Raw Uncorrected AI-generated Transcription
CHAPTER IX THE CALDECOTT COMMUNITY AND THE FUTURE. Behind every great enterprise is the vision o f the City of God. It is only a sense of the completeness of God’s plan that makes small things worth doing. Behind the Caldecott Community stands a vision of human fellowship, of sanctified labour, and of beauty in the common things of life, the kingdom of God on earth. Because of these ideals the development of the individual is insisted on, not at the expense of, hut for the sake of, the Community. The Directors and friends of the Caldecott Community are constantly asked whether the education the children receive is not too idealistic, whether it is not unfitting them for the work of life. This is a criticism that all idealists have to meet. The answer of the Caldecott Community is that idealism is made the driving force behind the common work of every day. To live socially is an art, and like any other art, requires training. The right background for a child’s education is a busy growing community, not the sterile life of a school, existing solely for his benefit. A child’s desire is to be of use, and if this desire is not satisfied in childhood, it may fade. The Community began as a school, hut it has an existence of its own in which every child and every grown-up person has his proper place. The children are equally members of the Community with the grown-ups. Charlton is as much their home as it is the home of the staff, and this they realise, or rather, they have never imagined that it could he otherwise. Every activity needs the energies of both. The children work in the farmyard, doing the unskilled jobs, and learning to do the skilled ones. In the weaving room there are two looms—a big loom for the grown-up people and a little one for the children. They work side by side, for the sake of the work itself, not for its educative value alone. The children are trained to do the simple necessary work of the house, and to do it properly. It is made clear to every child, and for the matter of that, to every grown-up person, that everyone who has the privilege of sharing the daily life of a Community has also the responsibility of sharing its daily work. If he has a bed, he must make it; if he has a room, he must keep it clean and tidy; if he has meals, he must help to get them ready and to clear them away. Here is a high ideal of fellowship and of service geared on to the everyday details of life. The future of the Caldecott Community itself is on the knees of the gods. The work must expand as time goes on, and outside interest is enlisted. The Directors have schemes for a cottage community when