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THE old mystics were fond of saying that "Man is a made
trinity, like to the unmade Blessed Trinity." That particular
form of words comes to us from Julian of Norwich; but it
form of words comes to us from Julian of Norwich; but it
expresses a thought which we often meet in the spiritual
writers of the Middle Ages. Further, these writers were
disposed to find in man's nature a reflection of the three
special characters which theology attributes to the Christian
Godhead. They thought that the power of the Father had
Godhead. They thought that the power of the Father had
its image in the physical nature of man: the wisdom of the
Son in his reason: the creative vigour of the Holy Spirit in
his soul. Some taught also that each of these three aspects of humanity corresponded with one aspect of the triune
reality of the universe: the physical world of nature, the
mental world of idea, the ultimate world of spirit. The
sceptic of course would express this differently, and see in
it but one more illustration of the fact that man always makes
God in his own image. But without scepticism I think we
may explain it thus: that those who have pondered most
deeply on the Divine Nature have most easily found in its
richness, and have best understood, just those attributes
which are most clearly marked in human nature. Man has
inevitably been for them a key to God.
These speculations seem at first sight to have little bearing
upon the problems of education. But they are in reality
intimately connected with it: for their consideration leads us back to the central fact out of which they have arisen —
namely, the abiding truth that man's deepest exploration of his
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own nature gives again and again this threefold result, that he
feels that his real self-hood and real possibilities are not wholly
exhausted by the terms "body " and "mind." He knows in
his best moments another vivid aspect of his being, as strong
as these, though often kept below the threshold of his consciousness: the spirit, which informs, yet is distinct from
both his body and his mind.
Now the question which all serious educationalists are
called upon to ask themselves is this: To what extent does
that three-fold analysis of human personality influence our
educational schemes? The object of education is to bring
out the best and highest powers of the thing educated. Do
we, in our education, even attempt to bring out the best and
highest powers of the spirit, as we seek to develop those
of the body and the mind?
The child as he comes to us is a bundle of physical, mental,
and spiritual possibilities. He is related to three distinct yet
interpenetrating worlds; all accessible to him, since he is
human, and all offering endless opportunities of adventure to
him.
" Heaven lies about us in our infancy,
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
About the growing boy."
Why should they close; whose fault is it that they do? Does
not the fault lie with the poor and grovelling outlook of those
to whom this sensitive, plastic thing is confided? Who so
badly select and manipulate the bundle of possibilities offered
to them, that they often contrive to manufacture a creature
ruled by its own physical needs and appetites, its mental and
emotional limitations; instead of a free, immortal being,
master of its own body and mind. Here is this child, the
germ of the future. To a great extent, we can control the
way that germ develops; the special characters of the past
which it shall transmit. We can have a hand in the shaping
of the history that is to be when we have gone: for who can
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doubt that the controlling factor of history is the physical,
mental, or spiritual character of those races that dominate
the world? It is in the interplay, tension, and strife of these
three universes that history in the last resort consists.
Now, on the eve of a new era, is it not worth while to
remind ourselves of this terrific fact? To see whether our
plans are so laid as to bring out all the balanced possibilities
of the coming man; all his latent powers? We recognize
the fact that body and mind must be trained whilst still in a
plastic state. We are awake to the results of allowing them
to atrophy. Where we find individuals with special powers
in one of these directions, we aim at their perfect development; at the production of the athlete, scholar, man of
action. But it cannot be said that we are equally on the look-out for special qualities of spirit; that when found, we train
them with the same skill and care. Yet if we do not, can we
expect to get the very best out of the race? To explore all
its potentialities; some, perhaps, still unguessed? We know
that the child's reactions to life will be determined by the
mental furniture with which he is equipped. His perceptions,
his choice from among the welter of possible impressions
surrounding him, will depend on the character of his "apperceiving mass." Surely then it is our first duty so to equip
him that he shall be able to lay hold on those intimations of
spirit which are woven into the texture of our sensual universe;
to lead him into that mood of receptivity in which the beautiful and the significant, the good and the true, stand out for
him from the scene of life and hold his interest. A meadow
which to one boy is merely a possible cricket field, to another is
a place of romance and adventure, full of friendly life.
