§7.So far I have set forth the economy of leisure from the standpoint of physical and moral health: the order and harmony of human powers.This, however, is in the main a statical economy.Now, Order is chiefly valuable as the means of Progress, Health as the means of Growth.The dynamic economy of Progress demands leisure even more insistently.
Everyone will formally admit that Education is impossible without leisure.
It is often pointed out that the Greek word which has been converted into our word 'School' means Leisure.One might, therefore, suppose that the utmost care would be taken to get the fullest use out of the leisure which child-life affords, and to ensure that throughout life there should remain a sufficient supply of this raw material of progress -- the surplus energy beyond the bare needs of existence needed for organic growth.
The prodigal waste of this sacred store of leisure for child-life in the processes of our Elementary Education is only too familiar to all of us.Mr.Stephen Reynolds1 hardly overstates the case when he says, 'it gives to the children about three years, worth of second-rate education in exchange for eight or nine years of their life.'2I believe that the trained educationalist of the next generation, examining the expensive education given even in the best equipped of our secondary schools and our universities, in the light of a more rational conception of human progress, will find at least as large a waste of opportunity in these seats of learning as in our elementary schools.Not until educational standards and methods are better adjusted to true conditions of the vital progress of individuals and of societies, will the chief significance of leisure be realised.
§8.But the value of leisure is by no means exhausted by these considerations.The finest fruits of human life come not by observation.
To lay out all our spare time and energy to the very best advantage by a scrupulous seizure of opportunities is in reality a false economy.Industrialism has undoubtedly done much both to discipline and to educate the powers of man.But it has preached too arrogantly the gospel of economy and industry.
It is not good for any man to account for his time either to himself or to another, with too great exactitude, or to seek to make a mosaic of his days.The Smilesian philosophy of thrift and industry imparts more calculation into life than is good for man.We should not be so terribly afraid of idleness.Dr.Watts held that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' But far saner is Wordsworth's view, 'that we can feed this mind of ours in a wise passiveness,' and Thoreau's demand for a 'broad margin of life.'
We are not yet sufficiently advanced in psychology to know much of the processes within the mind by which novel thoughts and feelings seem to enter of their own accord, starting new impulses to action, or by which the unchecked imagination works along some rapid line of intuition.But that such seasons of vacancy and reverie are essential to many of the finest processes of the intellect and heart, is indisputable.To deny this to any man is to deprive him of a part of his rightful heritage of human opportunity.
The inventor, the poet, the artist, are readily allowed such free disposal of time.Everyone allows that genius must have ample periods of incubation.
But the implication that common men ought to have their faces kept to the grindstone is quite false.Everybody wants leisure for his soul to move about in and to grow, not by some closely prescribed plan of education, but by free experimentation of its secret powers.A very slender harvest of happy thoughts and feelings will justify much apparent idleness.
In the narrower investigation of methods of industry which we essayed, we realised the critical part played by leisure in the art of invention.
The lack of leisure for the great majority of workers is assuredly a waste of inventive power.We think our society prolific in inventions, especially in the age we are living in, but it is likely that the pace of progress through industrial inventions would be greatly quickened if the proper play-time of the mind were not denied to the great majority of men and women.
