The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-12-16

IN our country to educate means to
revolutionize. That is, we must
emancipate children from inherited
habits of thought and from fallacies
based on age-old ways Of living; falla-
cies based on the struggle Of the in
dividual to defend himself and to
assert his individualism and national
ism as eternal laws" Of human So
ciety.
From their earliest years, even in
their games, children must be weaned
away from the past. To do this we
shall have to acquaint them not only
with the bare facts of history, the
ideas and theories of former genera
tions, but we shall have to show how
these facts and theories arose out of
the prevailing productive processes of
given society. We must show that
freedom of thought Is only possible
when men are wholly free to do vital
work--a condition which never OBJ
tanned previously, but which Is fun
damental in a socialist order,
So-called firmly established facts
not infrequently play conservative
role, hold thought in bondage to the
obvious and thereby slow and ham
per perception. But Marx brilliantly
pointed out that facts themselves are
creative. He and he alone clearly
showed that the fundamental cause
Of life's tragedy and the sufferings
of humanity is the artificial break
between the clever hand OF the
worker and his clever head,
We have to show children the his
toric man who has evolved from the
dim past and his semi-conscious ways
of working at the very beginning
They must have some idea of the
road traversed from the inventor of
the stone axe to Stephenson and
Diesel; from the creator OF the fairy
tale, which is a fantastic hypothesis,
to the teaching of Marx, which has
shown us the wide and direct road
to bright future for toiling human
ity. In entering into new world,
a world where technique lightenS
| labor, and into a classics society,
the children must know the tremen-
dous Importance Of physical labor;
how labor changes the face of ma
ture and creates new environment,
"a second nature"
They must know, too, that If the
freedom Of mans spontaneous toll
had not been manacled and limited
during the course of history by the
lf-seeking and greed of the gov
erning classes, humanity would have
| immeasurably exceeded the present
stage Of general culture.
MAN, the bearer of energy, is Gre
M ating a second nature" a new
| cultural environment; man is the
agent of nature, created by nature as
If for Its own perception and
transformation: 1t Is this which must
be impressed upon children. Conse-
Quently the acquaintance of children
with life must begin with tales about
the distant past, about the beginning
Of labor processes and the organizing
work of thought.
To create an artistic and educa-
tional literature for children, we
must train talented writers who can
put down their thoughts simply, at
tractively and instructively; we must
train cultured editors with political
and literary background; we must
have publishing facilities.
Since such tasks cannot be accom-
plished in a day, we must start upon
them at once. It will perhaps help
to indicate a few subjects that need
to be elaborated in creating a new
literature for children.
Briefly they may be outlined a.
follows: the earth; the air; water;
plants; animals; how men appeared
on the earth; how men learned to
think; how men mastered fire; how
men learned to tighten their labor
and their life; what the mastery OF
iron and other metals signified for
men; the wonders OF science; thought
and deed; technique in the future;
the nature Of religion; how science