CHAPTERXIFAITH AND DUTYReviewsI
Education, properly understood, is the science of life, and every attempt to formulate this science is to be hailed with interest, and with a measure of gratitude in proportion to its success. Thinking minds everywhere are engaged in furnishing their quota towards this great work, in one or another of its aspects, physical, social, religious. We see at once the importance of every attempt to solve social problems or problems of faith, as helping us to understand those “laws of nature” and “ways of men,” the love, and dutiful attitude of the will towards which Mr. Huxley considers to be the sole practical outcome of education. We have before us three important works[9]on these lines. One deals with the problems of “secular” morality from an American point of view; the second with the whole problem of national education from a French and “scientific” standpoint. The third is not professedly an educational work. It deals with “the ways of men,” but with the ways of men as they are concerned with the ways and will of God. That is, it deals with the deep-seated springs out of which are the issues of life. As the true educationalist works from within outwards, he will probably find much aid in a work whose outlook on life is from the standpoint of “faith.”
Mr. Felix Adler, in “The Moral Instruction of Children,” undertakes a by no means easy task in setting himself to solve the problem of unsectarian moral instruction. He brings unusual qualifications to the work—a wide outlook, philosophic training, and that catholic love of literature and knowledge of books which is essential to the teacher of morals. The work before us is one which should find a place on every educated parent’s bookshelves, not perhaps to be swallowed whole as a “complete guide,” but to be studied with careful attention and some freedom of choice as to which counsel of perfection is worthy to be acted upon, and which other counsel may be rejected as not fitting in with that scheme of educational thought which the parent has already made for himself. Mr. Adler is most seriously handicapped at the outset. He writes for American schools, in which the first condition of moral instruction is that it must be unsectarian. This he, rightly or wrongly, interprets, to exclude all theistic teaching whatever; that is to say, the child he writes for has no sanctions beyond those he finds in his own breast. For example: “It is the business of the moral instructor in the school to deliver to his pupils the subject-matter of morality, but not to deal with the sanctions of it. He says to the pupil, ‘Thou shalt not lie.’ He takes it for granted that the pupil feels the force of this commandment, and acknowledges that he ought to yield obedience to it. For my part, I should suspect of quibbling and dishonest intention any boy or girl who would ask me, Why ought I not to lie? I should hold up before such a child theoughtin all its awful majesty. The right to reason about these matters cannot be conceded until after the mind has attained a certain maturity.”
Where does theoughtget its awful majesty? That there is in the human breast an infallible sense of “ought” is an error prolific of much evil. It is a popular idea to-day that it is right to do that which the doer holds to be right; or, as it is popularly expressed, a man does all that can be expected of him when he acts according to his “lights.” Now, a very slight acquaintance with history demonstrates that every persecution and most outrages, from the Inquisition to Thuggee, are the outcome of that same majesty of “ought,” as it makes its voice heard in the breast of an individual or of a community. To attempt to treat of morals without dealing with the sanctions of morality is to work from the circumference instead of from the centre.
Moses, Moses und immer Moses!says a German pedagogue of the modern school, who writes in hot disdain of the old school system, in which ten or twelve, and, in some of the German States, fifteen or sixteen hours a week were devoted to Bible-teaching. We in England, and they in America, also rebel against the Bible as a class-book. Educationalists say there is so much else to be learned, that this prolonged study of sacred literature is a grievous waste of time; and many religious persons, on the other hand, object on the ground that it is not good to make the Bible common as a class-book. But it is singular that so few educationalists recognise that the Bible is not a single book, but a classic literature of wonderful beauty and interest; that, apart from its Divine sanctions and religious teaching, from all that we understand by “Revelation,” the Bible, as a mere instrument of education, is, at the very least as valuable as the classics of Greece or Rome. Here is poetry, the rhythm of which soothes even the jaded brain past taking pleasure in any other. Here is history, based on such broad, clear lines, such dealing of slow and sure and even-handed justice to the nations, such stories of national sins and national repentances, that the student realises, as from no other history, the solidarity of the race, the brotherhood—and, if we may call it so—the individuality of the nations. Here is philosophy which, of all the philosophies which have been propounded, is alone adequate to the interpretation of human life. We say not a word here of that which is theraison d’êtreof the Bible—its teaching of religion, its revelation of God to man; but, to say only one word more, all the literatures of the world put together utterly fail to give us a system of ethics, in precept and example, motive and sanction, complete as that to which we have been born as our common inheritance in the Bible.
