Age.1893.1894.1895.1896.1897.1898.Per cent.Per cent.Per cent.Per cent.Per cent.Per cent.Under 124.64.94.65.65.65.612 and under 1615.015.213.414.514.014.516 and under 2121.222.021.819.719.520.2Total under 2140.842.139.839.839.140.3
'The general result is that the number of youthful offenders has diminished with the general diminution of crime, but that they still bear almost the same ratio as before to the total of criminals.'
All this is, as has been pointed out, absolutely misleading. The number of persons convicted has nothing whatever to do with the increase or decrease of crime; and the proportion of youthful offenders to the total number of persons convicted is only calculated, in view of the great amount of clemency shown to young people both by magistrates and by the public, to give one a wholly false impression as to the prevalence of juvenile crime.
It would be easy to take the criminal statistics of foreign countries, and to prove from them that the education of the masses there has brought about anoverwhelming increase in the proportion of crimes and offences committed by young persons under the age of twenty-one.
In Germany, Austria, France, Russia, Italy, Holland, and the United States juvenile crime has, according to statistical information, largely increased during the last quarter of a century. But, without making an exhaustive inquiry into the alterations that may have taken place in the law, the relative activity of the police, and a dozen other contingencies, it would not be honest to attempt to draw definite conclusions from these figures.
One has, after all, in these matters to fall back upon logic and common sense. There is the solid fact that youthful criminals abound in spite of education systems, and although there is a considerable leakage in respect to school-attendance, it does not follow that juvenile offenders are drawn from this truant class to a disproportionate extent. It must be remembered, on the contrary, that a great amount of non-attendance at school is due to the employment of children—especially in rural districts, where the members of School Boards are often the very people who extract most profit from child labour.
A prison chaplain of great experience, the Rev. J. W. Horsley, wrote, in his interesting work on 'Prisons and Prisoners': 'While covetousness is a factor of crime, the tools education places in the hands make crimes of greed more possible, and possible at an earlier age than in past generations. This week I got the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society to take under its care a child of ten,who had written, filled up, and cashed, a postal order that it might buy more lollipops. Increased knowledge, especially when not adequately accompanied by moral and religious education, will create new tastes, desires, and ambitions, that make for evil as well as for good. Let instruction abound, let education in its fullest sense more abound, but let us be aware of the increased power for evil as well as for good that they produce, and at any rate let us not imagine that education and crime cannot co-exist. Crime is varied, not abolished, not even most effectually decreased, by the sharpening of wits.'
Speaking of intemperance in relation to crime, he states that: 'Brain-workers provide the most hopeless cases of dipsomania. Increased brain-power—more brain-work; more brain-exhaustion—more nervous desire for a stimulant, more rapid succumbing to the alcoholic habit—these are the stages that can be noted everywhere among those who have had more "schooling" than their fathers. Australia consumes more alcohol per head than any nation. In Australia primary education is more universal than in England, and yet there criminals have increased out of all proportion to the population. Of much crime, of many forms of crime, it is irrefragably true that crime is condensed alcohol, and it is certainly not true that the absolutely or comparatively illiterate alone comprise those who swell these categories.'
I have taken pains to ascertain the opinions of several of the chaplains attached to the great convict prisons, and they are practically unanimous in condemning the present system of education.
'It is liable,' writes one of these experienced clergymen, 'to foster conceit, discontent, a disinclination to submit to discipline and authority, and a dangerous phase of ambition, which are fruitful sources of that kind of crime which is in these days most prevalent.... This superficial education causes, I think, self-deceit as well as self-conceit, and makes young people imagine that because, in addition to what they have learnt, they can present a good outward appearance, they are qualified to fill any kind of appointment with success.
'I think, also,' he goes on to say, 'that it leads them in their desire to rise in the social scale to attempt by dishonest means to live at a higher rate than is justifiable, to gamble and speculate, in order to keep up a false position. I have come across those who have fallen where this has confessedly been the case, and who have lamented that such wrong ideas had been put into their heads. Young people now look upon many honourable and useful employments as beneath them, and there is a general rush for those which seem to offer a better social position.'
