Part 7
THE PHILOSOPHER. I beg your pardon!--It was only an exclamation of surprise. It has been so long since anybody has talked to me about Truth. How quaint and refreshing!
THE LADY. Please do not be frivolous.
THE PHILOSOPHER. I am sorry--but really, it _is_ amusing. Tell me, to which school do you belong?
THE LADY. To the Julia Richmond High School, if you must know--though I don’t see what that has to do with Truth.
THE PHILOSOPHER. Oh! You mean you are a school-teacher!
THE LADY. Certainly. Doesn’t that suit you?
THE PHILOSOPHER. It delights me. I feared at first you might be a Hegelian, or even a Platonist. Now that I find you are a Pragmatist like myself--
THE LADY. Pragmatist? Yes, I have heard of Pragmatism. William James--summer course in Philosophy. But why do you think I am a Pragmatist?
THE PHILOSOPHER. A school-teacher _must_ be a pragmatist, madam, or go mad. If you really believed the human brain to be an instrument capable of accurate thinking, your experiences with your pupils and your principal, not to speak of your boards of education, would furnish you a spectacle of human wickedness and folly too horrible to be endured. But you realize that the poor things were never intended to think.
THE LADY. That’s true; they’re doing the best they can, aren’t they? They just _can’t_ believe anything they don’t want to believe!
THE PHILOSOPHER. That is to say, man is not primarily a thinking animal--he is a creature of emotion and action.
THE LADY. Especially action. They are always in such a hurry to get something done that they really can’t stop to think about it! But I’m afraid all this is really beside the point. What we want to know is why the school fails so miserably in its attempt to teach children to think?
THE PHILOSOPHER. Perhaps it is in too much of a hurry. But are you sure you really want children to learn to think?
THE LADY. Of course we do!
THE PHILOSOPHER. The greatest part of life, you know, can be lived without thought. We do not think about where we put our feet as we walk along an accustomed road. We leave that to habit. We do not think about how to eat, once we have learned to do it in a mannerly way. The accountant does not think about how to add a column of figures--he has his mind trained to the task. And there is little that cannot be done by the formation of proper habits, to the complete elimination of thought. The habits will even take care of the regulation of the emotions. For all practical purposes, don’t you agree with me that thinking might be dispensed with?
THE LADY. I hardly know whether to take you seriously or not--
THE PHILOSOPHER. Can you deny what I say?
THE LADY. But--but life isn’t all habit. We must think--in order to make--decisions.
THE PHILOSOPHER. It is not customary. We let our wishes fight it out, and the strongest has its way. But I once knew a man who did think in order to make his decisions. The result was that he always made them too late. And what was worse, the habit grew upon him. He got to thinking about everything he wanted to do, with the result that he couldn’t do anything. I told him that he’d have to stop thinking--that it wasn’t healthy. Finally he went to a doctor, and sure enough the doctor told him that it was a well known disease--a neurosis. Its distinguishing mark was that the patient always saw two courses open to him everywhere he turned--two alternatives, two different ways of doing something, two women between whom he must choose, two different theories of life, and so on to distraction. The reason for it, the doctor said, was that the patient’s will, that is to say the functioning of his emotional wish-apparatus, had become deranged, and the burden of decision was being put upon a part of the mind incapable of bearing it--the logical faculty. He cured my friend’s neurosis, and now he thinks no more about the practical affairs of life than you or I or anybody else. So you see thinking is abnormal--even dangerous. Why do you want to teach children to think?
THE LADY. Well--it is rather taken for granted that the object of education is learning to think.
THE PHILOSOPHER. But is that true? If it is, why do you teach your children the multiplication table, or the rule that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides--unless in order to save them the trouble of thinking? By the way, what is the capital of Tennessee, and when did Columbus discover America?
THE LADY. Nashville, 1492. Why?
THE PHILOSOPHER You didn’t have to stop to think, did you? Your memory has been well trained. But if you will forgive the comparison, so has my dog’s been well trained; when I say, ‘Towser, show the lady your tricks,’ he goes through an elaborate performance that would gladden your heart, for he is an apt pupil; but I don’t for a moment imagine that I have taught him to think.
THE LADY. Then you don’t want children taught the multiplication table?
THE PHILOSOPHER.. I? Most certainly I do. And so far as I am concerned, I would gladly see a great many other short cuts in mathematics taught, so as to save our weary human brains the trouble of thinking about such things. I am in fact one of the Honorary Vice-Presidents of the Society for the Elimination of Useless Thinking.
THE LADY. I am afraid you are indulging in a jest.
THE PHILOSOPHER.. I am afraid I am. But if you knew Philosophers better you would realize that it is a habit of ours to jest about serious matters. It is one of our short-cuts to wisdom. Read your Plato and William James again. Delightful humorists, both of them, I assure you. I fear you went to them too soberly, and in too much of a hurry.