For 1700 years, roughly speaking, the Bible has been the school-book of modern Europe; its teaching, conveyed directly or indirectly, more or less pure, has been the basis upon which the whole superstructure of not only religious but ethical and, to some extent, literary training rested. Now, the Bible as a lesson-book is tabooed; and educationalists are called upon to produce what shall take its place in the origination of ideas and the formation of character. This is the task to which Mr. Adler sets himself; and that he is at all successful is obviously due to the fact that his own mind is impregnated with the Bible-lore and the sacred law which he does not feel himself at liberty to propound to his students. But this prepossession of the author’s makes his work very helpful and suggestive to parents who desire to take the Bible as the groundwork and the sanction of that moral teaching which they are glad to supplement from other sources.
May we recommend the following suggestion toparents:—
“Parents and teachers should endeavour to answer such questions as these: When do the first stirrings of the moral sense appear in the child? How do they manifest themselves? What are the emotional and the intellectual equipments of the child at different periods, and how do these correspond with its moral outfit? At what time does conscience enter on the scene? To what acts or omissions does the child apply the terms right or wrong? If observations of this kind were made with care and duly recorded, the science of education would have at its disposal a considerable quantity of material, from which, no doubt, valuable generalisations might be deduced. Every mother, especially, should keep a diary in which to note the successive phases of her child’s physical, mental, and moral growth, with particular attention to the moral; so that parents may be enabled to make a timely forecast of their children’s character, to foster in them every germ of good, and by prompt precautions to suppress, or at least restrain, what is bad.”
We are glad to find that Mr. Adler reinstates fairy tales. He says, justly, that much of the selfishness of the world is due, not to actual hard-heartedness, but to a lack of imaginative power; and adds, “I hold that something, nay, much, has been gained if a child has learned to take the wishes out of its heart, as it were, and to project them on the screen of fancy.” The GermanMärchenhold the first place in his regards. He says: “They represent the childhood of mankind, and it is for this reason that they never cease to appeal to children.”
“But how shall we handle theseMärchen? and what method shall we employ in putting them to account for our special purpose? My first counsel is, Tell the story. Do not give it to the child to read. The child, as it listens to theMärchen, looks up with wide-opened eyes to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive to the touch of the earlier life of the race, which thus falls upon its own.” That is, our author feels, and rightly so, that traditions should be orally delivered. This is well worth noting. His second counsel is equally important. “Do not,” he says, “take the moral plum out of the fairy tale pudding, but let the child enjoy it as a whole.... Treat the moral element as an incident, emphasise it indeed, but incidentally. Pluck it as a wayside flower.”
Mr. Felix Adler’s third counsel is, to eliminate from the stories whatever is merely superstitious, merely a relic of ancient animism, and, again, whatever is objectionable on moral grounds. In this connection he discusses the vexed question of how far we should acquaint children with the existence of evil in the world. His conclusion is one with which we shall probably be inclined to agree.
“My own view,” he says, “is that we should speak in the child’s hearing only of those lesser forms of evil, physical or moral, with which it is already acquainted.” On this ground he would rule out all the cruel step-mother stories, the unnatural father stories, and so on; though, probably, most of us would make an exception in favour of Cinderella, and its charming German renderingAschenbrödel.
Fables, according to our author, should form the basis of moral instruction at the second stage; probably when children emerge from the nursery. We have all grown up on “Æsop’s Fables,” and “The Dog in the Manger,” “King Log,” “The Frog and the Stork,” have passed into the current coinage of our thought. But it is interesting to be reminded that the so-called Æsop’s fables are infinitely older than the famous Greek story-teller, and are, for the most part, of Asiatic origin. We are reminded that it is important to keep the origin of this fable before us, and exercise discrimination in our choice of those which we use to convey moral ideas to our children. Such fables as “The Oak and the Reed,” “The Brazen and the Earthen Pot,” “The Kite and the Wolf,” Mr. Adler would reject, as breathing of Eastern subserviency and fear. But possibly for the very reason that the British backbone is little disposed to bow before man or circumstances, the lessons of life culled by peoples of other habits and other thoughts may be quite specially useful to the English child. Anyway, we should lose some of the most charming fables if we cut out all that savours of the wisdom of the East. The fables Mr. Felix Adler specially commends are those which hold up virtue for our praise or evil for our censure; such asCowardice, the fable of the “Stag and the Fawn;”Vanity, “The Peacock and the Crane;”Greediness, “The Dog and the Shadow.”
