Francisco Ferrer Archive
Written: 1913.
Source: RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
The Modern School needed and found its organ in the Press. The political and ordinary press, which at one time favored us and at another time denounced us as dangerous, cannot maintain an impartial attitude. It either gives exaggerated or unmerited praise, or calumnious censures. The only remedy for this was the sincerity and clearness of our own indications. To allow these libels to pass without correction would have done us considerable harm, and the Bulletin enabled us to meet them.
The directors published in it the program of the school, interesting notes about it, statistical details, original pædagogical articles by the teachers, accounts of the progress of rational education in our own and other countries, translations of important articles from foreign reviews and periodicals which were in harmony with the main character of our work, reports of the Sunday lectures, and announcements of the public competitions for the engagement of teachers and of our library.
One of the most successful sections of the Bulletin was that devoted to the publication of the ideas of the pupils. Besides showing their individual ideas it revealed the spontaneous manifestation of common sense. Girls and boys, with no appreciable difference in intellect according to sex, in contact with the realities of life as indicated by the teachers, expressed themselves in simple essays which, though sometimes immature in judgment, more often showed the clear logic with which they conceived philosophical, political, or social questions of some importance. The journal was at first distributed without charge among the pupils, and was exchanged with other periodicals; but there was soon a demand for it, and a public subscription had to be opened. When this was done, the Bulletin became a philosophical review, as well as organ of the Modem School; and it retained this character until the persecution began and the school was closed. An instance of the important mission of the Bulletin will be found in the following article, which I wrote in No. 5 of the fourth year, in order to correct certain secular teachers who had gone astray:---
A certain Workers' School has introduced the novelty of establishing a savings-bank, administered by the pupils. This piece of information, reproduced in terms of great praise by the press as a thing to be imitated, induces us to express our opinion on the subject. While others have their own right to decide and act, we have the same right to criticize, and thus to create a rational public opinion.
In the first place we would observe that the word economy is very different from, if not the opposite of, the idea of saving. One may teach children the knowledge and practice of economy without necessarily teaching them to save. Economy means a prudent and methodical use of one's goods; saving means a restriction of one's use of one's goods. By economizing we avoid waste; by saving, the man who has nothing superfluous deprives himself of what is necessary.
Have the children who are taught to save any superfluous property? The very name of the society in question assures us that they have not. The workers who send their children to this school live on their wages, the minimum sum, determined by the laws of supply and demand, which is paid for their work by the employers; and as this wage gives them nothing superfluous, and the social wealth is monopolized by the privileged classes, the workers are far from obtaining enough to live a life in harmony with the progress of civilization Hence, when these children of workers, and future workers themselves, are taught to save--which is a voluntary privation under the appearance of interest--they are taught to prepare themselves to submit to privilege. While the intention is to initiate them to the practice of economy, what is really done is to convert them into victims and accomplices of the present unjust order.
The working-class child is a human child, and, as such, it has a right to the development of all its faculties, the satisfaction of all its needs, moral and physical. For that purpose society was instituted. It is not its function to repress or subject the individual, as is selfishly pretended by the privileged and reactionary class, and all who enjoy what others produce; it has to hold the balance justly between the rights and duties of all members of the commonwealth.
As it is, the individual is asked to sacrifice his rights, needs, and pleasures to society; and, as this disorder demands patience, suffering, and sophistical reasoning, let us commend economy and blame saving. We do not think it right to teach children to look forward to being workers in a social order in which the average mortality of the poor, who live without freedom, instruction, or joy, reaches an appalling figure in comparison with that of the class which lives in triumph on their labor. Those who, from sociolatry, would derogate in the least from the rights of man, should read the fine and vigorous words of Pi y Margall: "Who art thou to prevent my use of my human rights? Perfidious and tyrannical society, thou wert created to defend, not to coerce us. Go back to the abyss whence thou came."
Starting from these principles, and applying them to pædagogy we think it necessary to teach children that to waste any class of objects is contrary to the general welfare; that if a child spoils paper, loses pens, or destroys books, it does an injustice to its parents and the school. Assuredly one may impress on the child the need of prudence in order to avoid getting imperfect things, and remind it of lack of employment, illness, or age; but it is not right to insist that a provision be made out of a salary which does not suffice to meet the needs of life. That is bad arithmetic.
The workers have no university training; they do not go to the theater or to concerts; they never go into ecstasies before the marvels of art, industry, or nature; they have no holiday in which to fill their lungs with life-giving oxygen; they are never uplifted by reading books or reviews. On the contrary, they suffer all kinds of privations, and may have to endure crises due to excessive production. It is not the place of teachers to hide these sad truths from the children, and to tell them that a smaller quantity is equal to, if not better than, a larger. In order that the power of science and industry be shared by all, and all be invited to partake of the banquet of life, we must not teach in the school, in the interest of privilege, that the poor should organize the advantages of crumbs and leavings. We must not prostitute education.
On another occasion I had to censure a different departure from our principles:--
We were distressed and indignant on reading the list of contributions voted by the Council of BarceIona for certain popular societies which are interested in education. We read of sums offered to Republican Fraternities and similar societies; and we find that, instead of rejecting them, they forwarded votes of thanks to the Council.
The meaning of these things in a Catholic and ultra-conservative nation is clear. The Church and the capitalist system only maintain their ascendancy by a judicious system of charity and protection. With this they gratify the disinherited class, and continue to enjoy its respect. But we cannot see republicans acting as if they were humble Christians without raising a cry of alarm.
Beware, we repeat, beware! You are educating your children badly, and taking the wrong path towards reform, in accepting alms. You will neither emancipate yourselves nor your children if you trust in the strength of others, and rely on official or private support. Let the Catholics, ignorant of the realities of life, expect everything of God, or St. Joseph, or some similar being, and, as they have no security that their prayers will be heard in this life, trust to receive a reward after death. Let gamblers in the lottery fail to see that they are morally and materially victimized by their rulers, and trust to receive by chance what they do not earn by energy. But it is sad to see men hold out the hand of a beggar who are united in a revolutionary protest against the present system; to see them admitting and giving thanks for humiliating gifts, instead of trusting their own energy, intellect, and ability.
Beware, then, all men of good faith! That is not the way to set up a true education of children, but the way to enthralled them.