THE LADY. Doubtless your jokes have a historic sanctity, since you say so, but I do not feel that they have advanced our inquiry very much.
THE PHILOSOPHER. I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. What do you want to know?
THE LADY. I want to know what is the use of thinking?
THE PHILOSOPHER. Ah, my jest was not in vain, if it provoked you to that. I should call that question the evidence of a real thought.
THE LADY. Well, what is the answer?
THE PHILOSOPHER. Oh, please don’t stop, now that you have made such a good start! Think again, and answer your own question.
THE LADY. Hm....
THE PHILOSOPHER. Yes?
THE LADY. I was thinking of Newton and the apple. If it hadn’t been for Newton’s ability to think, he would never have formulated the law of gravitation.
THE PHILOSOPHER. And what a pity that would have been--wouldn’t it?
THE LADY. You mean that it makes very little practical difference to us?
THE PHILOSOPHER. It would if the town were being bombarded. The Newtonian calculations are considered useful by the artillery schools. But it is true that it was Newton and not an artillery officer who made them.
THE LADY. You mean that the artillery captain would have been too intent on practical matters?
THE PHILOSOPHER. And in too much of a hurry. Then there’s the steam-engine. Useful invention--the very soul of hurry. Who invented it--some anxious postilion who thought horses were too slow? Or somebody whose mind was so empty of practical concerns that it could be intrigued by a tea-kettle? And by the way, it was Stephenson, wasn’t it, who applied the steam-principle to locomotion? I’ve a very poor memory, but I think Watt’s engine was just a toy. No practical use whatever. Other people found out the practical uses for it. Arkwright. Fulton. Hoe. Et cetera.
THE LADY. I see. The results of thinking may be put to use afterward, but the motive for thinking is not the desire to produce such results. I wonder if that is true?
THE PHILOSOPHER. What is the common reproach against philosophers and scientists?
THE LADY. That they are impractical. But inventors--
THE PHILOSOPHER. Did you ever know an inventor?
THE LADY. Yes....
THE PHILOSOPHER. Was he rich?
THE LADY. He starved to death.
THE PHILOSOPHER. Why?
THE LADY. Because every one said that his invention was very wonderful, but not of the slightest use to anybody.... Yes, it’s true.
THE PHILOSOPHER. That the results of thinking do not provide the motive for thinking?
THE LADY. Yes.
THE PHILOSOPHER. Then what is the motive for thinking?
THE LADY. Just--curiosity, I suppose!
THE PHILOSOPHER. Disinterested curiosity?
THE LADY. Yes.
THE PHILOSOPHER. Then in the interests of scientific truth we should cultivate disinterested curiosity?
THE LADY. Doubtless.
THE PHILOSOPHER. How would you go about doing so?
THE LADY. I don’t know.
THE PHILOSOPHER. By hurriedly thrusting upon the minds of the children in your charge so great a multitude of interests as to leave them no time to wonder about anything?
THE LADY. That would hardly seem to be the way to do it. But--
THE PHILOSOPHER. When Newton looked at his famous apple, was there anyone there who said, “Now, Newton, look at this apple. Look at this apple, I say! Consider the apple. First, it is round. Second, it is red. Third, it is sweet. This is the Truth about apples. Now let me see if you have grasped what I have told you. What are the three leading facts about apples? What! Don’t you remember? Shame on you! I fear I will have to report you to the mayor!”--did anything like that happen?
THE LADY. Newton was not a child.
THE PHILOSOPHER. You should have talked to Newton’s family about him. That is just what they said he was! I will admit that if you left children free to wonder about things instead of forcing the traditional aspects of those things upon their attention, they might not all become great scientists. But are you a great archaeologist?
THE LADY. No!
THE PHILOSOPHER. Did you ever go on a personally conducted tour of the ruins of Rome, and have the things you were to see and think pointed out to you by a guide?
THE LADY. Yes, and I hated it!
THE PHILOSOPHER. You are not a great archaeologist and you never expect to be one, and yet you thought you could get more out of those ruins yourself than with the assistance of that pesky guide. You preferred to be free--to see or not to see, to wonder and ponder and look again or pass by. And don’t you think the children in your charge might enjoy their trip a little more if they didn’t have to listen to the mechanically unctuous clatter of a guide?
THE LADY. If one could only be sure they wouldn’t just waste their time!
THE PHILOSOPHER. Madam, are you quite sure that you, as a teacher, are not wasting _your_ time?
THE LADY. You make me wonder whether that may not be possible. But sheer idleness--
THE PHILOSOPHER. Was Newton busy when he lay down under that tree? Did he have an appointment with the apple? Did he say he would give it ten minutes, and come again next day if it seemed worth while? What is disinterested curiosity, in plain English?
