Inspired Articles
A selection of articles published predominantly in the 'Theosophy in New Zealand' magazine by overseas authors and notable personages in the society.
Mrs Besant:
TO YOUNG STUDENTS
An address BY MRS. BESANT
A correspondent has kindly sent us a full report of Mrs. Besant's Presidential address to the Behar Students' Conference. This address refers, in many of its clauses, to conditions peculiar to India; these clauses we omit, but we print, for the benefit of New Zealanders, some inspiring paragraphs which apply to the self-development of young people all the world over.
It is but repeating truisms to say that the Destiny of a Nation is folded within its youth, as is the flower within the close embrace of the sepals that ensheath the bud: that that which you are thinking to-day the Nation will think to-morrow: that your characters will show out the characters of the Nation's citizens, a few years hence: that you are creating those characters now, shaping them out of the materials you brought with you to your present bodies; for what a man thinks upon that he becomes. Your thoughts in past lives created the character you, brought with you into the world, your thoughts in the past of this life have moulded it year by year into its present form; your present thoughts are creating the character of your manhood, shaping the citizens who shall be, when we the elders shall have passed away.
—— : o : ——
Among the students in Schools and Colleges to-day, among you, are the future statesmen, the future leaders, the future generals, the future admirals, the future merchant princes, the future scientists. Nay, among you are the future members of the Imperial Council, the Council which shall control the destinies of a mighty Empire, which is to be a blessing or a curse to the whole world—a blessing if guided by noble, unselfish, pious, righteous statesmen—a curse, if guided by the base, the materialistic, and the bad.
—— : o : ——
Freedom is a Goddess, beautiful but austere. The heroes who follow her are mighty men, not weaklings, and she needs for her service, men and not drones.
Without preparation, some of you would rush into action, raw recruits into the firing-line, more dangerous to their own army than to the army of the foe. Many of you do not realise how serious a thing is political action, how far-reaching are political movements, how interdependent the parts of the complex body of a Nation; how rashness means ruin, and folly spells catastrophe, and blunders slip insensibly into crimes. In politics men play with human lives, with the prosperity of Nations, with the plenty or starvation of peoples, with the safety or destruction of homes, with the happiness or misery of millions of men, women, and children.
How shall you prepare yourselves now? You are constituted of four important elements; your body, the instrument of your actions; your emotions, the root of your happiness or sorrow, your virtues and vices; your mind, the builder of your character and the director of activity; yourself, the spirit, the Inner Ruler Immortal, the broken rays of whose perfections are what we call, down here, the Good, the Beautiful and the True.
The body, the emotions, the mind, form the field, which you, the Spirit, must till and cultivate; where the seed of a noble harvest must be sown.
THE BODY
You must train your body for the sake of the Motherland, it is hers, and she has need of strong, vigorous, enduring bodies, hard in muscle and steady in nerve. Soft, flabby, fat, lazy bodies are not bodies for freemen; they are only fit for slaves. And remember that youth is the only time for making a strong and vigorous body. You may learn all your lives, but the fixing of the fate of the body is done in youth. Mischief done to the body then can never be made good.
What, then, must you do for your body? You must feed it on good, plain, nourishing, unstimulating food. Not too many sweets, not too much spice, nor pepper; not food so tasty and savoury that you eat too much. You must give it sleep enough; not sitting up too late, nor getting up too early to pore over books. You must exercise it, run and jump, and climb, and learn to breathe deeply and fully, and make it lithe and agile, alert and quick. Practise dumbells and clubs, learn to box and to fence, and to swim, and keep your body scrupulously clean.
And you must keep your bodies chaste and pure, and to that end, never let your mind dwell on sex, nor your tongue take part in dirty talk, in unclean gossip. Nothing you can do in exercise will make your body strong if you yield to vicious habits. ... A clean youth makes a strong manhood, a vigorous maturity, a noble old age. Pitiful are the bodies weakened by early vice, contemptible, unmanly.
THE EMOTIONS
The emotions of youth are strong and apt to carry him away. Yet if you would serve the Motherland in future, you must learn self-control, you must encourage right emotion and starve out wrong by turning away from it. You need to cultivate courage and endurance, kindness and helpfulness, truth and generosity. You must show reverence to all that is worthy of it, to God, to your parents, to your teachers. You must protect the weak, show tenderness to the aged, be courteous to the poor, to all below you in rank. Never speak a rough word to one whose position renders impossible a rough retort, and never cringe to a superior. Never lie either from fear or greed, nor play the hypocrite to please.
Games are useful in the training of emotion, for you learn in them self-control and good temper; how to win victory without vulgar elation, to bear defeat with a smile. They teach the subordination of the individual to the team, and of personal success to the success of the whole. They develop power of leadership, loyalty to a leader, quickness of judgment, promptness of action. Play chivalrously, honourably, bravely, generously, and you will play well the great game of life.
THE MIND
The training of the mind is that which many mistakenly look upon as the sole purpose of education, and it would be folly to underestimate the value of the training of the intelligence. An ignorant man is a danger to the Commonwealth just in proportion as he is free, and the slave of ignorance cannot be a free citizen in a free state. He is a child to be guarded, helped, guided, taught, but at their peril do nations allow him to have a voice in the shaping of their policy. If you would serve the Motherland well, you must study hard and deeply. Remember that education does not mean storing the memory with facts; it means drawing out the faculties of the mind and bringing them under control, so that you can address them to any question, and deal efficiently and adequately with the problems of life as they present themselves. You need to cultivate observation, accuracy, discrimination, the power of classification, the seeing of things in true proportion— that is, the perception of values and the relation of one object to another. Thinking is the establishment of relations. You must cultivate attention, both alert and sustained, for concentration is only formal and developed attention, and without concentration, no mastery of great questions is possible. . . .
You should take interest in the political questions of the day; read them in the papers, debate them in your debating societies; learn to argue cogently, to bear opposition with good temper, to be sound in your Logic, accurate in your facts, clear in your exposition. . . Study Logic, that you may detect sophistry and fallacy. And read great literature to purify your emotions, to shape your ideals, to inspire your actions. Read also the biographies of the great, brood over them and dream over them: so shall their greatness be reborn in you.
The training of the mind is immense as a subject; I can but touch it here and there. But whatever you study, remember to do it for the Motherland's sake, and that dedication of all to Her, of all as the preparation for Her Service, shall make all drudgery fascinating, and gild the dullest study with the promise of future use.
THE SPIRIT
What shall I say of this, your very Self? The religions of the world have all one aim—the Realisation of the Self, the Knowledge of God. Their outward rites and ceremonies are intended for the training of the body, to overcome its sloth, to teach temperance in all things, to make it a useful servant, not a tyrannical master. Their moral precepts are directed to the training of the emotions to the loftiest end. Their metaphysics and philosophies aim at the highest development of the intellect. But the essence of religion is unity, the realisation of the One God, within and without, flowering into the Brotherhood of all that lives.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine August 1916
An address BY MRS. BESANT
A correspondent has kindly sent us a full report of Mrs. Besant's Presidential address to the Behar Students' Conference. This address refers, in many of its clauses, to conditions peculiar to India; these clauses we omit, but we print, for the benefit of New Zealanders, some inspiring paragraphs which apply to the self-development of young people all the world over.
It is but repeating truisms to say that the Destiny of a Nation is folded within its youth, as is the flower within the close embrace of the sepals that ensheath the bud: that that which you are thinking to-day the Nation will think to-morrow: that your characters will show out the characters of the Nation's citizens, a few years hence: that you are creating those characters now, shaping them out of the materials you brought with you to your present bodies; for what a man thinks upon that he becomes. Your thoughts in past lives created the character you, brought with you into the world, your thoughts in the past of this life have moulded it year by year into its present form; your present thoughts are creating the character of your manhood, shaping the citizens who shall be, when we the elders shall have passed away.
—— : o : ——
Among the students in Schools and Colleges to-day, among you, are the future statesmen, the future leaders, the future generals, the future admirals, the future merchant princes, the future scientists. Nay, among you are the future members of the Imperial Council, the Council which shall control the destinies of a mighty Empire, which is to be a blessing or a curse to the whole world—a blessing if guided by noble, unselfish, pious, righteous statesmen—a curse, if guided by the base, the materialistic, and the bad.
—— : o : ——
Freedom is a Goddess, beautiful but austere. The heroes who follow her are mighty men, not weaklings, and she needs for her service, men and not drones.
Without preparation, some of you would rush into action, raw recruits into the firing-line, more dangerous to their own army than to the army of the foe. Many of you do not realise how serious a thing is political action, how far-reaching are political movements, how interdependent the parts of the complex body of a Nation; how rashness means ruin, and folly spells catastrophe, and blunders slip insensibly into crimes. In politics men play with human lives, with the prosperity of Nations, with the plenty or starvation of peoples, with the safety or destruction of homes, with the happiness or misery of millions of men, women, and children.
How shall you prepare yourselves now? You are constituted of four important elements; your body, the instrument of your actions; your emotions, the root of your happiness or sorrow, your virtues and vices; your mind, the builder of your character and the director of activity; yourself, the spirit, the Inner Ruler Immortal, the broken rays of whose perfections are what we call, down here, the Good, the Beautiful and the True.
The body, the emotions, the mind, form the field, which you, the Spirit, must till and cultivate; where the seed of a noble harvest must be sown.