The conventional belief in the efficacy of cramming boys with moral platitudes and all kinds of commonplace facts and theoretical knowledge is so ingrained that there is a natural reluctance to ascribe any evil effects to the process of education. I am contented, however, to let the facts speak for themselves. It cannot well be disputed that unsuitable education, or sham education, or whatever one may like to call it, is the direct cause of widespread dissatisfaction amongst the very classes from which themajority of criminals are recruited. Whilst vast numbers of people are constantly being unfitted for the commonest occupations of life, there must result an overcrowding of the callings which are considered suitable to the dignity of those who have eaten the unripe fruit of the elementary tree of knowledge.
It is self-evident that the unsuitably educated have much greater incentive to wrong-doing than the merely illiterate, and it is also a corroborative fact that by far the greater proportion of criminals have been taught at least to read and write. Given two boys, one of whom had acquired a smattering of facts at school and had learnt the Catechism very perfectly by rote, whilst the other had merely been encouraged to apply a little common sense to manual labour, who would have any hesitation in pointing out the former as the more likely to fall into evil ways?
Therein lies the supreme foolishness of modern methods of instruction. All the moral aphorisms in the world will not help a boy to be honest if he is at the same time unfitted for his station in life. People do not need moral instruction; they acquire all their morality in the school of life. It is impossible to teach boys and girls theoretically to be virtuous. All that can be done is to turn them into first-class hypocrites, ready to quote texts and to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, whilst they are busy breaking the Ten Commandments every day of the week.
A surprising amount of virtue would come intothe world of its own accord if a little more pains were taken to preserve for each individual the environment to which he is adapted by nature. This life has become such a mockery that people talk of heaven as a state in which every person will be free to do the things he likes best—as if that blissful condition were utterly unattainable here.
Whilst such anomalies exist as those which curse the existence of the majority upon this earth, criminals will continue to be produced. And if we concede that these anomalies are directly or indirectly brought about by false and irrational methods of educating the youth of the country, we must also allow that education helps to manufacture criminals and to encourage crime.
It was frankly stated in the last chapter that there is no concrete evidence of a reliable nature as to the immoral effects of our education system. The inquirer has to depend rather upon the logic of philosophical speculation than upon the testimony of our available statistics, common sense being generally a far more truthful witness than figures that can be manipulated to mean almost anything.
But when we come to inquire into the physical evils that are produced by cramming and injudiciously-applied instruction, it must be acknowledged that the evidence as to their existence rests upon a much more solid foundation. Clever brain specialists, who have made a lifelong study of mental diseases and the causes of mental breakdown, are in a position to state very definitely, from actual experience, whether or not the cramming system of modern education is productive of physical ill on a large scale.
We all of us know, probably, of some isolated instances here and there where the severe strain of cramming for a competitive examination has resulted in loss of health and physical breakdown. Some are even aware of cases in which the unhappy victim ofoverwork has lost his reason altogether, and has been compelled to be placed under restraint. But it is only the physician who has made a special study of mental diseases that is in a position to form wide and accurate generalizations on the subject.
In approaching this question, therefore, I have realized the importance of obtaining the opinions of experts who are alone qualified to express a well-balanced judgment upon a matter demanding knowledge and opportunities of observation of a very special nature. Accordingly, I have consulted some of the greatest brain specialists in this country, and the brief remarks that I am enabled to make on the subject of educational cramming and mental breakdown are chiefly based upon the valuable hints for which I am indebted to them.
To take the case of healthy children first, it is satisfactory to learn upon high authority that they do not suffer much physical harm from the effects of overwork. What happens in their case is that the vigorous and healthy brain offers a sound resistance to the stuffing process, and speedily forgets what has been forced into it. From an educational point of view this is, of course, very disastrous; but as far as health considerations are concerned it affords a certain amount of consolation.
This is to say, one must bear in mind, that modern methods of education are only salutary as long as they fail altogether to affect the intelligence. The moment they prove themselves to be efficacious they become an immediate source of danger.
It follows from this fact that stupid children areas well protected against the evil effects of the education system as the healthy children. In fact, to a large extent the stupid children are the healthy ones by reason of their stupidity. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose that a stupid child necessarily implies one that is in any sense deficient mentally. The dull schoolboy often proves in after life to be the brilliant man. All that his dulness need be taken to signify is that his mind is not receptive to the subjects which are being forced upon it. Linnæus was very stupid at Latin until an enlightened physician, who was aware of his passion for botanical study, suggested his reading Plinius; and although he may not have imbibed very accurate information about natural history from that philosopher, he succeeded in making immediate progress in the Latin language.
