur with him. As long as education is confined to forms, it is unreasonable to hope for the realization of our ideals, but if we consider the essence of education to be the art of life which springs out of the real stuff of human nature, I believe that we may look to education for the major accomplishment in our social reconstruction.

The natural sciences have in modern times fundamentally altered human living, and the people have experienced an awakening through the common education which teaches these sciences. Modern democracy cannot in its thinking ignore the progress of this common education, It is quite proper to consider, rather, that the development of modern democracy has been the fruitage of the revolution of knowledge and of education. Some thinkers apparently suppose that democracy has been built up solely upon the basis of politics and economics, but their error arises from their failure to grasp the essential nature of democracy. They ignore the necessity for making the soul of man the point of departure in their thinking. |

I believe that social reconstruction must proceed away from the present superficial common education to an inner educational socialism. And it must be made possible for every workingman to secure the education which he demands. Only thus can a truly ideal society be realized. In the meantime, while men are expecting the reconstruction of society to be achieved through politics and economics alone, their souls are left famished and in deep distress.

Upon the basis of my experience of hardships in the slums I have concluded that in the salvaging of the dreadful slums of the present, swarming with imbeciles, morons, insane folk, altered personalities, cripples, and sick folk, politics and economics alone are impotent. Further, so long as these slums exist, which are forever scarring the souls of the children, it will be impossible to create a finer, higher type of humanity. I have practically despaired of saving the slum dwellers over twelve years of age. The so-called laboring classes have it in their power to devise means of emancipation by forming unions; but the poor, who depend upon others, are barely able to keep alive. They are physical. and mental cripples, who show no possibility of any thoroughgoing redemption. I believe, therefore, that the way to rid the world of poverty is to give our atten- - tion to the children under twelve. That is, the true way to redeem the poor is to give the children a genuinely creative education in order not only that they may be made fully capable of independent living, but also that from their number may appear individuals endowed with extraordinary abilities.

It is in this sense that I would base the fundamental tone for our coming social movements upon educational socialism. It is thus that we shall be able to establish a superior society, a society which does not bend before authority, which emancipates the proletariat through the spirit of love and mutual aid, is released by the natural and descriptive sciences from superstition, lives always with its ideals firmly in mind, and ignores the demand for bread through violence—a reconstructed society with high vision.

Finally, I would say concerning the essence of educational reconstruction that eventually every problem of reconstruction is a problem of human nature. The reconstruction of human nature depends absolutely upon the power of evolution, and where the principles of evolution are practically applied there will be true education. Education may be defined as a psychological phenomenon induced by bringing into play the learning power of man’s nature. In the process neither external endeavor nor economic power have any part. It consists simply in calling forth the original nature of man and causing it to respond to stimuli. Therefore, what is called educational reconstruction is to be carried out in accordance with the elemental demands of human nature itself. Nothing results from the mere application of external stimuli, however many and various they may be. The essence of educational reformation consists in the discovery of human nature. Educational movements are entirely devoid of authority if this principle is neglected.

The training of an individual is a process which may not be undertaken in middle age: it is possible only when there is a seething up of forces from within. It is in the period from about the seventh year to the twenty-fifth that this process of seething up is most active in the human soul, and then it is that the individual is extremely teachable. After the age of thirty a hardening of the individual’s nature sets in, and teaching becomes difficult. This truth is valid also in the education of a nation: a people which has reached the stage of fixation cannot be taught, for teaching is possible only during the period when there is this national upwelling from within, when the nation is in the developing stage.

The man or woman who would teach, therefore, must be one who is teachable, one who is ever growing. The principle of educational democracy, as I term it, is here operative. For heretofore, the educator has regarded all things as fixed, and the teacher has been made out to be invariably superior to his pupil. The consequence has been that the teacher has failed to realize that there are such things as laws of growth. And so long as erowth is ignored, there can be no such thing as education. Hence, habitually to regard the teacher as superior to the learner is an error. Only when the teacher himself is growing can he be a leader of growing children or of a growing nation; and the attempt to pour all into the same fixed mould violates the essential nature of education.

As I have intimated, education implies the reconstruction of human nature, and this reconstruction must rely upon evolutionary forces. To pour these forces into moulds is impossible. Wherefore, teachers who undertake stereotyped education are, I contend, ignoring the very nature of education itself, and are obstructing the evolutionary process. Education is a lighted fuse: it is the process of applying as stimulus the learning that human society has amassed, in order to assist invention and discovery. Where, as a result, something has been added to this body of learning, education has achieved its aim. Education through the natural sciences and education through the cultural sciences are in essence identi- cal: each is a means for advancing man to a better position.

