Chapter 17 Chapter Twelve

Objection I We now turn to the objections against communism.Most of the objections are based on simple misunderstandings, but they also raise important problems, which deserve our attention. But we do not reply to the objections raised by powerful communism—because we ourselves oppose powerful communism.The subjects of civilized nations have toiled so long and hard for the emancipation of the individual that they could not abandon their past efforts to allow a government to exist which interferes with the details of the life of the people, even if the purpose of this government is to promote the good of society. can not stand.Even if a society of authoritarian socialism could be successfully built, it could not continue; popular discontent would soon destroy it, or force it to reform itself on the principles of liberty.

The anarcho-communist society we are talking about is a society that recognizes the full freedom of individuals, does not allow the existence of any power, and does not have the necessary society to force people to work.We examine the economic side of the problem, and see if such a society were still composed of people as they are now (neither better, nor worse, neither more industrious nor lazier than they are now) organized, does such a society have any chance of success and development? We are aware of the following objection: "If everyone's subsistence was assured, and if they were not compelled to work by the necessity of earning wages, no one would work. If it was all right not to do it, then whatever Who will place the responsibility of his labor on the shoulders of others." We shall begin by saying that this objection is based on excessive shallow considerations that go beyond the facts.To know the truth of this question, we have to know: on the one hand, whether the results of labor for the purpose of wages are more effective; on the other hand, whether the production of voluntary labor is less than that encouraged by wages.However, those who made the objection never thought of this problem.Properly speaking, this question deserves close study.In the exact sciences, however, men deal closely with matters of the least importance and simplicity, and scrupulously collect and analyze the facts before deciding on their opinions. —On this question alone, they did not examine it a little, and were satisfied with one particular fact, that the communist societies in several parts of America had not succeeded, and judged it immediately.They acted like a lawyer who, regardless of the reasons of the opposing side, and of the arguments contrary to his own, knows only that the opponent is his enemy in argument; Regardless of whether your reasons are valid or not.Hence the study of the essential foundations of all economics, that is, the study of the most favorable conditions for supplying society with the greatest quantity of useful products with the least waste of human energy, cannot advance.People either limit themselves to repeating mundane assertions, or they pretend not to know our claims.

① Refers to the experiments of Cabet and Owen and other communists of many religions in America to establish an ideal society. - translator What is astonishing in this shallow view is that even in capitalist economics a few writers have been compelled to doubt the axiom laid down by the founders of this science: the threat of starvation is The best encouragement for human productive labor.They now know that there is a collective element in production, which has hitherto been almost unnoticed, but which is actually far more important than individual interests.The inferior nature of wage-labour, the horrific waste of human energies in the labor of modern agriculture and industry, the constant multiplication of pleasure-seekers who place their burdens on the shoulders of others, and the growing markedness of a certain lack of vigor in production. ; and all these are now beginning to be the subject of study by economists of the "classical school".Some of them wondered themselves whether they had gone astray: whether the imaginary villain, supposedly tempted by ill-gotten gains or wages, existed at all.This heretical view has actually entered the universities, and it can also be found in the books of orthodox economics.

Although this old citadel of personal compensation and wages has been dismantled piece by piece by its old defenders, giving the enemy an opportunity to attack, it is still supported by many socialist reformers. They fear that the people will not work unless someone comes to enforce it. Yet have we not heard the same terror expressed twice in our lives?One was expressed by those who opposed the abolition of slavery before the emancipation of the black slaves in the United States; the other was expressed by the Russian nobles before the emancipation of the serfs.Those who opposed the abolition of black slavery said: "If you don't need to be whipped, the black slave will not work." The Russian serf owner also said: "If the serf is not under the supervision of the master, he will not plow the field and let it go to waste." This is the "repetition" sung by the French aristocrats in 1789; We can hear such "reverse lyrics".Yet every time, the facts of reality prove its hypocrisy. The emancipated peasant of 1792 plowed his field with an ardor unknown to his forebears; the emancipated negro worked harder than his forebears; the Russian peasant took Friday as a holiday as Sunday. Days after celebrating their "honeymoon" of liberation, they worked hard in proportion to the degree of freedom they had gained.The freest farmer works the hardest and the most zealous.Where the fields are his own, he labors desperately; that is a fitting remark.To the slave-owners the "repost" of those who oppose the abolition of slavery is of value; as for the slaves themselves, because they know the motive of the "repost," they also know its real value.

