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8o
R. C. LANGDON-D A VIES
tion of the State has been due to the influence of the
Hegelian philosophy, so the bias on the intellectual side of
education has been due to the influence of the Herbartian
psychology. The mind has been considered as static, filled
with ideas as the heavens are filled with stars. This is not
the case. The mind is genetic, ever changing and growing
in intimate, inextricable connection with the body. Our minds
affect our bodies, no less than our bodies affect our minds.
We are not two organisms, but one; not bodies and minds,
but body-minds. Therefore a fully developed and controlled
mind may affect the body which contains it as powerfully
as a healthy body may affect its contained mind.
I have only dared to offer this critique of Swedish
education because I am convinced of two things. One is that
Swedish schools exhibit so much that is admirable and wholly
preferable to English schools. I find here a complete absence
of that class distinction which turns so many of our Public
Schools into nurseries for young snobs. I find a desire to
learn amongst the boys which I often miss in many of my
own schools. I find an all-round standard of intellectual
attainment which is considerably higher than in England.
More important still, I find a willingness to profit by the
educational experiences of other countries which is at present
bearing fruit in changes in the directions I have mentioned;
directions which I may be forgiven, perhaps, for calling
English. I wish we were as ready to profit by the
experiences of other countries in England. For the points at which
you succeed are the points at which we fail. Our insistence
upon the physical makes us turn out sloppy thinkers: our
lack of centralized organisation often sterilizes the effects of
our most original teachers.
My second conviction is that the European school of the
future will be compound of the best features of existing schools
in every European (and American) country. I find myself
looking for a synthesis. Why can’t we have our games and do
away with our snobbery; why not combine thoroughness and
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