Chapter XII
EDUCATION
"PROFESSIONAL educationists and, along with them,
jL certain psychologists, have been inclined to exaggerate
the efficacy of childhood training and the accidents of early
life. The Jesuits used to boast that, if they were given the
child at a sufficiently early age, they could answer for the
man*. Similarly, the Freudians attribute all men's spiritual
ills to their experience during early childhood. But the
Jesuits trained up free-thinkers and revolutionaries as well*
as docile believers. And many psychologists are turning
away from the view that all neuroses are due to some crucial
experience in infancy. * Treatment in accordance with the
trauma theory is often/ writes Jung, * extremely harmful
to the patient, for he is forced to search in his memory
—perhaps over a course of years—for a hypothetical event
in his childhood, while things of immediate importance are
grossly neglected.' The truth is that a man is affected, not
only by his past, but also by his present and what he fore-
sees of the future. The conditioning process which takes
place during childhood does not completely predetermine
the behaviour of the man. To some extent, at any rate,
he can be re-conditioned by the circumstances of his
adolescent and adult life; to some extent his will is free,
and, if he so chooses and knows the right way to set about
it, he can re-condition himself. This re-conditioning may
be in a desirable direction; it may equally well be in an
undesirable one* For example, die conditioning which
children now receive in nursery schools is generally
excellent. That which they receive in more advanced
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