of
knowledge. For the teacher can no more impart knowledge to his pupils
than a nurse can impart flesh and blood to her charges. What the
teacher imparts is information, just as what the nurse imparts is
food; and until information has been converted into knowledge the
child is as far from being educated as the infant, whose food
remains unassimilated, is from being nourished. The teacher may pump
information into the child in a never-ending stream; but so long as
he compels the child to adopt an attitude of passive receptivity, and
forbids him to react, through the medium of self-expression, on the
food that he is receiving, so long will the food remain unassimilated
and even undigested, and the soul and mind of the child remain
uneducated and unfed.

Whether, then, we concern ourselves, as educationalists, with the
growth of the child's whole nature, or with the growth of his master
faculties, or again with the growth of those special "senses"
which evolve themselves in response to the stimulus of special
environments, we see that in each case the effect of the teacher's
policy of distrust and repression is to arrest growth. When the
stern supernaturalist reminds us that the child's nature is
intrinsically evil, and that therefore in arresting its growth
education renders him a priceless service, we answer that, in
arresting the growth of the child's nature as a whole, education
arrests the growth of all the master faculties of his being, and
that there are some at least among these which, even in the judgment
of the supernaturalist, imperatively need to be trained. When the
strait-laced, result-hunting teacher reminds us that his sole
business is to teach certain subjects, and that therefore he cannot
concern himself with growth, we answer that, in neglecting to foster
growth, he makes it impossible for the child to put forth a special
"sense," a special faculty of direct perception, in response to each
new environment, and so (for reasons which have already been given)
incapacitates him for mastering any subject. There is always one
point of view, if no more, from which my primary assumption--that
the function of education is to foster growth--is seen to be a
truism. And from that point of view, if from no other, the failure
of the routine-ridden school to fulfil its destiny is seen to be
final and complete.

Yet to say that elementary education, as it is given in such a
school, tends to arrest growth, is to und