Moreover, the economists themselves tell us that the labor of wage earners is always indifferent, and that only the labor of those who know that their wealth increases in proportion to their efforts is fervently productive.All the hymns of private property can be reduced to this axiom. We should note that economists want to extol the bounty of private property, and tell us that unproductive, wet, stony land, if cultivated by a peasant proprietor, can be reaped very plentifully. ; but this statement is not in the least evidence of their private property advocacy.Economists admit that the only guarantee that the fruits of your labor will not be robbed is the possession of labor institutions (which is true), but they can only prove that a man can work freely, he can choose his occupation freely, without a supervisor and when he knows that the benefits of his labors are only for himself and those who work like him, and not for the lazy, then his productivity is indeed at its highest.This is all we can deduce from their arguments; and this is what we ourselves assert.

As to the form of appropriation of the institutions of labour, those economists only touch on them indirectly, in their arguments that the cultivator secures to him the interests arising from his production and improvement.Moreover, they are in favor of private property and against all other forms of possession, so they point out that the land, under the form of common property, cannot produce as rich a harvest as it can under private ownership.Yet they cannot prove this either; in fact the facts show just the opposite. For example, in a commune in Switzerland, all the villagers work together to cut down the common forest in winter.In this season of labor the greatest zeal for work and the highest expression of human energy are fully revealed.All wage-labour and all proprietor's efforts cannot compare with this.

Another example is a certain village in Russia, where the whole village goes to the commune-owned or leased fields to mow grass.There you will see how much can be produced when men work together for common production.The amount of grass mowed competes with each other among the peers, and the women also work bravely so that they will not fall behind the mowers.This is also a festival of labor. During this festival, a hundred people can complete in a few hours what can be done by the Chinese side in a few days when everyone works separately on weekdays.What a poor contrast the work of the isolated proprietor is to this.

In fact, we can also draw many examples from the pioneers in the United States and from the villages in Switzerland, Germany, Russia, and some French.Or the work done by the "Artel" (i.e. trade guilds) of Russian masons, carpenters, boatmen, fishermen, etc., who share a job in common and distribute their production or their remuneration among themselves. , and do not go through the middleman (broker).I have seen in English shipyards that the amount of work performed when paid is also quoted on the same principle.We could also cite the common great hunts of nomadic races, and countless other great common undertakings.It is true that the common cause is everywhere superior to the work of wage laborers and isolated private owners.

Well-being—that is, the satisfaction of physical, artistic, and moral desires—is often the most powerful thing that motivates workers.The servant, though toil, cannot sustain life; but the free laborer knows that peace and luxury, for himself and others, increase in proportion to his efforts, and so he exerts his energies all the more. And intelligence, and get many, many products.The one is forever pinned to poverty, the other to future peace and luxuries.The whole secret is here.Therefore, in a society whose goal is the well-being of all people and the possibility for everyone to enjoy all the manifestations of life, of course there is only voluntary labor. Compared with the present slavery, serfdom, wage system Labor under the lash of the whip produces more and better goods.

II Anyone who can now place the burden of the labor necessary for his own existence on the shoulders of another does so, and no one believes that it will be so at all times. The labor necessary for subsistence is primarily muscular labour.Whether we be artists or scientists, we can do nothing without the things that the labor of our muscles makes--bread, clothes, roads, ships, lights, heat, and so on.And no matter how noble and artistic or profound metaphysical our happiness is, it cannot be separated from muscle labor.This kind of labor is the basis of life, but it is precisely it that the average man wants to avoid.