THE BODY
You must train your body for the sake of the Motherland, it is hers, and she has need of strong, vigorous, enduring bodies, hard in muscle and steady in nerve. Soft, flabby, fat, lazy bodies are not bodies for freemen; they are only fit for slaves. And remember that youth is the only time for making a strong and vigorous body. You may learn all your lives, but the fixing of the fate of the body is done in youth. Mischief done to the body then can never be made good.
What, then, must you do for your body? You must feed it on good, plain, nourishing, unstimulating food. Not too many sweets, not too much spice, nor pepper; not food so tasty and savoury that you eat too much. You must give it sleep enough; not sitting up too late, nor getting up too early to pore over books. You must exercise it, run and jump, and climb, and learn to breathe deeply and fully, and make it lithe and agile, alert and quick. Practise dumbells and clubs, learn to box and to fence, and to swim, and keep your body scrupulously clean.
And you must keep your bodies chaste and pure, and to that end, never let your mind dwell on sex, nor your tongue take part in dirty talk, in unclean gossip. Nothing you can do in exercise will make your body strong if you yield to vicious habits. ... A clean youth makes a strong manhood, a vigorous maturity, a noble old age. Pitiful are the bodies weakened by early vice, contemptible, unmanly.
THE EMOTIONS
The emotions of youth are strong and apt to carry him away. Yet if you would serve the Motherland in future, you must learn self-control, you must encourage right emotion and starve out wrong by turning away from it. You need to cultivate courage and endurance, kindness and helpfulness, truth and generosity. You must show reverence to all that is worthy of it, to God, to your parents, to your teachers. You must protect the weak, show tenderness to the aged, be courteous to the poor, to all below you in rank. Never speak a rough word to one whose position renders impossible a rough retort, and never cringe to a superior. Never lie either from fear or greed, nor play the hypocrite to please.
Games are useful in the training of emotion, for you learn in them self-control and good temper; how to win victory without vulgar elation, to bear defeat with a smile. They teach the subordination of the individual to the team, and of personal success to the success of the whole. They develop power of leadership, loyalty to a leader, quickness of judgment, promptness of action. Play chivalrously, honourably, bravely, generously, and you will play well the great game of life.
THE MIND
The training of the mind is that which many mistakenly look upon as the sole purpose of education, and it would be folly to underestimate the value of the training of the intelligence. An ignorant man is a danger to the Commonwealth just in proportion as he is free, and the slave of ignorance cannot be a free citizen in a free state. He is a child to be guarded, helped, guided, taught, but at their peril do nations allow him to have a voice in the shaping of their policy. If you would serve the Motherland well, you must study hard and deeply. Remember that education does not mean storing the memory with facts; it means drawing out the faculties of the mind and bringing them under control, so that you can address them to any question, and deal efficiently and adequately with the problems of life as they present themselves. You need to cultivate observation, accuracy, discrimination, the power of classification, the seeing of things in true proportion— that is, the perception of values and the relation of one object to another. Thinking is the establishment of relations. You must cultivate attention, both alert and sustained, for concentration is only formal and developed attention, and without concentration, no mastery of great questions is possible. . . .
You should take interest in the political questions of the day; read them in the papers, debate them in your debating societies; learn to argue cogently, to bear opposition with good temper, to be sound in your Logic, accurate in your facts, clear in your exposition. . . Study Logic, that you may detect sophistry and fallacy. And read great literature to purify your emotions, to shape your ideals, to inspire your actions. Read also the biographies of the great, brood over them and dream over them: so shall their greatness be reborn in you.
The training of the mind is immense as a subject; I can but touch it here and there. But whatever you study, remember to do it for the Motherland's sake, and that dedication of all to Her, of all as the preparation for Her Service, shall make all drudgery fascinating, and gild the dullest study with the promise of future use.
THE SPIRIT
What shall I say of this, your very Self? The religions of the world have all one aim—the Realisation of the Self, the Knowledge of God. Their outward rites and ceremonies are intended for the training of the body, to overcome its sloth, to teach temperance in all things, to make it a useful servant, not a tyrannical master. Their moral precepts are directed to the training of the emotions to the loftiest end. Their metaphysics and philosophies aim at the highest development of the intellect. But the essence of religion is unity, the realisation of the One God, within and without, flowering into the Brotherhood of all that lives.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine August 1916
The Training of the Child
We have been told by a great occult Teacher that the unseen effects upon the inner nature of a child, wrought by harshness, blows, or ill-temper, are greater than the world imagines, and that all possibility of rapid progress, in that incarnation, is sometimes destroyed during childhood by the evil effect of fear upon the astral body. This counsel shows us what to avoid. The following article by E. M. Dorington is one of detailed practical advice how to meet some of the difficulties of child-training, by one who knows children and loves them. We have somewhat condensed the original essay, which appeared in Mrs. James Alien's useful monthly The Epoch, published at Ilfracombe.
The foundation lesson a child should learn is that of obedience, and so long as he is a child it will make for his highest development in the future if he learn the lesson thoroughly now. The blows of circumstance are best met by those who have been prepared for them in childhood, and one from whose youth all difficulties have been smoothed away is not the one who will best be able to breast the inevitable waves of trouble and sorrow later on. This does not mean the niching away of the child's liberty—as sacred and precious a thing to him as to an adult. Within bounds he is free, and should be allowed freedom to develop on his own lines.
Other invaluable elements in a child's early training are independence and self-reliance. He can be taught from very early days to do little things for himself, and to wait on himself. The mother is to blame who, in mistaken kindness, does everything for him, instead of teaching him to do them himself. Such small matters as tying shoestrings, fastening buttons, putting on his own shoes, should be done for him only to show him how, and then the small duty should be attempted by himself until it comes easy. His toys should always be put away in their assigned place, and kept in order by himself. Gradually most of his possessions may be entrusted to his keeping as his good behaviour warrants. It is a good rule that nothing should be done for a child that he can do for himself.
His helpfulness and usefulness to others may be fostered by his being allowed to undertake certain duties for the grown-ups. A child loves to help, and there are many ways in which he can be of use. He can strip his own bed to air in the morning—both a help to mother and good for the bed—and clean his own shoes. He can be encouraged to observe the needs of others at table, and pass the food within reach, and in many other ways trained to consider others.
A child's mental bent should be watched, as a guide to his future place in life; his hobbies also should be noted. By means of a hobby, also, mind as well as hands will be kept occupied, and there will be less danger of his falling into mischief. Many children are mischievous and disobedient simply because hands or brain are idle, and not because of any evil tendency. A child should be kept well occupied; it is unnatural for a young, healthy child to sit still and "be good" for any length of time, though it may be an advantage for a child of unusually restless disposition to have a quiet time upon occasion, and be induced to sit still by way of "medicine"; but even the restlessness may be a sign of the need of more or of different occupation. A child will be satisfied and at rest when he has found the occupation which is congenial, and for which he is fitted, mentally and physically, by nature.
Inexactitude or extravagance of speech is another trait which often goes unrebuked in a child. A child should be taught to express himself in as exact terms as he knows how, and if he tells you he has been to a certain place "thousands of times," or that a garment is "yards" or "miles" too big, he is guilty of a looseness of speech which, if not checked, will inevitably lead to looseness of thinking, and may even develop into lying.
Praise and encouragement mean much; even a sulky child will in time respond to encouraging looks and tones if persisted in, while to a diffident, self-distrustful child they are meat and drink. When he has done well tell him what you think of him, and if has not done so well, give him to understandthat you believe he will do better next time.
The true way of education isto encourage the good, rather than to suppress the bad. The faults of a child will never be remedied by constantly calling attention to them. They are to be forgotten, left dormant, and they will become atrophied for lack of use. The more flowers there are in a garden, the less room is there for weeds, and the surest way of keeping down the weeds is to cultivate the flowers, as any gardener knows.
Punishment
A child properly trained from the beginning will seldom need to be punished, and we are coming more and more to look upon punishment as the evil after-effect of bad or indifferent training. If the environment and training are what they should be, the good in a child will develop while the evil atrophies.
When it seems to be necessary to punish a child for some act committed, we must think first of the nature of the deed. Is it wrong in itself, or only annoying to us? If the deed is wrong, did the child do it in ignorance? If so he needs enlightenment, not punishment. Or wasitdue to high spirits? In that case another and a right outlet must be found for his superfluous energy. If the deed was done deliberately, then what punishment will meet the case? And how will it affect the child? If it leaves him resentful, helpless, sulky, it is not the punishment for him; but if it leaves him with a feeling that justice has been done, and finds him repentant and determined to correct his fault, that is the penalty to have him pay.
Punishment should be remedial, and not merely a temporary deterrent, and it should be as far as possible "natural," or what in the long run nature and life will mete out to those who disobey her laws. It should be, as far as possible, related to, and a logical sequence of the offence. Whipping and slapping are the lowest forms of punishment, and seem to be chiefly resorted to by parents because they come easiest, and are usually immediately effective. They more often arise from the parents' ill-controlled feelings than from any desire to benefit the child. The "natural" punishments are far better. If a child is disagreeable, put him in a room by himself, for the same trait in an adult would result in loss of companionship; if he wilfully destroys property, see that he earns money to pay for it, for that would be the penalty in after life. If he is impertinent, withdraw the manifestation of your affection until it has its effect.
