classes, as well as the masses, have an interest in the new education.
And in the people's schools it must now go on as fast as the people will allow. Here the old garments of medievalism will be rent, its austere method exposed, its codes of punishment and torture scattered to the winds.
The new education will have none of these. It is, indeed, more personal; but it is more reverent and more gentle than the old. At every step it cautions us. We hear its voice even in the stiff German circulars. Rudeness will wreck all. The human body is not vile. It is the instrument of instruments. The first condition of success is not that the doctor has many degrees, it is that he should not offend one of these little ones. The behaviour of children—that is not a thing to judge in the first place. It is a thing to understand in the first place. To judge is easy—it has been done for ages—to understand is the new task, begun very late.[1] To
- ↑ That the German school authorities strive to get the parents to study character and temperament with the doctor and teacher is shown very clearly in some of the question-papers sent to them. For example, Dresden doctors send the following list: "Has the child had serious illnesses? Operation? Does he sleep well and quietly? Does he sleep with open mouth? Is he gay? Reserved? Truthful? Is he shy? Curious?" These questions suggest to parents the fact that faults are often symptoms—that behaviour itself is the result of physical conditions.
