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MANAS Reprint - LEAD ARTICLE

VOLUME X, NO. 15APRIL 10, 1957

THE MEANING OF PERSONAL FREEDOM[This article by Victor Gollancz, the British

publisher, first appeared in more extended form in apamphlet, The Meaning of Freedom, published inEngland (1956) by Pall Mall Features Ltd., 1O3, PallMall, London, S.W.I, at 75 cents.]

WHAT is personal freedom? The reallyimportant thing to start with is this: personalfreedom is essentially an inner thing; somethinginside a man; the presence of something in a man'spersonality, not the absence of constraint fromwithout. This inwardness is the essence ofpersonal freedom, and we get nowhere until werecognise the fact. Consider, for instance, thequestion of imprisonment. It is, of course,exceedingly difficult for a prisoner to be free, butit is possible. Rare people are to be found, inmany civilisations and at many periods of history,who have had perfect freedom in prison. Thesupreme example is Socrates, who was utterly freeup to the very moment of drinking the hemlock,and doubtless beyond. His freedom was never fora second in doubt. Contrast him with another sortof prisoner, a murderer who struggles on his wayto execution. You have two kinds of prisonerthere, both about to be killed: the one possessedof utter freedom, the other utterly lacking it.

I do not imply that it is other than extremelydifficult for a prisoner to be free. When the poetput it to his lady that stone walls do not a prisonmake he was speaking only a fragment of thetruth, because it is precisely a prison that stonewalls do make; but this fragment was the essentialone. It is even possible for a man of exceedinglyrare type to be free in conditions far worse thanimprisonment: to be free under torture. I havehad one or two very remarkable testimonies frompeople who have been tortured in concentrationcamps, and who—I am convinced of it from theway they have told their stories—havenevertheless, even in circumstances like that,remained perfectly free. The thing is possible only

with a degree of spiritual development excessivelyrare, but it is possible. To mention not thingsrare, but a thing unique, Christ, except perhaps forone moment of dereliction, was perfectly free onthe Cross. On the other hand: while it is possible,though very rare, for a man to be free whenconstrained or tortured from without, it is whollyimpossible for a man to be free when constrainedor tortured, by fear or guilt for example, fromwithin. We see, from the comparison, thatfreedom is essentially an inner thing, a thing of thespirit.

I intend to deal presently with the question ofconstraints from without and with their effect onthe inner: but first we must consider, in slightlygreater detail, inner freedom itself. The realmeaning of personal freedom can best beunderstood by examining its opposite: personalslavery, inner slavery. I understand by innerslavery preoccupation with the self in all its forms.The man who is totally preoccupied with his self isin a perpetual prison, and wholly without personalfreedom. We all know this from our ownexperience: we are all, to a certain extent,enslaved, because no one of us is completely freefrom those selfish motives, from that selfishpreoccupation which imprisons us in ourselves.But there are very different degrees ofenslavement, not only among our fellows aroundus, but also in ourselves at different times of ourlives. And there are different kinds, as well asdegrees, of preoccupation with self. There aretwo main kinds, though they fade into oneanother. Preoccupation with self may take whatone might call the ordinary, normal form, or itmay take the morbid, the neurotic, the psychoticform. By the ordinary, normal form I meancommon-or-garden selfishness and greed, absenceof public spirit, the habit of thinking in terms ofone's own comfort and one's own future security.

Volume X, No. 15 MANAS Reprint April 10, 1957

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That is something to which everyone is prone, inhowever varying degrees.

What I think is important to observe at thispoint is the enormous growth of that kind ofselfishness during the last few decades. Despitemany advances in social organisation, despite theremoval of many plague-spots from our nationallife, people, on the average, are nowadays farmore selfish, far more preoccupied with their owninterests, far less interested in other people'sconcerns, than they ever were when I was a boy.When one pauses to look back for a moment overthe history of the last thirty years, and when oneobserves what a widespread callousness, in face ofeverything that has been happening to our fellowhuman beings, has characterised it, one is appalledby the contrast. I think it was Leonard Woolfwho wrote a brilliant article the other day,comparing the horrified protests that arose allover the world when, round about 1870, someunknown individual was kicked by a Prussianofficer, or when a single Jew, Dreyfus, was thevictim of injustice—comparing this with ourrelative indifference at a time when millions ofhuman beings have been dying of starvation. Ihave such a comparison much in mind at themoment, because it happens that I am working onthe question of Arab refugees. There are nearlythree-quarters of a million of them as a result ofthe war in the Middle East. They are in appallingshape, without drugs or doctors; the death-roll oflittle children between the ages of two and five ispitiful; and yet every effort that has so far beenmade to arouse public attention and to collectmoney for the relief of their distress hasdisastrously failed. One of the biggest of theorganisations appealing has collected no morethan two or three thousand pounds from theBritish public. The contrast between then andnow could not be more startling. That does seemto me to show that there has been a tremendousgrowth of selfishness and greed and callousness.