We have long thought that this must be the case today. Because doing muscular labor now means shutting oneself up in an unsanitary factory for ten to twelve hours every day, locking oneself to the same job for twenty or thirty years, or even a lifetime. This means that these people are destined to receive a little wages, unable to take care of tomorrow's security, always in fear of unemployment, always poor and miserable, and most of them are working for people other than themselves and their children. After forty years of hard work for food, clothing, housing, entertainment, education, etc., they always die miserably in charity hospitals. This is to say that your whole life will be marked as "inferior"; because politicians often say: a muscle worker is always inferior to a brain worker, and the person who has worked ten hours in a factory has no time, let alone the method , come to enjoy the noble pleasures of science and art, or are not even cultivated to appreciate such pleasures; he cannot help but be satisfied with picking up the crumbs that fall from the dining table of the privileged classes. We know that under such circumstances, physical labor will naturally become the curse of fate. We also know that all people have only one dream, which is to free themselves and their children from this inferior state and create an "independent" position for themselves. What does this mean? — even by the labor of others. This is always the case as long as there is a separation between the class of the physical and the intellectual laborers, as long as there is a distinction between black hands and white hands. Indeed, what interest can the laborer have in this heavy and depressing work, if he knows that the fate that awaits him from birth to death is nothing but mediocrity, poverty, and the uneasiness of tomorrow?Therefore, when we see the majority of men set to work each morning to do their hard work, we cannot help marveling at their perseverance and zeal for their work, and at the kind of machinery which enables them to live through their hardships like blind obedience to the dynamic machinery. Habits of life: Not only do they have no hope for tomorrow, but they never imagine that one day they themselves or at least their descendants will enjoy all the common things of mankind that are monopolized by the privileged few today because they are part of mankind The rich treasures of nature, all the joys generated by knowledge and scientific and artistic creation, etc. We want to abolish the wage system, we want to carry out a social revolution, that is, we want to abolish the distinction between physical labor and mental labor; then labor will no longer be the curse of fate; it will resume what it was, and become: The free exercise of all human faculties. And the time has come to give serious analysis to the legend that supposed that good labor can only be produced under the whip of the wage system. It is not necessary to visit any particular model factories and manufactures, but to see the ordinary factories, and it is enough to see the enormous expenditure of human energy which characterizes modern industry.For example, there is one factory with a more or less rational organization, and at the same time there are more than a hundred factories that waste human labor indiscriminately, and their real motive is nothing more than earning a few pounds more for their employers every day. Here again you will see many young people between the ages of twenty and twenty-five sitting on benches all day long with their chests sunken, shaking their heads and bodies as if they were suffering from a fever, and moving as fast as a magician. Tie the leftovers from the lace looms—the ends of worthless cotton threads.What kind of children and grandchildren can such a shaking and trembling body produce to contribute to society?The employers will say: "But they occupy a small place in my factory, and make me a net profit of sixpence a day." In a large factory in London, we can see girls who became bald at seventeen because they used to move from one room to the other with a wooden tray with matches on their heads, but actually kept the matches. The work that is moved to the table can be done by the simplest machine.However, "the labor of unskilled women is worthless, so why use machines? If these women workers can no longer continue to work, we can hire others to replace them, because there are many such women on the street." On a freezing night, you may see a barefoot child sleeping on the stone steps of a mansion with a bunch of newspapers in his arms—because child labor is so cheap, so many are employed; Selling newspapers along the