r eternal
surroundings--is most often ignored. A peculiar British bashfulness
seems to stand in the way of it. It is felt that we show better taste
in leaving the essentials of the soul's development to chance, even that
such development is not wholly desirable or manly: that the atrophy of
one aspect of "man's made-trinity" is best. I have heard one eminent
ecclesiastic maintain that regular and punctual attendance at morning
service in a mood of non-comprehending loyalty was the best sort of
spiritual experience for the average Englishman. Is not that a statement
which should make the Christian teachers who are responsible for the
average Englishman, feel a little bit uncomfortable about the type which
they have produced? I do not suggest that education should encourage a
feverish religiosity; but that it ought to produce balanced men and
women, whose faculties are fully alert and responsive to all levels of
life. As it is, we train Boy Scouts and Girl Guides in the principles of
honour and chivalry. Our Bible-classes minister to the hungry spirit
much information about the journeys of St. Paul (with maps). But the
pupils are seldom invited or assisted to _taste_, and see that the Lord
is sweet.

Now this indifference means, of course, that we do not as educators, as
controllers of the racial future, really believe in the spiritual
foundations of our personality as thoroughly and practically we believe
in its mental and physical manifestations. Whatever the philosophy or
religion we profess may be, it remains for us in the realm of idea, not
in the realm of fact. In practice, we do not aim at the achievement of
a spiritual type of consciousness as the crown of human culture. The
best that most education does for our children is only what the devil
did for Christ. It takes them up to the top of a high mountain and shows
them all the kingdoms of this world; the kingdom of history, the kingdom
of letters, the kingdom of beauty, the kingdom of science. It is a
splendid vision, but unfortunately fugitive: and since the spirit is not
fugitive, it demands an objective that is permanent. If we do not give
it such an objective, one of two things must happen to it. Either it
will be restless and dissatisfied, and throw the whole life out of key;
or it will become dormant for lack of use, and so the whole life will be
impoverished, its best promise unfulfilled. One line leads to the
neurotic, the other to the average sensual man