Chapter I: A Liberal Education in Elementary Schools 235

A liberal education, birthright of every child--Good life implies
cultivated intelligence--Difficulty of offering Humanism to
everyone--Problem solved at last--by the Drighlington School
(Yorks)--Teachers, not satisfied--Potency, not property,
characteristic of mind--We try to give potency rather than
knowledge--Result, devitalisation--Mind receives knowledge _in
order to grow, not to know_--Office of teacher depreciated--He
has prophetic power of appeal and inspiration--Delightful
commerce of equal minds--And friction of wills ceases--Children
not products of education and environment--Carlyle on “a
person”--Children not incomplete and undeveloped, but
ignorant and weak--Potentialities of a child as he is--_David
Copperfield_--Knowledge, conceived in mind--Ignorance, a chief
cause of our difficulties--Matthew Arnold--Three divisions
of knowledge--All classed under Humanism--Mind acts upon
it--Vitality results--Mind and knowledge like ball and socket
joint--Results of P.N.E.U. method made good by thousands of
children--Work done by self-effort--Single reading tested
by narration--No revision--For children _know_--Use proper
names with ease--Write fully--Rarely make howlers--Get at
gist of book or subject--Children of six to eight dictate
answers at examination time--Teacher reads with intention--Is
careful to produce author--Children listen with attention--No
selection of subjects--Book read through--Older children read
for themselves--Work done in less time--No preparation--No
working-up--Time for vocational work--Such education, a social
lever--A venture of faith--In knowledge and in children--A
new product appears--Peculiar experience, misleading--General
experience testifies to laws--Usual educational equipment
based on false assumption--Which intervenes between child and
knowledge--Method specially suitable for large classes--Labour
of correction minimised--Choice of books--Character of P.U.S.
examination--Children reject wrong book--Great cause of Education
_v_. Civilisation--Grand elementary principle of pleasure--Only
one education common to all.