there is a continuous
reciprocal action between perception and expression, in virtue of
which each in turn helps forward the evolution of the other. Even in
so abstract and impersonal a subject as mathematics, the reaction of
expression on perception is strong and salutary. The student who
wishes to master a difficult piece of bookwork should try to write
it out in his own words; in the effort to set it out concisely and
lucidly he will gradually perfect his apprehension of it. Were he to
solve a difficult problem, he would probably regard his grasp of the
solution as insecure and incomplete until he had succeeded in making
it intelligible to the mind of another. When perception is deeply
tinged with emotion, as when one sees what is beautiful, or admires
what is noble, the attempt to express it in language, action, or art,
seems to be dictated by some inner necessity of one's nature. The
meaning of this is that the perception itself imperatively demands
expression in order that, in and through the struggle of the artistic
consciousness to do full justice to it, it may gradually realise its
hidden potentialities, discover its inner meaning, and find its true
self.

Once we realise that expression is the other self of perception, it
becomes permissible for us to say that to train the perceptive
faculties--the faculties by means of which Man lays hold upon the
world that surrounds him, and draws it into himself and makes it his
own--is the highest achievement of the teacher's art. Even from the
point of view of my primary truism, this conception of the meaning
and purpose of education holds good. For according to that truism the
business of the teacher is to foster the growth of the child's soul;
and the soul grows by the use of its perceptive faculties, which, by
enabling it to take in and assimilate an ever-widening environment,
cause a gradual enlargement of its consciousness and a proportionate
expansion of its life. But the perceptive faculties in their turn
grow by expressing themselves; and unless they are allowed to express
themselves--unless the child is allowed to express himself (for
expression, if it is genuine, is always self-expression)--their
growth will be arrested, and the mission which _all_ educationalists
assign to education will not have been fulfilled.

The question is, then, Does the system of education which prevails in
all Western countries provide for self-expression on the part of the
child?