and the help it may give in the conduct of life, we must repeat that habits are morally valuable only in so far as they contribute to the maintenance of the distinctive individuality of the self.
§5. Some Educational Aspects of the Development of Personality. The great educational maxim is that the individuality of the child should be respected, and should be allowed full scope for development. We all know that the aim of education is not to turn out children all of the same brand, as the factory turns out sewing-machines or type-writers. When education is so much standardised as it is, there is grave danger that it may tend to turn the children into human machines. The child's natural tendency to initiate, to invent, and to originate, may be repressed from the beginning. Education may end, after passing children through successive "standards," simply in producing dull mediocrity. To a considerable extent, this has happened in Germany, where education is excessively systematised.
(1) All the great educators have emphasised the importance of preserving and developing the child's individuality, and of adapting education to the child's individual needs. Thus Locke says, "Each man's mind has some peculiarity, as well as his face, that distinguishes him from all others; and there are possibly scarce two children who can be conducted by exactly the same method."[1] Even Herbart, with all his emphasis on the transforming power of education, insists that the individuality of the child which develops under the teacher's efforts should be respected and allowed as far as possible
- ↑ Some Thoughts on Education, § 216