street for tenpence, he can only get a penny or a penny and a half.And in all the great cities you will see strong men roaming the streets, who have been out of work for months; while their daughters are losing the color of their faces in the overheated steam of the weaving factories; Their sons either carry shoe polish bottles to shine shoes in the street, or stand on the corner of the street, begging for a penny or two from passers-by, or spend the time that should be spent learning a skill selling side dishes instead. The man who carries a basket is permanently unemployed at eighteen or twenty. It is the same from San Francisco to Moscow, or from Naples to Stockholm.The waste of human energy is the most striking and important feature of modern industry. It goes without saying that the waste in commerce is much greater. What a sad irony to assign the name economics to the science of wasting human energy under the wage system! Also, if you go to talk to the manager of a well-organized factory, he will tell you frankly that it is very difficult to get a skilled, hard-working, zealous worker these days. "If there was one man among the twenty or thirty people who came in every Monday asking for a job, we'd decide to hire him, even when we were about to lay off people. We'd know when we saw him, and we'd have to hire him. He, even if he had to fire an older worker who worked less diligently the next day, we would be willing." And those workers who have already received the notice of dismissal and those who will receive the notice tomorrow have only Run into the reserve battalion of capital (that is, unemployed workers), who can only work at the loom or the bench when there is a lot of work or when there is a wave of strikes and the employer resists the strikers.As for the ordinary workers who were dismissed from the first-class factories due to the reduction of work in the factory, they will also join this terrible team of old and industrious workers and go to work in the second-class factories. To make money by dealing with buyers (especially those from distant countries) by deceitful and deceitful methods. If you go and talk to the workers again, you will understand that the general rule in the factory is-never do your best. "Bad wages—bad jobs." This is the advice given to the worker by his companions when he first enters such a factory. For the laborers know that if they have good intentions and work hard according to the wishes of their employers, and increase the output of goods to meet the urgent orders, this kind of hard work will become the standard of future wages.So in factories of this kind, they are by no means willing to try their best to produce.In some industries production is deliberately limited in order to keep prices high, and there is sometimes a slogan, "Do it cunningly," that is to say, "Bad work for less wages." Wage labor is slave labor; such labor cannot and does not produce what it can produce.The time has come to throw away the legend that the wage system is the best reward for productive labour.If the production of today's industry has increased hundreds of times compared with that of our grandfathers, this is due to the sudden development of physical chemistry at the end of the previous century; not only does it not rely on the power of capitalist organization of the wage system, but it is also related to This organization has absolutely nothing to do with it. III Those who have seriously studied this question cannot by any means deny the benefits of communism, but they believe that this communist system should be completely free, in other words, anarchist.They know that work paid for in money, even under the guise of "labour vouchers" (paid by the state to the labor groups it dominates), still retains the peculiarities of the wage system and its evils.They admit that even if society took possession of the organs of production, the whole organization would soon be harmed by the wage system.They also admit that if a "complete" education is given to all children, the hardworking habits of a civilized society are maintained, and everyone is given the freedom to choose and change occupations, so that everyone can see that the same person is for the well-being of all If the attractiveness of the work to be performed, then a communist society will not lack producers, but these producers will immediately increase the productivity of the land by three times or even more than ten times, and give industry a new stimulus. This, those who oppose us also agree.But they added: "But the danger comes from the lazy minority who will not work, and who will not have regular habits of work, even under