There should be, under a rational system of education, no such thing as a stupid child. What is, after all, stupidity or dulness in a schoolboy? It simply means that the boy's faculties are undeveloped, and that no amount of fact-cramming has succeeded in developing them. The whole mischief lies, of course, in the fact that the school is not trying to develop the boy's own faculties at all, but merely to force him to adapt himself to its own curriculum and conventionality.
The danger to the brain of the healthy or stupid child is not over-development but under-development. It is not they who suffer in the worst sense from the evil effects of over-education, but the gifted children, as they are called, or those whose quick, nervousintellects are most susceptible to the process of receiving any kind of instruction.
It is the nervous boy or girl who generally makes the most promising pupil. A natural inclination to study leads children of this type to prefer the schoolroom to the playground. The boy who works hard to get to the top of his class, or to pass an examination, or to obtain a scholarship, is the one least given to games, and, in consequence, the weakest physically.
These are the very children whom the teacher is most tempted to encourage to do more work than is good for them. The process of their mental development is so rapid that it needs no stimulation from outside. But that is not, unfortunately, the concern of the school authorities. The anxiety to produce scholars who will distinguish themselves in public examinations, and thereby advertise the school, invariably leads the schoolmaster to cram and stuff the brains of the brightest and most forward boys.
There is special danger in over-working boys or girls of this type, because the brain is not strong enough to withstand the pressure. The result is never good, and in extreme cases it is as bad as it could possibly be. It follows, in fact, as a matter of course, that the finest and most sensitive intellects are the first to succumb to the pernicious effects of over-cramming the brain. There is a strain that can only be endured by second-rate minds, and it is not, therefore, the intellectually fittest who are encouraged to survive under the present system.
What has been stated above refers rather to thehigher class of schools and colleges, which prepare boys for examinations and academic distinctions of various kinds, than to the elementary schools to which the children of the poor are commandeered. In the latter establishments a special barbarity takes place which has been so widely discussed in Parliament and in the newspapers that I will do no more here than allude to it in passing.
I refer to the forcing of instruction upon under-fed school-children.
Apart from the gross inhumanity of the proceeding, there is the indisputable fact that the compulsory teaching of children whose bodies have not been properly nourished tends to weaken the intellect. If these children were subjected to a process of cramming such as is usual in the higher schools, their minds would undoubtedly break down altogether. As it is, the comparatively mild method of the elementary school does not effect anything worse in such cases than the prevention of the development of the mind, which is one degree better than complete breakdown or insanity.
'The School Board system of cramming with smatterings,' wrote one of the greatest mental specialists in the world in reply to my inquiries, 'instead of teaching their victims to think—even if only by teaching one subject well—is perhaps responsible for some positive mental breakdown; but probably the main harm of it is that it stifles and strangles proper mental development.' 'Undeveloped mentality,' he says in conclusion, 'is perhaps the principal fault of our educational system (so-called).'
Another distinguished physician writes to me from a lunatic asylum:
'We have had a few cases who have broken down, the results of working for scholarships; also we have had one or two cases of ladies who have broken down working for higher examinations. Dr. —— and myself both feel certain that there is a good deal to be said against the increased pressure put upon young adolescents at schools. From my own experience I know that boys who were considered especially clever, and were high up in forms in the public school I was at, have most of them now dropped back, and are very mediocre. On the other hand, many who matured slowly have continued to advance. This is only an observation, and has many exceptions; but it is an observation that, as time passes, is more fully confirmed.'
It is not necessary to add anything to these valuable expressions of opinion, proceeding from eminent men of wide experience, who are far more capable judges than the layman who has no scientific knowledge and a necessarily limited range of observation.
Facts speak very eloquently for themselves. If brain specialists are continually coming across cases of mental breakdown resulting from cramming or over-education, it is quite clear that a system which is productive of such evils must be altogether defective in principle and wanting in common sense.