So much for the ordinary selfishness, thecommon-or-garden greed, that enslaves us all. By

the other form of enslavement, morbidenslavement, I mean, of course, a neurotic orpsychotic condition; the state of being hag-ridden:of being, in particular, the prey to guilt and fear intheir various forms. This form of enslavement toohas immensely increased—as the result, to a highdegree, of insecurity, of developments in theinternational field, and so on—during the last twoor three decades; and that is a serious augury forthe future sanity of our race. It is doubtlessunnecessary for me to emphasise the point thatguilt and fear are forms, essentially, ofpreoccupation with the self, and therefore ofenslavement. A man feels guilty not so muchbecause something has been done, as because hehas done it; a man feels fear, diffused,undifferentiated fear (and this is the neurotic typeof fear), not because something may happen, butbecause something may happen to him. Thereference is always personal. His spirit is like aningrowing nail: it turns back on itself: and that ispersonal enslavement.

If that is personal enslavement, the opposite ispersonal freedom. In inner freedom the spirit,instead of turning inwards, turns outwards. Whena man is free, his spirit gives itself spontaneouslyto its allotted place in the whole; and he who loseshis life will find it, just as he who seeks to save hislife will lose it. Christ summed up in thataphorism the whole of human and divine wisdomabout personal freedom and personal enslavement.Personal enslavement, preoccupation with self,reaches its climax in hatred, which is spiritualaggression in its extreme form, a sort of murder inthe soul; and the supreme expression of innerfreedom is as obviously love—the natural andspontaneous embodying of one's self in thetotality.

It might perhaps be deduced from what Ihave just been saying that I think it proper anddesirable to destroy or mutilate one's selfhood; forto speak of saving one's life to lose it and of losingone's life to save it is often taken as somehowimplying a sort of contempt for one's selfhood and


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a desire to see it curbed. The opposite is the case.In endeavoring to define personal freedom andpersonal enslavement I have been saying, not thata man must destroy or mutilate his selfhood, butthat, on the contrary, he must preserve and perfectit. This cannot be emphasised too strongly, forhere is the heart of the matter. The self is thatpart or rather aspect of total reality with which wedo our work in that reality: we have nothing elseto do it with: or, more accurately, it is onlythrough the selves of each one of us that Realitycan unfold and express Its Self. Our duty,therefore, is to let "our" self grow, to preserve itfrom constraint or outrage, and to submit it onlyto the purposes of the greater, Total Self—whichis not indeed submission at all, but perfect innerfreedom.

Or, to put it in the mystical language of theCabbala: God, when he created the universe, splithimself up into innumerable fragments and placedone of these fragments in every living thing (and,for that matter, in every stick and stone). Soevery human being is the guardian of thatfragment within him, and to preserve it inviolate,or rather to redeem it from our own corruption toits original integrity, is the essence of our duty toGod. A man who submits to outrage against hisspirit—a man who allows others, for instance, todictate what he is to think or feel—is not only aslave, he murders life. And a man who loves theenemy who attempts to outrage him is not onlyfree, he increases life.

If freedom is essentially something inner,something spiritual, and moreover somethinginfinitely precious, then the terrible responsibilityis put upon us of doing away with whatever maycorrupt it. As we know very well from lookingoutwards at the world around us, and, what is farmore important, from looking inwards at our ownhearts, inner freedom is habitually corrupted, to ahorrifying and increasing degree. It starts in thecradle, this corruption of freedom (possibly earlierthan the cradle: we do not know) and continuesthroughout life. The earliest years are the most

important in this respect, because they dictate thedirection in which a life will grow. I often thinkthat people concerned, professionally, orotherwise, with education do not give sufficientweight to the essential continuity of the life-process. Looking back over one's own life, oneobserves the tragic inevitability with which, quiteimperceptibly, one second has led to the nextsecond, and how when, at some particularmoment, this or that disastrous impulse has beenoccasioned, the most drastic remedies have beenrequired, if indeed any remedy has been possible,for the reversal or even modification of thatimpulse.

Corruption of inner freedom derives from twomain sources. (I am taking the individual as he is,with all his potentialities, and am not stopping toconsider—for that would take us too far afield,though of course it is highly relevant—whethermen are born sinful or virtuous.) The two sourcesare individual contacts on the one hand andgeneral environment on the other. Consider, first,individual contacts. It seems to me, it has alwaysseemed to me, a quite indisputable law that likeelicits like. I have seen it at work, time and again,in my family life, both as a husband and as afather; and I have seen it at work in the reactionsof friends, and of people I have not even known,but have come into contact with in one way oranother. Like elicits like, and if you assault aperson with hatred, or jealousy, or envy, ordislike, or contempt, that assault is not only itselfan expression of inner slavery, but invariably protanto enslaves the person so assaulted. There isno exception whatever to this law: it is the basicspiritual law of the universe: and its importancefor parents and educators, and for all who haveanything to do with young people, should requireno emphasis. We dare not, in the smallest degreeor on a single occasion, elicit hatred, or contempt,or envy, or whatever cognate evil it may be, fromthe young people who, in very truth, are in ourcharge.


