Part 16 (1/2)
BOND AND FREE
=Spiritual freedonorance John Bunyan was not greatly inconvenienced by being incarcerated in jail His spirit could not be iave his mind and spirit freedoht not have been done If he had lived a mere physical life and had had no resources of the mind upon which to draw, his experience in the jail would have beenequipped with mental and spiritual resources, he could smile disdain at prison bars, and proceed with his work in spiritual freedom
Had he been dependent solely, or even mainly, upon food, sleep, drink, and other contributions to his physical being for his definition of life, then his whole life would have been restricted to the limits of his cell; but the more extensive and expansive resources of his life rendered the jail virtually nonexistent
=Illustrations=--It is possible, therefore, so to furnish the e to which the body may be subjected Indeed, the whole process of education has as its large objective the freedonorance of truth is bondage A e norance, by the extent of his bondage In the presence of truth the man who knows stands free and unabashed, while the man who does not know stands baffled and embarrassed In a chemical laboratory the man who knows chemistry moves about with ease and freedom, while the man who does not know che to move lest he may cause an explosion To the ht presents a marvelous panoranorant of astronoht
=Roe of history is utterly bewildered and ill at ease in the Capitoline Museum at Rome All about him are busts that represent thefor him Nero and Julius Caesar are mere names to hiula e places and it would be all one to hi Gaul, but it conveys noto him He has neither read nor heard of Byron's poem which this statue inspired He sees near by the celebrated Marble Faun, but he has not read Hawthorne's romance and therefore the statue evokes no interest In short, he is bored and uncoo elsewhere
When he looks out upon the Forum he says it looks the same to him as any other stone quarry, and he roundly berates the shi+ftlessness of the Ro the Coliseu purposes, for bridges, and for paving The Tiber ier rivers and, certainly, many whose water is ivebecause it makes his neck ache to look up The Laocoon and Apollo Belvedere he will not see, giving as a reason that he isat silly statuary He feels it an ied around to such places when he cares nothing for them His evident boredom is pathetic, and he repeatedly says that he'd far rather be visiting in the corner grocery back ho his time in the Vatican
=Contrasts=--In this, he speaks but the sirocery he has conorance of art, architecture, history, and literature reduces hirocery he has coossip that obtain there His coe and he feels himself to be one of thein a discussion of history he would feel himself ostracized and would leave them to their own devices If they would retain hie of interests and thinking To go outside his suage of history, or science, or art, and so experiences a feeling of discoe is spoken
=History=--In this concrete illustration we find a of history in the schools History is one of the large strands in the web of life, and to neglect this study is to deny to the pupil one of the elements of freedom It is not easy to conceive a situation that lacks the element of history in one or another of its phases or manifestations Whether the pupil travels, or embarks upon a professional life, or associates, in any relation, with cultivated people, he will find a knowledge of history not only a convenience but a real necessity, if he is to escape the feeling of thralldom The utilitarian value of school studies has been lected; but we need to go further in esti the influence of any study We need to inquire not only how a knowledge of the study will aid the pupil in his work, but also hoill contribute to his life
=Restricted concepts=--We lustily proclaim our country to be the land of the free, but our notion of freedom is much restricted In the popular conception freedom has reference to the body A man can walk the streets without molestation and can vote his sentiments at the polls, but he ton with any appreciable sense of freedoressional Library and feel himself in prison He may desert a lecture for the saloon in the interests of his own coenial than the drawing-room His body may experience a sort of freedom while his norance A Burroughs, an Edison, a Thoreau, ht have his feet in the stocks and still have more freedom than such a man as this He walks about amid historic scenes with his spiritual eyes blindfolded, and that condition of mind precludes freedoh privileges as a free people until freedom comes to mean more than the absence of physical restraint Our conception of freedom must reach out into the world of mind and spirit, and our educational processes must esteem it their chief function to set mental and spiritual prisoners free We have only to read history, science, and literature to realize what sublihts mind can attain in its explorations of the realirls of our schools are to pass this way but once, every effort possible should be made to accord to them full freedoone before They have a right to become the equals of their predecessors, and only freedom of er than his task, and only freedom of mind and spirit canthe sublihtly furnished