The mischief is that whatever our theoretic beliefs, we do not
in practice really regard spirit as the chief element of our being;
the chief object of our educational care. Our notions about it
are shadowy, and have very little influence on our educational
schemes. Were it present to us as a vivid reality, we should
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surely provide our young people with a reasoned philosophy
of life in which it is given its place: something which can
provide honest answers to the questions of the awakening
intelligence, and withstand the hostile criticism which wrecks
so much adolescent faith. For ten parents who study the
Montessori system of sense training, how many think of
consulting those old specialists who taught how the powers
of the spirit may be developed and disciplined, and given
their true place in human life? How many educationalists
realize that prayer, as taught to children, may and should
be an exercise which gently develops a whole side of human
consciousness that might otherwise be dormant; places it
in communication with a real and valid universe awaiting
the apprehension of man? How many give the subject the
same close, skilled attention that they give, say, to Latin
grammar on one hand or physical culture on the other? Those
subjects, and many more, have emerged from vagueness into
clarity because attention, the cutting point of the human
will, has been concentrated upon them. Gradually in these
departments an ordered world has been made, and the child
or young person put in correspondence with that world.
We cannot say that the same has been done for the world of
spirit. The majority of the "well-educated" probably pass
through life without any knowledge of the science of prayer,
with at best the vaguest notions of the hygiene of the soul.
Often our religious teachers are themselves no better instructed, and seem unable to offer the growing and hungry
spirit any food more heavenly than practical ethics and
dogmatic beliefs. Thus a complete world of experience is
habitually ignored by us, and one great power of the human
trinity allowed to atrophy.
We are just beginning as educators to pay ordered attention
to that fringe-world in which sense, intellect, and spirit all
have a part: I mean the world of aesthetic apprehension.
It cannot be denied that the result has been, for many of the
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young people now growing up, an immense enlargement and
enrichment of life. Look at one of the most striking
intellectual characteristics of the last few years: the rapid
growth of the taste and need for poetry, the amount of it
that is written, the way in which it seems to supply a
necessary outlet for young Englishmen in the present day.
Look at the mass of verse which was composed, under conditions of utmost horror, on the battlefields; poetry the most
pathetic in the world, in which we see the passionate effort
of spirit to find adjustment, its assertion of unconquerable
power, even in the teeth of this overwhelming manifestation
of brute force. There is the power of the future: the spirit
of beauty and truth seeking for utterance. There is that
quickening spring, bubbling up afresh in every generation;
and ready, if we will help it to find expression, to transfigure
our human life.
There is a common idea that the spiritual life means something pious and mawkish: not very desirable in girls, and most
objectionable in boys. It is strange that this notion, which
both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures so emphatically
contradict, should ever have grown up amongst us. The
spirit, says St. Paul, is not a spirit of fearfulness; it is "a
spirit of Power and Love and Discipline" — qualities that
make for vigour and manliness of the best type. It is the
very source of our energies, both natural and supernatural.
The mystics sometimes called it our "life-giving life," and
modern psychologists are beginning to discover that it is,
in the most literal sense, our "health's eternal spring."
People say, "Come, Holy Spirit"; as if it were something
foreign to us: yet it comes perpetually in every baby born
into the world, for each new human life entering the temporal
order implies a new influx or, least, a new manifestation of
spirit. But, when spirit is thus wedded to mind and body
to form human nature, it is submitted to the law governing
human nature: the law of freedom. It is ours, to develop
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or stunt as we please. Its mighty powers are not pressed on
an unwilling race, but given us in germ to deal with as we
will. Parents are responsible for giving it every opportunity
of development, the food, the light, the nurture that all
growing things require — in fact, for its education: a great
honour, and a great responsibility.
