* 右上イラスト出典:B. Russell's The Good Citizen's Alphabet, 1953. * ラッセルと20世紀の名文に学ぶ-英文味読の真相39 [佐藤ヒロシ] 愛情深い教師
こういった考察はさておき,子供たちや若者たちは,彼らの幸せを純粋に願う人びとと,彼らを何らかの計画のための原材料(素材)としか考えない人びととの違いを,本能的に感じとる。'性格'も'知性'も,教師に愛情が欠けている場合には,十分に,またのびのびとは発達しないだろう。そうして,この種の愛情は,本質的に言って,子供を'目的'として感じることの中にある。私たちは皆,自分自身についてはこういう感情を抱いている。即ち,私たちは,自分自身にとって良いことを望む(欲する)が,その際,自分自身のために何か良いものを手に入れれば何らかの大きな目的が促進されるという'証拠'をまず最初に見せよといった要求を自分自身に対して行うことはない。愛情ある普通の親は皆,我が子に対し,同様の感情を抱く。親は,--自分自身のために何か欲しがるのとまったく同様に--,自分たちの子供が成長し,頑健で,健康的で,学校でよく勉強することなどを願う。(即ち)そのような事柄で骨を折る時に,自制(自己犠牲)の努力も抽象的な正義の原理も,伴わない。こうした親としての本能は,常に厳密に自分の子供に限定されるわけではない。そうした愛は,拡散した形では,幼い男の子や女の子の良い先生になろうとする人全てに存在するはずである。生徒が成長するにつれて,そうした愛情は次第に重要ではなくなっていく。しかし,そういう愛情を持っている人びとに対してのみ,教育の青写真を作ることを信頼して任せることができる。(国家のために)とるに足らない理由で喜んで人を殺したり殺されたりする男を作ることが男子教育の目的の一つだと考えている人びと(注:愛国心教育や国防教育を最重要視する人々)は,明らかに,拡散した形での親の愛情に欠けている。しかも,デンマークと中国(注:1926年当時)を除くすべての文明国においては,こういった人たちが教育を支配(統制管理)している。 |
Chap. 2 The Aims of Education (OE02-090)When I say that pupils should be regarded as ends, not as means, I may be met by the retort that, after all, everybody is more important as a means than as an end. What a man is as an end perishes when he dies; what he produces as a means continues to the end of time. We cannot deny this, but we can deny the consequences deducted from it. A man's importance as a means may be for good or evil; the remote effects of human actions are so uncertain that a wise man will tend to dismiss them from his calculations. Broadly speaking, good men have good effects, and bad men bad effects. This, of course, is not an invariable law of nature. A bad man may murder a tyrant, because he has committed crimes which the tyrant intends to punish; the effects of his act may be good, though he and his act are bad. Nevertheless, as a broad general rule, a community of men and women who are intrinsically excellent will have better effects than one composed of people who are ignorant and malevolent. Apart from such considerations, children and young people feel instinctively the difference between those who genuinely wish them well and those who regard them merely as a raw material for some scheme. Neither character nor intelligence will develop as well or as freely where the teacher is deficient in love; and love of this kind consists essentially in feeling the child as an end. We all have this feeling about ourselves: we desire good things for ourselves without first demanding a proof that some great purpose will be furthered by our obtaining them. Every ordinarily affectionate parent feels the same sort of thing about his or her children. Parents want their children to grow, to be strong and healthy, to do well at school, and so on, in just the same way in which they want things for themselves; no effort of self-denial and no abstract principle of justice is involved in taking trouble about such matters. This parental instinct is not always strictly confined to one's own children. In its diffused form, it must exist in anyone who is to be a good teacher of little boys and girls. As the pupils grow older, it grows less important. But only those who possess it can be trusted to draw up schemes of education. Those who regard it as one of the purposes of male education to produce men willing to kill and be killed for frivolous reasons are clearly deficient in diffused parental feeling; yet they control education in all civilised countries except Denmark and China. |
(掲載日:2006.12.13 更新日:)