After an exhaustive inquiry into the multifarious evils which must be laid at the door of education, it is refreshing to turn to history for illustrious examples of men who not only did not owe their greatness to academic training, but who actually owed it to what would nowadays be designated a neglected education.
The chronicles of the past teem with instances of youths who have developed into brilliant men, in spite of the fact that they had either had no schooling at all, or had been considered the dunces of their class. It would, in fact, be far more difficult to supply illustrations of great men who have succeeded on account of their academic distinction, than to give examples of those who failed to distinguish themselves at school, but who nevertheless became famous afterwards as men of unusual talent.
When Napoleon Bonaparte, at the age of fifteen, left the military college of Brienne, where he had been a pupil for five years and a half, the inspector of military schools gave him the following certificate:
'M. de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born August 15, 1769; height 4 feet 10 inches 10 lines; is in thefourth class; has a good constitution, excellent health, character obedient, upright, grateful, conduct very regular; has always been distinguished by his application to mathematics. He knows history and geography very passably. He is not well up in ornamental studies or in Latin, in which he is only in the fourth class. He will be an excellent sailor. He deserves to be passed on to the military school of Paris.'
This was an optimistic description of the youthful Napoleon's accomplishments, for he was, as a matter of fact, so backward in Latin that his removal to Paris was opposed by the sub-principal of the college. According to the testimony of his schoolfellow and biographer, M. de Bourrienne, he exhibited backwardness in every branch of education except mathematics, for which he showed a distinct natural bent.
The only professor at Brienne who took any notice of Napoleon was the mathematical master. The others thought him stupid because he had no taste for the study of languages, literature, and the various subjects that formed the curriculum of the establishment; and as there seemed no chance of his becoming a scholar, they took no interest in him.
'His superior intelligence was, however, sufficiently perceptible,' writes M. de Bourrienne, 'even through the reserve under which it was veiled. If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment was confided had understood the organization of his mind, if they had engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy,etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career more brilliant, it is true, but less useful to mankind. Unfortunately, the monks did not perceive this, and were too poor to pay for good masters.... The often-repeated assertion of Bonaparte having received acareful educationat Brienne is therefore untrue.'
Napoleon's military bent showed itself whilst he was at the College of Brienne. Heavy snow fell during one winter, and prevented him from taking the solitary walks that were his chief recreation. He therefore fell back upon the expedient of getting his school companions to dig trenches and build snow fortifications. 'This being done,' he said, 'we may divide ourselves into sections, form a siege, and I will undertake to direct the attacks.' In this way he organized a sham war that was carried on with great success for a fortnight.
This brief sketch of Napoleon Bonaparte's schooldays has been given in order to show that the development of his genius owed nothing to academic training. Without being actually a dunce, he was backward in all the subjects except the one in which he took a vivid interest; and, doubtless, had he cared as little for mathematics as for Latin, he would have left Brienne with a reputation for profound stupidity.
The school career of his great opponent, Wellington, was even less distinguished. Tradition has handed down to posterity no further details regarding his Eton days beyond the record of a fight with Sydney Smith's elder brother 'Bobus.' Alluding to him asa dull boy, Mr. Smiles states, in a footnote, in his book on 'Self-Help': 'A writer in theEdinburgh Review(July, 1859) observes that "the Duke's talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only 'food for powder.' He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angiers." It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded him from the army.'
Lord Clive was a perfectly hopeless youth from the schoolmaster's point of view. He loathed work, and was always up to some prank or other. In the vain hope of inducing him to learn something, he was sent to four schools in succession; but, with a single exception, every master under whom he was placed declared him to be an incorrigible idler. The exception was Dr. Eaton of Lostock, who predicted a great career for Clive, provided an opportunity were afforded him for the exercise of his talents.
At Market Drayton he amused himself by organizing a band of idle scamps, who went about threatening to smash the windows of tradespeople unless they paid a fine of apples or pence; and on one occasion he alarmed the inhabitants of the town by climbing a church steeple and seating himself upon a stone spout near the top.
A man of the same stamp who received the scantiest education was George Washington. He is described as having been given a common-schooleducation, with a little mathematical training, but no instruction whatever in ancient or modern languages.
