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

224 / ANARCHISM
that is, demoralize them. What is more, the very foundation of such schools is impossible
in the present social environment. For social life embraces everything, pervading
the schools as well as the life offamilies and individuals who are a part of it.
Instructors, professors, and parents are all members of this society, all more or
less stultified or demoralized by it. How would they give students what they themselves
lack One can preach morality successfully only by example; and since a socialist
morality is entirely the opposite of current morality, the schoolmasters, who are
inevitably more or less dominated by the latter morality, will act in front of their pupils
in a manner wholly contrary to what they preach. As a result, a socialist upbringing
is impossible not only in modern fa milies but in the schools as well.
But integral education is equally impossible under present conditions: the
members of the bourgeoisie will hear nothing of their children becoming workers,
and workers are deprived of every resource fo r giving their children a scientific education
...
Yes, certainly, the workers do everything possible to obtain all the education
they can in the material circumstances in which they currently find themselves. But
without being led astray by the Sirens' song of the bourgeois socialists and the members
of the bourgeoisie, they will above all concentrate their efforts on the great
question of their economic emancipation, which is the mother of all their other
emancipations.
65. Fral1cisco Ferrer: The Modern School (1908)
Francisco Ferrer y Guardia (1859- 1 909) was a libertarian educator executed by the Spanish
government in 1909 fo r allegedly fo menting an insurrection in Barcelona known as the
"Tragic Week. " In reality, his crime was to advocate secular, humanist and rationalist education
in a country whose educational system was dominated by a reactionary Catholic Church.
In 1901, Ferrer fo unded the Escuela Moderna, or Modern School, in Barcelona, modeled after
libertarian schools in France, such as Paul Robin's (1837-1912)free school in Cempuis, that
provided male and fe male students with the "integral education " of which Bakunin spoke.
Ferrer was also active in the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement, publishing ajournal, La
Huelga General (fhe General Strike) in 1901-1903, until it was suppressed by the authorities.
The Spanish government shut down Ferrer's Modern School in 1906, but he continued to
promote the principles of libertarian education, publishing L'Ecole Renovee in 1908, the
journal of the International League fo r the Rational Education of Children, to which several
prominent libertarians belonged, including Sebastien Fa ure, who fwd fo unded another free
school in France, La Ruche, in 1904 (Selection 66). The fo llowing article sets fo rth Ferrer's ed-