If a child is always unpunctual, repeated threats, never fulfilled, to leave him behind are of no use. Leave him behind. Some children, especially only children, develop a habit of selfishness and bullying when playing with their companions, wanting things all their own way, snatching toys, quarrelling. Such a one should be compelled to play alone, until he is tired of his own company.
Whatever form of punishment is used, it should follow the offence quickly, should be brief, and should not be referred to again. Never punish in anger, or in the presence of others. Above all, let your punishment be the "unavoidable consequence of the deed."
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine June 1916
The foundation lesson a child should learn is that of obedience, and so long as he is a child it will make for his highest development in the future if he learn the lesson thoroughly now. The blows of circumstance are best met by those who have been prepared for them in childhood, and one from whose youth all difficulties have been smoothed away is not the one who will best be able to breast the inevitable waves of trouble and sorrow later on. This does not mean the niching away of the child's liberty—as sacred and precious a thing to him as to an adult. Within bounds he is free, and should be allowed freedom to develop on his own lines.
Other invaluable elements in a child's early training are independence and self-reliance. He can be taught from very early days to do little things for himself, and to wait on himself. The mother is to blame who, in mistaken kindness, does everything for him, instead of teaching him to do them himself. Such small matters as tying shoestrings, fastening buttons, putting on his own shoes, should be done for him only to show him how, and then the small duty should be attempted by himself until it comes easy. His toys should always be put away in their assigned place, and kept in order by himself. Gradually most of his possessions may be entrusted to his keeping as his good behaviour warrants. It is a good rule that nothing should be done for a child that he can do for himself.
His helpfulness and usefulness to others may be fostered by his being allowed to undertake certain duties for the grown-ups. A child loves to help, and there are many ways in which he can be of use. He can strip his own bed to air in the morning—both a help to mother and good for the bed—and clean his own shoes. He can be encouraged to observe the needs of others at table, and pass the food within reach, and in many other ways trained to consider others.
A child's mental bent should be watched, as a guide to his future place in life; his hobbies also should be noted. By means of a hobby, also, mind as well as hands will be kept occupied, and there will be less danger of his falling into mischief. Many children are mischievous and disobedient simply because hands or brain are idle, and not because of any evil tendency. A child should be kept well occupied; it is unnatural for a young, healthy child to sit still and "be good" for any length of time, though it may be an advantage for a child of unusually restless disposition to have a quiet time upon occasion, and be induced to sit still by way of "medicine"; but even the restlessness may be a sign of the need of more or of different occupation. A child will be satisfied and at rest when he has found the occupation which is congenial, and for which he is fitted, mentally and physically, by nature.
Inexactitude or extravagance of speech is another trait which often goes unrebuked in a child. A child should be taught to express himself in as exact terms as he knows how, and if he tells you he has been to a certain place "thousands of times," or that a garment is "yards" or "miles" too big, he is guilty of a looseness of speech which, if not checked, will inevitably lead to looseness of thinking, and may even develop into lying.
Praise and encouragement mean much; even a sulky child will in time respond to encouraging looks and tones if persisted in, while to a diffident, self-distrustful child they are meat and drink. When he has done well tell him what you think of him, and if has not done so well, give him to understandthat you believe he will do better next time.
The true way of education isto encourage the good, rather than to suppress the bad. The faults of a child will never be remedied by constantly calling attention to them. They are to be forgotten, left dormant, and they will become atrophied for lack of use. The more flowers there are in a garden, the less room is there for weeds, and the surest way of keeping down the weeds is to cultivate the flowers, as any gardener knows.
Punishment
A child properly trained from the beginning will seldom need to be punished, and we are coming more and more to look upon punishment as the evil after-effect of bad or indifferent training. If the environment and training are what they should be, the good in a child will develop while the evil atrophies.
When it seems to be necessary to punish a child for some act committed, we must think first of the nature of the deed. Is it wrong in itself, or only annoying to us? If the deed is wrong, did the child do it in ignorance? If so he needs enlightenment, not punishment. Or wasitdue to high spirits? In that case another and a right outlet must be found for his superfluous energy. If the deed was done deliberately, then what punishment will meet the case? And how will it affect the child? If it leaves him resentful, helpless, sulky, it is not the punishment for him; but if it leaves him with a feeling that justice has been done, and finds him repentant and determined to correct his fault, that is the penalty to have him pay.
Punishment should be remedial, and not merely a temporary deterrent, and it should be as far as possible "natural," or what in the long run nature and life will mete out to those who disobey her laws. It should be, as far as possible, related to, and a logical sequence of the offence. Whipping and slapping are the lowest forms of punishment, and seem to be chiefly resorted to by parents because they come easiest, and are usually immediately effective. They more often arise from the parents' ill-controlled feelings than from any desire to benefit the child. The "natural" punishments are far better. If a child is disagreeable, put him in a room by himself, for the same trait in an adult would result in loss of companionship; if he wilfully destroys property, see that he earns money to pay for it, for that would be the penalty in after life. If he is impertinent, withdraw the manifestation of your affection until it has its effect.
If a child is always unpunctual, repeated threats, never fulfilled, to leave him behind are of no use. Leave him behind. Some children, especially only children, develop a habit of selfishness and bullying when playing with their companions, wanting things all their own way, snatching toys, quarrelling. Such a one should be compelled to play alone, until he is tired of his own company.
Whatever form of punishment is used, it should follow the offence quickly, should be brief, and should not be referred to again. Never punish in anger, or in the presence of others. Above all, let your punishment be the "unavoidable consequence of the deed."
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine June 1916
Education experiment
The Directors of the English Theosophical Educational Trust are making an experiment in the training of teachers and social workers along new lines. The new scheme is mostly for educated women who are ready to devote themselves to National Service, whether by teaching in experimental schools and classes, by serving on educational committees and local councils, by working in-Settlements, or by undertaking pioneer or research work in education and social economy. There are to be three terms in the year and residence is to be provided at Queen Mary's Hostel, Campden Hill, London.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine October 1916
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine October 1916
The Training of the Children
HINTS FROM MANY SOURCES
in the English household there is the father as head of the family; even the wife is subordinate to him, and certainly the children are. . . That is the ancient patriarchal tribal idea, which has had its day. The new idea is fraternal. . . Something of that is seen in America. In a typical American family there is no head. . . You see a beautiful spirit of co-operation, for, right from babyhood, the child is treated as an equal. The little girl treats her mother like a sister; and as the little girl is in turn treated like a sister there is full co-operation achieved.
I need hardly say that one result of such a radical reform in education is that every kind of punishment must go. You cannot punish your equal. We have gottoabolish the theory that because the child is a child therefore he must be regulated and legislated for. No: he must be studied, he must be co-operated with, and we shall find that he does begin to co-operate if we put aside the old patriarchal conception of the home and adopt the fraternal.
C. Jinarajadasa in The Herald of the Star.
A good way to prevent children from a nervous horror of the "passing over" is to say to them, about dead skin, shed teeth, etc.: "Last week that was part of you; if it had been hurt, you would have felt it. But now it is no longer part of you. Some day you will find you do not need any of your body, you will shed it all." Alongside of this series of lessons, there should run a parallel one on the inadequacy and partialness of sense impressions, and the necessity of supplementing them by acts of faith— e.g., a bird high in the air is intangible; but we know he is not therefore non-existent. We do not (if our stomachs are healthy), feel food inside us; but we are digesting it all the while.
Mary E. Boole in The Sacraments of the Nursery.
Each child in the primary grades has a "big brother" or "big sister" (sometimes a real one) who helps him in his work and looks out for him on the playground, and for whom, he, in turn, does such small services as lie in his power. . . The plan has worked well and has helped to bring about a spirit of genuine good-fellowship. . . Then, once a week we have, for a language lesson, a special exercise in "truthful reporting," and there is considerable good-natured rivalry to see who can re-tell a story exactly as it was given, while scornful laughter greets any attempt to enlarge or embellish the original version. Fifteen minutes a day we give to nature study and fifteen minutes at the very close of our day is reserved for a recreational margin, and at that time come singing, picture study, poetry, folk-dancing, or current events. . . Many are they who "having eyes see not." Not until a finely coloured copy of the "Aurora" was hung in the room did the children's delight in the dawn and sunset openly manifest itself. In like manner other pictures have brought their individual messages. From "The Little Country School".
by Grace Clee Smith, in The Outlook.
Compare two children of six years of age; one at home in bed and one at the moving picture theatre. The child at home asleep is breathing pure air, his body resting, storing up energy for next day's output; nerves quiet, astral body calm, and brain at rest. The child at the pictures is amongst a crowd in various states of health, few of them as pure as he is. His sensitive little body, which should be resting at that hour, is-then less able to protect itself, than earlier in the day, from the foul air and lower or coarser magnetism of the people near him. His nerves are unduly excited and become over active. At our kindergartens it is not difficult to detect which children have been to pictures the previous night. It often results in fretfulness, nervous jumpiness, lack of collected-ness. . . They are fed with emotionalism, tragedy and crimes, and their appetite for the horrible is enormously increased. . . The child does not treat these happenings as lightly as you do. He has not yet the sense of discrimination, to see the position such things would occupy in real life. Even if he does not understand most of the pictures that are bad for him, other people understand them, and their emotions awaken a similar emotion in his astral body, making him increasingly susceptible to that type of feeling.