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The reverse is as indisputable. Just as, if youassault a man with hatred, you elicit hatred and soenslave him, no less, if you meet a man with love,you elicit love and so free him. These weapons,of hatred on the one hand and love on the other,are terribly potent. Assault by hatred can enslavea man who has been the most free, and loving canfree a man who has been most enslaved.

I have had a great deal of experience of allthis in my relations with Germans since the end ofthe war. What I am going to say contains no iotaof exaggeration, and is wholly devoid of, in thepejorative sense, "idealism" or "sentimentality." Ihave had to deal, occasionally by personal contact,but more frequently by correspondence, withpeople who were, you would have thought,completely inured to Nazism in its most virulentform; and, time after time, I have observedthem—I can only say—freed. Because they havemet gentleness, gentleness has gone out fromthem. There has been no doubt about it. I do notmean, of course, that there never can be doubt insuch cases—that deception is always impossible:what I mean is that there is a tone, a ring ofsincerity, in certain reactions which, for anyone ofspiritual perception, admits of no scepticism. Thehardness, the hatred, the violence to which thesepeople had been inured has been broken up. Willit last?, you may enquire. That depends entirelyon our present and future attitude, individuallyand nationally, spiritually and politically, to theGerman people.

So much for the first main source from whichfreedom or enslavement derives—that ofindividual contacts. I come now to the secondmain source—that of the general environment.Everyone realises the immense importance ofenvironment for determining the inner life of allwho live in that environment. I do not know howmany of you may have read Margaret Mead orRuth Benedict or our old friend Professor Boas,and so may be familiar with those extraordinarycivilisations in which a brute, the most ferociousof brutes, is what we call a gentleman: in which,

that is to say, people consider it gentlemanly to bea brute and caddish to be gentlemanly. But even ifwe are ignorant of anthropology we all do know,from our personal experience, how crucial is thepower of environment for determining ourspiritual lives. Therefore it does seem to be offundamental importance, as touching innerfreedom, that the social order should becharacterised, as far as possible, by the going outof individuals to others rather than by theirconcentration on themselves. Other things beingequal, a co-operative society is far more likely toproduce inner freedom than a competitive one, or,to use other terms, a society characterised bypublic service is far more likely to produce innerfreedom than one characterised by the profitmotive. This has always seemed to me so obviousas hardly to be worth arguing about. (Notecarefully, however, "other things being equal".)What else does the profit motive mean—I am inbusiness, after all, and I know—than that thedesire to get the most for themselves is the rulingmotive of people's lives? And how can such adaily environment produce the maximum of innerfreedom, which depends, by definition, on amerging of one's self in the whole?

II

I have been dealing, so far, with innerfreedom, and not at all with what is commonlymeant by freedom, for what is commonly meantby freedom is simply the absence of constraintfrom without. I want to deal with that now. Isaid, you may remember, that a man in prison, oreven under torture, could be absolutely free—butonly a man of rare spiritual development. And Iwould put this to you: that the real charge againstany outward constraint on freedom is preciselythat, in the overwhelming majority of cases, itenslaves inwardly (and enslaves, incidentally, theconstrainer as well as the constrained). Anyassault on a man's liberty which the man reallyfeels as an assault on his liberty—the "which" isimportant, because in political propaganda wesometimes talk about people feeling outraged by


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assaults on their liberty when they don't in fact feeloutraged at all—produces (again, in the vastmajority of cases) resentment or hatred, which isto say inner enslavement; and, over and abovethis, it focuses his whole being on the struggle tofree himself, and that too is enslavement. This isthe supreme charge against the Hitleriteconcentration camps, the Stalinist concentrationcamps, and similar iniquities. The real chargeagainst them is not that they enslave men's bodies(though God knows that is evil enough), but thatthey enslave men's souls by corrupting their innerfreedom.

I have unfortunately had to read an enormousamount of literature about the Hitleriteconcentration camps, and have published manybooks on the subject—the first, The Brown Bookof the Hitler Terror, came out as early as 1933.The most dreadful thing in that literature is not thephysical torture, shudderingly awful though thatis, nor even the fact that human beings, couldcommit such unspeakable abominations: the mostdreadful thing in that literature is the way inwhich—with the aforesaid rare, with Socratic,exceptions—the victims have been inwardlycorrupted. Many of the inmates of Sachsenrausenand the other Hells became more like wild beaststhan the human beings we know. That is thesupreme charge against the tormentors.

Let us return to more pleasant generalitiesabout restraints from without. I would say that,other things being equal (again I emphasise this),that society is best in which there is the minimumof outward restraints—the minimum of restraintson a man's freedom to do what he likes. (An oddstatement, you will think, from a socialist: but thatis because you fail to understand what socialismessentially means—and so do the majority ofsocialists.) I said previously that the best society isa co-operative rather than a competitive one: I saynow that the best society is the one with theminimum of restraints from without: and bothstatements are true. The ideal society is thesociety in which everybody freely co-operates; the

ideal society, in other words, is the one ruled, orrather unruled, by a kind of Christian anarchy—the handful at Christ's Supper become the wholenation. Yes, that is the ideal: but the history ofthe world has been such, and men have sodeveloped, that for millennia, and perhaps, on thetemporal plane, for ever, Christian anarchy isimpracticable. We have to consider, therefore,what is practicable in the world as we know it, butnever forgetting the ideal. Moreover, there arecertain developments that the sheer force ofhistory, a movement of events that is almost non-human, appears to make inevitable. I by no meansimply that people who abominate thesedevelopments should give up the struggle againstthem; they certainly should not. Others, however,may consider it wiser to accept them, and to makethem as useful for goodness as possible.