If we are asked wherein such education should consist, I
think we must reply that its demands are not satisfied by
teaching the child any series of religious doctrines divorced
from practical experience. He is full of energies demanding
expression. Our object is so to train those energies that they
shall attain their full power and right balance; and enable
him to set up relations with the spiritual world in which he
truly lives. The first phase in this education will consist in a
definite moral training, which is like the tilling and preparation
of the earth in which the spiritual plant is to grow: and as
regarding the special objects of this training I will take the
definition of a great spiritual writer, a definition remarkable
for its sanity and moderation: " If we would discover and
know that Kingdom of God which is hidden in us, we must
lead a life that is virtuous within, well ordered without, and
fulfilled with true charity." What does that imply? It
implies the cultivation of self-control, order, and disinterestedness. Order is a quality which all spiritual writers hold in
great esteem; for they are far from being the ecstatic, unbalanced, and mood-ridden creatures of popular fancy. Now
the untrained child has all the disorderly ways, the uncontrolled and self-interested instincts of the primitive man.
He is a vigorous young animal, reacting promptly and completely to the stimulus of fear or of greed. The history of
human society, the gradual exchange of license for law, self-interest for group-interest, spasmodic activity for orderly
diligence must be repeated in him if he is to take his place in
that human society. But if we would also prepare in him the
way of spirit, the aim of this training must be something
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higher than that convenient social morality, that spirit of
fair play, truth, justice, mutual tolerance, which public school
discipline seeks to develop. That morality is relative and
utilitarian. The morality in which alone the life of the spirit
can flourish is absolute and ideal. It is sought, not because
it makes life secure, or promotes the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, but for its own sake. Yet in spite of this,
the social order, in the form in which the child comes in contact with it, may be made one of the best instruments for
producing those characters demanded by the spiritual life.
For what, after all, is the exchanging of self-interest for
group-interests but the beginning of love? And what is at
the root of the spirit of give and take but humility? See how
the approaches to the spiritual kingdom are found in the midst
of the common life: what easy opportunity we have of
initiating our children into these central virtues of the soul.
The spiritual writers tell us that from love and humility all
other virtues come; that on the moral side nothing else is
required of us. And we, if we train wisely, may lead the young
into them so gently and yet so deeply that their instinctive
attitude to existence will be that of humbleness and love;
and they will be spared the conflict and difficult reformation
of those who wake to spiritual realities in later life.
Now humbleness and love, as understood by spiritual
persons, are not passive virtues: they are energetic, and
show themselves in mind, will, and heart. In the mind, by a
constant desirous tendency to, and seeking after, that which
is best; in the will by keenness, or, as the mystics would say,
by diligence and zeal; in the heart, by an easy suppleness of
relation with our fellow men — patience, good temper,
sympathy, generosity. Plainly the moral character which
makes for spirituality is a moral character which also makes
for happiness. Suppose, then, that our moral training has
been directed towards this eager, supple state of humbleness
and love: what special results may we expect as the
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personality develops? Spiritual writers tell us to expect
certain qualities, which are traditionally called the "seven
gifts of the spirit"; and if we study the special nature of
these gifts, we see that they are the names of linked characters
or powers, which together work an enhancement and clarification of the whole personality — a tuning-up of human nature
to fresh levels, a sublimation of its primitive instincts. The
first pair of qualities which are to mark our spiritual humanity
are called Godliness and Fear. By these are meant that
solemn sense of direct relationship with an eternal order, that
gravity and awe, which we ought to feel in the presence of the
mysteries of the universe; the fear of the Lord, which is the
beginning of wisdom. From these grow the gifts called
Knowledge, that is, the power of discerning true from false
values, of choosing a good path through the tangled world,
and Strength, the steady central control of the diverse forces
of the self: perhaps the gift most needed by our distracted
generation. "Through the gift of spiritual strength," says
Ruysbroeck, "a man transcends all creaturely things and
possesses himself, powerful and free." This is surely a power
which we should desire for the children of the future, and get
for them if we can.