“In the third part of our primary course, we shall use selected stories from the classical literature of the Hebrews, and later on from that of Greece, particularly the ‘Odyssey’ and the ‘Iliad.’”
Here we begin to be at issue with our author. We should not present Bible stories as carrying only the same moral sanction as the myths of ancient Greece; neither should we defer their introduction until the child has gone through a moral course of fairy tales and a moral course of fables. He should not be able to recall a time before the sweet stories of old filled his imagination; he should have heard the voice of the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the evening; should have been an awed spectator where the angels ascended and descended upon Jacob’s stony pillow; should have followed Christ through the cornfield on the Sabbath-day, and sat in the rows of the hungry multitudes—so long ago that the sacred scenes form the unconscious background of his thoughts. All things are possible to the little child, and the touch of the spiritual upon our material world, the difficult problems, the hard sayings, which are an offence—in the Bible sense of the word—to his elders, present no difficulties to the child’s all-embracing faith. We would not say—far otherwise—that every Bible story is fit for children, because it is a Bible story; neither would we analyse too carefully, nor draw hard and fast lines to distinguish what we would call history from that of which it may be said, “Without a parable spake He not unto them.”
The child is not an exegetical student. The moral teaching, the spiritual revelations, the lovely imagery of the Bible, are the things with which he is concerned, and of these he cannot have too much. As Mr. Adler says, “The narrative of the Bible is saturated with the moral spirit, the moral issues are everywhere to the forefront. Duty, guilt and its punishment, the conflict of conscience with inclination, are the leading themes. The Hebrew people seem to have been endowed with what may be called a moral genius, and especially did they emphasise the filial and fraternal duties. Now, it is precisely these duties that must be impressed on young children.”
Let us see how Mr. Adler would use the Bible narratives. We have only space for a fragmentary sentence here and there: “Once upon a time there were two children, Adam and Eve. Adam was a fine and noble-looking lad.”... “It was so warm that the children never needed to go indoors.”... “And the snake kept on whispering, ‘Just take one bite of it; nobody sees you.’”... “You, Adam, must learn to labour, and you, Eve, to be patient and self-denying for others,” &c.
We leave it to our readers to decide whether “treatment” improves the Bible narrative, or whether this is the sort of thing to lay hold of a child’s imagination.
Mr. Ruskin tells us that his incomparable style is due entirely to his early familiarity with the Bible classics. It is a mistake to translate Bible stories into slipshod English, even when the narrator keeps close to the facts of the narrative. The rhythm and cadence of Biblical phraseology is as charming to a child as to his elders, if not more so. Read your Bible story to the child, bit by bit; get him to tell you in his own words (keeping as close as he can to the Bible words) what you have read, and then, if you like, talk about it; but not much. Above all, do not let us attempt a “practical commentary on every verse in Genesis,” to quote the title of a work lately published.
Two points it seems worth while to dwell upon here. Is it advisable to tell the children the stories of the Bible miracles in an age when the possibility of miracles is so hotly discussed? In the first place, all that the most advanced scientists have to urge against “miracles” is that precisely such phenomena have not come under their personal notice; but they, before all people, are open to admit that nothing is impossible and that no experience is final. In the second place, as for the moral and spiritual instruction which the story of the miracle affords, it is immaterial whether, in the particular case in question, a historical fact is recorded, or whether, in this case also, it is true that “without a parable spake He not unto them.” It is the vital, not the historical, truth of the story which matters to the child. As for the latter, he is a bold critic, and well in advance of the scientific knowledge of the day, who ventures to say, “Thisis possible,that otheris impossible.”