I have said all this because I am convincedthat, as things have developed, a large measure ofcentralised planning in our economic life is quiteunavoidable; and that, whether one likes it or not,simply to oppose it head-on is to invite disaster.If you agree, then, first, that the ideal society—Christian anarchy—is at present out of thequestion, and, second, that the tendency tocentralised planning is irreversible; then certainrestraints, from without, on a man's freedom thereclearly must be. But I rush on to add that wemust confine ourselves, we must be passionateabout confining ourselves, to two kinds ofrestraint: to those restraints that interfere not atall, or as little as possible, with inner freedom, andto those restraints, if any (and I think there aresome), which actually increase inner freedom. Itfollows immediately that we can have nothingwhatever to do with constraints on freedom ofexpression in any shape or form. Here is the innercitadel, the holy of holies; and, whatever the cost,we must keep it inviolate.

Only a little less objectionable than restrainton freedom of expression is restraint on freedomof movement. Coleum non mentem mutant quibans mare currunt—that is true: if a man is


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mentally enslaved in London he will not remedyhis condition by running to Paris, or even toAssisi. Nevertheless many, though not all, can bespiritually maimed by being shut off from theworld. This is why the present restrictions onforeign travel are so outrageous. The economicarguments cut no ice with me at all: it is aquestion of priorities, and if we can considerpriorities in times of war then we can considerthem in times of peace. To prevent people fromgetting about in this heavenly world, fromenjoying its sights and sounds and smells, andfrom mixing with Parisians and Venetians andSouth Africans (I mean Negro South Africans)and Chinese, is to put a padlock on God's opendoor.

As to industrial conscription or direction oflabour—the transition is obvious—we must rejectthem, of course, out of hand. A Socrates or a St.Francis would be as free under industrialconscription as in prison: but the average man, asyet without this inner peace, would feel himselfanother man's instrument—would feel outraged,would feel enslaved, and so, in his reaction to thatfeeling, would be enslaved: for it is what a manfeels that is crucial. If he were complacent aboutit—out of indifference and not out of saintliness—then indeed would our glory have departed. Andif I am told that, without industrial conscription,any considerable measure of centralised planningis exceedingly difficult, then I answer, first, thatthis is nonsense, and secondly and alternatively,that the difficulty, however great, must besolved—the world, which is still an infant, hassolved far greater difficulties in its time.

I want now to deal very briefly with restraintswhich, in the present state of average humannature, may actually enhance inner freedom. Wehave seen that a man who loves and co-operates isfree, and that a man who does the opposite isenslaved. It follows, surely, that any restraintwhich increases love and the sense of co-operationmust also increase inner freedom. That doubtlesssounds paradoxical because, to be perfect, love

and co-operation must be spontaneous. But in animperfect sort of way, and given, to repeat thephrase, the present state of average human nature,a sense of co-operation can be induced, if the willis there to do it, by suitable means. What is vitalis this: that every restraint should be genuinely feltand gladly accepted as for the public good.

VICTOR GOLLANCZ

London, England


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REVIEWA STATE TO BE PROUD OF

WHILE Dorothy Canfield Fisher has made nomouse traps, she has brought the world to herdoor. This, curiously enough, is the impressionwe get from reading her Vermont Tradition(Little, Brown, 1953), a book supposed to beabout her native state, and of course is, but whichis more truly about the world we all live in.

We acquired the book (a library copy) from afriend, on the ground that it had something in itabout students working while at school. Wenever found that passage, but soon forgot thequest in turning the pages of a volume which isprofoundly instinct with the spirit of all that isgood about American life. Vermont Traditionshould be studied by the staff of The Voice ofAmerica, and then carefully set aside as materialwhich ought to be known all over the world, butwhich no one—not even The Voice of America—should try to sell to the world. There issomething deeply embarrassing about an effort totell the world how good or how "democratic" youare. Goodness loses its savor when advertised,and this is as true for foreign relations as it is forhuman relations.

Mrs. Fisher has a fine text to illustrate thispoint. In her account of the life of Justin Morill(1810-99), a Vermont shop-keeper who, uponretiring at thirty-eight, found that his neighborswanted to send him to the United States Senate—where, after years of campaigning, he becameresponsible for the bill that made land-grantcolleges possible—she says:

Religious institutions have not markedly shapedthe Vermont way of life. One of the stories often toldby the Senator was a variation on the theme familiar,in one form or another, all over our State—thedisconcerting response to emotional revivalists whoin the early nineteenth century swept over our nationduring the evangelical movement. The story ran thisway: a local "character," curious about what a revivalmeeting might be, attended one held in Strafford.Towards the end, the brass-lunged, hell-fire-predicting revivalist shouted hoarsely to him,

"Brother, have you got religion?" To which theStrafford man called back with brisk pride, "Not anyto boast of, I can tell ye."

