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VIONDAY FEBRUARY, 10th. 1919.
POE'TR'Y, imagination, and education
(Amy Lowell in North American Review)
Perhaps then- never was a time wlv-n education received so much gen
eral attention as it does to-day. The world is deluged with books, pamphlets,
and reviews on the subject, new systems are continually jostling the old out of
place, new methods are constantly being applied, the very end and aim of
education itself seems to change from time to time.
That the object of education should be to fit the child for life, is such
a trite and well-worn saying that people smile at its commonplacencss even
while they agree with its obvious common sense. But the many ways of
litting the Child, and the very various and diverse lives that have to be fitted
for, are so perplexing that it is small wonder that curriculums multiply and
still multiply their subjects in order to keep up with the complexity of modern
i xistenee.
More and more of late years has t*ie old education by means of the
humanities been broken down, instead of it we see substituted a sort of voca
tional training. Children are now taught to do. where, in the older systems,
they were taught to think. It is as if we had learnt to distrust what we can
not see. to demand an immediate tangible result for the outlay of preparation.
This is perhaps largely due to our national temper. We are always In a
hurry. But. does this constant haste produce the results desired? "Evolution,
not revolution, is the order of development." says Mr. Hughes, in his book on
comparative education, and education t is a process requiring much time.
Nature cannot he hurried; there is no such thing as cramming possible to her
methods. A congested curriculum results in the proper assimilation of no
one subject; and what can we think of a primary school, boasting only one
toucher, in which the children were taught seventeen subjects, with fifteen
minutes given to each subject, as was the case some years ago in a school
that came under my observation!
No educator is so insensate as to approve of such a method, and it is
just in the hope of simplifying education that this idea of dropping the humani
ties has been evolved. Hut, in considering the means as the end, to what are
we led ? What is the result of an over-insistence upon fact, and an under
e my'i as is upon" the development of faculties? ft is a result little realised for*
the most part one which may fit in with the views of the more extreme
rcialists, perhaps, hut hardly in accord with those rights of the individual
\> hich have always been America’s brightest ideal. For It is precisely the
humanities which develop individuality. A knowledge or facts does not make
us men; it is the active use of brains which does that. Whatever tends to
make the brain supple and self-reliant is a direct help to personality.
Perhaps the two qualities which more than any others go to the making
of a strong personality are character and imagination. Character means I
courage, and there is a great difference between the collective courage of a,
mass of people all thinking the same way, and the courage of a man who cares
i.ot at all for public opinion but follows his own chosen path unswervingly.
Our national ideal as to the moral attitude is high; what the people under
stand, and what they all agree about, that they will do; but it is not so easy
to find men who are willing to thin!, and act at variance with the opinions
°* tho*r neighbors. We see this trait constantly in these people who live be
>ond their incomes; who must have this and that because their friends have it.
This weakness gnaws at the foundation of our national existence liko an In
sidious disease. For. wjth all our talk of individualism, we are among the
least individual of nations. The c/a of machine-made articles has swept
ever the land, and nowhere is its product more deteriorating than in the ma
chine-made types which our schools turn out.
I do not wish to be misunders/od: I do not mean that these types are
poor or bad types, on the contrary, machines work with a wonderful precision;
but these types are run in a mould, or rather several n^oulds. But there is
a danger here which we do not quit* forsee. Upon the few with the brains
to create and guide, the destinies of the others therefore depend. There
has never been such a machine mad.- people as the Germans; and we can see
c learly to-day, as we could not some years ago, what happens to such a people
when tho guiding powers are unsc: pulous and wrought upon by an over
weening ambitioh.
A democracy can succeed only through an enlightened proletariat. If
character and imagination are the essentials to a strong personality, one cap
able of directing itself and not at the mercy of demagogues and fanatics, then
we should leave no stones imtulj^pil to grain this en<V I think I make no un
wise statement When* 1 say that it is only in those minds possessing but n
modicum' of imagination that the value of the humanities as an educational
factor is denied. Our ancestors were as much interested in
these things as we arc. Like us, they talked of character and education, and.
like us, they did not talk of imagination. And yet I think it can easily be
proved that their methods were more favorable to its development than our
own. .
Let us forget theories for (he moment and bake our stand upeo an un
assailable truism: namely, that the object of education is to educate. Now.
once more, forgetting the dusty cobwebs of twentieth century discussion, let
us consider the old dictionary deflnation of “To Educate," which is “To bring
forth and form the natural faculties": to bring forth and form the natural
faculties, to bring out the beat that the child has in him so that no talent nor
power shall be left latent, and then so to train and cultivate these talents and
powers that the child shall obtain perfect control over them, and make them of
the fullest use. x
Nothing is said here about fitting the child for life. Our ancestors
considered that so obvious a fact as to need no stating, and this very reticence*
proves an imaginative attitude which we seem to have lost today.
It might be said quite truthfuly that no one was ever taught anything
--that one learnt, but was not taught: that what the mind was ready for, the
mind received, that what the mind was not ready for fell away and was
I forgotten. Therefore the true end of education as such must be to train tne
mind. Another truism, you will say. firanted—but how is this some train
Ing to be done?
The last generation believed in the old classic education; they had for
gotten why, In many cases, but the prejudice remained that Greek and Latin
were the best training. The reason was a perfectly valid one. Greek and
Latin arc hard to learn and needed brain application, also they could not be
learned by rote; the boy had to use his mind and his imagination, apd being
accustomed to using his mind and imagination, in his studies he brought them
to bear on other things as well. \».
We have not dropped the old classical education entirety, but we have
added many other things to it, and in so doing have diminished the amount of
time and thought given to it, and consequently the amount of benefit to be
derived from it. Of the things which we have added, some are really good,
others appear so, but the total effect does not seem so very far in advance
of the old method after all.
Our children are turned out with a smattering of many subjects, but
can we say that they arc any better educated than the men and women who
preceded them? Are they better equipped for life, do they find the problems
that they have to solve easier of solution? For there is one great fault in our
educational systems today, they teach but they do not train; and the one facul
ty without which no other can come to fruition Is never really trained at all.
for we cannot deny that imagination is forced to strive against adverse cir
cumstances both at home and in school.
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