XV EDUCATION

IN the future, Man will be educated to the highest standard of intelligence and refinement, for all sociologic harmony and efficiency depend on proper education.

The essential aims of all real Education and Culture are: (1) to develop a strong, healthy, handsome Body; (2) a sound, active Mind; (3) a skillful Hand, and (4) a noble Character.

At birth the Mind of the human infant is a substantial blank. It must learn practically everything by personal Education, so that Instinct and Heredity play but an insignificant 60part in the development of Mind and the formation of Character in Man. If the personal Environment is good, the pupil can not be bad; while the habits and sentiments of all the species of animals below Man are almost entirely due to Instinct and Heredity. But the physical “make-up” of all creatures including Man is almost entirely due to Heredity.

Successful Teaching must be indirect, and so simple that the pupil, whether young or old, does not realize that he is being taught. It must be conducted on the humane principles of Interest, Kindness and Freedom.

Again, we can not hope to develop strong, healthy, handsome Bodies as long as we confine the pupils in schoolrooms, for youth is ever active when left free to the healthful promptings of Nature. Free activity is absolutely essential for the best development of Body and Mind of all ages, but particularly so during childhood and youth.

To put pupils in classes where the brightest have to wait for the dullest, like we do in our modern professional schools, can not produce a race of brilliant Thinkers and clever Actors. It puts a brake on genius.

Our professional schools also do very little or nothing for the proper development of a 61skillful Hand, and still less for the formation of a noble Character; and the worst of all is, that to be constantly under the direction and control of professional Teachers stunts initiative and originality in the Pupil. It tends to make the Pupil a mere imitator instead of a brilliant originator, and the teacher a haughty commander instead of a kind requester.

Hence, in Modern Paradise are no schoolhouses, churches and universities in which pupils, whether young or old, are confined and few if any professional teachers. There, Froebelism and Montessorianism—play lessons—for young and old are carried to their logical conclusion, because there they so charmingly fit in, and form a part of, the sane system of industrialism in the form of domestic and parental Co-operation so harmoniously evolved in Modern Paradise, where everybody is an incidental Teacher and a free, independent student for life. There is no Graduation, which usually diverts further learning and research.

For the physical development, there would be the swimming pools, indoor and outdoor gymnasiums, athletic games, calisthenics, home-talent stage, instructive rambles, healthful promenades, pleasant dancing and skating intermixed with a healthful amount of self-employed 62labor as equal partners of the Co-operating group.

For the successive stages of Intellectual Education, there are the well-equipped nurseries, kindergarten, playschools for old and young, a splendid library, commercial department, all kinds of mathematical work, reading circles, lyceum, lectures, debates, concerts, works of art, literature, science, philosophy, music, the stage and talking movies that display objects in their natural colors. In the future, movies will be great factors in Education, because they amuse and instruct at the same time.

As mere babies, children will also learn how to eat and drink in a clean, healthful way; how to dress themselves and how to help others dress; how to button, hook, tie and pin and how to bathe and swim. In the future, children will wear very simple, comfortable clothes and sometimes none.

There would also be every inducement and opportunity to do original research work with the microscope, telescope, spectroscope and work in the laboratory, inventor’s shop as well as many other places, and always with a view to help the child to help itself.

63For the harmonious development of the Industrial and Domestic Sentiments, there would be the garden, orchard, field, electric kitchen, dining room, cafe, public nurseries, barber shop where men, women and children are served by men and women barbers. Future women will undoubtedly adopt the easy and sanitary method of shingling their hair in some artistic style.

In Modern Paradise, children begin to work when they are six or eight years old, at such easy work (which is play to them) as picking berries, fruit, weeding, etc., at piecework. They receive the same pay for the same work as adults do. But they are never asked to work, but they are taught that a certain amount of useful work is honorable and healthful.

Children work when they want spending money (labor checks); and they feel proud of supporting themselves at the age of eight or ten for it requires only a little labor for individual support in Modern Paradise. In this useful and practical way, they learn to work, to earn and to handle money, all at the same time in a practical way and at a remarkably young age.

The Ethical Sentiments would be evolved by continually living and working in close contact 64with justice and kind treatment of others by talks on Ethical Topics and by seeing equal justice meted out to every man, woman and child regardless of sex, color, age or nationality. There would be no cadets and scouts to instill militarism, imperialism and gun-patriotism, into the rising generations. In fact, the adults merely live the life which they want the children to imitate and the children unconsciously follow their examples; and they learn all these things as easily and as naturally as they learn to walk and talk.

The Parental Phase of Education would be carried on by learning the structure and function of Body and Mind, by giving clean, simple and practical instructions in sex-hygiene and scientific eugenics, and how parents and others can raise and train children to the best advantage and with the least amount of effort.

In most cases, parents, especially mothers, are not the best nurses and educators of their own children. As a rule, parents meddle far too much with their babies and older children. Their frequent meddling invariably makes ill-tempered, nervous whiners and cry-babies of their spoiled children. Many parents still often use harsh language toward their children, and some even believe in the old, cruel doctrine “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” It is, therefore, 65much better for both parents and children to be apart much of the time. The lavishment of too much Paternalism, whether as supposed kindness or harshness, is bound to spoil any child. Give mothers plenty of opportunity for rest, amusement and pleasant work while the babies and older children are in the public nurseries much of the time. When that is well done, babies will then not have to be bottle-fed like millions now have to be.

In Modern Paradise, there would then be a complete all-round education—a strong, healthy, handsome Body; a sound, active Mind; a clever, industrious Hand, and a noble Personality—all acquired in a free, pleasant way, and at a very young age and without ever confining pupils in dreary schoolrooms and churches compelling them to study in a formal manner dull and largely antiquated books that teach only a very small part of the important, practical affairs of daily life which every child should know, and an immense amount of comparatively useless material which the child seldom or never uses in later life.

But until we live and work right, we need the professional schools. It is, however, a pity that we have no better system of Education. In the United States, there are over 20,000,000 school children enrolled. When they are in 66the schools, they are arbitrarily confined and largely instructed in the ways of learning how to put the value of the dollar above the value of the Man. When they are out of school, they have no jobs. As idlers, they likely loaf and visit questionable resorts which tends to lead to vice and crime. Every child as well as every adult should always have a free, open opportunity for a good job of self-employed labor and receive the full fruit of his or her effort. Any system that does not provide these means is fundamentally defective and can not produce a harmonious world.

Such will undoubtedly be the trend of progress in future Education, so that posterity in the not distant future will look upon the present schoolhouse and church as juvenile prisons and the professional Teachers and Ministers as haughty, self-imposed rulers.