Mentally the effect of watching the numerous swiftly moving pictures, means a greater tendency to hurried haphazard thought. There is a marked difference between a country child who has not contracted picture-fever, and a city child. Give each a picture to look at. The picture-fever child glances at it hurriedly, then goes on to something else; the natural child looks long and asks many questions, reasoning about the meaning of the picture and coming back to it again and again after other things have intervened.
ANNIE WAINWRIGHT in Theosophy in Australasia.
A man whose business is to train animals once confided to me his methods. For a couple of weeks after he has received a new dog, or a monkey, or whatever it may be, he makes no effort to train it. He watches it with a pad of paper and a pencil in his hand. He plays with it and he takes notes. He records every spontaneous natural act of the animal that might serve as the basis of a trick. This gives him his ideas and he encourages and recombines the creature's instinctive behaviour. . . We cannot successfully train any animal, whether it is a child or a performing seal, without knowing its Instincts and using them in the process.
There are at least three principles of the training of animals which also apply to the teaching of humans. One is the necessity of working in the direction of instinctive development, a second is to make discipline invariable, so that the child may not hope that' to-day there will be an exception to the rule. In this connection a word is in place as to the viciousness of allowing children to develop the habit of teasing for indulgences, begging that rules be rescinded, or that prohibitions but just now announced be retracted. The third principle is that the wise trainer will maintain the minimum of discipline, the very least that he can get along with. The child is an animal with a big brain. He should be encouraged to reason, to be original, to make judgments for himself, and to defend them.
Last spring a woman brought her boy to my office to ask advice as to the means of overcoming his sullenness and making him more dependable in performing his little duties about the house, which he sometimes neglected. The mother had a long talk with me and I had a long talk with the boy, and I became pretty certain that what he needed was the chance to act occasionally on his own initiative. His every movement was thought out for him by his mother, who was a fiery little woman with marked executive ability and a complete set of rul8s for keeping children in the strait and narrow path. Her volubility gave me no opportunity of scoring my point, and when she left I felt that I was the only person who had gained much information from the interview; but a month later she came back. It seemed we had worked a miracle in the boy's reformation. He did his work with joyous abandon and no longer had spells of sullenness. Indeed he had taken entire charge of the house ever since her last visit, as she, good lady, had been taken down with appendicitis, and was only now able to be up and about. What suggestion had we given the boy? Had we hypnotised him? At any rate she had come to thank us.
Now, how can you tell such a person to go back and have some more appendicitis for her boy's good?"
DR. Stevenson Smith in Munsey's Magazine.
I have been thinking about discipline overnight. I have seen a headmaster who insisted upon what he called perfect discipline. His bairns sat still all day. A movement foreshadowed the strap. Every child jumped up at the word of command. He had a very quiet life. I find that I am almost a good disciplinarian when my liver is bad; I demand silence then,—but I fear I do not get it and I generally laugh. The only discipline that I ask for usually is the discipline that interest draws. I know that I am teaching badly if the class is loafing, and I am honest enough in my saner moments not to blame the bairns. I do not like strict discipline, for I believe that a child should have as much freedom as possible. I want a bairn to be human and I try to be human myself. ... It is self-discipline that I believe in. Would Willie run away and play at horses if I told him to do what he liked best? I do not think so. He likes school and I think he likes me. I think he would try to please me if he could. . . . Education is thinking; it should deal with great thoughts, with the aesthetic things in life, with life itself. I want to teach my bairns how to live; the Popular Educator wants to teach them how to make a living. There is a distinction between the two ideals. ... I want to substitute kindness for the word chivalry. I want to teach my bairns that the only sin in the world is cruelty.
A. S. Neill, M.A., in A Dominie's Log.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine March 1917
in the English household there is the father as head of the family; even the wife is subordinate to him, and certainly the children are. . . That is the ancient patriarchal tribal idea, which has had its day. The new idea is fraternal. . . Something of that is seen in America. In a typical American family there is no head. . . You see a beautiful spirit of co-operation, for, right from babyhood, the child is treated as an equal. The little girl treats her mother like a sister; and as the little girl is in turn treated like a sister there is full co-operation achieved.
I need hardly say that one result of such a radical reform in education is that every kind of punishment must go. You cannot punish your equal. We have gottoabolish the theory that because the child is a child therefore he must be regulated and legislated for. No: he must be studied, he must be co-operated with, and we shall find that he does begin to co-operate if we put aside the old patriarchal conception of the home and adopt the fraternal.
C. Jinarajadasa in The Herald of the Star.
A good way to prevent children from a nervous horror of the "passing over" is to say to them, about dead skin, shed teeth, etc.: "Last week that was part of you; if it had been hurt, you would have felt it. But now it is no longer part of you. Some day you will find you do not need any of your body, you will shed it all." Alongside of this series of lessons, there should run a parallel one on the inadequacy and partialness of sense impressions, and the necessity of supplementing them by acts of faith— e.g., a bird high in the air is intangible; but we know he is not therefore non-existent. We do not (if our stomachs are healthy), feel food inside us; but we are digesting it all the while.
Mary E. Boole in The Sacraments of the Nursery.
Each child in the primary grades has a "big brother" or "big sister" (sometimes a real one) who helps him in his work and looks out for him on the playground, and for whom, he, in turn, does such small services as lie in his power. . . The plan has worked well and has helped to bring about a spirit of genuine good-fellowship. . . Then, once a week we have, for a language lesson, a special exercise in "truthful reporting," and there is considerable good-natured rivalry to see who can re-tell a story exactly as it was given, while scornful laughter greets any attempt to enlarge or embellish the original version. Fifteen minutes a day we give to nature study and fifteen minutes at the very close of our day is reserved for a recreational margin, and at that time come singing, picture study, poetry, folk-dancing, or current events. . . Many are they who "having eyes see not." Not until a finely coloured copy of the "Aurora" was hung in the room did the children's delight in the dawn and sunset openly manifest itself. In like manner other pictures have brought their individual messages. From "The Little Country School".
by Grace Clee Smith, in The Outlook.
Compare two children of six years of age; one at home in bed and one at the moving picture theatre. The child at home asleep is breathing pure air, his body resting, storing up energy for next day's output; nerves quiet, astral body calm, and brain at rest. The child at the pictures is amongst a crowd in various states of health, few of them as pure as he is. His sensitive little body, which should be resting at that hour, is-then less able to protect itself, than earlier in the day, from the foul air and lower or coarser magnetism of the people near him. His nerves are unduly excited and become over active. At our kindergartens it is not difficult to detect which children have been to pictures the previous night. It often results in fretfulness, nervous jumpiness, lack of collected-ness. . . They are fed with emotionalism, tragedy and crimes, and their appetite for the horrible is enormously increased. . . The child does not treat these happenings as lightly as you do. He has not yet the sense of discrimination, to see the position such things would occupy in real life. Even if he does not understand most of the pictures that are bad for him, other people understand them, and their emotions awaken a similar emotion in his astral body, making him increasingly susceptible to that type of feeling.
Mentally the effect of watching the numerous swiftly moving pictures, means a greater tendency to hurried haphazard thought. There is a marked difference between a country child who has not contracted picture-fever, and a city child. Give each a picture to look at. The picture-fever child glances at it hurriedly, then goes on to something else; the natural child looks long and asks many questions, reasoning about the meaning of the picture and coming back to it again and again after other things have intervened.
ANNIE WAINWRIGHT in Theosophy in Australasia.
A man whose business is to train animals once confided to me his methods. For a couple of weeks after he has received a new dog, or a monkey, or whatever it may be, he makes no effort to train it. He watches it with a pad of paper and a pencil in his hand. He plays with it and he takes notes. He records every spontaneous natural act of the animal that might serve as the basis of a trick. This gives him his ideas and he encourages and recombines the creature's instinctive behaviour. . . We cannot successfully train any animal, whether it is a child or a performing seal, without knowing its Instincts and using them in the process.
There are at least three principles of the training of animals which also apply to the teaching of humans. One is the necessity of working in the direction of instinctive development, a second is to make discipline invariable, so that the child may not hope that' to-day there will be an exception to the rule. In this connection a word is in place as to the viciousness of allowing children to develop the habit of teasing for indulgences, begging that rules be rescinded, or that prohibitions but just now announced be retracted. The third principle is that the wise trainer will maintain the minimum of discipline, the very least that he can get along with. The child is an animal with a big brain. He should be encouraged to reason, to be original, to make judgments for himself, and to defend them.
Last spring a woman brought her boy to my office to ask advice as to the means of overcoming his sullenness and making him more dependable in performing his little duties about the house, which he sometimes neglected. The mother had a long talk with me and I had a long talk with the boy, and I became pretty certain that what he needed was the chance to act occasionally on his own initiative. His every movement was thought out for him by his mother, who was a fiery little woman with marked executive ability and a complete set of rul8s for keeping children in the strait and narrow path. Her volubility gave me no opportunity of scoring my point, and when she left I felt that I was the only person who had gained much information from the interview; but a month later she came back. It seemed we had worked a miracle in the boy's reformation. He did his work with joyous abandon and no longer had spells of sullenness. Indeed he had taken entire charge of the house ever since her last visit, as she, good lady, had been taken down with appendicitis, and was only now able to be up and about. What suggestion had we given the boy? Had we hypnotised him? At any rate she had come to thank us.
