ers, authority is being asked for its credentials; and as this
demand, besides being a disintegrating influence, is a sign that the
force on which authority relies is weakening, it is not to be
wondered at that there is a steady drift in many Western countries in
the direction of anarchy,--religious, political, social, artistic,
literary,--or that this _regime_ of incipient anarchy is taking the
form of an ignoble scramble for wealth, for power, for position, for
fame, for notoriety, for anything in fine which may serve to exalt a
man above his fellows, and so minister to the aggrandizement of his
lower self.

In this drift towards anarchy the school is playing its part. I do
not wish to suggest that the boys and girls of this or any other
Western country are beginning to ask their teachers for their
credentials, or are likely to rise in rebellion against them. The
preparation for anarchy that is going on in the school is not only
quite compatible with what is known as "strict discipline," but is
also, in part at least, the effect of it. What is happening is that
in an acutely critical age the _regime_ of mechanical obedience to
external authority which has been in force in the West for nearly
2000 years, and which is now taking its victims straight towards
anarchy, is being carefully rehearsed in our schools of all types and
grades. During the years when human nature is most pliable (owing to
its richness in sap), most easily trained, and most amenable to
influence, good or evil, the child's spontaneous effort to outgrow
himself and so escape from his lower self,--an end which is not to be
reached except by the path of free self-expression,--is persistently
thwarted till at last it dies away; blind and literal obedience to
external authority, for which the consent of his higher faculties
is not asked, and in the giving of which they are not allowed to
take part, is persistently exacted from him till at last his
higher faculties cease to energise, and his lower nature begins to
monopolise the rising sap of his life; in order to enforce the blind
obedience that is asked for, an appeal is made, by an elaborate
system of external rewards and external punishments, to his selfish
desires and ignoble fears; while the examination system, with
its inevitable accompaniments of prizes and class-lists, makes a
special appeal to his competitive instincts,--instincts which are
anti-social, and may even, in extreme cases, become ant