Puzzling a little over why we liked this bookso much, we decided that it is because there is in itno effort to persuade anyone of anything. Mrs.Fisher seems mainly engaged in delighting herselfwith the sturdy qualities of Vermonters, and thispleasure may be shared by her readers by theinvitation of a mature, cosmopolitan mind. Thebook is filled with anecdotes, and one about JohnDewey (a Vermonter) is too good not to repeat:

His hands in his pockets, he stood, apparentlydeep in thought, before the large audience. Then hesaid, "This intelligence-testing business reminds meof the way they used to weigh hogs in Texas. Theywould get a long plank, put it over a crossbar, andsomehow tie the hog on one end of the plank. They'dsearch all around until they found a stone that wouldbalance the weight of the hog and they'd put that onthe other end of the plank. Then they'd guess theweight of the stone."

It is the Vermonters' understanding of what itmeans to be American that pervades this book.They are not "proving" anything; that is the waythey are. Mrs. Fisher tells about the influx of Irishimmigrants who began arriving in Vermont about1850, in flight from famine and starvation athome. It took some time for the Irish to becomeAmericans. But they did. There was PatrickThompson, one generation removed from theimmigrants, who spoke up in a town meeting.Thompson was a partner in a grocery store. Themeeting was about the need for public funds toestablish a school. Thompson said:

"We are being told that our town cannot affordto keep its bridges safe and also to provide for itschildren a preparation for life that will give them afair chance alongside other American children.

"That's what we are being told. Not one of ushere really believes it. We just can't think what to sayback. But suppose it were true—Then I say, if wehave to choose, 'Let the bridges fall down!' What kindof a town would we rather have, fifty years fromnow—a place where nitwit folks go back and forthover good bridges? Or a town with brainy well-educated people capable of holding their own in the


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modern way of life? You know which of those two isreally wanted by every one of us here. I say, 'Let thebridges fall down!'"

He took his seat in silence, the Americancitizen, the Celt, whose grandparents had lived inenforced ignorance.

It was a turning point in the life of our town.We knew it was. So we spoke not a word. We satsilent, thinking. And feeling. What we felt, withawe, as though we saw it with our physical eyes, wasin all our human hearts, the brave burning up to newbrightness of the ideal. . . . The school was built.

But what about Vermont in contemporarypublic life? The record of what Vermont has doneabout the "Communist menace" gives a goodanswer to this question. In I951 the AttorneyGeneral of the United States directed each FederalDistrict to draw up a Grand Jury to investigate theactivities of the Communist Party, violators of theFederal Security Act, and other matters. After theGrand Jury was formed, Presiding Judge ErnestGibson, former Governor of Vermont, made theofficial Charge to the Jury. Judge Gibsondescribed the provisions of the McCarran Act, inwhich Communists are identified as persons whoseek denial of fundamental rights and liberties,"such as freedom of speech, of the press, ofassembly and of religious worship," and who"repudiate their allegiance to this country." Hethen said:

None of us here want any real Communists asthus defined, in our midst, and any Communist whoviolates our law should be proceeded against.

However, I want to bring to your attention asecond and more elementary function of a GrandJury, even more fundamental than that of being aninforming body. You may have wondered how theterm "Grand Jury" came about. History indicates thatoriginally a body known as a Grand Jury wasestablished to protect individuals from oppression bya ruler. It was established thus as a protective body aswell as an informing body.

This country can only be kept free and strong iffreedom of speech is protected to the hilt. People inthis country must not be afraid to express minorityviews because somebody in a position of eminencemay holler "you are a Communist." Thus if we have

those in this state who brand areas or individuals asbeing Communists, you, as both an informing bodyand as a protective body, should summons thosepeople in and solicit from them whatever knowledgethey may have as to Communist infiltration into thisState. If you find some are branded as Communistsbut that such brand is unjustified by the facts, youshould not hesitate in making your report to announcethat such has been investigated and proved to becompletely erroneous. Maybe some in your localitieshave told you that different people are Communists.Summons them in and let's arrive at the truth.(Italics Mrs. Fisher's.)

A couple of months later, after the GrandJury had completed its work, the official reportappeared. Three sentences were devoted to thesubject of Communism: "Special considerationwas given to the consideration of Communism andCommunist activity in Vermont. No evidence waspresented which seemed to require furtherinvestigation by us. It was felt that the situation inVermont is well understood by the F.B.I. and isproperly handled by that Bureau." Then, at theclose of the report, were these words:

It is felt that not only is the Grand Jury a bodycharged with such investigative procedure to protectthe public from criminal activities, but that it has thefurther power and duty to protect individuals whomay be unjustly accused.