Now, how can you tell such a person to go back and have some more appendicitis for her boy's good?"
DR. Stevenson Smith in Munsey's Magazine.
I have been thinking about discipline overnight. I have seen a headmaster who insisted upon what he called perfect discipline. His bairns sat still all day. A movement foreshadowed the strap. Every child jumped up at the word of command. He had a very quiet life. I find that I am almost a good disciplinarian when my liver is bad; I demand silence then,—but I fear I do not get it and I generally laugh. The only discipline that I ask for usually is the discipline that interest draws. I know that I am teaching badly if the class is loafing, and I am honest enough in my saner moments not to blame the bairns. I do not like strict discipline, for I believe that a child should have as much freedom as possible. I want a bairn to be human and I try to be human myself. ... It is self-discipline that I believe in. Would Willie run away and play at horses if I told him to do what he liked best? I do not think so. He likes school and I think he likes me. I think he would try to please me if he could. . . . Education is thinking; it should deal with great thoughts, with the aesthetic things in life, with life itself. I want to teach my bairns how to live; the Popular Educator wants to teach them how to make a living. There is a distinction between the two ideals. ... I want to substitute kindness for the word chivalry. I want to teach my bairns that the only sin in the world is cruelty.
A. S. Neill, M.A., in A Dominie's Log.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine March 1917
The New Way in Education
Some paragraphs from reports read at the Conference on New Ideals in Education (England), 1918.
"The training of the teacher must be tuned to the key of spirituality. The teacher must regard her work as the service of the divine—as indeed it is: for does she not strive to 'make it possible for all that is divine in each child to shine out: perfect bodily development, perfect intellectual development, perfect spiritual development, all revelations of God in man? The work of education, is work for a priesthood, and those who undertake it are priests without any laying on of hands.' "—Miss L. De Lissa.
—— :o :—--
"We made tiny shaped books into which the children copied favourite poems or fragments. Each book had a suggestive title, such as Pearls of Great Price, Above Rubies, Culled Flowers, etc., the titles supplied at first by the teacher and in time by the children. This same idea of book-making was the secret of my success in composition. I dropped composition and began book-making, the books being put on the reading table just like the bought books. First of all we made the book-backs; cardboard covered with art wall-paper, or cretonne, and tied up with ribbon or rafia. Of course, having got a pretty book-back, there was no lack of enthusiasm to make a book to put inside it. Every child wrote fairy stories and fairy plays. These were done roughly, as authors do, on scrap paper, very full of alterations. They were corrected among themselves, then submitted to me, and last of all, neatly written or printed, and bound in the back. The children read each other's stories most eagerly, and side by side with the free reading, the plot, style, and freedom from mistakes rapidly improved. There was no drudgery in correction. The children never saw that the writing out for a book was correction. At first I suggested the titles, but in time the children came to me: 'May I write a story called The Wonderful Shoes, or When the World Bumped into the Sun? But even with picture post-cards on the front, the books did not make such an appeal as I would have liked to the younger children. So I began a series of shaped books, the back and the pages being shaped to suit the title, e.g., The Fairy Butterfly, like a butterfly; The Witch's Hat, shaped like a hat. The younger children became wildly enthusiastic for them, and never tired of making stories. The appeal through the hand and eye seemed to stimulate their imaginations-In some specially backward cases the effect was wonderful-Several boys wrote who had never written anything legible before. And they were so proud to have their books on the table and their names on the list of Authors' Latest Publications,—J O'Neill.
—— :o :—--
"In introducing self-activity into a school one thing is needed—an abundant faith in the child. We are so apt to think that a child needs teaching. It seldom does. It needs a world of opportunities put in its way. The teacher is one of them, the one to whom the child can turn for advice and help ... the teacher being one of a community, all self-active, but older and wiser than the rest." —J. O'Neill.
—— :o :—--
"The results in arithmetic were very bad, so I had to adopt practical methods throughout. There sprang up a system by which I had a calico bag for every child in the class, in which I put practical apparatus, such as coins, bank-notes, jam-jars, boxes, cut-up tape measures, string, wood painted to resemble a chop, real bills, etc. On these the sums were based. The children used to see and help me make up the bags and sums. The bags were like lucky bags, and children were eager to see what was in them. In time every child worked through the whole set, and I found that in this practical method every arithmetical process can be discovered by the children. They were allowed to help each other: children often have a knack of explaining things to each other which is denied to teachers. They marked each other's work. Children cheat either from fear or from boredom. There is no point in copying the answer when you are keen on weighing for yourself the jar given in the bag, and on filling it with water and finding the volume and weight of the water contained. It is all so interesting to the child."—J. O'Neill.
——:o:—--
"A question often asked by visitors to the school is, ‘How do you get the children to talk freely?' One great help we have found to be what we term 'Screen Lessons.' While a certain period is being studied or orally taught, the children are encouraged to bring pictures, newspaper cuttings, drawings, maps, etc., bearing on the work. Screen monitors are appointed, whose duty it is to collect and arrange same on folding screens. These are a centre of attraction; children collecting at odd times and discussing the pictures; white occasionally a screen lesson is taken, one pupil describing, while the others ask questions, express opinions, etc. Occasionally some of the best pupils are sent to the lower classes to give a screen lesson. To be chosen for this is regarded as a great honour and acts as an incentive to good work, while the lessons themselves, under the supervision of a teacher, are a source of enjoyment to the pupils, who are encouraged to ask questions and talk freely about the pictures before them. The main advantages accruing from the discussions, it seems to me are:—they stimulate interest in the subjects of study; the teacher gains a better knowledge of individual children; the reserved child gradually becomes more free; misconceptions are revealed and corrected; the discussions train in self-confidence; they broaden the mind, and the child learns to respect opinions and ideas of others; they produce keenness (children often ask for discussions on questions not on the programme); they lead to much home and recreative work; they test the knowledge gained and the progress of the child, and they give a valuable training in a branch of practical citizenship (the inability of the average adult to express himself correctly or to discuss any question when acting on committees, etc., is most marked)."—J. W. Wells.
—— :o :—--
"In Egeria's school "(Miss Harriet Johnson's school at Sompting, England) " the children were happy because they were humanely treated. The word humanely is perhaps not strong enough : so I will add to it the words kindly and sympathetically. Punishment was unknown in the school and was entirely foreign to the spirit of it. That anyone should be punished for failure seemed to the children (who speedily caught the spirit of the school) as unreasonable as that anyone should he rewarded for success. In that school, failure was its own punishment and success its own reward. And if punishment as such was unknown, corporal punishment was, I need hardly say, undreamed of. Some day or other we shall look back, I firmly believe, to the regime of the birch, the cane and the tawse as we now look back to the Institution of slavery or the activities of the Inquisition, or the use of torture to extract what passed as evidence. In Egeria's school, and to Egeria's children, the idea of a child being beaten by its teacher was as is to us of the twentieth century the idea of a judge ordering a witness to be put to the torture."— Edmond Holmes.
—— :o :—--
"I provided each child with a penny note-book and an exercise book, and on the latter she wrote, "The History of To-day." I explained that we were all going to become historians of the wonderful history which was unrolling around us to-day, and that for the next seven days they were to try to discover out of school what things were happening, from fathers and brothers and friends, from newspapers, etc. What they thought important they were to jot down in their note-book, with as many details as they could collect. The next week the class was bursting with knowledge. We discussed keenly what was important, rejected many things, and finally had six or seven headings on the blackboard. Then I collected from the class materials on each point, each child writing in her note-book facts which she had not discovered for herself. Sometimes we found we wanted more knowledge. I very seldom gave it, but two or three children would undertake to get it for next week. Sometimes we asked the class teacher to supply in the next geography lesson some geographical knowledge required, or to give the children the opportunity at the next art lesson to make a plan, map, or picture necessary for their history. During the week each child wrote the history of the previous week on one side of her exercise book, the other side being reserved for illustrations obtained from picture postcards, pictorial newspapers, plans, maps, and original pictures by the young historians, I found the following results gained:—The children enjoyed it immensely; many fresh interests were aroused, and they gained a considerable amount of knowledge, and they learned to get it for themselves both from books and from people. We found it a great link with the fathers, elder brothers, etc. The children could understand better what they heard at home. They learned to use the public library and they sometimes connected the history of the day with by-gone history. Of course, the history of to-day is being taught now in almost every school, but I think the point of my little experiment was that the children did so much for themselves."—Miss E. P. Hughes.
—— :o :—--
Some aphorisms: "The most important piece of furniture in the classroom is the teacher." "A teacher should work not for school but for life." "Teachers are and ought to be makers of the future." "The work of a teacher is to teach his pupils to do without him".,"In the vacation avoid teachers, and if you travel abroad, avoid English people" (so as to widen your horizon). An intelligent visitor to a large London school said, "Well, I am glad I know something of your history and of your government, for I should never have imagined that these boys were being prepared to be citizens of a democratic self-governing country. I saw nothing but an autocratic government by the teachers."