Christopher Columbus, another adventurous spirit, owed very little to his schooling. 'He soon evinced a strong passion for geographical knowledge,' writes Washington Irving in his interesting Life of the explorer, 'and an irresistible inclination for the sea.... His father, seeing the bent of his mind, endeavoured to give him an education suitable for maritime life. He sent him, therefore, to the university of Pavia, where he was instructed in geometry, geography, astronomy and navigation.... He remained but a short time at Pavia, barely sufficient to give him the rudiments of the necessary sciences; the thorough acquaintance with them which he displayed in after-life must have been the result of diligent self-schooling, and of casual hours of study amidst the cares and vicissitudes of a rugged and wandering life.'
No better instance of the advantage of natural development and self-culture could be afforded than by the career of Dr. Livingstone. Working in a cotton factory as a boy of ten, he studied scientific works and books of travel, besides the classics, not only at night, but during the hours of labour.
'Looking back now at that life of toil,' he wrote afterwards, 'I cannot but feel thankful that it formed such a material part of my early education; and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same hardy training.'
Dr. Adam Clarke, the celebrated divine, scholar, and philanthropist, was a regular dunce in his early youth. It was only with difficulty, and an undue proportion of whacking, that the elements of the alphabet were driven into his head by an impatient teacher—a mode of instruction that probably caused him to remark, in after life, that 'many children, not naturally dull, have become so under the influence of the schoolmaster.'
It is related of Dr. Clarke that when he reached the middle of 'As in præsenti,' in Lilly's Latin Grammar, he came to a dead stop and could get no further. His fellow-pupils, however, jeered him to such an extent that he determined to go on and conquer the difficulty. And this resolution seems to have helped him considerably, as, instead of the grammar being forced into him, he began to study and think for himself.
Nevertheless, he always found great difficulty in learning anything at school, but was passionately devoted to reading imaginative books and stories of adventure, such as 'Jack the Giant-killer,' 'Arabian Nights,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Sir Francis Drake,' and a host of similar works. To these, in fact, and not to his painfully acquired school education, he was wont to attribute the formation of his literary taste.
Disraeli's education was by no means thorough. There is no record of his having distinguished himself academically in the slightest degree. It is related of him, on the contrary, that he was such a duffer at classics as to be incapable of grasping the rulethat 'ut' should be followed by the subjunctive mood. The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, given by one of his school-fellows, is quoted by Sir William Fraser:
'I cannot say that Benjamin Disraeli at this period of his life exhibited any unusual zeal for classical studies; and I doubt whether his attainments in this direction, when he left the school for Mr. Cogan's at Walthamstow, reached higher than the usual grind in Livy and Cæsar. But I well remember that he was the compiler and editor of a school newspaper, which made its appearance on Saturdays, when the gingerbread-seller was also to be seen, and that the right of perusal was estimated at the cost of a sheet of gingerbread, the money value of which was in those days the third of a penny.'
Turning to literary men, we find an imposing array of dunces. I have not had time to examine into the school experiences of more than a limited number of great names. If the reader is anxious to pursue the investigation further, he will doubtless find that there is scarcely a famous man of letters who made his mark at school or university.
The first person to teach Oliver Goldsmith his letters was a woman, who afterwards became village schoolmistress, named Elizabeth Delap. She did not form a very flattering opinion of her young pupil. 'Never was so dull a boy,' she was wont to declare; 'he seemed impenetrably stupid.' From this kind but undiscriminating teacher Oliver gravitated to the village school, where he learnt nothing. Thence he was sent to Elphin; and of this period of hisschool life Dr. Strean says: 'He was considered by his contemporaries and school-fellows, with whom I have often conversed on the subject, as a stupid heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom every one made fun of.'
Goldsmith has himself, in his 'Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,' recorded some very striking impressions as to the value of academic success. 'A lad whose passions are not strong enough in youth,' he writes, 'to mislead him from that path of science which his tutors, and not his inclination, have chalked out, by four or five years' perseverance, probably obtains every advantage and honour his college can bestow. I forget whether the simile has been used before, but I would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity of dispassionate prudence to liquors that never ferment, and consequently continue always muddy. Passions may raise a commotion in the youthful breast, but they disturb only to refine it. However this be, mean talents are often rewarded in colleges with an easy subsistence.'
