バートランド・ラッセル「現代における教師の役割」
* 原著：Unpopular Essays, Fact and Fiction, 1950, chapt.8: The functions of a teacher
* 出典：牧野力(編)『ラッセル思想辞典』所収
以下は、牧野力氏の要旨訳（ただし字句を少し修正）に原文を追加したものです。
古代においては教師は組織化された職業人ではなく、彼らが教えることに何の統制も受けなかった。・・・。（ただし）古代ギリシアにおいては、その教えが破壊的教義と見なされ、ソクラテスは死刑になり、プラトンは投獄されたと言われている。
知性の上で自立・独立しているという感情（知的独立の感情）は、教師の務め（役割）を適切かつ十分にやり遂げる上で、本質的なものである。だが、中世においては、教育は教会に独占され、ガリレオは宗教裁判にかけられ、G．ブルーノは火刑に処せられた。ルネッサンスと共に 、再び学問への一般的尊敬が高まり、教師に極めて高度の自由が与えられた。英国では、ニュートン以来、最も優秀な知的な仕事は、大学と無関係に一本立ちの学者が行った。
現代のより高度に組織化された世界においては、主として国家が - いくらかは教会が- 教育を独占する。 国家教育は、算数の九九表やアルファベットだけを教える範囲では、公認の教条としても、教育をねじ曲げず、有益である。しかし、人生の基本的事項を教える時、権威に盲従させる習慣を作ろうとするから、教師の自覚が特に必要になる。
国家や党公認の見解を教師に強要すると、狂信的頑固者を作る。 国外事情に無知で、自由討議に全く馴れていないドイツ、イタリア、ソ連、日本の各国は、それぞれ、自国の信条を教えた。 文化上の国際主義、は第一次大戦以来次第に衰退して来た。 組織的な党派精神こそ現代の最大の危険の一つであることは明白である。 国家主義は戦争を起こし、党派主義は内乱を起す。
教師の務め(役割)は、行政官や聖職者が教育に無理解な妨害者であることに気付き、絶対多数の教育施設を支配している現状を見抜くことにある。高度に組織化された現代世界の全体主義化を防ぐ唯一の方法として、教師はなるべく一定の度合いの自主性を確保すべきである。生徒には愛情と教師自ら価値ありと信ずるものを授け、無知による狂信、不寛容、偏狭、残酷から子どもを守り、俗衆や官僚から独立し、広い視野と展望に立つ知的習慣を養うよう努力しなければならない。
(... In former days a teacher was expected to be a man of exceptional knowledge or wisdom, to whose words men would do well to attend. In antiquity, teachers were not an organized profession, and no control was exercised over what they taught. It is true that they were often punished afterwards for their subversive doctrines. Socrates was put to death and Plato is said to have been thrown into prison, but such incidents did not interfere with the spread of their doctrines. ...
A feeling of intellectual independence is essential to the proper fulfilment of the teacher's functions, since it is his business to instill what he can of knowledge and reasonableness into the process of forming public opinion. In antiquity he performed this function unhampered except by occasional spasmodic and ineffective interventions of tyrants or mobs. In the middle ages teaching became the exclusive prerogative of the Church, with the result that there was little progress either intellectual or social. With the Renaissance, the general respect for learning brought back a very considerable measure of freedom to the teacher. It is true that the Inquisition compelled Galileo to recant, and burnt Giordano Bruno at the stake, but each of these men had done his work before being punished. Institutions such as universities largely remained in the grip of the dogmatists, with the result that most of the best intellectual work was done by independent men of learning. In England, especially, until near the end of the nineteenth century, hardly any men of first-rate eminence except Newton were connected with universities. But the social system was such that this interfered little with their activities or their usefulness.
In our more highly organized world we face a new problem. Something called education is given to everybody, usually by the State, but sometimes by the Churches. The teacher has thus become, in the vast majority of cases, a civil servant obliged to carry out the behests of men who have not his learning, who have no experience of dealing with the young, and whose only attitude towards education is that of the propagandist. It is not very easy to see how, in these circumstances, teachers can perform the functions for which they are specially fitted.
State education is obviously necessary, but as obviously involves certain dangers against which there ought to be safe guards. The evils to be feared were seen in their full magnitude in Nazi Germany and are still seen in Russia. Where these evils prevail no man can teach unless he subscribes to a dogmatic creed which few people of free intelligence are likely to accept sincerely. Not only must he subscribe to a creed, but he must condone abominations and carefully abstain from speaking his mind on current events. So long as he is teaching only the alphabet and the multiplication table, as to which no controversies arise, official dogmas do not necessarily warp his instruction; but even while he is teaching these elements he is expected, in totalitarian countries, not to employ the methods which he thinks most likely to achieve the scholastic result, but to instill fear, subservience, and blind obedience by demanding un questioned submission his authority. And as soon as he passes beyond the bare elements, he is obliged to take the official view on all controversial questions. The result is that the young in Nazi Germany became, and Russia become, fanatical bigots, ignorant of the world outside their own country, totally unaccustomed to free discussion, and not aware that their opinions can be questioned without wickedness. This state of affairs, bad as it is, would be less disastrous than it is if the dogmas instilled were, as in medieval Catholicism, universal and international; but the whole conception of an international culture is denied by the modern dogmatists, who preached one creed in Germany, another in Italy, another in Russia, and yet another in Japan. In each of these countries fanatical nationalism was what was most emphasized in the teaching of the young, with the result that the men of one country have no common ground with the men of another, and that no conception of a common civilization stands in the way of warlike ferocity.
...
... The only way to prevent totalitarianism in our highly organized world is to secure a certain degree of independence for bodies performing useful public work, and among such bodies teachers deserve a foremost place.
The teacher, like the artists, the philosopher, and the man of letters, can only perform his work adequately if he feelsh imself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority. )