The second point worthy of our attention in regard to Bible-teaching is, Is the Bible to be taken whole and undivided, or to be dealt out to children as they are able to bear it? There are recitals in the Bible which we certainly should not put into the hands of children in any other book. We should do well to ask ourselves gravely, if we have any warrant for supposing that our children will be shielded from the suggestions of evil which we deliberately lay before them; or if there is any Divine law requiring that the whole Bible—which is not only the Word of God, but is also a collection of the legal, literary, historical, poetical, philosophical, ethical, and polemical writings of a nation—should be placed altogether and all at once in the hands of a curious child, as soon as he is able to read? When will our superstitious reverence for the mereletterof the Scriptures allow us to break the Bible up, to be read, as all other literature is, in separate books; and, for the children anyway, those passages “expunged” which are not fit for their reading; and even those which are perfectly uninteresting, as, for example, long genealogies? How delightful it would be that each birthday should bring with it a gift of a new book of the Bible, progressing in difficulty from year to year, beautifully bound and illustrated, and printed in clear, inviting type and on good paper. One can imagine the Christian child collecting his library of sacred books with great joy and interest, and making a diligent and delighted study of the volume for the year in its appointed time. The next best thing, perhaps, is to read bit by bit to the children, as beautifully as may be, requiring them to tell the story, after listening, as nearly in the Bible words as they can.
But to return to Mr. Adler. Here is a valuable suggestion: “Children should be taught to observe moral pictures before any attempt is made to deduce moral principles. But certain simplerulesshould be given to the very young—must, indeed, be given them—for their guidance. Now, in the legislation ascribed to Moses, we find a number of rules fit for children, and a collection of these rules might be made for the use of schools, such as: Ye shall not lie; ye shall not deceive one another; ye shall take no bribe; thou shalt not go about as a tale-bearer among thy fellows,” and so on—a very useful collection of sixteen rules by way of specimen.
Farther on we read, “The story of David’s life is replete with dramatic interest. It may be arranged in a series of pictures. First picture, David and Goliath—i.e., skill pitted against brute strength, or the deserved punishment of a bully.” Conceive the barren, common, self-complete and self-complacent product of “moral” teaching on this level!
In his treatment of the “Odyssey” and the “Iliad,” Mr. Adler makes some good points: “My father, anxious that I should become a good man, made me learn all the poems of Homer,” Xenophon makes one of his characters say: and here we have suggestive lines as to how the great epics may be used for example of life and instruction in manners.
What so inspiring as the story of Ulysses to the boy in search of adventures? and what greater stimulus to courage, prudence, presence of mind, than in the escapes of the hero? “Ulysses is the type of sagacity as well as of bravery; his mind teems with inventions.” The ethical elements of the “Odyssey” are said to be conjugal affection, filial conduct (Telemachus), presence of mind, and veneration shown to grand-parents (Laertes). Friendly relations with dependents might have been added, as illustrated by the lovely story of the nurse Eurycleia recognising Ulysses when his wife sat by with stony face. Friendship, again, in the story of Achilles’ grief for Patroclus. Mr. Adler treats the Homeric stories with more grace and sympathy, and with less ruthless violation, than he metes out to those of the Bible, but here again we trace the initial weakness of “secular” morality. The “Odyssey” and the “Iliad” are religious poems or they are nothing. The whole motive is religious, every incident is supernaturally directed. The heroic inspiration is entirely wanting, if we fail to bear in mind that the characters do and suffer with superlative courage and fortitude, only because they willed to do and suffer, in all things, the will of the gods. The acquiescence of the will with that which they guessed, however darkly, of the divine will, is the truly inspiring quality of the Homeric heroes; and here, as much as in the teaching of Bible morality, “secular” ethics are at fault.
The third section of Mr. Adler’s work consists of lessons on duty. Here again we have excellent counsels and delightful illustrations. “The teacher should always take the moral habit for granted. He should never give his pupils to understand that he and they are about to examine, whether, for instance, it is wrong or not wrong to lie. The commandment against lying is assumed, and its obligation acknowledged at the outset.” This we heartily agree with, and especially we like the apparently inadvertent use of the word “commandment,” which concedes the whole question at issue—that is, that the idea of duty is a relative one, depending on an Authority supreme and intimate, which embraces the thoughts of the heart and the issues of the life.
The story of Hillel, as illustrating the duty of acquiring knowledge, is very charming, and is deeply interesting to the psychologist, as illustrating that a naturally implanted desire for knowledge is one of the springs of action in the human breast. The motives proposed for seeking knowledge are poor and inadequate; to succeed in life, to gain esteem, to satisfy yourself, and even to be able, possibly, to benefit others, are by no means soul-compelling motives. The child who is encouraged to learn, because to learn is his particular duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him, has the strongest of conceivable motives, in the sense that he is rendering that which is required of him by the Supreme Authority.
