A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 21 - Education]
[Our society has] no school system, neither public nor parochial, nor
do we have a school-house, as you know a school-house. We believe that
a school system like yours is unjust and despotic to those who are
compelled to support it by compulsory taxation; and we further believe
that it is very cruel and harmful to the pupils to compel them to
attend any institution that they do not wish to. We believe that a
system of education like yours does little or no good, but causes an
immense amount of evil, which we will consider further on.
.Our children, like our adults, are perfectly free, are not compelled
to do anything they do not wish to do. We do not try to compel them to
be good, nor to work, nor to attend school against their wishes. We
think that any act which is so repugnant to human nature, under right
conditions, that exhortation and the reward of its agreeable
consequences cannot induce a man or a woman or a child to perform that
act without the application of physical force, is not worth doing; it
must be unnatural.
The only object of education is to discover truth, so that we may be
able to live in accord with the facts of the universe, the only
possible condition under which we can enjoy the greatest happiness;
for every violation of a natural function is a violation of a natural
law, and every violation, of a natural law is attended with suffering;
therefore we should be educated. To enjoy the greatest happiness and
to avoid all misery should be the end and aim of all education. And
that system of education which accomplishes this end most completely
is the best system. Therefore, one who possesses information which
enables him to live most completely in harmony with the laws of nature
is in the true sense most highly educated.
We believe that in the widest sense and in the only true sense, the
whole world should be the school- house, mankind the pupils, our
environment the teacher, the entire life of man the school age, and
the phenomenal universe the curriculum.
The child s education with us begins long anterior to its pre-natal
existence. The parents smiles, virtues and temper reappear in the
child after its birth. After birth the child's direct education
begins; but during the period of lactation it is both direct and
indirect. The first nursery and school of the child, then, is the
internal mother's bosom, then the mother's arms, then the house
nurseries, then the outdoor nurseries, and then in the whole community
and in the whole world. In this manner its sphere of action is
constantly enlarged. It continually acquires more independence, and
hence a stronger self-reliance. During all its life it is surrounded
by adults and by children of various ages, who teach it by pleasant
precepts and examples.
Our children are taught as early as possible and nearly altogether by
the examples of the youths and adults, how to treat their fellowmen;
how to be kind; how to give equal rights to all; how to respect the
opinions of others; how to lay aside all jealousy and prejudice; how
to welcome peace and harmony, and how to avoid discord; how to
extinguish all feeling of aggressiveness; how to control their temper;
how to keep themselves clean and pure; how to develop their organs by
healthful exercise; how to be honest and truthful; how to preserve
their health; how to exercise in the open air and sunshine; how to eat
and drink properly; how to be orderly and form regular habits; how to
dress in accordance with comfort and health; how to honor productive
labor and how to make it agreeable; how to despise idleness, and how
to value life and health above all other things necessary for the
acquisition of the greatest happiness.
The rudiments of all these facts are taught by the older members of
the family and are learned by the child when quite young. In these
pleasant schools or play-houses, the teachers and children talk and
play, laugh and sing, eat and drink, observe and investigate, promote
happiness and avoid pain. One moment the child is in the house, the
next moment it is perhaps in the yard, then in the nurseries, from
there in the parks, then in the motor-car, then in the garden, field,
and orchard; then in the parlors, then in its mother's private
apartment, then in its own private apartment, etc.
Everywhere it finds a number of willing and competent teachers.
Teachers, too, who do not govern with the rod, but by arousing an
agreeable desire for inquiry. All of us, young and old, are always
teachers and pupils at the same time. The older ones are studying the
nature of infancy and childhood, and daily add to their store of
knowledge by observation and experience. The younger ones are kindly
advised and then left to follow the conduct of the more mature
companions. Knowledge is held in such high esteem with us that we
endeavor to acquire all we can at any age, and we also find great
pleasure in agreeably imparting our knowledge to others and especially
to the young. Our principal aim in education is always to educate
ourselves ; to practice a course of conduct that we wish our children
to imitate. Our children will be all right without any trouble, if we
are only all right. The adults make the young what they are. Let us
not forget this important fact, this fundamental principle.
We endeavor to create the pleasurable desire, and then let the child
follow its inclination. All sound-minded children possess a faculty of
inquiry which they love to exercise if conditions are right and
natural, and if things are presented in a pleasant manner. As long as
we cannot do things naturally and present them in an attractive way,
the fault lies with the teachers, and not in the child.
