ABSTRACT
There are two basic approaches to education and the task of the educator. According to the fi rst, ‘to educate’ means to draw out of the child that
which is in him; not to bring the child anything from the outside, but merely to overcome the disturbing infl uences, to set aside obstacles which hinder his free development – to allow the child to ‘become himself ’. According to the second approach, education means shaping the child into a form that the educator must fi rst visualise, so that it may serve as a directive for his work. He does not rely on the child’s natural endowment but sets up an opposing pattern that determines how such endowment is to be handled. The fi rst approach may be compared to that of the gardener who fertilises and waters the soil, prunes and props the young plants, and removes the rank weeds from around them. But after he has done all this, if the weather is propitious, he trusts to the natural growth of that which is inherent in the seed. The second approach is that of the sculptor. Like Michelangelo, he sometimes sees the shape hidden in the crude marble, but it is the image that exists in his soul which guides him in working the block, and which he wishes to realise in the material at his disposal. In the fi rst case, education indicates the care given to a soul in the making, in order that the natural process of growth may reach its culmination; in the second, it means infl uencing a soul to develop in accordance with what the educator who exerts the infl uence considers to be right. Whoever employs the gardener’s method is apt to believe that, fundamentally, man is good, but also that the individual is predetermined by his or her innate endowment. The educator with the sculptor’s outlook tends to regard man as a creature, with diverse potentialities, but plastic and educable, and, therefore, not rigidly bound inside a pale of possibilities. The fi rst kind of education is more humble, but also more passive; the second shows greater initiative, but carries with it graver responsibilities. The dangers of the fi rst are laissez aller and excessive indulgence, those of the second, restraint and compulsion. The gardener educator has not enough confi dence; the sculptor has too much.