Another 'impenetrable dunce,' according to the opinion of his tutor, an eminent Dublin scholar, was Richard Sheridan. He was afterwards sent to Harrow, where he earned for himself a great reputation for idleness. Dr. Parr, one of the under-masters, wrote to Sheridan's biographer the following expression of opinion:
'There was little in his boyhood worth communication. He was inferior to many of his schoolfellows in the ordinary business of a school, and I do notremember any one instance in which he distinguished himself by Latin or English composition, in prose or verse.... He was at the uppermost part of the fifth form, but he never reached the sixth, and, if I mistake not, he had no opportunity of attending the most difficult and the most honourable of school business, when the Greek plays were taught—and it was the custom at Harrow to teach these at least every year. He went through his lessons in Horace and Virgil and Homer well enough for a time. But, in the absence of the upper master, Dr. Sumner, it once fell in my way to instruct the two upper forms, and upon calling up Dick Sheridan, I found him not only slovenly in construing, but unusually defective in his Greek grammar.... I ought to have told you that Richard, when a boy, was a great reader of English poetry; but his exercises afforded no proof of his proficiency.'
The latter statement speaks volumes for a method of teaching which failed to evoke, even in such a master of English literature as Sheridan eventually proved himself to be, a proper development of his greatest talent. No doubt the exercises in which so little proficiency was shown were compulsorily executed against the grain, being of such a pedantic character that no sane schoolboy could possibly be found to evince the smallest interest in them.
Dean Swift and Sir Walter Scott were both dull boys. The former says of himself that he was 'stopped of his degree for dulness and insufficiency.' Scott, in his autobiographical sketch, does not make himself out to have been the dunce that he reallywas supposed to be at school. If not bright at his lessons, however, he was certainly clever in other ways and capable of thinking for himself. An excellent illustration of this is contained in the story that though Scott, as a boy, used invariably to go to sleep in church in the course of the sermon, yet, when questioned about the latter afterwards, he was generally able to sketch out most of the points dwelt upon by the preacher—the explanation being, of course, that, given the text, he was able to follow the probable train of thought inspired by its wording. Summing up Scott's attainments, a biographer gives expression to the opinion that he was 'self-educated in every branch of knowledge he ever turned to account in the works of his genius.'
Neither Burns nor Carlyle was a scholar. The former received a grounding in grammar, reading, and writing. He acquired a little French, but learnt no Latin at all. Whatever he knew he owed to the fact that he exercised his own taste for knowledge by choosing his own books and devouring only what appealed to his mind. Carlyle, like many another famous man of letters, had little Latin and less Greek. 'In the classical field,' he wrote, 'I am truly as nothing.' For mathematics he showed a certain amount of inclination, but even in that field did not succeed in carrying off any prizes. His own opinion of a conventional education is very tersely rendered by his exclamation: 'Academia! High School instructors of youth! Oh, ye unspeakable!'
The poet Wordsworth was educated at the grammar school at Hawkshead. He always declared that thegreat merit of the school was the liberty allowed to the scholars. No attempt was made to cram or to produce model pupils. Within limits they appear, in fact, to have been allowed to read precisely what they pleased. In this way Wordsworth received in every sense of the term a liberal education; and when he went to Cambridge, 'he enjoyed even more thoroughly than at Hawkshead whatever advantages might be derived from the neglect of his teachers.'
The poet had a great contempt for academical training, and refused to go through the usual Cambridge course. He finally graduated as B.A. without honours, afterwards recording his indifference to academic distinction in the well-known lines:
Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room,All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,With loyal students faithful to their books,Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants,And honest dunces—of important days,Examinations, when the man was weighedAs in a balance! Of excessive hopes,Tremblings withal and commendable fears,Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad—Let others that know more speak as they know.Such glory was but little sought by me,And little won.
Of College labours, of the Lecturer's room,All studded round, as thick as chairs could stand,With loyal students faithful to their books,Half-and-half idlers, hardy recusants,And honest dunces—of important days,Examinations, when the man was weighedAs in a balance! Of excessive hopes,Tremblings withal and commendable fears,Small jealousies, and triumphs good or bad—Let others that know more speak as they know.Such glory was but little sought by me,And little won.
