Technical training in the schools would not prove hostile to a real
culture if it were associated with leisure and liberal studies, and if
the training itself were given in a large spirit which leads the mind
out to embrace the whole of which the specialty is a member. And
certainly manual arts are not deficient in this respect. I imagine that
I have derived considerable culture from the practice of amateur
carpentry and wood-carving; and I have no doubt that any one who has
cared for an occupation of this kind will have a similar feeling. There
is a whole department of life, full of delight and venerable
associations, to which handicraft is the key.
Indeed, nothing is more surely culture than any work in the spirit of
art. Since one is doing it for self-expression he puts himself into it;
he must also undergo discipline in the mastery of technic, and he has
the social zest of imparting joy to others and being appreciated by
them. It is real and vital as mere learning under instruction rarely is.
And one who has practised an art, though with small success, will have a
sense of what art is that the mere looker-on can never have.
It is quite true, in my opinion, that household training could be given
to girls in such a way that they would get more culture out of it than
nine-tenths of them now do from the perfunctory study of history,
languages, and music. It would only require teachers who could impart a
spirit of craftsmanship and a sense of human significance. An almost
universal trouble with both boys and girls in the present state of
society is that they are not given, in connection with their work,
enough of the general plan and movement of life to get interested in
that and in their part in it. The general movement is too much for them;
they do not see any plan in it, and merely catch on to it where they
can, work with it when they have to, and put their real interest into
crude amusement. We do not make it natural for the individual to
identify himself and his task with the whole. To do that would be
culture.
Possibly the view that culture is not opposed to technical studies may,
under the present ascendancy of the latter, tend practically to confirm
the subordination of culture; but I aim to state underlying principles,
and it seems to me that the right relation between the two is not much
forwarded by partisanship for either, but rather by showing that they
are complementary and suggesting a line of co-operation. The actual
hostility of technical and professional schools to culture arises from
their usually exacting and narrow character, which crowds everything
liberal out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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