This one note of feebleness runs through the whole treatment of the subject. The drowning man is supposed to counsel himself to “be brave, because as a human being you are superior to the forces of Nature, because there is something in you—your moral self—over which the forces of Nature have no power, because what happens to you in your private character is not important; but it is important that you assert the dignity of humanity to the last breath.” This reads rather well; but how much finer is the attitude of the man who struggles manfully to save the life thatGod has given him!
The chapter on the influence of manual training is well worthy of consideration. The concluding sentence runs: “It is a cheering and encouraging thought that technical labour, which is the source of our material aggrandisement, may also become, when employed in the education of the young, the means of enlarging their manhood, quickening their intellect, and strengthening their character.”
We have taken up Mr. Adler’s work so fully because it is one of the most serious and successful attempts with which we are acquainted to present a graduated course of ethics suitable for children of all ages. Though we are at issue with the author on the all-important point of moral sanctions, we very earnestly commend the work to the perusal of parents. The Christian parent will assuredly present the thought of Law in connection with a Law-giver, and will supplement the thousand valuable suggestions he will find here with his own strong conviction that “Ought” is of the Lord God. But even the Christian child suffers from what may be called slipshod moral teaching. The failings of the good are a source of sorrow and surprise to the moralist as well as to the much-endeavouring and often-failing Christian soul. That temptation and sin are inseparable from our present condition may be allowed; but that an earnest and sincere Christian should be habitually guilty of failing in candour, frankness, justice to the characters and opinions of others, should be intemperate in censure, and—dare we say it?—spiteful in criticism, is possibly to be traced, not to fallible human nature, but to defective education.
The ethical idea has never been fairly and fully presented to the mind on these vulnerable points. The man is unable to give due weight to the opinions of another, because the child has not been instructed in the duty of candour. There is little doubt that careful, methodical, ethical instruction, with abundant illustration, and—we need not add—inspired by the thought, “God wills it,” should, if such instruction could be made general, have an appreciable effect in elevating the national character. Therefore, let us repeat, we hail with gratitude such a contribution to the practical ethics of the nursery and schoolroom as Mr. Adler’s work on “The Moral Instruction of Children.”
FOOTNOTES:[9]“The Moral Instruction of Children.” 6s. By Felix Adler. Published by Edward Arnold.“Education from a National Standpoint.” By Alfred Fouillée. Translated and edited by W. J. Greenstreet, M.A. Published by Edward Arnold.“Faith.” Eleven Sermons, with a Preface, byRev.H. C. Beeching. Published by Percival &Co.
[9]“The Moral Instruction of Children.” 6s. By Felix Adler. Published by Edward Arnold.
“Education from a National Standpoint.” By Alfred Fouillée. Translated and edited by W. J. Greenstreet, M.A. Published by Edward Arnold.
“Faith.” Eleven Sermons, with a Preface, byRev.H. C. Beeching. Published by Percival &Co.
SinceLocke established a school of English educational thought, based on English philosophy, our tendency has been exclusively towards naturalism, if not materialism; to the exclusion of a vital element in education—the force of the idea.
Madame de Staël has a remarkable passage concerning this tendency in English philosophy which, though we may not be disposed to admit her conclusionsen bloc, should certainly give us pause, and lead us to consider whether we should not wisely modify the tendencies of our national thought by laying ourselves open to foreigninfluences:—
“Hobbes prit à la lettre la philosophie qui fait dériver toutes nos idées des impressions des sens; il n’en craignit point les conséquences, et il a dit hardimentque l’âme était, soumise à la nécessité comme la société au despotisme. Le culte des tous les sentiments élévés et purs est tellement consolidé en Angleterre par les institutions politiques et religieuses, que les spéculations de l’esprit tournent autour de ces imposantes colonnes sans jamais les ébranler. Hobbes eut donc peu de partizans dans son pays; mais l’influence de Locke fut plus universelle. Comme son caractère était morale et religieuse, il ne se permit aucun des raisonnements corrupteurs qui dérivaient nécessairement de sa métaphysique; et la plupart de ses compatriotes, en l’adoptant, ont eu comme lui la noble inconséquence de séparer les résultats des principes, tandis que Hume et les philosophes français, après avoir admis le système, l’ont appliqué d’une manière beaucoup plus logique.
