sence of his
being, as the divine germ in virtue of which his nature is no mere
aggregate of parts or faculties, but a living whole. So deeply rooted
in the Western mind is disbelief in the reality of the soul that it
is difficult to use the word, when speaking to a Western audience,
without exposing oneself to the charge of insincerity,--not to speak
of the graver charge of "bad form." A savour either of _cant_ or
_gush_ hangs about the word, and is not easily detached from it. That
being so, it must be clearly understood that I mean by the soul the
nature of Man considered in its unity and totality,--no more than
this, and no less.

In the opening paragraph of this book I said that some of my readers
would regard my fundamental assumption as a truism, others as a
challenge, and others again as a wicked heresy. Whether it shall be
regarded as a truism, a challenge, or a heresy, will depend on the
way in which it is worded. To say that the function of education is
to foster the growth of human nature, is to invite condemnation from
those who regard human nature as ruined and corrupt. To say that the
function of education is to foster the growth of the soul, is to
issue a challenge to Western civilisation, which is based on the
belief that the end of Man's being is not the growth of his soul, but
the growth of his balance at the bank of material prosperity. To say
that the function of education is to foster the growth of certain
faculties, is to insist on what no one who had given his mind to
the matter would care to deny. For even the orthodox, who regard
Man's nature in its totality as intrinsically evil, admit without
hesitation that there are faculties in Man which can be and ought
to be trained; while the "man of the world," whom we may regard as
the most typical product of Western civilisation, is clamorous in
his demand that education shall foster the growth of certain mental
faculties which will enable the child to become an efficient clerk or
workman, and so contribute to the enrichment of his employer and the
community to which he belongs.

The Western educationalist will admit, then, that the function of
education is to foster growth; and if you ask him what it is that
grows or ought to grow under education's fostering care, he will give
you a long list of faculties--mental, for the most part, but also
moral and physical--and then break off under the impression that he
has set education an adequate and a pr