Education for the New Era improves with every issue. The April number contains two especially valuable articles, one giving details of the work of an out-door class attached to Rhyl Street L.C-C. School, St. Pancras, the other treating with successful experiments in transferring the government of schools to the children themselves. All who are interested in New Ideals in Education should subscribe to this quarterly. The cost is only 4/6 per annum, post free, from the publishing office, 11 Tavistock Square, London.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine July 1920
"The training of the teacher must be tuned to the key of spirituality. The teacher must regard her work as the service of the divine—as indeed it is: for does she not strive to 'make it possible for all that is divine in each child to shine out: perfect bodily development, perfect intellectual development, perfect spiritual development, all revelations of God in man? The work of education, is work for a priesthood, and those who undertake it are priests without any laying on of hands.' "—Miss L. De Lissa.
—— :o :—--
"We made tiny shaped books into which the children copied favourite poems or fragments. Each book had a suggestive title, such as Pearls of Great Price, Above Rubies, Culled Flowers, etc., the titles supplied at first by the teacher and in time by the children. This same idea of book-making was the secret of my success in composition. I dropped composition and began book-making, the books being put on the reading table just like the bought books. First of all we made the book-backs; cardboard covered with art wall-paper, or cretonne, and tied up with ribbon or rafia. Of course, having got a pretty book-back, there was no lack of enthusiasm to make a book to put inside it. Every child wrote fairy stories and fairy plays. These were done roughly, as authors do, on scrap paper, very full of alterations. They were corrected among themselves, then submitted to me, and last of all, neatly written or printed, and bound in the back. The children read each other's stories most eagerly, and side by side with the free reading, the plot, style, and freedom from mistakes rapidly improved. There was no drudgery in correction. The children never saw that the writing out for a book was correction. At first I suggested the titles, but in time the children came to me: 'May I write a story called The Wonderful Shoes, or When the World Bumped into the Sun? But even with picture post-cards on the front, the books did not make such an appeal as I would have liked to the younger children. So I began a series of shaped books, the back and the pages being shaped to suit the title, e.g., The Fairy Butterfly, like a butterfly; The Witch's Hat, shaped like a hat. The younger children became wildly enthusiastic for them, and never tired of making stories. The appeal through the hand and eye seemed to stimulate their imaginations-In some specially backward cases the effect was wonderful-Several boys wrote who had never written anything legible before. And they were so proud to have their books on the table and their names on the list of Authors' Latest Publications,—J O'Neill.
—— :o :—--
"In introducing self-activity into a school one thing is needed—an abundant faith in the child. We are so apt to think that a child needs teaching. It seldom does. It needs a world of opportunities put in its way. The teacher is one of them, the one to whom the child can turn for advice and help ... the teacher being one of a community, all self-active, but older and wiser than the rest." —J. O'Neill.
—— :o :—--
"The results in arithmetic were very bad, so I had to adopt practical methods throughout. There sprang up a system by which I had a calico bag for every child in the class, in which I put practical apparatus, such as coins, bank-notes, jam-jars, boxes, cut-up tape measures, string, wood painted to resemble a chop, real bills, etc. On these the sums were based. The children used to see and help me make up the bags and sums. The bags were like lucky bags, and children were eager to see what was in them. In time every child worked through the whole set, and I found that in this practical method every arithmetical process can be discovered by the children. They were allowed to help each other: children often have a knack of explaining things to each other which is denied to teachers. They marked each other's work. Children cheat either from fear or from boredom. There is no point in copying the answer when you are keen on weighing for yourself the jar given in the bag, and on filling it with water and finding the volume and weight of the water contained. It is all so interesting to the child."—J. O'Neill.
——:o:—--
"A question often asked by visitors to the school is, ‘How do you get the children to talk freely?' One great help we have found to be what we term 'Screen Lessons.' While a certain period is being studied or orally taught, the children are encouraged to bring pictures, newspaper cuttings, drawings, maps, etc., bearing on the work. Screen monitors are appointed, whose duty it is to collect and arrange same on folding screens. These are a centre of attraction; children collecting at odd times and discussing the pictures; white occasionally a screen lesson is taken, one pupil describing, while the others ask questions, express opinions, etc. Occasionally some of the best pupils are sent to the lower classes to give a screen lesson. To be chosen for this is regarded as a great honour and acts as an incentive to good work, while the lessons themselves, under the supervision of a teacher, are a source of enjoyment to the pupils, who are encouraged to ask questions and talk freely about the pictures before them. The main advantages accruing from the discussions, it seems to me are:—they stimulate interest in the subjects of study; the teacher gains a better knowledge of individual children; the reserved child gradually becomes more free; misconceptions are revealed and corrected; the discussions train in self-confidence; they broaden the mind, and the child learns to respect opinions and ideas of others; they produce keenness (children often ask for discussions on questions not on the programme); they lead to much home and recreative work; they test the knowledge gained and the progress of the child, and they give a valuable training in a branch of practical citizenship (the inability of the average adult to express himself correctly or to discuss any question when acting on committees, etc., is most marked)."—J. W. Wells.
—— :o :—--
"In Egeria's school "(Miss Harriet Johnson's school at Sompting, England) " the children were happy because they were humanely treated. The word humanely is perhaps not strong enough : so I will add to it the words kindly and sympathetically. Punishment was unknown in the school and was entirely foreign to the spirit of it. That anyone should be punished for failure seemed to the children (who speedily caught the spirit of the school) as unreasonable as that anyone should he rewarded for success. In that school, failure was its own punishment and success its own reward. And if punishment as such was unknown, corporal punishment was, I need hardly say, undreamed of. Some day or other we shall look back, I firmly believe, to the regime of the birch, the cane and the tawse as we now look back to the Institution of slavery or the activities of the Inquisition, or the use of torture to extract what passed as evidence. In Egeria's school, and to Egeria's children, the idea of a child being beaten by its teacher was as is to us of the twentieth century the idea of a judge ordering a witness to be put to the torture."— Edmond Holmes.
—— :o :—--
"I provided each child with a penny note-book and an exercise book, and on the latter she wrote, "The History of To-day." I explained that we were all going to become historians of the wonderful history which was unrolling around us to-day, and that for the next seven days they were to try to discover out of school what things were happening, from fathers and brothers and friends, from newspapers, etc. What they thought important they were to jot down in their note-book, with as many details as they could collect. The next week the class was bursting with knowledge. We discussed keenly what was important, rejected many things, and finally had six or seven headings on the blackboard. Then I collected from the class materials on each point, each child writing in her note-book facts which she had not discovered for herself. Sometimes we found we wanted more knowledge. I very seldom gave it, but two or three children would undertake to get it for next week. Sometimes we asked the class teacher to supply in the next geography lesson some geographical knowledge required, or to give the children the opportunity at the next art lesson to make a plan, map, or picture necessary for their history. During the week each child wrote the history of the previous week on one side of her exercise book, the other side being reserved for illustrations obtained from picture postcards, pictorial newspapers, plans, maps, and original pictures by the young historians, I found the following results gained:—The children enjoyed it immensely; many fresh interests were aroused, and they gained a considerable amount of knowledge, and they learned to get it for themselves both from books and from people. We found it a great link with the fathers, elder brothers, etc. The children could understand better what they heard at home. They learned to use the public library and they sometimes connected the history of the day with by-gone history. Of course, the history of to-day is being taught now in almost every school, but I think the point of my little experiment was that the children did so much for themselves."—Miss E. P. Hughes.
—— :o :—--
Some aphorisms: "The most important piece of furniture in the classroom is the teacher." "A teacher should work not for school but for life." "Teachers are and ought to be makers of the future." "The work of a teacher is to teach his pupils to do without him".,"In the vacation avoid teachers, and if you travel abroad, avoid English people" (so as to widen your horizon). An intelligent visitor to a large London school said, "Well, I am glad I know something of your history and of your government, for I should never have imagined that these boys were being prepared to be citizens of a democratic self-governing country. I saw nothing but an autocratic government by the teachers."
Education for the New Era improves with every issue. The April number contains two especially valuable articles, one giving details of the work of an out-door class attached to Rhyl Street L.C-C. School, St. Pancras, the other treating with successful experiments in transferring the government of schools to the children themselves. All who are interested in New Ideals in Education should subscribe to this quarterly. The cost is only 4/6 per annum, post free, from the publishing office, 11 Tavistock Square, London.
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine July 1920
The Dominie
Mr. A. S. Neill, M.A., author of the Dominie books, is co-editor with Mrs. Ensor of the quarterly magazine Education for the New Era. He is always racy, and puts the maximum of emphasis into every sentiment he expresses. A lady has written satirically to him enquiring whether he prefers to read Shelley or to witness the antics of Charlie Chaplin. He replies that the man who loves Shelley and knows nothing of Charlie Chaplin is as incomplete as the man who knows all about Charlie and thinks that Shelley is the name of a liqueur. His opinion is that in education all repression is wrong, because the repressed instinct only goes deep into the sub-consciousness and manifests itself again in some undesirable way. Mr. Neill has just published a new book The Dominie in-Doubt, which we can recommend as an easy and amusing introduction to psycho-analysis. This science has enlarged Mr. Neill's vision, but it has not diminished the thorough-going modernity of his views on education, as witness a phrase or two :—"The only questions asked in a school, should be asked by the pupils." ... "The truth is that our schools do not give education; they give instruction." . . . "I believe that all juvenile delinquency is due to bad education. Our schools enforce passivity on the child; his creative energy is bottled up. No boy who has tools and a bench to work with will express himself by smashing windows." ..." Every act of man is prompted by a wish, and very often this wish in unconscious. And all the birching in the world will not destroy a wish; the most it can do is to change its form." . . . "The teachers' job is to evoke love. This he can only do by loving." . . . "The teacher should never try to teach; he should work alongside the children; he should be a co-worker, not a model."