“La métaphysique de Locke n’a eu d’autre effet sur les esprits, en Angleterre, que de ternir un peu leur originalité naturelle; quand même elle dessécherait la source des grandes pensées philosophiques, elle ne saurait détruire le sentiment religieux, qui sait si bien y suppléer; mais cette métaphysique reçue dans le reste de l’Europe, l’Allemagne exceptée, a été l’une des principales causes de l’immoralité dont on s’est fait une théorie pour en mieux assurer la pratique.”
It is well that we should recognise the continuity of English educational thought, and perceive that we have in Spencer and Baine the lineal descendants of the earlier philosophers. Probably the chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome of philosophy. We deal with the issue and ignore the source. Hence our efforts lack continuity and definite aim. We are content to pick up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints and suggestions are the output.
Mr. Greenstreet’s translation of M. Fouillée’s remarkable work[10]should not be without its effect upon the burning questions of the hour. As the translator well says in his preface: “The spirit of reform is in the air; the question of the retention of Greek at the Universities is but a ripple of the great wave that seems ready to burst upon us and to obliterate the characteristic features of our national system of education.... A glance at the various forms of the educational systems obtaining in Europe and America is sufficient to betray to the observant eye how near to the verge of chaos we are standing.”
These are words of insight and wisdom, but let us not therefore despair as though the end of all things were at hand. The truth is, we are in the throes of an educational revolution; we are emerging from chaos rather than about to plunge into it; we are beginning to recognise that education is the applied science of life, and that we really have existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of our children and regulate our own. We need not aspire to a complete and exhaustive code of educational laws. This will come to us duly when humanity has, so to speak, fulfilled itself. Meantime, we have enough to go on with if we would believe it. What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources; to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy. Hence, if our educational thought is to be sound and effectual, we must look to the philosophy which underlies it, and must be in a condition to trace every counsel of perfection for the bringing up of children to one or other of the two schools of philosophy of which it must needs be the outcome.
Is our system of education to be the issue of naturalism or of idealism, or is there indeed amedia via? This is practically the question which M. Fouillée sets himself to answer in the spirit of a philosophical educationalist. He examines his premisses and draws his deductions with a candour, culture, and philosophic insight which carry the confidence of the reader. No doubt he is of a mind with that umpire in a cricket-match who lays down the dictum that one must be quite fair to both sides with alittleleaning to one’s own. M. Fouillée takes sides with classical as opposed to scientific culture. But he is not a mere partisan; he has philosophic reasons for the faith that is in him, and his examination of the question of national education is full of instruction and inspiration for the thoughtful parent as well as for the schoolmaster.
M. Fouillée gives in his preamble a key to his treatment of the subject. He says:
“On this as on all great questions of practical philosophy Guyau has left his mark.... He has treated the question from the highest standpoint, and has treated it in a strictly scientific form. ‘Given the hereditary merits and faults of a race, how far can we modify existing heredity by means of education for a new heredity?’ For the problem is nothing less than this. It is not merely a matter of the instruction of individuals, but of the preservation and improvement of the race. Education must therefore be based upon the physiological and moral laws of the culture of races.... The ethnical is the true point of view. By means of education we must create such hereditary tendencies as will be useful to the race both physically and intellectually.”
M. Fouillée begins at the beginning. He examines the principle of selection, and shows that it is a working principle, not only in animal, but in intellectual, æsthetic, and moral life. He demonstrates that there is what may be called psychological selection, according to whose laws thoseideaswhich are the fittest rule the world; and it is in the light of this truth, of the natural selection of ideas and of their enormous force, that he would examine into the vexed question of the subjects and methods of education. M. Fouillée complains with justice that no attempt has been made to harmonise or unify education as a whole in any one civilised nation. Controversy rages round quite secondary questions—whether education shall be literary or scientific? and, again, whether the ancient or the modern languages shall be taught? But science and literature do not exhaust the field. Our author introduces a new candidate. He says:
“In this volume we shall inquire if the link between science and literature is not to be found in the knowledge of man, of society, of the great laws of the universe—i.e., in morals and social science and æsthetics, in a word, in philosophy.”
