Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/347

Rh insufficient material, stand at the other. Health is found in the golden mean-—to meet life and to reflect upon it. I take education and evolution to be one, the reaction of the environment upon the organism. The process consists in arousing in consciousness a group of sensations of the right sort, and in the right amount, and in inducing a habit of working up this material into thought. The process requires a wholesome organism, and one operating in obedience to some inner impulse—that is to say, it requires self-activity and not vicarious activity. It is a very subtle process, work for angels rather than for men, and all the while it must be carried out with utter unconsciousness on the part of the child as the result of his own spontaneity. The teacher may stimulate this self-activity, must supply materials for it to spend itself upon, but never—and this is the particular temptation in the path of the teacher—never must he substitute his own activity or his own impulse. It was a great day for me when I woke to the fact that one can only do what one wants to do. It was a great day for me, both because it taught me the source of my own actions, and because it taught me that to influence other people's actions you must first influence their desires. A given environment is not the same environment to two different children. Their power to respond is different. Their will to respond is unequal. If the environment is to react helpfully on both of them, either a change must be brought about in the children themselves, by means of a secondary or preliminary environment designed especially for that purpose, or else the given environment must present alternative elements calculated to appeal to different natures. Both methods are legitimate and both are often necessary. The first is brought about by the personal tête-d-tête work of the teacher, work wholly individual, work requiring the characteristics of both the serpent and the dove; and the second, by giving the school life that flexibility and many-sided interest which will allow some choice on the part of the child. The sensations that we want are only brought about by action, by direct physical contact with the environment, and this can only come as the result of desire. We live in a world rich in possible activities and sensations, embarrassingly rich, but possible only to those who want them. One can only do what one wants to do. The source of power and the limitation of power are one. It is found in the emotional life, in desire. Where this is manifold and rich, life is manifold and rich; where this is stunted and poor, life itself is stunted and poor. There is here a direct causal chain which can not be broken, and which must be taken into account in any rational educational method. It is desire, action, sensation, thought. I do not know whether psychological analysis will some time show us what desire is, or separate it into more primal