The origin and ideals of the modern school / by Francisco Ferrer ; translated by Joseph McCabe.

  • Ferrer Guardia, Francisco, 1859-1909.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The origin and ideals of the modern school / by Francisco Ferrer ; translated by Joseph McCabe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    126/136 (page 106)
    2°. It gave an impulse to the spread of this kind of education. There was up to that time no education in the true sense of the word. There were, for the privi- leged few in the universities, traditional errors and prejudices, authoritarian dogmas, mixed up with the truths which modern research has brought to light. For the people there was primary instruction, which was, and is, a method of taming children. The school was a sort of riding-school, where natural energies were subdued in order that the poor might suffer their hard lot in silence. Real education, separated from faith—education that illumines the mind with the light of evidence—is the creation of the Modern School. During its ephemeral existence! it did a marvellous amount of good. The child admitted to the school and kept in contact with its companions rapidly changed its habits, as I have observed. It cultivated cleanliness, avoided quarrels, ceased to be cruel to animals, took no notice in its games of the barbarous spectacle which we call the national entertainment [bull-fight], and, as its mind was uplifted and its senti- ments purified, it deplored the social injustices which abound on the very face of life. It detested war, and would not admit that national glory, instead of con- sisting in the highest possible moral development and happiness of a people, should be placed in conquest and violence. * The Modern School was closed after Ferrer’s arrest in 1906. M.