We see that the first four gifts of the spirit will govern the
adjustment of man to his earthly life: that they will immensely
increase the value of his personality in the social order, will
clarify his mind and judgment, confer nobility on his aims.
The last three gifts — those called Counsel, Understanding and
Wisdom — will govern his intercourse with the spiritual order.
By Counsel, the spiritual writers mean that inward voice
which, as the soul matures, urges us to leave the transitory
and seek the eternal: and this not as an act of duty, but as
an act of love. When that voice is obeyed, the result is a
new spiritual Understanding; which, says Ruysbroeck again,
may be "likened to the sunshine, which fills the air with a
simple brightness, and lights all forms and shows the dis-
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tinctions of all colours. "Even so does this spiritual gift
irradiate the whole world with a new splendour, and shows
us secrets that we never guessed before. Poets know flashes
of it, and from it their power proceeds; for it enables its
possessor to behold life truly, that is from the angle of God,
not from the angle of man.
"Such an one," says Ruysbroeck, "walks in heaven, and
beholds and apprehends the height, the length, the depth,
and the breadth, the wisdom and truth, the bounty and
unspeakable generosity, which are in God our Lover without
number and without limit; for all this is Himself. Then that
enlightened man looks down, and beholds himself and all
other men and all creatures; and this gift, through the
knowledge of truth which is given us in its light, establishes
in us a wide-stretching love towards all in common."
" A wide-stretching love towards all in common." When
we think of this as the ruling character of our future citizens,
and so the ruling character of our future world, we begin to
see that the education of the spirit may represent a political
no less than a transcendental ideal. It alone can bring
about that regeneration, working from the heart outwards,
of which the prophets of every country have dreamed.
It seems hard to conceive anything beyond this. But
there is something. To behold things as they are is not the
end: beyond this is that Wisdom which comes not with
observation, but is the fruit of intimate communion with
Reality. Understanding is perception raised to its highest
expression: Wisdom is intuition raised to its highest expression, and directed towards an absolute objective. It is,
so far as we know here, the crown and goal of human development; the perfect fruition of love.
We have considered very shortly the chief possibilities of
the human spirit, as they are described by those who have
looked most deeply into its secrets. These seers tell us further
that this spirit has its definite course to run, its definite con-
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summation: that it emerges within the physical order, grows,
spreads, and at last enters into perfect union or communion
with the real and spiritual world. How much attention do we
pay to this statement, which, if true, is the transcendent fact
of human history, the key to the nature of man? How much
real influence does it have on our hopes and plans for our
children? The so-called phenomenon of conversion — the
fact that so far nearly all the highest and best examples of
the spiritual life have been twice-born types, that they have
had to pass through a terrible crisis, in which their natural
lives were thrown into confusion in order that their spiritual
lives might emerge — all this is really a confession of failure
on the part of human nature: a proof that the plastic creature
has been allowed to harden in the wrong shape. If our
growth were rightly directed, the spirit would emerge and
flower in all its strength and loveliness, as the physical and
mental powers of normal children emerge and flower. What
is wrong with education that it fails to achieve this? Partly,
I think, that the values at which it aims are too often relative
and self-interested; not absolute and disinterested. Its
intelligent gaze is fixed too steadily on earthly society, earthly
happiness. We encourage our young people to do the best
things, but not always from the best motives. We forget the
essential link between work and prayer: yet this alone lifts
man from the position of a busy animal to that of the friend
and helper of God. We forget that our duties ought to include
the awakening of that clear consciousness of eternity which
should be normal in every human being, and without which it
is impossible for any man to grasp the true values and true proportion of life.
From the very beginning, then, we ought to raise the eyes
of the young from the contemplation of the earth under their
feet to that of the heavens above their heads: to give them
absolute values, not utilitarian values, to aim at. There is
nothing morbid or sickly in this: it is rather those who do
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not possess the broader consciousness who are the morbid,
the sickly, and the maimed. The hope of the future is wide.
