Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/168

154 involved in manual training, and in the new education generally. The systems of education founded upon dualism must seem to us false and irreverent. The truer conception of life is monistic. It dwells not upon the shadows and the cold and the evil of life, the subjective demons of negation, but upon the brightness and warmth and goodness of life, upon the joy and sunshine and beauty of Nature. This is the positive material out of which we are to construct our world. And this vivifying, beautiful spirit comes to us not from Edwards and Calvin, but from men like Emerson and Froebel, men who believed in righteousness rather than sin, in light rather than darkness, in heat rather than cold.

Our image of the complete man is, then, the image of a unit, of an organic whole, and the educational process, whose sole function is to expand and develop and perfect this organism, must address itself to the whole task, and must deal with man as a unit, with his emotional, physical life as well as his intellectual life. And here, observe, we do not say that it is desirable to do this—we say that it is necessary. A modern educational scheme founded on dualism might profess that it were good to have a sound body and a warm heart as well as an evolved intellect, and might even work with some degree of intelligence and success toward the solution of the double problem. But the weakness lies in this, that the least pressure, a lack of time or equipment or power, and some selection is bound to be made, under the belief that one part of the problem may be solved apart from the others. It is impossible. It is quite impossible. Concentrate all effort upon the body, and we have an athlete who turns out to have not even good health. Concentrate all effort on the emotions, and we have a sentimentalist, who is neither loving nor lovable. Concentrate all effort on the intellect, and we have that sorry creature, the pedant, who does not even know.

Development must be continuous, and must proceed step by step. And this, let me repeat, not merely because it is desirable to have sound bodies, and warm hearts, and evolved intellects, but because they depend upon one another, and can not be separated. I conceive this unity of man to be the very basis of the new education. It is certainly the foundation of all we do in manual training. It is, therefore, a principle which invites the closest scrutiny. If this philosophy be true, if this doctrine of ethics be sound, if man is so essentially a unit, if his happiness and welfare are the business of morality, then we can not escape the conclusion that any scheme of education, to be a true scheme, must have its foundations laid deep in such a doctrine of ethics and such a philosophy of life. But if these be false, if between mind and matter there is eternal warfare, if the conflict between Ormuzd and Ahriman is to go on forever in the