the conditions of excellence that make it pleasant. Now because of the panic of hunger, no one, even the most obstinate, has to move with the others. Those who are late are repelled. But one black sheep can contaminate the whole flock, two or three are lazy The strong and stubborn are enough to seduce others, to stir up confusion and a rebellious spirit in the workshop, and to make work impossible; so that we have to return to the old system of coercion, and force the stubborn criminals to work like others. Then, by work Is not the system of paying wages based on the standard of performance of the workers the only way of exercising coercion without hurting the independent feelings of the laborers? All other means always have the meaning of continuous interference by power, which is freedom. abhorrent to all." We believe this to be the true meaning of this objection. We must first recognize that such objections belong to the side of supporting the state, criminal law, magistrates, and jailers. "As long as a very few disobey the habits of society," says the Power Theorist, we shall be compelled to preserve magistrates, courts, prisons, etc., even though these institutions have become the source of all new evils. " So we can only repeat what we have said so often about power itself: "To avoid one evil, you use as a means of avoiding a greater evil, and this evil is the evil you seek to remedy. You have long known the evils of the capitalist system. Don’t forget that what created the capitalist system when it emerged was the wage system, that is, you cannot live without selling your labor.” The law is nothing more than a sophistical defense of the evils of the present system.The wages system was not created to remove the evils of communism; its origins are the same as those of the state and private property, and come from elsewhere.It grew out of slavery and serfdom enforced by force, but in modern clothes.Arguments in favor of the wages system are therefore as worthless as arguments in defense of the state and private property. But we still want to examine this objection and see if there is any truth in it. First, if a society built on the principle of free labor meets lazy people, can it survive without the powerful organization and wage system that exists today? For example, there is a group of volunteers organized for a particular enterprise. Because everyone believes that this enterprise will be successful, they work wholeheartedly. However, one person among them is often absent and does not fulfill his responsibilities.Is it necessary to disband the group because of him alone?Or elect a president to impose fines?Otherwise, create regulations for punishment?In fact, there is obviously no need to do this, only one day the friend who puts the enterprise in danger will be advised: "Friend, we would like to work with you; but you often abandon your responsibilities, and you waste yours. Work, we have to separate from you now. Go and find those companions who don't care about your behavior." This method is so natural that it is practiced everywhere, and even in all industries today, it is co-current with, or even competes with, systems of fines, deductions, supervision, etc.; but if he does not do his job well, if he has lazy habits and other defects which hinder his fellows' work, if he is rowdy, then there is only one last resort: he must leave this place. factory. Power theorists think that the person who makes the work regular and of good quality in the factory is the omnipotent employer and supervisor. In fact, in every slightly complicated enterprise, before a product is completed, it must pass through the hands of many people. The one who makes the work good is the factory itself, in other words, all the workers.In the factories of private English industry, therefore, there are very few so-called overseers, on the average a much smaller number than in French factories, and even fewer than in English state factories. This method is also used to maintain a certain standard of public morality.Power theorists say that it depends on the strength of township officials, magistrates, and police officers, but in fact the maintenance of public morality has nothing to do with township officials, magistrates, and police officers.Someone said it long ago: "As many laws as there are sinners." It is not only in industrial factories that things are going in this direction; in fact, everywhere and at all times, the fact is mostly like this, and only the bookworms have not noticed.If a certain railroad company, allied with other railroad companies, fails to honor its contract, causing trains to be delayed and goods to be piled