The sub-title of Mrs. Fisher's book is "TheBiography of an Outlook on Life." This is exactlyright. Mrs. Fisher is proud of her Vermontheritage and of being a Vermonter. She makes usproud of being in the same Union with the Stateof Vermont.


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COMMENTARYTOWARD FREEDOM

So few of us—so very few of us—have theextraordinary patience and—we might as well sayit—actual love of their fellow human beings thatare shown by G. A. Lyward (see "Children . . .and Ourselves") that reading about this manshould for most of us excite both admiration andembarrassment—admiration of what he is doingand embarrassment over what the rest of us arenot doing. Most parents fail in serious attentionto their duties to quite normal children. We mightsay to ourselves that we hardly deserve normalchildren, since we do so little to help them growto a brave and wise maturity.

What does it take to be a Lyward? The thingthat even our brief notice of Finchden ManorSchool makes obvious is Mr. Lyward's unqualifiedfaith in human beings—in the potential good inunhappy, misguided and thwarted youngsters.Perhaps he has had failures. Perhaps with somechildren his methods did not work. With somechildren, perhaps, no methods will work. Onecannot be sure about such things. But Mr.Lyward is not the bargaining sort. He does notask that the percentages be on his side. A manwho needs assurance of reward could never dowhat Mr. Lyward has done. A child in trouble ismore important than anything in the universe. Itisn't that the child must be "saved," but that a childis a human being against whom the cards may bestacked by cruel, selfish, or careless adults.Lyward tries to unstack the cards so that the childwill have an even break. No one can be helped bymore than an even break, because this is stackingthe cards the other way, which is just as bad, inthe long run. Respect for the self-reliance andintegrity of human beings dictates the necessity foran even break, no more, no less.

There is this, however, on Mr. Lyward's side:he has "bad" boys to work with. There is colorand rebellious strength. There may be frustration,but a positive energy is present, to begin with.

For a man who endeavors to work with and forpeople, instead of against them, some kind ofstrength is better raw material than flabbyweakness which gives no "trouble." It is easy toshape people in weakness, but impossible to shapethem in strength. The strong must shapethemselves, while the weak must learn to bestrong before they can hope to have much shapeof their own.

The mysteries pervading this subject—theformation of human character—are the mostinteresting and profoundly important of our time.They underlie Victor Gollancz' discussion ofpersonal freedom and play a part, also in the"Vermont Tradition" of which Mrs. Fisher writes(see Review). Again, they are precisely themysteries which are ignored by modern scientificexplanations of human behavior.

Books like Mr. Lyward's Answer perform anextraordinary service for this generation: Theygive unmistakable outline to an area ofindependent investigation and research. ForLyward does not proceed according to anyfamiliar educational theory. Instead of trying to"condition," he tries to remove the prejudicialeffects of past "conditionings." The greatquestion is this: Who or what is he endeavoring toset free?


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CHILDRENand Ourselves

MORE ON "FINCHDEN MANOR"

G. A. LYWARD, of Finchden Manor School,near Tenterden, England, like A. S. Neal andHomer Lane before him, is one of those near-miracle-producing educators whose work inrehabilitating youth has proceeded outside of anyclearly defined system—illustrating that thegreatest educators are always sui generic. Theyread, they study and absorb, perhaps, but comeforth with some inspiration of their own—all ofwhich indicates that education is far less of a"scientific" matter than certain diligently trainedexperts would like us to believe. There is, ofcourse, one common denominator for all thosecompanions of the young who have reached deepinto the lives of children: respect for theindividuality of each child is one way of describingthe secret of success. But there is more than that.The true educator's respect for individuality isseldom talked about—rather illustrated in terms ofthat sort of intimate psychological understandingwhich results from the capacity to identify withthe child's own feelings and thoughts.

For twenty-five years G. A. Lyward has beendemonstrating what this sort of understanding canoffer to confused and unhappy youths. Some ofthe residents at Finchden Manor have extensivepolice records and are boarded at Finchden at theexpense of local authorities; some are paid for bywealthy families, and some have been kept by Mr.Lyward for nothing just because he happened tosee a pressing need. Finchden has never had anendowment or state grant, nor did Lyward haveany money of his own when he began the school,but his reputation is such that there are alwayspeople working to keep Finchden's head abovefinancial waters. The most complete account ofFinchden is supplied by Michael Burn, a writerwho came to spend six months on the Finchdenstaff in order to write his story. So impressivewas the result, Mr. Lyward's Answer, published in

1956 in America by Beacon Press, that even Timewas flattering.