More forcibly expressed was Rousseau's derision of ordinary educational methods. Writing in his 'Confessions' about the school days of his cousin and himself, he says: 'We were sent together to Bossey, to board with the Protestant minister Lambercier, in order to learn, together with Latin, all the sorry trash which is included under the name ofeducation.... M. Lambercier was a very intelligent person who, without neglecting our education, never imposed excessive tasks upon us. The fact that, in spite of my dislike to restraint, I have never recalled my hours of study with any feeling of disgust, and also that, even if I did not learn much from him, I learnt without difficulty what I did learn, and never forgot it, is sufficient proof that his system of instruction was a good one.'
As far as the history of science is concerned, there is a long array of self-cultured men to whom most of the discoveries that have been made are due. In no other occupation is the faculty of thinking originally and independently more essential than in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and it is significant that amongst famous scientists more instances are to be found of men who owe nothing to school instruction or academic training than in almost any other walk of life.
In this connection mention has already been made of the famous botanist Linnæus. The whole of his school life was one unremitting protest against the usual educational methods of endeavouring to force the mind away from its natural bent. Linnæus detested metaphysics, Latin, Greek, and every subject except physics and mathematics, in which he usually outstripped his fellow-pupils. But his nose was kept to the grindstone until the authorities informed his father that he was not fit for a learned education, and recommended his being given some manual employment. Thus were twelve precious years of the life of one of the most gifted men ofscience, save for what he accomplished out of school hours, wasted to no purpose. It is not to be wondered at that he spoke of one of his masters as 'a passionate and morose man, better calculated for extinguishing a youth's talents than for improving them.'
One of the greatest anatomists that ever lived, John Hunter, who numbered Dr. Jenner amongst his pupils, was scarcely educated at all for the first twenty years of his life. Mr. Smiles states that 'it was with difficulty that he acquired the arts of reading and writing.' Originally a carpenter, he became assistant to his brother, who was established in London as a surgeon. He acquired all his knowledge of anatomy in the dissecting-room, and owed everything he had learnt to his own hard work and habit of thinking things out for himself.
'The brilliant Sir Humphry Davy,' says Mr. Smiles, 'was no cleverer than other boys. His teacher, Dr. Cardew, once said of him, "While he was with me I could not discern the faculties by which he was so much distinguished." Indeed, Davy himself in after life considered it fortunate that he had been left to "enjoy so much idleness" at school.'
Newton was always at the bottom of his class, until he suddenly took it into his head to give a boy, whom he had already thrashed in another sense, an intellectual beating. 'It is very probable,' writes Sir David Brewster in his biography, 'that Newton's idleness arose from the occupation of his mind with subjects in which he felt a deeper interest.' Nobody could have penned a more incisive indictment againstthe imbecility of an education system that forces all boys, irrespective of their wishes or talents, into a fixed groove. It was Newton who, in answer to an inquiry as to how the principle of gravity was discovered, replied: 'By always thinking of it.'
When Watt, as a boy, was engaged in investigating the condensation of steam, his aunt, who was sitting with him at the tea-table, exclaimed:
'James, I never saw such an idle boy! Take a book or employ yourself usefully. For the last half hour you have not spoken a word, but taken off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and counting the drops of water.'
In this sympathetic way children are usually encouraged to think by their elders. Watt's faculties were developed entirely at home. He was sent to a public elementary school in Scotland; but, fortunately for science, he was so delicate that he was nearly always absent through indisposition. A visitor, who found the boy drawing lines and circles on the hearth with a piece of coloured chalk, once remonstrated with Mr. James Watt, senior, for allowing his son to waste his time at home. Watt had the good fortune, however, to possess an intelligent father, who encouraged the boy as far as it lay in his power.
Left to his own devices, Watt not only contrived to make himself the foremost engineer of his time, but he also developed his talents in many other directions. Sir Walter Scott says of him that 'his talents and fancy overflowed on every subject.' And M. Arago,the French scientist, in his memoir of Watt, expresses the view that the latter, in spite of his excellent memory, 'might, nevertheless, not have peculiarly distinguished himself among the youthful prodigies of ordinary schools. He could never have learned his lessons like a parrot, for he experienced a necessity of carefully elaborating the intellectual elements presented to his attention, and Nature had peculiarly endowed him with the faculty of meditation.'
