The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-dayUnderhill, Evelyn
Religion
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day
Underhill, Evelyn
Spiritual life
I am aware that much which I am going to advocate will sound fantastic;
and that the changes involved may seem at first sight impossible to
accomplish. It is true that if these changes are to be useful, they must
be gradual. The policy of the "clean sweep" is one which both history
and psychology condemn. But it does seem to me a good thing to envisage
clearly, if we can, the ideal towards which our changes should lead. A
garden city is not Utopia. Still, it is an advance upon the Victorian
type of suburb and slum; and we should not have got it if some men had
not believed in Utopia, and tried to make a beginning here and now.
Already in education some few have tried to make such a beginning and
have proved that it is possible if we believe in it enough: for faith
can move even that mountainous thing, the British parental mind.
Our task--and I believe our most real hope for the future--is, as we
have already allowed, to make the idea of God dominant for the plastic
youthful consciousness: and not only this, but to harmonize that
conception, first with our teachings about the physical and mental sides
of life, and next with the child's own social activities, training body,
mind and spirit together that they may take each their part in the
development of a whole man, fully responsive to a universe which is at
bottom a spiritual fact. Such training to be complete must, as we have
seen, begin in the nursery and be given by the atmosphere and
opportunities of the home. It will include the instilling of childish
habits of prayer and the fostering of simple expressions of reverence,
admiration and love. The subconscious knowledge implicit in such
practice must form the foundation, and only where it is present will
doctrine and principle have any real meaning for the child. Prayer must
come before theology, and kindness, tenderness and helpfulness before
ethics.
But we have now to consider the child of school age, coming--too often
without this, the only adequate preparation--into the teacher's hands.
How is he to be dealt with, and the opportunities which he presents used
best?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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