The Origin and Ideals of the Modern SchoolFerrer Guardia, Francisco
History
The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School
Ferrer Guardia, Francisco
Education -- Spain; Escuela moderna (Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain)
The new repute of the educational work of the Modern School attracted
the attention of all who appreciated the value of sound instruction.
There was a general demand for knowledge of the system. There were
numbers of private secular schools, or similar institutions supported
by societies, and their directors made inquiry concerning the
difference of our methods from theirs. There were constant requests to
visit the school and consult me. I gladly satisfied them, removed their
doubts, and pressed them to enter on the new way; and at once efforts
were made to reform the existing schools, and to create others on the
model of the Modern School.
There was great enthusiasm and the promise of mighty things; but one
serious difficulty stood in the way: we were short of teachers, and had
no means of creating them. Professional teachers had two
disadvantages—traditional habits and dread of the contingencies of the
future. There were very few who, in an unselfish love of the ideal,
would devote themselves to the progressive cause. Instructed young men
and women might be found to fill the gap; but how were we to train them
? Where could they pass their apprenticeship? Now and again I heard
from workers’ or political societies that they had decided to open a
school; they would find rooms and appliances, and we could count upon
their using our school manuals. But whenever I asked if they had
teachers, they replied in the negative, and thought it would be easy to
supply the want. I had to give in.
Circumstances had made me the director of rationalist education, and I
had constant consultations and demands on the part of aspirants for the
position of teacher. This made me realise the defect, and I endeavoured
to meet it by private advice and by admitting young assistants in the
Modern School. The result was naturally mixed. There are now worthy
teachers who will carry on the work of rational education elsewhere;
others failed from moral or intellectual incapacity.
Not feeling that the pupils of the Modern School who devoted themselves
to teaching would find time for their work, I established a Normal
School, of which I have already spoken. I was convinced that, if the
key of the social problem is in the scientific and rational school, it
is essential, to make a proper use of the key, that fitting teachers be
trained for so great a destiny.
As the practical and positive result of my work, I may say that the
Modern School of Barcelona was a most successful experiment, and that
it was distinguished for two characters:—
1º. While open to successive improvements, it set up a standard of
what education should be in a reformed state of society.
2º. It gave an impulse to the spread of this kind of education.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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