Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Anarchy And Education /223
demn, from the fu ll depth of our love fo r freedom, the authority both of the fa ther
and of the schoolmaster; since we find them equally demoralizing and disastrous (for
daily experience shows us that the head of the fa mily and the schoolmaster, in spite
of and even as a result of their acknowledged and proverbial wisdom, are worse
Uudges) of their children's abilities than are the children themselves, because they
fo llow an indisputable, irrevocable, and entirely human law that leads every domineering
person astray, leading every schoolmaster and fa mily head to give much
greater weight to their own tastes than to the natural aptitudes of the child in their
arbitrary determination of their children's fu ture); finally, since the mistakes of despotism
are always more disastrous and less rectifiable than those offreedom: [for all
these reasons) we support fu lly and completely, against every official, semi-official,
paternal, and pedantic tutor in the world, the freedom of children to choose and decide
their own career.
If they err, the error itself will be an effective lesson for the future, and the general
education which they will have received will help them guide themselves back onto the
path indicated to them by their own nature. Like mature persons, children become wise
only through experiences of their own, and never through those of others .
Along with scientific or theoretical instruction, in integral education there must
inevitably be industrial or practical instruction. This is the only way to train the fu ll human
being, the worker who understands what he is doing ...
Alongside scientific and industrial instruction there will have to be practical instruction
as well, or rather, a series of experi ments in morality, not divine morality
but human morality. Divine morality is based on two immoral principles: respect fo r
authority and contempt fo r humanity. Human morality, on the contrary, is founded
on contempt fo r authority and respect fo r the freedom of humanity ...
For individuals to be moralized and become fu lly human, three things are necessary:
a hygienic birth; rational, integral education, accompanied by an upbringing
based on respect for labour, reason, equality, and freedom; and a social environment
wherein each human individual will enjoy full freedom and really be, de jure and de
fa cto, the equal of every other.
Does this environment exist No. Therefore it must be established. If, in the existing
social environment, we cannot even successfully establish schools which
would give their students an education and upbringing as perfect as we might imagine,
could we successfully create just, free, moral persons No, because on leaving
school they would enter a society governed by totally opposite principles, and, because
society is always stronger than individuals, it would soon prevail over them,