According to Mr. Burn, the first key toLyward's approach is the word "respite." Lywardconcluded a long time ago that emotionallydisturbed children needed a complete rest fromlessons as such, and from schools as such.Somehow they have gotten out of step with theircontemporaries, and unless allowed the time tocatch up with themselves, all attempts at"schooling" do little to help them find roots. So atFinchden there are no set times for classes—noclasses in the usual sense—nor any of the ordinaryforms of discipline. What Lyward and his staff aremost interested in is getting the children to askquestions about what they really want to know,and after establishing the trust which makes thesequestions possible, a process of education canbegin. Burn writes:

Grave questions, funny questions, questions thatdisguised an anxiety or came straight out with it, allwere met; often not with a straight answer, but alwaysin such a way that the boy's first trust was left intact,he did not feel inferior or snubbed, and his exploringcontinued. Some questions seemed to have a kind ofheart-ache, which no crudeness or casualness orjauntiness could hide. Sensing this, you could not goaway. Even in the older boys, you would have aglimpse, if you were brusque at the wrong moment, ofsomething that had once been deeply harmed and wasstill not healed; and the boy would becometemporarily hostile—as his whole life might havebecome, through a continued brusqueness.

The staff went along with the boys, now leading,now leaving them to spurt on their own, picking themup, but most of all just waiting, and able to explain(to visitors or each other, not to the boys) why theywere waiting. They had themselves run their owncourse at Finchden years before. Mr. Lyward hadstood and moved beside them, as they now moved bythe side of the boys who had succeeded them. In theirown day they had learnt the unwisdom of taking toomuch thought for the morrow, and the morrow hadtaken care of itself. "A quickening of interest and anincreased power of relaxed and effectiveconcentration . . . never fail to bring about an advancein educational standards"; and later, if those, who hadhurried the boys before, did not start to hurry themagain, examinations would be passed, jobs and


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openings would be found. The predecessors of boysnow at Finchden, heading once for dead ends to bereached by the meanest means, had turned away tobecome doctors, architects, workmen, farmers, headsof businesses, probation officers, lawyers, artists,teachers; so would they. Meanwhile Finchden"helped them at the stage each boy had reached andsaid in various ways: 'Do not be endlessly preoccupiedwith what he will be later on. Give him his now."'

The methods of Lyward parallel thoseadopted by Bruno Bettelheim in his reorganizationof the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School inChicago. No one can work effectively in eitherschool if he is given to pre-judgments about thepupils in his care—even optimistic pre-judgments.No one knows how long it will take anemotionally disturbed child to come out of hisshell, and when he does, erratic back-slidings arelikely to follow. The staff cannot follow anyordinary concept of the progress of a pupil.Lyward sets the example with a personality whichBurn describes as "Protean"; he is ready to adapthimself to the needs of any situation as hespontaneously feels at the time.

Burn's description of "intuition" in this regardshould be of general interest:

I have avoided making too much of the word"intuition" in describing either Mr. Lyward or hiswork. Yet the question must arise in many minds asto what extent his success derived from some "gift"personal to himself and impossible to pass on, and towhat extent from a method which could be continuedby others willing to dedicate their lives to such awork.

The immediate and continuous disarming of theboys seemed indeed to be due to a gift he possessed ofbridging the gulf between himself and the boy, so thatyouth and maturity met, not on the level of the boy'smask and Mr. Lyward's logic, but heart to heart. Hehimself said of this gift that "I rule myself out ashaving any experience at all and become as one ofthem," and that, when sitting back in a chair andlooking up at a boy, "I might be the same age. I feelas if, consciously and by virtue of experience, I doknow what he is like, and yet am seeking." He spokeof a certain kind of man as unable to become"enquiring" in that as it were innocent fashion, whichhad nothing to do with intellectual probing and

invited the boy to respond "as if we were both on thesame side of the fence." He approached the boyshimself with so little weight of preconception. He didnot await confirmation of some pattern formed aboutthem in his mind, although his long training hadmade him familiar with many patterns; nor did thereintervene between him and them any picture of whathe wanted them to be, or thought they ought to be, ormight be. He remained entirely open to receive theimpressions of them as they were, entire.

He felt that many people were hindered fromreceiving this whole and direct communication bybeing too conscious of age, on finding themselveswith children. They could not themselves become aschildren. He himself felt that this did happen to him,and yet he never completely lost awareness of his ownmaturity. Somehow the majority of the boys sensedboth qualities. They felt him to be wise and at thesame time one of them.

To read the record of Finchden Manor asreported by Mr. Burn is a really amazing andunsettling experience. Here the headmaster neverworries about anything; even on those rareoccasions when a boy runs away, he is apt to"forget" to notify the proper authorities. He"feels" that that boy will come back of his ownvolition—and nearly always the boy does.

Burn finally sums it all up by saying that thethings he learned about children at Finchden werealways things that he also came to know abouthimself. As a writer he concludes that everyhuman living, young or adult, must find his"place" and understand each event as if it were anincident in a story. That incident—or an attitudeor complex then present—has meaning only as itis related to the central plot; for none of us is lifean unbroken process. Always there are"chapters," and before one can begin a newchapter, he must be allowed to write a close to theprevious one in his own way—hence the universalneed for "respite." This is especially true in regardto those who do not run successfully with theherd, and because it is true, the counsellors whowork with above-average or below-averagechildren have the opportunity of learning muchmore about human nature—and about philosophy,too—than the ordinary instructor.