It is therefore the duty of the teacher to make it his highest concern to place no obstruction in the way of the pupil’s development. Educational method in medieval times bound the student absolutely to the example of the teacher. It plucked away the fuse from the invention and discovery which issue from youthful minds. Wherefore, Rousseau cried, ‘Back to Nature!” which meant “ Remove the mistaken restraints!”’ Rousseau’s advice was good, but in this connection it must be noted that removing restraints and going in for invention are two entirely different matters. “Back to Nature” urges emancipation from the mistaken training of the past, but gives no hint at all of the new order of invention. Education, in the sense that I mean it to have, not merely teaches a return to Nature but suggests the order of invention, based upon the nature of man. In other words, education is perforce always idealistic. Between a simple return to Nature and the discovery of a truly hwman nature there is a marked difference. Our way of advance, then, lies in both breaking down the formalism of the past and ever discovering fresh undertakings to carry forward.

In order to discover the true nature of man, all the sundry unreal forms in society have got to be fundamentally renovated. If the business of education were merely that of defining existing society and teaching how to maintain it, there would be no necessity of opposing the present social system; but if we are to create a more highly advanced society, then we cannot rest satisfied with the education of today.

The idea held by those who think that if the social system and environment are reconstructed, education will thereby be reorganized, is a gross error. Social environment is external: it is not man’s inner nature itself. Therefore, if these men think that the essence of education can be clarified merely by materialistic philosophy, they err sadly. Education in its essence must ever be spontaneous, psychological, ethical, and in the true sense, religious. Education of this type is in reality the Art of Life. |

Thinking in this fashion we see that the reorganization of education cannot be a forced reconstruction. If education simply insures that the fountain of love and life springing forth from within is not obstructed, it will do well. And as for the teacher, if he will think of himself as the guardian of this fountain, he will do well.

The mistake of the educator has been that of regarding himself as teacher, whereas it would have been better if he had thought of himself as perpetual stimulator of growth. The way to democracy is not alone through equality and freedom. It is as well through growth. Where youth can grow as did those who came before them, and further have the possibility of growing more than their predecessors, there the idea of equality is thoroughgoing. The so-called freedom which is, however, quite lacking in content, is utterly futile. Freedom must mean freedom to grow. There is nothing so dangerous as growthless freedom.

Equality through growth, freedom through growth, may be attained only through the process of education. With full realization of this truth, then, we must press toward the belief that true social reorganization may be achieved solely through an educational reconstruction motivated by love.

The duty of the teacher is that of nurse, of guide— the guide of ever-growing humanity. Unremitting guidance— what is it but love intrinsic? Love is the eternal teacher. And education by love is basal in the reorganization of society.

Where life is expressed, the arts are born. Where life is extinguished, the arts too are lost.

Life ever creates new values to enrich the content of the ego. Every valueisajoy,anaim. These values in their totality are the onward march of life itself toward free self-existence.

In the arts of man there are multiform canons. For just as the economics of the senses obeys the impressions of the different senses, so the sense arts are related to the various sensations. For the eye the forms of sculpture, painting, and architecture are created; for the ear, poetry and music; for the muscles, the dance. And with the progress of man’s ideas the drama, the novel, and the love of Nature come into being. To my thinking, these various partial arts are, as compared to the Art of Life upon which I am continually meditating, extremely meager entities. Even the subjective arts, the novel and the drama, are not to be compared in strength with the synthesized Art of Life.

I have all through this book been endeavoring to explain the content of this Art of Life. For me science isagrandart. It is the production, the creation of life, the highest of the subjective arts, holding at its summit _the reality of objectivity. Science is the most glorious of the arts of life.

Economics, as I have explained, is one of the arts of life—not senseless, mechanical mass production, but creation, production, for the sake of life—the art par excellence.

There appears to be an extraordinary number of these ignorant partial artists who fail to discern that morality is a life art; but folk who would seek for beauty must withdraw far from syphilitic uncleanness. Can the art of wine and impurity become true art? What ecstasy can there be in this art of wine-inflamed bacchantes? Ah, you defectives, you sufferers from Basedow’s disease in art, with your great bulging eyes—you who for color and outline trample down soul and life—what authority is there in the expressions of your sense art, limited only to the visual!

That there is in your art a certain ecstasy, I do not deny. A partial ecstasy is of course possible. But to be compelled to call this an art—this art of brain syphilis and alcohol—is a veritable shame! It is a degenerate art, a paradise of the mentally diseased, a babbling over the cups, the art of the noseless vagabonds of Paris!

But the Art of Life is the device for carving beauty upon life. In this sculpturing there are artistic principles to be observed. These principles form what we term morality.