Now this is the gist of the teaching which we have laboured to advance in theParents’ Unionand its various agencies.
“The proper study of mankind is man,” is one of those “thoughts beyond their thought” which poets light upon; and I am able to add my personal testimony to the fact that under no other study with which I am acquainted is it possible to trace such almost visible expansion of mind and soul in the young student as in this of philosophy.
A peculiarly interesting and original line of thought, worked out very fully in this volume, is, that just as the child with an individual bent should have that bent encouraged and “educated,” so of anation:—
“If social science rejects every mystical interpretation of the common spirit animating a nation, it by no means rejects the reflected consciousness or spontaneous divination, possessed by every nation, of the functions which have devolved upon it.”
Here is a most fruitful suggestion. Think of the fitness of a scheme of physical, intellectual, and moral training, based upon our ideal of the English character and of the destiny of the English nation.
The chapter on “Power of Education and of Idea-Forces—Suggestions—Heredity” is very valuable, as utilising a floating nebulæ of intuitions, which are coming upon us in connection with the hundred and one hypnotic marvels of the day. M. Fouillée maintainsthat—
“The power of instruction and education, denied by some and exaggerated by others, being nothing but the power of ideas and sentiments, it is impossible to be too exact in determining at the outset the extent and limits of this force. This psychological problem is the foundation of pedagogy.”
In a word, M. Fouillée returns boldly to the Platonic philosophy; theideais to him all in all, in philosophy and education. But he returns empty-handed. The wave of naturalism, now perhaps on the ebb, has left neither flotsam nor jetsam for him, save for stranded fragments of the Darwinian theory. Now, we maintain that to this wave of thought, naturalistic, materialistic—what you will—we owe the discovery of the physiological basis of education.
While we believed that thought was purely volatile, incapable of impact upon matter, or of being acted upon by matter, our theories of education were necessarily vague. We could not catch our Ariel; how then could we school him? But now, the physiologists have taught us that our wilful sprite rests with the tips of his toes, at any rate, upon solid ground; nay more, his foothold is none so slight but that it leaves footmarks behind, an impress on that domain of the physical in which we are somewhat at home. The impalpable thoughts that we think leave their mark upon the quite palpable substance of the brain, set up, so the physiologists tell us, connections between the nerve-cells of which that organ is composed; in fact, to make a long story short, the cerebrum “grows to the uses it is earliest and most constantly put to.” This fact opens up a function of education upon which M. Fouillée hardly touches, that most important function of the formation of habits—physical, intellectual, moral. “Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny,” says Thackeray. And a great function of the educator is to secure that acts shall be so regularly, purposefully, and methodically sown that the child shall reap the habits of the good life in thinking and doing, with the minimum of conscious effort.
We are only now beginning to discover howbeneficial are the laws which govern our being. Educate the child in these habits and the man’s life will run in them, without the constant wear and tear of the moral effort of decision. Once, twice, three times in a day, he will still, no doubt, have to choose between the highest and the less high, the best and the less good course. But all the minor moralities of life may be made habitual to him. He has been brought up to be courteous, prompt, punctual, neat, considerate; and he practises these virtues without conscious effort. It is much easier to behave in the way he is used to, than to originate a new line of conduct. And this is so, because it is graciously and mercifully ordered that there shall be a physical record and adaptation as the result of our educational efforts; and that the enormous strain of moral endeavour shall come upon us only occasionally. “Sow a habit, reap a character;” that is, the formation of habits is the chief means whereby we modify the original hereditary disposition of the child until it becomes the character of the man.
But even in this physiological work, the spiritual force of the idea has its part to play. For a habit is set up by following out an initial idea with a long sequence of corresponding acts. You tell a child that the Great Duke slept in so narrow a bed that he could not turn over, because, said he, “When you want to turn over it’s time to get up.” The boy does not wish to get up in the morning; but he does wish to be like the hero of Waterloo. You stimulate him to act upon this idea day after day for a month or so, until the habit is formed, and it is just as easy as not to get up in good time.