THE LADY. Idle curiosity--I fear.
THE PHILOSOPHER. I fear you are right. Then you would say that the way to approach Truth, in school and out, is to cultivate idle curiosity?
THE LADY. I did not intend to say anything of the kind. But you compel me to say it.
THE PHILOSOPHER. I compel you? Deny it if you wish!
THE LADY. I thought you were going to answer my questions, and you have been making me answer yours!
THE PHILOSOPHER. That is also an ancient habit of our profession. But since you have now arrived, of your own free will, at an inescapable if uncomfortable conclusion, you can now have no further need for my services, and I bid you all good day!
XXI. The Right to be Wrong
One moment!--I take it, my friends, we are agreed in demanding of the Philosopher that he condescend to some concrete and practical suggestions in regard to education.--Briefly, please!
THE PHILOSOPHER. “You must draw your own conclusions. Traditional education is based on the assumption that knowledge is a mass of information which can be given to the child in little dabs at regular intervals. We know, however, that the education based on this assumption is a failure. It kills rather than stimulates curiosity; and without curiosity, information is useless. We are thus forced to realize that knowledge does not reside outside the child, but in the contact of the child with the world through the medium of curiosity. And thus the whole emphasis of education is changed. We no longer seek to educate the child--we only attempt to give him the opportunity to educate himself. He alone has the formula of his own specific needs; none of us is wise enough to arrange for him the mysterious series of beautiful and poignant contacts with reality by which alone he can ‘learn.’ This means that he must choose his own lessons. And if you think that, left to choose, he would prefer no lessons at all, you are quite mistaken. Let me remind you that children are notoriously curious about everything--everything except, as you will very justly point out, the things people want them to know. It then remains for us to refrain from forcing any kind of knowledge upon them, and they will be curious about everything. You may imagine that they will prefer only the less complex kinds of knowledge; but do you regard children’s games as simple? They are in fact exceedingly complex. And they are all the more interesting because they are complex. We ourselves with our adult minds, penetrate cheerfully into the complexities of baseball, or embroidery, or the stock-market, following the lead of some natural curiosity; and if our minds less often penetrate into the complexities of music, or science, it is because these things have associations which bring them within the realm of the dutiful. Evolutionary biology is far more interesting than stamp-collecting; but it is, unfortunately, made to seem not so delightfully useless, and hence it is shunned by adolescent boys and girls. But postage-stamp collecting can be made as much a bore as biology; it needs only to be put into the schools as a formal course.
“Consider for a moment the boy stamp-collector. His interest in his collection is in the nature of a passion. Does it astonish you that passionateness should be the fruit of idle curiosity? Then you need to face the facts of human psychology. The boy’s passion for his collection of stamps is akin to the passion of the scientist and the poet. Do you desire of children that they should have a similar passion for arithmetic, for geography, for history? Then you must leave them free to find out the interestingness of these things. There is no way to passionate interest save through the gate of curiosity; and curiosity is born of idleness. But doubtless you have a quite wrong notion of what idleness means. Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is _being free to do anything_. To be forced to do nothing is not idleness, it is the worst kind of imprisonment. Being made to stand in the corner with one’s face to the wall is not idleness--it is punishment. But getting up on Saturday morning with a wonderful day ahead in which one may do what one likes--that is idleness. And it leads straight into tremendous expenditures of energy. There is a saying, ‘The devil finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ Yes, but why should the devil have no competition? And that, as I understand it, is the function of education--to provide for idle and happy children fascinating contacts with reality--through games, tools, books, scientific instruments, gardens, and older persons with passionate interests in science and art and handicraft.
“Such a place would in a few respects resemble the schools we know; but the spirit would be utterly different from the spirit of traditional education. The apparatus for arousing the child’s curiosity would be infinitely greater than the meagre appliances of our public schools; but however great, the child would be the centre of it all--not as the object of a process, but as the possessor of the emotions by force of which all these outward things become Education.
“But, you may ask, what has all this to do with truth? Simply this. We have been forcing children to memorize alleged facts. A fact so memorized cannot be distinguished from a falsehood similarly memorized. And so we may very well say that we have failed to bring truth into education. For truth is reality brought into vital contact with the mind. It makes no difference whether we teach children that the earth is round or flat, if it means nothing to them either way. For truth does not reside in something outside the child’s mind; reality becomes truth only when it is made a part of his living.