=Spelling=--Theinevitably confines his vocabulary to narrow limits and so lacks facility of expression and nicety of diction Accordingly, he suffers by comparison with others whose vocabulary is ant The consciousness of his shortcos restricts the exuberance of his life, and he fails of that sense of large freedoive So that even in such an eleenerate in the pupils a feeling of freedo is quite as important in the scheme of life as the ability to spell correctly In this state for effects On the contrary, ht be adduced to prove that it is but a plain statement of fact A cultured lady confesses that she is thrown into a panic whenever she has occasion to use the word _Tuesday_ because she is never certain of the spelling
=The switchboard=--Life may be likened to an extensive electric switchboard, and only that ht button without hesitation or trepidation The ignorant man stands paralyzed in the presence of this mystery and knows not how to proceed to evoke the correct response to his desires It has been said that everything is infinitely high that we cannot see over Hence, to the h and, as such, is as far away from his comprehension as the fourth dimension or the precession of the equinoxes In the presence of even such a simple truth as cube root he stands helpless and enthralled He lives in a sathers with the big truths of life
=Conorant hty excursions, but must remain behind to make what he can of his feeble resources The one can penetrate theback their secrets; the otherto the weather and the crops The one can find entertainment in the Bible and Shakespeare; the other seeks co the cowboys and Indians of the picture-filrand opera, reveling on the sunlit suher in the scale of ht a the masterpieces of art; the other finds his definition of art in the colored supple with historians, ists; the other finds such associations the very acs of life; the other finds galling bondage
=Three elements of freedom=--There are three elements of freedom that are worthy of emphasis These are self-reliance, self-support, and self-respect These elements are the trinity that constitute one of the major ultimate aims of the vitalized school The school that inculcates these qualities must prove a vital force in the life of the pupil; and the pupil ins these qualities is well equipped for the work of real living These qualities are the golden gateways to freedom, nor can there be a fullMoreover, these qualities are cumulative in their relations to one another Self-reliance leads to and engenders self-support, and both these underlie and condition self-respect Or, to put the case conversely, there cannot be self-respect in the absence of self-reliance and self-support
=Self-reliance=--It would not be easy to over-htly conducted in the way of inculcating the quality of self-reliance and in causing it to grow into a habit Every problem that the boy solves by his own efforts, every obstacle that he surmounts, every failure that he transforms into a success, and every advance he ree of self-reliance, greater confidence in his powers, and greater courage to persevere It is the high privilege of the teacher to cause a boy to believe in hih To this end, she adds gradually to the difficulties of his work, always keeping inside the linition to successful achieveains self-reliance and so pluhts Day after day he th he exeil, ”They can because they think they can”
=This quality in practice=--The self-reliance that becorained in a boy's habits of life will not evaporate in the heat of the activities and competition of the after-school life On the contrary, it will be reenforced and crystallized by the opportunities of business or professional life, and, in calm reliance upon his oers, he elcome competition as an opportunity to put hi, for in school he made his independent way in spite of the lions in his path, and so gained fiber and courage for the contests of daily life And because he has industry, thrift, perseverance, and self-reliance the gates of success side open and he enters into the heritage which he hi ation to the notion that obtains here and there to the effect that educationhi him only for the dance-hall and inane social functions The htly trained has resources that enable hinity and character to social functions in that he exhales power and bigness People recognize in hiladly pay him the silent tribute thatthe best, and only the best appeal to him
=Self-respect=--And, just as he wins the respect of others, so he wins the respect of himself, and so the triu achieved self-respect he disdains the cheap, the bizarre, the gaudy, and the superficial He knows that there are real values in life that are worthy of his powers and best efforts, and these real values are the goal of his endeavors Moreover, he has achieved freedom, and so is not fettered by precedent, convention, or fads He is free to establish precedents, to violate the conventions when a great principle is at stake, and to ignore fads He can stand unabashed in the presence of the learned of the earth, and can understand the heartbeats of life, because he has had experience both of learning and of life And being a free man his life is fuller and richer, and he knohen and how to bestow the help that will give to others a sense of freedoreater boon
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1 Account for the production of soious literature in prison or in exile Give other instances than the one mentioned by the author
2 Give your idea of the author's concept of the tere” and ”freedom”
3 Add to the instances noted in this chapter where ignorance has produced bondage
4 Defend the assertion that the cost of ignorance in our country exceeds the cost of education The total ahtly exceeded 500,000,000
5 How do the typical recitations of your school contribute to the happiness of your pupils? Be specific