s is so often now the case, a prison cell
in which all a boy's spontaneity and joy of life are crushed out beyond
recall.

Yet the two objections remain, and to one of them we address ourselves
in this chapter.[2] When the possibility of political teaching is
considered, the first thought that leaps to the mind is: Can the
subject be taught without the introduction of propaganda? and is not
Politics just the one subject in which propaganda is above everything
undesirable? Now it may be pointed out that the present system of
public school education is itself a form of political propaganda none
the less effective for being concealed. A boy is sent to a public
school with a set of political notions imbibed from his parents and the
circle in which he moves, and during the whole period of his boyhood,
no genuine effort is made to develop his powers of independent thought
and so to enable him to revise his inherited opinions. A certain
stimulus no doubt is given to his mental activity by setting him
mathematical problems to solve and passages in the classical authors to
construe; but his thought on political and social questions remains a
thing apart, unstirred, atrophied. What else is this but political
propaganda? And when it is reinforced by a thousand subtle hints in
and out of the classroom, hints suggesting that, of course, there can
be no two opinions about so-and-so and his supporters, it becomes one
of the most potent instruments of mental darkness that has ever been
allowed to function in a rational community.

But the objection to propaganda is not to be met by a "Tu quoque." It
is one which raises the most fundamental issues of educational theory.
To develop, we are told, and not to mould, is the aim of education; and
every genuine educationist will eagerly agree. Yet you cannot develop
in a vacuum. You must impart some background for the young mind, give
it some material on which to work. How, then, can the compromise be
effected? How can we inculcate and yet at the same time aim above
every thing at the development of an individuality, which may and
indeed must, be so very different from our own? The answer is not
really hard to find. What we inculcate, the background we give, must
be considered by us as merely a stop-gap, a poor temporary support
which the child may fling away when he can support himself. And even
while we are giving the support, we must at every moment be developing
the power wh