up at stations, the other companies threaten to rescind the contract, which is often the case. Effective. It is generally believed, at least by those in favor of the State, that commercial contracts are enforced only because of the fear of the law.But that is absolutely not the case; nine out of ten merchants who do not keep their promises do not go before a magistrate.In the most prosperous place of commerce, like London, the majority of merchants would, in the event of a suit by creditors, entirely refuse to do any business with the one who would compel one of them to sue. If so, why should not the methods now in vogue among the worker in the factory, the merchant in commerce, and the railway company in the organization of transportation, be used in a society based on voluntary labour? For example, there is a group whose members have agreed to perform the following treaty: "We jointly recognize that you are free to use our houses, food, streets, transportation agencies, schools, museums, etc., but you have been from the age of twenty. During the twenty or thirty years until the age of forty-five or fifty, you should spend four or five hours a day doing the work necessary for survival. You choose the production group you want to join, or organize a new group, but Confine yourself to necessary production. The rest of the time you may spend in entertainment, art, science, with those you like, in short, according to the inclination of your own taste. "All we ask of you is to work in a production group engaged in food, clothing and housing in a year, or to serve 1,200 or even 1,500 hours in public health, transportation and other institutions. Our compensation for these labors , that is, you are free to use what these groups have produced or will produce. But if the thousands of groups belonging to our union do not accommodate you (regardless of motives); if you absolutely cannot produce useful goods, or if you do not If you will do it, you will live like a lonely or disabled person. If we are very rich and can give you the necessities of life, we are also happy to give you. You are a human being, and you have The right to life. But if you are to live under special conditions, out of the ranks of the people, you will certainly suffer in your daily relations with other citizens. If your friends have not found you talent, kindly do the necessary labor for you, relieve you of all moral obligations to society, and you will be regarded as the ghost of middle-class society. "Finally, if you don't like this, you go, you go to another part of this wide world to find other conditions, find other comrades, and organize with them according to new principles. We still like ourselves s things." If there are too many lazy people in a communist society, this is the way to get rid of lazy people in that society. IV We do not believe that in a society truly based on individual liberty there would be a need to worry about such accidents. In fact, no matter how much private ownership of capital encourages laziness, in fact there are relatively few people who are not sick but are really lazy. Workers often say that the bourgeoisie are lazy.Of course there are many lazy people among these people, but they are also exceptions.On the contrary, in various manufacturing industries we often see a few extremely industrious bourgeois people.It is true that the majority of the bourgeoisie, relying on the interests of their privileged position, arranges themselves to do the least laborious work, and they have to work under hygienic conditions such as air, food, etc., so they don't feel too much trouble in doing things. tired.Yet these are the conditions of work which we think all laborers, without exception, should enjoy. We should also say that rich people rely on their privileged position to only do things that are not beneficial, or that are harmful to society.But ministers, bureau chiefs, factory owners, merchants, bankers, etc. also have to do some hours of work each day which they themselves somewhat dislike, although none of them like these voluntary jobs and prefer to enjoy their leisure time.If nine times out of ten this kind of work is harmful, they are just as bored.However, it is precisely because the bourgeoisie spends too much energy defending their privileged position, even doing harmful things (intentionally or not), that they are able to overthrow the landed aristocracy and dominate the people for a long time.Had they been idlers, they would have ceased to exist long ago, having perished like the nobles of old.Therefore, in the new society in the future that only requires them to do four or five hours a day of pleasant, beneficial