The next thing we teach the child is, how to labor. We believe that
labor can become pleasurable only if the habit of laboring is acquired
while we are young. One who spends the first half of his life without
manual labor must forever, more or less, remain a slave to it in after
years. Therefore, as soon as the child is old enough, generally
beginning at the age of two and three, it is taught to wash, bathe,
dress and undress itself; to keep its hat, mittens and shoes in their
respective places; to change clothes and put away its own soiled
garments; to brush and put away its own clothes which are not in use,
and to be careful and tidy with those that are in use. A parent should
never do any work for the child that the child can easily do for
itself. After the child grows a little older, we encourage it to do
all such easy work in keeping its own apartment clean and tidy as it
can easily do. Our aim is to create a pleasurable de sire for manual
labor in the child while it is young; to inculcate a desire for early
self-support, self-reliance, and independence; to develop a keen
appreciation for order and regularity. Thus, you see, our children are
taught at an early age to do all their work in their own private
apartment. This strongly develops the faculties of order, promptness,
taste and regularity, which they take with them into life; both public
and private. This, we believe, produces the strongest, healthiest and
most complete persons physically and mentally. Therefore it is the
most useful and practical lesson the child can learn. This lesson, if
well learned, rewards every person, during his natural life, with an
immense amount of happiness.
[W]e admonish no one to save money. Our aim is not to grow rich on
frugality, but on abundance of production. You esteem frugality as a
high virtue, which may perhaps be all right under your perverted
financial, social and industrial system. Our aim is to open up natural
opportunity and make production by voluntary co-operation and
mechanical appliances so abundant that frugality is unnecessary. Under
these conditions, we can produce all the material wealth we want in a
few hours of labor a day. The American Indian, with his primitive
habits, can not grow rich by frugality and his very limited
production; but, by a change of habits and by abundant production, he
may be able to produce, with an agreeable amount of productive labor,
more material wealth than he can judiciously consume.
The principal differences of which we have thus far spoken between
our and your system of education are:
"We give the child, in the acquisition of information, complete
freedom; you compel it to do certain things which you as adults
believe to be right, but which, as a rule, are perhaps nine times out
of ten wrong. We believe that the home, field and active society is
the best school; you largely cut the child off from these natural
means and confine it to the narrow school- house, or prison, we think,
where it is not allowed to talk and exercise the very things you
desire it to learn. We endeavor to create a desire for inquiry by
pleasant and attractive incentives only; you generally resort to
compulsion. Hence, we believe that a child should study only when,
where and what it likes; you believe that it must study such a time
and such branches, and at such a place, whether it finds pleasure in
doing so or not. We believe that a teacher or parent, who must compel
a child or pupil to study, does not know how to teach; you believe
that the child s dislike for study is grounded in the perversity of
its nature. We teach and inculcate that manual labor is honorable;
that one who lives from the labor of others is a social and industrial
parasite; that a child should be enticed to establish the habit of
manual labor while young. You believe that manual labor is
disrespectful, that a washerwoman, as such, is not as good as a
senator s wife, that one who lives from the labor of others by means
of profit, interest, rent, and taxes is a good, clever person. You
largely teach inequality; we teach complete equality of man, woman and
child.
On the money question our system of education has a great advantage
over yours. Our child receives all it earns at the close of each
month; your child works for the parent. It receives nothing for a
number of years but board, clothing and sometimes a little pocket
money. Some of your parents give their children some property when the
children become of age; some parents give their property to their
children, per haps, because they can not take the property with them
when they die; some parents have nothing to give when the child
becomes of age nor when the parents die. In a child, in which the
ideas of time and space are yet very imperfectly developed, a remote
reward is a very feeble incentive to labor. A child or a savage will
do a great deal for a penny, if paid immediately, but they will do
very little for ten dollars, if they are to be paid five years hence,
or even a year hence.
You say, how can you make your children work if you do not force
them; but the secret, you see, all lies in the system. Our system
encourages a child to work, while yours encourages it to be idle. We
have a short day, easy work and big cash pay; you have a long day,
toilsome work, and small pay on ten to forty years time.
You can easily see that we are all teachers and all pupils at the
same time. We study our whole lifetime and graduate only at death. We
teach each other when we labor and when we play, in the house and in
the field. The teachers, as well as the pupils, perform their manual
labor daily; for we believe:
1. That a knowledge of manual labor is the most important education
we can receive.
2. That a short, easy day s manual labor like ours, especially if
performed in the open air, is healthful, and promotes the development
of body and mind; such labor is the most invigorating food that can be
taken.
3. That we have more leisure time for teaching and imparting useful
knowledge to our children and to each other than we want, besides the
short time we daily devote to manual labor.
4. That labor must be made so easy, attractive and agreeable that we
do it for the pleasure that is in it; and
5. That no one should be forced to study or learn what he finds no
pleasure in. Your school-houses and your methods of teaching are
altogether unnatural, ours are natural; that is the reason you are
obliged to use force everywhere. Your children are all right, but your
school is nearly all wrong. Your school-houses and your methods of
teaching are an infraction of the laws of life and health; that is why
your children so often rebel against them. That is the reason why so
many of your pupils are tardy, absent, sullen and puny. The child's
instinctive knowledge of life and health, when it remonstrates against
your school and your methods of teaching, is a better guide than the
perverted reasons of your teachers and parents.
CONTENTS
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