Mr. Neill's association with Mrs. Ensor and the Theosophical Educational Trust has naturally brought some Theosophical beliefs under his notice. He says, "Is there such a thing as Re-incarnation? I wonder. . . . I think my Theosophist would argue that the charitable person is growing in grace, thereby rising above his previous lives. It may be, and I hope it is so, for then life would have a meaning."
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine Nov 1920
Mr. Neill's association with Mrs. Ensor and the Theosophical Educational Trust has naturally brought some Theosophical beliefs under his notice. He says, "Is there such a thing as Re-incarnation? I wonder. . . . I think my Theosophist would argue that the charitable person is growing in grace, thereby rising above his previous lives. It may be, and I hope it is so, for then life would have a meaning."
From “Theosophy in New Zealand’ Magazine Nov 1920
Krishnamurti Pleads
Mr. J. Krishnamurti, in the Herald of the Star, pleads for strong support and sympathy for the schools affiliated to the Theosophical Educational Trust. "Though members of the Theosophical Society realise that this is one of the best means of practising Theosophy, and though they are in favour of these schools, yet their enthusiasm does not always go to the extent of sending their own children to these schools. They might complain that the T.E.T, schools are too expensive, but can we not start a Theosophical Educational Trust fund all over the world? It seems to me that those members who are interested in the Star ideals of education—and every member who is a parent ought, surely, to be interested—should help and support the Trust all over the world, both financially and by sending their children to the schools. Considering that this Theosophical Educational Trust embodies most of our ideals, it would be a thousand pities if that movement were to fail for the lack of co-operation. Do not let us dissipate our energies, but when we find a channel which is more or less suitable, let us concentrate all our efforts to- make it a success."
From the ‘Theosophy in New Zealand’ magazine July 1922
From the ‘Theosophy in New Zealand’ magazine July 1922
Brackenhill Home School
The Brackenhill Theosophical Home School, at Letchworth, England, is the Theosophical effort to rescue at least a few children from slum conditions.
Twenty-six children are supported and trained there, among them is George Hurt, who is maintained by members of the New Zealand Section.
Subscriptions are collected through Lodge secretaries between April and June, and so far we have been able to send fifty pounds each year. The Editor will be glad if Lodges will send in their subscriptions for this year not later than July 15. From recent letters we believe that George Hurt, our protege, may be ready to finish his schooling and take to farm life in New Zealand somewhat earlier than we expected. So if there is some farming Theosophist who has a suitable place for George, he should communicate with the Editor of this magazine. George is "an out-door boy," liking manual work, very fond of animals and destined, we think, to make a good Colonial.
During a Conference of the Educational Fraternity, Mrs. Hawliczek, Principal of the School, and Mrs. Ensor, Director-Secretary of the Educational Trust, gave interesting particulars of the tempestuous early days at Brackenhill.
Mrs. Ensor said :—" There is a great danger in giving freedom, to children who have been brought up along the old lines. I shall never forget the first few months at our experimental school, Brackenhill. We had children of the poorer classes who came from bad homes and who had been previously to ordinary schools. There was wholesale rowdyism and destruction from morning till night. They had been unaccustomed to a garden, so they picked the flowers and broke the shrubs; the windows of the house were broken; the walls were covered with scribblings. There was chaos, because the children had been given sudden freedom after a long period of drastic repression under the old system. We have won through, but it has been done by gradually
giving freedom as the children proved themselves ready. If you go to Brackenhill now you will find a most wonderful atmosphere of freedom. The children have taken themselves in hand and are self-disciplined."
Mrs. Hawliczek said:—"You have been told of the condition of Brackenhill a few years ago. It was even worse than that. It seemed to me that the children were in a continual state of nervous excitement, which prevented them from sleeping, and from acting in any way normally. I felt that very drastic methods were needed and I put all thought of self-government out of my mind for the time being and made rigid rules. ... I promised freedom as soon as I could trust them. In six months' time two of the elder ones came to me and said that they felt that they were ready to be trusted in the shrubbery. . . . We called a meeting of the senior school and asked the children what rules they ought to observe. They made three rules: (1) That they should not go outside the Drive into the road; (2) That they should not hang over the wall and shout at the people down below; (3) That they should not destroy the flowers or shrubs. I have only once had to prevent the children from going into the shrubbery to play and that was about five months ago when they seemed to have become temporarily Bolshe-vistic. After a fortnight they came to me and said that they were ready to come into line again. The interesting thing is that the shrubbery is so beautifully kept that visitors ask if the children ever play there, and they will scarcely believe it when I say that they play there every day.
"About six months after I took over the school the children proposed self-government. I had never suggested it to them in words, though, of course, it was in my mind. They came to it themselves. They wanted a Cabinet. They elected three children, a senior teacher, my husband and myself. . . . The school went on gaining self-control, the children exercising a certain amount of authority, and if difficulties arose they came to me for advice or called a Cabinet meeting. ...
"The spirit of service is very strong, especially amongst the elder Montessori children. They have very keen observation; and little acts of kindness, which do not occur to the elder children, are habitual with them. I am sure that when these children come into the upper school there will be another great step forward made in the school's self-government."
From the ‘Theosophy in New Zealand’ magazine July 1922
Twenty-six children are supported and trained there, among them is George Hurt, who is maintained by members of the New Zealand Section.
Subscriptions are collected through Lodge secretaries between April and June, and so far we have been able to send fifty pounds each year. The Editor will be glad if Lodges will send in their subscriptions for this year not later than July 15. From recent letters we believe that George Hurt, our protege, may be ready to finish his schooling and take to farm life in New Zealand somewhat earlier than we expected. So if there is some farming Theosophist who has a suitable place for George, he should communicate with the Editor of this magazine. George is "an out-door boy," liking manual work, very fond of animals and destined, we think, to make a good Colonial.
During a Conference of the Educational Fraternity, Mrs. Hawliczek, Principal of the School, and Mrs. Ensor, Director-Secretary of the Educational Trust, gave interesting particulars of the tempestuous early days at Brackenhill.
Mrs. Ensor said :—" There is a great danger in giving freedom, to children who have been brought up along the old lines. I shall never forget the first few months at our experimental school, Brackenhill. We had children of the poorer classes who came from bad homes and who had been previously to ordinary schools. There was wholesale rowdyism and destruction from morning till night. They had been unaccustomed to a garden, so they picked the flowers and broke the shrubs; the windows of the house were broken; the walls were covered with scribblings. There was chaos, because the children had been given sudden freedom after a long period of drastic repression under the old system. We have won through, but it has been done by gradually
giving freedom as the children proved themselves ready. If you go to Brackenhill now you will find a most wonderful atmosphere of freedom. The children have taken themselves in hand and are self-disciplined."
Mrs. Hawliczek said:—"You have been told of the condition of Brackenhill a few years ago. It was even worse than that. It seemed to me that the children were in a continual state of nervous excitement, which prevented them from sleeping, and from acting in any way normally. I felt that very drastic methods were needed and I put all thought of self-government out of my mind for the time being and made rigid rules. ... I promised freedom as soon as I could trust them. In six months' time two of the elder ones came to me and said that they felt that they were ready to be trusted in the shrubbery. . . . We called a meeting of the senior school and asked the children what rules they ought to observe. They made three rules: (1) That they should not go outside the Drive into the road; (2) That they should not hang over the wall and shout at the people down below; (3) That they should not destroy the flowers or shrubs. I have only once had to prevent the children from going into the shrubbery to play and that was about five months ago when they seemed to have become temporarily Bolshe-vistic. After a fortnight they came to me and said that they were ready to come into line again. The interesting thing is that the shrubbery is so beautifully kept that visitors ask if the children ever play there, and they will scarcely believe it when I say that they play there every day.
"About six months after I took over the school the children proposed self-government. I had never suggested it to them in words, though, of course, it was in my mind. They came to it themselves. They wanted a Cabinet. They elected three children, a senior teacher, my husband and myself. . . . The school went on gaining self-control, the children exercising a certain amount of authority, and if difficulties arose they came to me for advice or called a Cabinet meeting. ...
"The spirit of service is very strong, especially amongst the elder Montessori children. They have very keen observation; and little acts of kindness, which do not occur to the elder children, are habitual with them. I am sure that when these children come into the upper school there will be another great step forward made in the school's self-government."
From the ‘Theosophy in New Zealand’ magazine July 1922
Self Government in Schools
Extracts from addresses at a Conference of the Theosophical Fraternity in Education (United Kingdom.)
"The work that can be done by young children in the way of self-discipline," said Mrs. M. Matters Porter, " is almost unbelievable to people who have not seen the process going on. I have seen children take themselves in hand; quite spoilt, peevish little creatures; and in a very short time deliberately alter their natures. ... It is a fine thing to see these qualities being built up day by day by children, when you get these right conditions."
