the school-mob may be
transformed into a co-operative society animated by one joyous and
unselfish spirit: all the great powers of social suggestion being freely
used for the highest ends. Thus we may introduce the pupil, at his most
plastic age, into a spiritual-social order and let him grow within it,
developing those qualities and skills on which it makes demands. The
religious exercises, whatever they are, should be in common, in order to
develop the mass consciousness of the school and weld it into a real
group. Music, songs, processions, etc., produce a feeling of unity, and
encourage spiritual contagion. Services of an appropriate kind, if there
be a chapel, or the opening of school with prayer and a hymn (which
ought always to be followed by a short silence) provide a natural
expression for corporate religious feeling: and remember that to give a
feeling opportunity of voluntary expression is commonly to educe and
affirm it. As regards active work, whilst school charities are an
obvious field in which unselfish energies may be spent, many other
openings will be found by enthusiastic teachers, and by the pupils whom
their enthusiasm has inspired.

On the other hand, the spare-time occupations of the adolescent; the
independent and self-chosen work, often most arduous and always
absorbing, of making, planning, learning about things--and most of us
can still remember how desperately important these seemed to us, whether
our taste was for making engines, writing poetry, or collecting
moths--these are of the greatest importance for his development. They
give him something really his own, exercise his powers, train his
attention, feed his creative instinct. They counteract those mechanical
and conventional reactions to the world, which are induced by the merely
traditional type of education, either of manners or of mind. And here,
in the prudent encouragement of a personal interest in and dealing with
the actual problems of conduct and even of belief--the most difficult of
the educator's tasks--we guard against the merely acquiescent attitude
of much adult piety, and foster from the beginning a vigorous personal
interest, a first-hand contact with higher realities.

The heroic aspect of history may well form the second line in this
attempt to capture education and use it in the interests of the
spiritual life. By it we can best link up the actual and the ideal, and
demonstrate the single character of human greatness;