“But, you will protest--and you will protest the more loudly the more you know of children--that their processes of thought are illogical, fantastic and wayward. And you will ask, Do I mean that we must respect the child’s error in order to cultivate in him a love of truth? Yes, I do mean just that! Do I mean that we must respect the child’s belief that the earth is flat, you ask? More than that, we must respect a thousand obscure and pervasive childish notions, such as the notion that a hair from a horse’s tail will turn into a pollywog if left in the rainbarrel, or the notion that the way to find a lost ball is to spit on the back of the hand, repeat an incantation couched in such words as ‘Spit, Spit, tell me where the ball is!’ and then strike it with the palm of the other hand. You can doubtless supply a thousand instances of the kind of childhood thinking to which I refer. But for simplicity’s sake, let us use the childish notion that the earth is flat as a convenient symbol for them all. And I say that if we do not respect the error, we shall not have any real success in convincing the child of the truth. We shall easily persuade him that the globe in the schoolroom is round--that the picture of the earth in the geography-book is round--but not that the familiar earth upon which he walks is anything but flat! At best, we shall teach him a secondary, literary, schoolroom conception to put beside his workaday one. And, in the long run, we shall place a scientific conception of things in general beside his primitive childish superstitions--but we shall scarcely displace them; and when it comes to a show-down in his adult life, we shall find him acting in accordance with childish superstitions rather than with scientific knowledge. Most of us, as adults, are full of such superstitions, and we act accordingly, and live feebly and fearfully; for we have never yielded to the childish magical conception of the world the respect that is due to it as a worthy opponent of scientific truth--we have assumed that we were persuaded of truth, while in reality truth has never yet met error in fair fight in our minds.
“If you wish to convince a friend of something, do you not first seek to find out what he really thinks about it, and make him weigh your truth and his error in the same balance? But in dealing with children, we fail to take account of their opinions at all. We say, ‘You must believe this because it is so.’ If they do believe it, they have only added one more superstition to their collection. Truths are _not_ true because somebody says so; nor even because everybody says so; they are true only because they fit in better with all the rest of life than what we call errors--because they bear the test of living--because they work out. And this way of discovering truth is within the capacity of the youngest school-child. If you can get him to state candidly and without shame his doubtless erroneous ideas about the world, and give him leave to prove their correctness to you, you will have set in motion a process which is worthy to be called education; for it will constitute a genuine matching of theory with theory in his mind, a real training in inductive logic, and what conclusions he reaches will be truly his. When he sees in a familiar sunset, as he will see with a newly fascinated eye, the edge of the earth swinging up past the sun--then astronomy will be real to him, and full of meaning--and not a collection of dull facts that must be remembered against examination-day.
“This means that we must treat children as our equals. Education must embody a democratic relationship between adults and children. Children must be granted freedom of opinion--and freedom of opinion means nothing except the freedom to believe a wrong opinion until you are persuaded of a right one. They, moreover, must be the judges of what constitutes persuasion. You have asked me for practical and concrete suggestions in regard to education. I will make this one before I go: when I find an astronomy class in the first grade engaged in earnest debate as to whether the earth is round or flat, I will know that our school system has begun to be concerned for the first time with the inculcation of a love of truth. For, like Milton, I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.--I thank you for your attention!”
XXII. Enterprise
And so we come to Goodness--and at the same time to a change in our program. After calling on the Artist as an expert to testify in regard to Beauty, and the Philosopher to tell us about Truth, it would seem that we should hear about Goodness from a moralist. So, no doubt, you expected--and so I had originally intended. But it cannot have failed to secure your notice that our experts pursued a somewhat unconventional line of argument. The Artist told us that the way to teach children to love Beauty was to leave them free to hate it if they chose. The Philosopher said that the way to inculcate in children a love of Truth was to leave them free to hold wrong opinions. Now it is all very well to talk that way about Beauty and Truth. We might perhaps be persuaded to take such risks, so long as only Beauty and Truth were involved. But Goodness is a different matter. It simply would not do for us to hear any one who proposed a similar course in regard to conduct. Imagine any one suggesting that the way to teach children to be good is to leave them free to be bad! But that is just what I am afraid would happen if we called an expert on Morals to the stand. I have observed twenty or thirty of them shuffling their notes and their feet and waiting to be called on. But I do not trust them. No! Goodness is not going to be treated in so irreverent a fashion while I am running this discussion. I am going to see that this subject is treated with becoming reverence. And as the only way of making absolutely sure of this, I am going to address you myself.
We want children to grow up to be good men and women; and we want to know how the school can assist in this process. First, we must define goodness; and I shall suggest the rough outline of such a definition, which we must presently fill up in detail, by saying that goodness is living a really civilized life. And as one’s conduct is not to be measured or judged except as it affects others, we may say that goodness is a matter of civilized relationships between persons. And furthermore, as the two most important things in life are its preservation and perpetuation, the two fields of conduct in which it is most necessary to be civilized are Work and Love. Let us first deal with Work and find out what constitutes civilized conduct in that field.