Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/146

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LABOUR AND CHILDHOOD

It consists, not in the discovery of the perversions of human beings, but in the discovery of the nature of materials and the forces of nature and of what is possible in dealing with them. Thus the development of reason is accompanied by no inner blight or withering. It does not bring in its train loss of faith or weakening of sympathies. Rather it strengthens faith, not in self or in some showy public character, or even in one great inventor, but in a great army of nameless inventors and workers—in humanity. And the worker's imagination is not weakened. It is exercised in new ways, and embraces realities more completely and truly. He is not held in a slavish, half-hypnotic trance. Obscurely perhaps, but more and more strongly, he feels the rallying and renewal of life within him, advancing without pause or arrest towards some new goal.

Of course all this is not demonstrated quite clearly yet. There are too few of the new order of schools and writers[1] to warrant us in speaking with authority. But those who have come into

  1. "The psychology of the artist" has been dealt with by Arreaé and others. The psychology of the artisan waits its exponent. Perhaps a school doctor will write it one day. But already it seems safe, however, to say that it will be the story of a healthy brain, whose development extends at least to the verge of manhood.