Chapter VI: Three Instruments of Education 94

1.--_Education is an Atmosphere_: Only three means of
education--Not an artificial environment--But a natural
atmosphere--Children must face life as it is--But must not be
overburdened by the effort of decision--Dangers of intellectual
feebleness and moral softness--Bracing atmosphere of truth and
sincerity--Not a too stimulating atmosphere--Dangers of “running
wild”--Serenity comes with the food of knowledge--Two courses
open to us.

2.--_Education is a Discipline_: We must all make efforts--But
a new point of view, necessary--Children must work for
themselves--Must perform the _act of knowing_--Attention, the
hall-mark of an educated person--Other good habits attending upon
due self-education--Spirit, acts upon matter--Habit is to life
what rails are to transport cars--Habit is inevitable--Genesis
of habit--Habits of the ordered life--Habits of the religious
life--De Quincey on going to church--Danger of thinking in a
groove--Fads.

3.--_Education is a Life_: Life is not self-existing--Body pines
upon food substitutes--Mind cannot live upon information--What
is an idea?--A live thing of the mind--Potency of an
idea--Coleridge on ideas--Platonic doctrine of ideas--Functions
of education not chiefly gymnastic--Dangers attendant upon
“original composition”--Ideas, of spiritual origin--The child,
an eclectic--Resists forcible feeding--We must take the risk of
the indirect literary form--Ideas must be presented with much
literary padding--No one capable of making extracts--Opinions
_v._ ideas--Given an idea, mind performs acts of selection and
inception--Must have humane reading as well as human thought.

CHAPTER VII

HOW WE MAKE USE OF MIND 112

Herbartian Psychology--“Apperception masses”--Dangers of
correlation--“Concentration series”--Children reduced to
inanities--Mind, a spiritual organism--Cannot live upon
“sweetmeats”--Burden of education thrown on teacher--Danger of
exalting personality of teacher--“Delightful lessons”--_Across
the Bridges_, by A. Paterson--Blind alleys--Unemployment--Best
boys run to seed--Continuation Classes--Education Act of
1918--An eight hours’ University course--Academic ideal of
Education--Continuation school, a People’s University--Dangers
of utilitarian education--The “humanities” in English--Narration
prepares for public speaking--Father of the People’s High
Schools--Munich schools--Worship of efficiency--A well-grounded
humanistic training produces capacity--Mr. Fisher on Continuation
Schools--A more excellent way--Education from six to seventeen--A
liberal education for all.