Mr. L. Van der Straeten, speaking of the self-governing methods at Arundale School, Letchworth, said :—"We call our Parliament The Moot, and we have seven or eight of the elder boys and girls to form a Council. One of the elder girls is the chairman. A case that was brought up recently was one of rudeness to a teacher. It happened in Form II that one of the little boys wrote on paper the word 'ugly' and passed it on to another little boy who added the name of the teacher. We did not know anything about this, but another little boy of Form II. got up at the Moot and asked “Do you consider it right that rude things should be written about teachers?'' After a lot of talking they said ' Whoever wrote rude things please stand up.' The boy stood up. The next thing was how to deal with him. It took the Moot a long time and there were many suggestions. The result was that he had to do something particularly nice to the teacher in question and also had to do something of value to the community. The latter took the form of chopping wood.
"Then there was the question whether it was right or wrong to collect birds' eggs. Half the school was 'for' and half ‘against.' Many heated discussions went on, but it was finally decided that people were to be left free to do as they chose, but that those who collected eggs must do so in a proper scientific way. There was not much collecting after that, as it was found that the chief joy was in the climbing of the tree. The same problem arose in connection with caterpillars, and again it was decided that, if this was done, the creatures must be kept in proper boxes and be properly fed on the right kind of leaves, etc.
"There was also the question of manners. There had been a case of rudeness on the part of one of the boys towards the domestic staff. The Moot decided that it would be wrong to punish the boy. They said that the best thing was to help him to see why it was wrong to be rude to the domestic staff. Then they discussed how they differed from the maids, whether there was any essential difference, and so on."
Mrs. Beatrice Ensor said, " Wherever self-government has been tried it has led to a change in the relationship between the staff and the pupils. . . We have to do away with the idea of speaking down to the child. . . . We have to grant the child equality of thought, of power of thinking, of making up his own mind. Wherever this has been done it has been found that when the pupils make their own rules they know why they have made them, and willingly work with the law and not against it. ... When the child makes a rule, and understands why it is made, he is the person who is most indignant if the rule is broken.
"I see no reason why those who are riper in judgment should not suggest. . . Teachers and pupils should govern the school together as comrades. . . . There are bound to be present in almost every school personalities stronger than the rest, and the weaker children suffer. Therefore it is not true freedom in a school, because it means that the authority has passed out of the hands of the teacher into the hands of the stronger personalities among the children, who really rule the school. There should be a certain amount of benevolent authority to keep the balance between the children."
Miss E. M. Gilpin, Principal of the Hall School, Weybridge, said, "In the many problems with which we teachers are faced in the pursuit of our great art, we learn most from watching the children, and that intense desire to be made useful, to do useful, helpful things, has until lately been much neglected. ' Spell "winder",' 'go and clean it,' would please them immensely.
"There are further possibilities of group freedom in which we are all experimenting . . . and if you have not only watched 13 teaching 8, but have also watched 8 looking up at and learning from 13, you need no further proofs. ... If you add to this the group purpose, the planning of the work by the group, the arrangement of matter, the assigning of parts, then you see how big this thing is ... the zest with which it is all done, the energy and vigour which recognise no obstacles, which use all materials to hand, the imagination which removes mountains—it is wonderful to watch it all.
"One of the chief things which have astonished me is the way in which the children manage to agree; they really never quarrel. . . . There are often as many as three or four groups all working together in our school hall, some children drawing or mapping, some reading or making notes, some arranging scenes for acting, some declaiming, but each group seems to attend to its own noise, and they all get on perfectly satisfactorily . . . but ... in my opinion there should be classes and times when the whole room is quiet and no one speaks unless it is necessary. Here one system is the counterpart of the other. . . I still believe in time-tables and in hours of work being mapped out and planned, and—in the case of a young child—in everyone taking everything in the bill of fare and no extras.
"In between the group work, lessons are given in the ordinary way upon the same subjects. Sometimes a group will give a small entertainment to the others, showing the results of their work. Sometimes a group will prepare a lesson and give it to the rest of the school. The teachers usually attend any lesson or entertainment given by a group and pick out the points which need correction, and these are discussed at a following lesson.
"It has been found that children are more alert and more ready to tackle ordinary problems of education after a period of group work. There is no fear that they will be behind when they come to the ordinary public schools. . . . Homework is left entirely to the child's discretion. When a child is very keen on a subject it is very often continued at home. The difference between voluntary work and imposed work has not yet been rightly gauged. . . . Mutual criticism has been found a very powerful factor. Eight years old cares very much more what thirteen says, than what a teacher says."
From the ‘Theosophy in New Zealand’ magazine July 1922
"The work that can be done by young children in the way of self-discipline," said Mrs. M. Matters Porter, " is almost unbelievable to people who have not seen the process going on. I have seen children take themselves in hand; quite spoilt, peevish little creatures; and in a very short time deliberately alter their natures. ... It is a fine thing to see these qualities being built up day by day by children, when you get these right conditions."
Mr. L. Van der Straeten, speaking of the self-governing methods at Arundale School, Letchworth, said :—"We call our Parliament The Moot, and we have seven or eight of the elder boys and girls to form a Council. One of the elder girls is the chairman. A case that was brought up recently was one of rudeness to a teacher. It happened in Form II that one of the little boys wrote on paper the word 'ugly' and passed it on to another little boy who added the name of the teacher. We did not know anything about this, but another little boy of Form II. got up at the Moot and asked “Do you consider it right that rude things should be written about teachers?'' After a lot of talking they said ' Whoever wrote rude things please stand up.' The boy stood up. The next thing was how to deal with him. It took the Moot a long time and there were many suggestions. The result was that he had to do something particularly nice to the teacher in question and also had to do something of value to the community. The latter took the form of chopping wood.
"Then there was the question whether it was right or wrong to collect birds' eggs. Half the school was 'for' and half ‘against.' Many heated discussions went on, but it was finally decided that people were to be left free to do as they chose, but that those who collected eggs must do so in a proper scientific way. There was not much collecting after that, as it was found that the chief joy was in the climbing of the tree. The same problem arose in connection with caterpillars, and again it was decided that, if this was done, the creatures must be kept in proper boxes and be properly fed on the right kind of leaves, etc.
"There was also the question of manners. There had been a case of rudeness on the part of one of the boys towards the domestic staff. The Moot decided that it would be wrong to punish the boy. They said that the best thing was to help him to see why it was wrong to be rude to the domestic staff. Then they discussed how they differed from the maids, whether there was any essential difference, and so on."
Mrs. Beatrice Ensor said, " Wherever self-government has been tried it has led to a change in the relationship between the staff and the pupils. . . We have to do away with the idea of speaking down to the child. . . . We have to grant the child equality of thought, of power of thinking, of making up his own mind. Wherever this has been done it has been found that when the pupils make their own rules they know why they have made them, and willingly work with the law and not against it. ... When the child makes a rule, and understands why it is made, he is the person who is most indignant if the rule is broken.
"I see no reason why those who are riper in judgment should not suggest. . . Teachers and pupils should govern the school together as comrades. . . . There are bound to be present in almost every school personalities stronger than the rest, and the weaker children suffer. Therefore it is not true freedom in a school, because it means that the authority has passed out of the hands of the teacher into the hands of the stronger personalities among the children, who really rule the school. There should be a certain amount of benevolent authority to keep the balance between the children."
Miss E. M. Gilpin, Principal of the Hall School, Weybridge, said, "In the many problems with which we teachers are faced in the pursuit of our great art, we learn most from watching the children, and that intense desire to be made useful, to do useful, helpful things, has until lately been much neglected. ' Spell "winder",' 'go and clean it,' would please them immensely.
"There are further possibilities of group freedom in which we are all experimenting . . . and if you have not only watched 13 teaching 8, but have also watched 8 looking up at and learning from 13, you need no further proofs. ... If you add to this the group purpose, the planning of the work by the group, the arrangement of matter, the assigning of parts, then you see how big this thing is ... the zest with which it is all done, the energy and vigour which recognise no obstacles, which use all materials to hand, the imagination which removes mountains—it is wonderful to watch it all.
"One of the chief things which have astonished me is the way in which the children manage to agree; they really never quarrel. . . . There are often as many as three or four groups all working together in our school hall, some children drawing or mapping, some reading or making notes, some arranging scenes for acting, some declaiming, but each group seems to attend to its own noise, and they all get on perfectly satisfactorily . . . but ... in my opinion there should be classes and times when the whole room is quiet and no one speaks unless it is necessary. Here one system is the counterpart of the other. . . I still believe in time-tables and in hours of work being mapped out and planned, and—in the case of a young child—in everyone taking everything in the bill of fare and no extras.
"In between the group work, lessons are given in the ordinary way upon the same subjects. Sometimes a group will give a small entertainment to the others, showing the results of their work. Sometimes a group will prepare a lesson and give it to the rest of the school. The teachers usually attend any lesson or entertainment given by a group and pick out the points which need correction, and these are discussed at a following lesson.
"It has been found that children are more alert and more ready to tackle ordinary problems of education after a period of group work. There is no fear that they will be behind when they come to the ordinary public schools. . . . Homework is left entirely to the child's discretion. When a child is very keen on a subject it is very often continued at home. The difference between voluntary work and imposed work has not yet been rightly gauged. . . . Mutual criticism has been found a very powerful factor. Eight years old cares very much more what thirteen says, than what a teacher says."
From the ‘Theosophy in New Zealand’ magazine July 1922