The functions of education may be roughly defined as twofold; (a) the formation of habits; (b) the presentation of ideas. The first depends far more largely than we recognise on physiological processes. The second is purely spiritual in origin, method, and result. Is it not possible that here we have the meeting-point of the two philosophies which have divided mankind since men began to think about their thoughts and ways? Both are right; both are necessary; both have their full activity in the development of a human being at his best. Thecruxof modern thought, as indeed of all profound thought, is, Is it conceivable that the spiritual should have any manner of impact upon the material? Every problem, from the education of a little child to the Divine Incarnation, turns upon this point. Conceive this possibility and all is plain, from the marvels resulting from hypnotic suggestion to the miracles of our faith. We can even believe what we are told, that, by an effort of passionate concentration of thought and feeling the devout may arrive at the figure of the stigmata upon hands and feet. With this key nothing is impossible to our faith, all we ask for is precedent. And after all, this inter-action of forces is the most common and every-day of our experiences. What is it but the impact of spirit upon matter which writes upon the face of flesh that record of character and conduct which we call countenance. And not only upon the face. He is a dull scholar in the lore of human nature, who cannot read a man fairly well from a back view. The sculptor knows the trick of it. There is a statue of the late Prince Consort in Edinburgh in which representative groups pay homage to the Prince. Stand so as to get the back view of any one of them and the shoulders of scholar, soldier, peasant, artisan, tell unmistakably the tale of their several lives. What is this but the impress of spirit upon matter!
Anyway we are on the horns of a dilemma. There is no middle course open to us. The physiologists have made it absolutely plain that the brain is concerned with thinking. Nay more, that thought may go on without any volition on the part of the thinker. Further, that much of our best work in art and literature is the result of what is called unconscious cerebration. Now, we must admit one of two things. Either thought is a process of the material brain, one more “mode of motion,” as the materialists contend, or the material brain is the agent of the spiritual thought, which acts upon it, let us say, as the fingers of a player upon the keys of his instrument. Grant this and the whole question is conceded. The impact of the spiritual upon the material is an accepted fact.
As we have had occasion to say before, in this great work of education parents and teachers are permitted to play only a subordinate part after all. You may bring your horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink; and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the child; but you do not know in the least which he will take, and which he will reject. And very well for us it is that this safeguard to his individuality is implanted in every child’s breast. Our part is to see that his educationalplatis constantly replenished with fit and inspiring ideas, and then we must needs leave it to the child’s own appetite to take which he will have, and as much as he requires. Of one thing we must beware. The least symptom of satiety, especially when the ideas we present are moral and religious, should be taken as a serious warning. Persistence on our part just then may end in the child’s never willingly sitting down to that dish any more.
The very limitations we see to our own powers in this matter of presenting ideas should make us the more anxiously careful as to the nature of the ideas set before our children. We shall not be content that they learn geography, history, Latin, what not,—we shall ask what salient ideas are presented in each such study, and how will these ideas affect the intellectual and moral development of the child. We shall be in a mood, that is, to go calmly and earnestly into the question of education as presented by M. Fouillée. We shall probably differ from him in many matters of detail, but we shall most likely be inclined to agree with his conclusion that, not some subject of mere utility, but moral and social science conveyed by means of history, literature, or otherwise, is the one subject which we are not at liberty to leave out from the curriculum of “a being breathing thoughtful breath.”
The tables of studies given in the appendix are of extreme value. Every subject is treated from what may be called the ideal point of view.
“Two things are necessary. First, we must introduce into the study of each science the philosophic spirit and method, general views, the search for the most general principles and conclusions. We must then reduce the different sciences to unity by a sound training in philosophy, which will be as obligatory to students in science as to students in literature.... Scientific truths, said Descartes, are battles won; describe to the young the principal and most heroic of these battles; you will thus interest them in the results of science, and you will develop in them a scientific spirit by means of the enthusiasm for the conquest of truth; you will make them see the power of the reasoning which has led to discoveries in the past, and which will do so again in the future. How interesting arithmetic and geometry might be if we gave a short history of their principal theorems; if the child were mentally present at the labours of a Pythagoras, a Plato, a Euclid, or in modern times of a Viète, a Descartes, a Pascal, or a Leibnitz. Great theories, instead of being lifeless and anonymous abstractions, would become human, living truths, each with its own history, like a statue by Michael Angelo, or like a painting by Raphael.”
FOOTNOTES:[10]“Education from a National Standpoint.”
[10]“Education from a National Standpoint.”