and hygienic work, they will certainly work hard, and they will not let the terrible conditions enjoyed by today's laborers. continue to exist without improvement.If a man like Huxley had only had to go and work five hours in a London ditch, he would have found a way of making the ditch as sanitary as his own physiology laboratory. ① Refers to Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), a British biologist. - translator As for the laziness of the majority of working people, only vulgar economists and philanthropists can utter such nonsense. Ask a wise manufacturer and he will tell you that if the workers know nothing but laziness, all the factories will have to be shut down, and no system of rigor and surveillance will work.You should remember the "do it cunningly" doctrine used by a few demagogues in 1887 - "Bad work for less wages!"; When it came time to publicize, British employers panicked and panicked.These men, who had previously denounced the immorality of the laborer and the roughness of his work, now cry out: "They are degrading the worker, they are destroying industry." What's the meaning of the word "degenerate"? So when we talk about lazy people, we must know that this is the problem of a very small number of people in society; and before we legislate for a small number of people, wouldn't it be better for us to study the causes of laziness first?Anyone who looks at things with a wise eye will surely see that the children who are called idlers in schools are mostly those who do not understand the lessons taught by the teacher, not because they do not understand. Laziness, but the result of poor teaching.There are also many children who suffer from "cerebral anemia" because of poverty and unhealthy education, so that it is difficult for them to understand the lessons taught by the teachers.A child who does not study Greek, Latin, etc., can do well in his studies if he is taught to study science, and when he is taught, he uses his muscles to help the teaching.A girl who is dull in mathematics may become the first mathematician in her class if someone happens to explain to her the first details of arithmetic that she has never understood.The lazy worker in the factory, if he goes to cultivate his garden, he will get up at the first light, and work while looking at the rising red sun; in the evening, when everything is resting, he will go to the garden again. Go to work. Some say that dust is what is in the wrong place.This definition applies to nine out of ten of today's so-called lazy people.They are people who have gone in the wrong direction and their nature and talents are not suitable.When we read the biographies of great men, we must be amazed that there are many "lazy" among them.Before they found the right way, they were always very lazy; but afterward they became very diligent.Darwin, Stephenson, and many others were idlers of this kind. ① Refers to George Stephenson (1780-1843), a British engineer and inventor of the locomotive. - translator The so-called lazy is often such a person: they are not willing to sacrifice their life time to devote one eighteenth of the needle's work, or one hundredth of the watch's work, but want to spend their abundant wealth. Use your energy elsewhere.他又是一个反叛者，他不甘为了替雇主获得无数的快乐的缘故，让自己一生都在工作台旁边过日子，同时他也知道他的雇主比他更愚笨，不幸的只是他没有生在高楼大厦中，却出生在一间破陋的屋子里面。 还有多数懒惰者之所以懒惰，是因为他们对于自己被强迫学习用以谋生的职业不大清楚了解。他们看见自己亲手做出来的物品并不完全，尽力想好好地去做，却总不成功，后来知道他们已经得到了不良的工作习惯，永远不会成功了，因此就憎恨起他们的职业来，而且因为他们又不知道别的职业，他们便憎恨起一般的劳动来。无数的劳动者和技术家都失败在这个原因上面。 反之，从年青时候便学习钢琴弹得很好，或者把刨凿、毛刷、锉子等等使得很好的人，他决不会抛弃他的钢琴、凿、锉子等等的。只要他不劳动过度，他便会觉得他的工作是愉快的，不致使他疲乏。 在这个懒惰的名称之下集起了由各种原因生出来的结果，这些对于社会并不是害恶之源，而且能够成为利益之源。象关于犯罪和人类才能的一切问题一样，人们聚集起许多事实，但彼此间并无共通点。他们说起懒惰和罪恶，却不去分析它的原因。他们只忙着处罚这些过失，而不去考究刑罚是否反能奖励“懒惰”与“犯罪”。 ① ①参看我的《俄法狱中记》（InRussianandFrenchPrisons），1887年伦敦出版（译者按原书已绝版，译文即中译本全集第二卷）。 - author 所以自由社会如果看见了其中懒惰者数目的增加，要设法阻止，它在求助于刑罚之前便会先去考察懒惰的原因。例如在那个我们先前所说的患贫血病的儿童的脑筋中，是不能够再把学问灌输进去的了，我们应该先给他吃营养品，使他的血液增多，使他的体质强壮；不要再把他的时间浪费了，带他到乡下或海边去；并不用书本，就在露天给他讲授各种学问——教几何，就测量某尖顶的距离，某树木的高度；教博物学，就采集花草或在海里捕鱼；教理科，就制造捕鱼用的小船。然而千万不要把什么古典的文句和已经死了的语言，①再装入他的脑里去。不要把他弄成一个懒惰者。 ①指古希腊文、拉丁文等。 - translator 这样的儿童是不会有秩序和正规的习惯的。所以应该使他们先在自己中间保持秩序，然后，在聪明的教师的指导下，实验室、工场以及在一定的地方以许多器具所做的工作，都会把这方法教给他们，然而千万不可让你们的学校把他们教育成混乱无秩序的。因为学校的唯一秩序便是桌子的排列整齐，而且学校在讲授教育方面真是混乱得很，它决不会引起任何人对于和谐团结的爱心，也不能教授任何人以工作的规律方法。 八百万个学生代表出八百万不同种类的才能，你们用一个教育部长为这八百万学生所制定的教授法，只不过实行一个便利一般平凡人的制度罢了。难道你们不知道么？你们的学校成了一个懒惰的大学，恰如你们的监狱是一个犯罪的大学一样。让学校自由，把你们的大学学级废掉，只靠着志愿者的讲授；你们应该从这种方法开始，不要再制造什么制止懒惰的法律了，因为这样的法律只有使懒惰者的数目愈见增加。 那么，对于那些不愿一生专门去做某物品的极小部分的劳动者，以及整年整月闷在制钉机旁边终于发生憎厌的工人，应该使他们有机会去耕种田地，斩伐树木，冒风雨，航大海，乘火车头在世界各处奔驰；但不要再强迫他们一生去伺候一架小机器，或凿螺旋钉的头，或钻缝针的眼孔。 去消灭懒惰的原因罢，而且你们也会明白真正嫌厌劳动，特别嫌厌志愿劳动的人，是极少的，差不多可以说是没有，因此也没有特别为他们制定法律的必要了。