This is only a roundabout way of saying that the conventional process of cramming would have destroyed the fine intellectual faculties possessed by Watt. But if in his case, why not in that of another? That is the strange thing about the light shed upon educational problems by cases like that of Watt, Newton, and other men of commanding genius. People only perceive in it a half-truth. They think that it is only in these exceptional instances that the mind is incapable of being developed by ordinary rough-and-ready methods.
Upon what grounds is such an absurd deduction founded? It is true that individuals differ widely as to the capabilities of their mental machinery; but it does not follow that the intellectual fibre of one person is more delicate than that of another.
The difference is not mental, but physical. It is because a boy is healthy, and not because his intellectual fibre is coarse, that he is better able to withstand the strain of an educational training than a weaker and more nervous boy.
Until the discovery is made that all minds are sensitive, when they have been actually reached,people will go on ignorantly destroying the finer faculties under the impression that genius or talent is a very rare thing, and can always shift for itself.
Yet, as I have attempted to show, the evidence of history points conclusively to the fact that the contrary is the case.
Is it really supposed that the great names that have been handed down to posterity represent all the genius to which the world has given birth?
The idea is preposterous.
For every man of genius or talent who has been permitted to survive, education systems have killed a hundred.
If it had not been for Dr. Rothmann, there would probably have been no Linnæus to revolutionize the system of botanical classification. Had tyrannical parents and schoolmasters compelled Watt and Newton to give up mechanics and scientific study for a thorough cramming in Latin grammar and Greek roots, we might to-day be without a steam-engine or a theory of the law of gravitation. Even the genius of Napoleon and Wellington might easily have been crushed under the auspices of a modern competitive examination.
Would stupid Oliver Goldsmith have written his immortal 'Vicar of Wakefield' and 'She Stoops to Conquer,' or would idle Sheridan have penned the exquisite comedies that have not to this day been approached by any subsequent writer, if their idleness and stupidity had been submitted to the test of an enforced academic training for classical or mathematical honours?
Surely the evidence of history points to only one conclusion—namely, that all the genius in the world cannot survive the hopeless imbecility of educational methods, except by successfully dodging them through stupidity and idleness, whilst the faculties develop themselves at stolen intervals.
We have reached a point at which it is advisable to take a broad survey of the direction in which education systems are hurrying the world. Have these educational methods a definite objective, or is their sole purpose the production of scholars manufactureden bloc?
These are important questions that need careful answering. Upon the face of it, there is no doubt that in this country, at least, educational establishments have, up to the present, aimed only at turning out scholars of certain intellectual types. The result of this process has been shown in the preceding pages to be sufficiently disastrous in its effects upon its victims. There are, in fact, few social evils which cannot be traced, directly or indirectly, to its agency.
But as yet there has been no dominant motive-power, working invisibly towards a definite end, behind the educational machinery of the country.
A general feeling has been fomented of late, however, that all education, from the lowest step to the highest, ought to be co-ordinated and organized into a single piece of State-directed machinery. The danger of this can only be appreciated by an examinationof the effects already produced by such a system in other countries.
Germany offers in this connection the best possible example. The interference of the State in educational matters has there been brought to perfection. Absolute control is exercised by the Government in everything appertaining to the instruction of youth all over Germany. The Emperor has become so autocratic in the exercise of this control in the kingdom of Prussia, that he talks openly about manufacturing this or that kind of educational article exactly in the manner in which a manufacturer would discuss putting some commodity upon the market.
There is not the slightest attempt on the part of the Prussian Government to disguise the political uses to which their supreme authority in educational matters is put. One of the first acts of the Emperor William II., on succeeding to the throne, was to issue the most plain-spoken instructions to the Government of Prussia in reference to State interference with the schools for political purposes.
'For a long time,' it was declared in the royal decree,[A]'I have been occupied with the thought how to make the school useful for the purpose of counteracting the spread of socialistic and communistic ideas.... The history of modern times down to the present day must be introduced more than hitherto into the curriculum, and the pupils mustbe shown that the executive power of the State alone can protect for each individual his family, his freedom, and his rights.'