We must train our children to a wide stretch of faith, of aim,
of imagination, if they are to grasp it, and fully enter into
the inheritance that awaits them.
How, then, should we begin this most delicate of all tasks;
this education of the most sacred and subtle aspect of human
nature? We must be careful; for difficulties and dangers
crowd the path, cranks lie in wait at every corner. I have
spoken of the moral preparation. That is always safe and
sure. But there are two other safe ways of approach; the
devotional and aesthetic. These two ways are not alternative,
but complementary. Art, says Hegel, belongs to the highest
sphere of spirit, and is to be placed in respect of its content on
the same footing as religion and philosophy; and many
others — seers and philosophers — have found in the revelation of
beauty an authentic witness to God. But the love and
realization of beauty, without reverence and devotion, soon
degenerates into mere pleasure. So, too, devotion, unless
informed with the spirit of beauty, becomes thin, hard and
sterile. But where these two exist together, we find on one
hand that the developed apprehension which discovers deep
messages in nature, in music, in all the noble rhythms of art,
makes the senses themselves into channels of Spirit: and
this is an apprehension which we can foster and control.
And on the other hand the devotional life, rightly understood
as a vivid, joyful thing — with that disciplining of the attention and will which is such an important part of it — is the
most direct way to an attainment of that simple and natural
consciousness of our intangible spiritual environment which
all ought to possess, and which the old mystics called by the
beautiful name of the "practice of the Presence of God."
This linking up of the devotional life with the instinct for
beauty and wonder, will check its concentration on the more
sentimental and anthropomorphic aspects of religion; and
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so discourage that religious emotionalism which wise educationalists rightly condemn. Hence these two ways of
approach, merged as they should be into one, can bring the
self into that simple kind of contemplation which is a normal
birthright of every soul, but of which our defective education
deprives so many men and women; who cannot in later life
quicken those faculties which have been left undeveloped in
youth. As logic is a supreme exercise of the mind, so contemplation is a supreme exercise of the spirit: it represents
the full activity of that intuitional faculty which is our
medium of contact with absolute truth. Before the inevitable smile appears on the face of the reader, I say at once
that I am not suggesting that we should teach young children
contemplation; though I am sure that many brought up in a
favouring atmosphere naturally practise it long before they
know the meaning of the word. But I do suggest that we
should bring them up in such a way that their developed spirits
might in the end acquire this art, without any more sense of
break with the normal than that which is felt by the developed
mind when it acquires the art of logic.
'What is contemplation? It is attention to the things of
the spirit: surely no outlandish or alarming practice, foreign
to the general drift of human life. Were we true to our own
beliefs, it should rather be our central and supremely natural
activity; the way in which we turn to the spiritual world, and
pick up the messages it sends to us. That world is always
sending us messages of liberation, of hope, and of peace.
Are we going to deprive our children of this unmeasured
heritage, this extension of life — perhaps the greatest of the
rights of man — or leave their enjoyment of it to some happy
chance? We cannot read the wonderful records of the
spiritually awakened without a sense of the duty that is laid
on us, to develop if we can this spiritual consciousness in the
generation that is to be.
All great spiritual literature is full of invitations to a new-
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ness of life, a great change of direction; which shall at last
give our human faculties a worthy objective and redeem our
consciousness from its present concentration upon unreal
interests. It urges us perpetually, as a practical counsel, as
something which is within human power and has already been
achieved by the heroes of the race, to "put on the new man ";
to "bring to birth the Son of God in the soul." But humanity
as a whole has never responded to that invitation, and therefore its greatest possibilities are still latent. We, the guardians
of the future, by furnishing to each emerging consciousness
committed to our care such an apperceiving mass as shall
enable it to discern the messages of reality, may do something
to bring those possibilities into manifestation.
END