ievous half-truth has got
about that these sayings are not to be taken literally. Boys have told
me that a "rich man" means one who has grown rich by robbery. Well, what
is robbery? "La propriete, c'est le vol"? "Love your enemies" means, I
have been told, "Have no enemies: lead a peaceable life; but if..."
There was a case apparently not provided for. "Take no thought for the
morrow." On this I once got the delightfully honest comment, "Christ
must have said this to cheer the disciples when they were depressed.
Taken literally it would be absurd." With such candour on the pupils'
side, surely the teacher's task is not hopeless. Here at last we have
the atmosphere of honest controversy, and without controversy there is no
freedom of thought; without freedom of thought no conviction; without
conviction, no education and no religion.

CHAPTER X

CURRICULUM

It is always difficult to define the limits of a topic. This book is
concerned with one educational subject alone, politics in the very
broad sense we here attach to the term. Our contention is that that
subject is of paramount importance, and that it should provide the
basis and foundation of liberal education. With that idea in view, we
have given some account of our own experience; we have also considered
what seemed the most reasonable and weighty objections; we have also
shown how politics reacted, in our experience, upon morality and
religion. And then it might seem well to make an end. But an
education is, or should be, a single whole, and the entire omission of
certain aspects lends itself to misunderstanding. Our previous book
suggested to one reader, at least, that we regarded subjects other than
those we treated of, as possessing no educational value other than a
purely utilitarian one. That was not at all the impression we wished
to create, and it is with a view to correcting it that we attempt a
brief general survey of the non-political subjects and their place in a
curriculum which took politics as its centre. But we offer these
remarks with much diffidence. If this book and its predecessor have
any value, it is due to the fact that they are based on direct and
vivid teaching experience; and here for the most part the guidance of
experience deserts us.

One very natural criticism of our thesis is that politics, though it
may stimulate interest, cannot provide intellectual discipline. The
criticism is natural because, so long a