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FRONTIERSCensorship—A Dilemma

EVER since Dr. Frederick Wertham's campaignagainst "Crime Comics," proposals for censoringobscene literature have gained new supporters.Examination of the lurid contents of sexualpsychopath type of "funnies," statistics on teen-age sadism, plus the analyses supplied byWertham's effective pen, have made it clear thatunscrupulous publishers are fattening on childishsusceptibility. Most informed parents or teacherscome at least close to hating the "writers" andpublishers who make such fare available, and willsupport any agency of prosecution.

Several recent court decisions have upheldthe censorship principle during the campaign toeradicate this particular menace, and a U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the convictionof one Samuel Roth, "for mailing obscene matterin violation of the federal obscenity statute."However, a concurring opinion by Circuit JudgeJerome N. Frank was accompanied by anappendix in which he questioned theconstitutionality of any such statute. OpenForum, Civil Liberties Union organ, published thefollowing excerpts from Judge Frank's study:

Most federal courts now hold that the test ofobscenity is the effect on the "mind" of the averagenormal adult. However, there is much pressure forlegislation, designed to prevent juvenile delinquency,which will single out children, i.e., will prohibit thesale to young persons of "obscenity" or otherdesignated matter.

If the obscenity statute is valid, then it wouldseem that its validity must rest on this ground:Congress, by statute, may constitutionally providepunishment for the mailing of books evoking merethoughts or feelings about sex, if Congress considersthem socially dangerous, even in the absence of anysatisfactory evidence that those thoughts or feelingswill tend to bring about socially harmful deeds. Ifthat be correct, it is hard to understand why,similarly, Congress may not constitutionally providepunishment for such distribution of books evokingmere thoughts or feelings about religion or politics,which Congress considers socially dangerous.

There is another horn to this particulardilemma. Any attempt to establish a clear-cutjudicial definition of "obscenity" falls short ofstriking a neat balance between freedom in the artsand protection of youth from commercialconspiracy. The Courts have usually exemptedsuch books as Boccaccio's Decameron andAristophanes' Lysistrata from the "obscenity"classification on the ground that they are"classics," but who is to say just when or how awork of art or literature becomes "classical"?

Attempts have been made to interpret thefederal statute as applying only to books which, inaddition to being "obscene," are also "dull andwithout merit," but, in Judge Frank's opinion,—and however worthy the intent—a precedent isthereby established for giving vast powers ofliterary or artistic censorship "to a few falliblemen—prosecutors, judges, jurors." The result,says Judge Frank, may be "to convert them intowhat J. S. Mill called a 'moral police,' . . . to makethem despotic arbiters of literary products. If oneday they ban mediocre books, as obscene, anotherday they may do likewise to a work of genius.Originality, not too plentiful, should be cherished,not stifled." Judge Frank concludes:

Governmental control of ideas or personalpreferences is alien in a democracy. And theyearning to use governmental censorship of any kindis infectious. It may spread insidiously.Commencing with suppression of books as obscene, itis not unlikely to develop into official lust for thepower of thought-control in the areas of religion,politics and elsewhere.

In our industrial era when, perforce, economicpursuits must be, increasingly, governmentallyregulated, it is especially important that the realm ofart—the non-economic realm—should remain free,unregimented, the domain of free enterprise, ofunhampered competition at its maximum. Anindividual's taste is his own, private, concern.

On the other hand, no one can read Dr.Wertham without feeling that youth needs somesort of protection against literature deliberatelycontrived to stimulate and feed unhealthyprecociousness. Judge Frank's comments


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establish the position that it should not be suppliedby legislative measure. But what kind ofprotection is then possible?

Well, it seems to us that nothing short of theattempts of parent, teacher, civic—and perhapschurch—groups to interview the youthfulconsumers of dangerous trash can satisfy all of therequirements of a delicate situation. Since thesame youths who buy and read obscene crimecomics are already fascinated by "conspiracy," astrong talking-point for personal boycott is theevident conspiracy of shady publishers. It mightbe possible for young people themselves to workagainst fattening such publishers' wallets.

A good psychiatrist—or any intelligentindividual who studies the matter from apsychiatric viewpoint—might make out apowerful case against the reading of this sort ofswindle-trash, a case good enough to be heard byyouth. This could not, of course, be accomplishedby general moralizing by teachers or magistrates,nor by home punishment. The appeal to youth hasto be that of ''being in on the know," and thisentails a frank examination of the nature of crime-comic and obscene literature. If the comiccopyrighters can organize "crime busters" and"Dick Tracy Clubs," a somewhat more dignifiedeffort to stop the worst publishers could beundertaken—but not, we should hope, on any sortof "national scale." Individual time and attentionto the problem are required. The need is toundertake psychological analysis of children'sreading, from comics to the inane "good" bookswhich are often sponsored by well-meaning libraryassociations on the ground that they "do noharm." Anything worth reading is supposed to domore than "no harm," and if readers among youthwho seek the stimulus of something exciting canbe shown that good writing and "adventure" arenot-incompatible, much will be gained.

the meaning of personal freedom - …manasjournal.org/pdf_library/volumex_1957/x-15.pdfthe meaning...

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