Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) - Herbert Spencer (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
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Notions That A Child's Mind Could Be Made To Order; That Its Powers Were
To Be Imparted By The Schoolmaster; That It Was A Receptacle Into Which
Knowledge Was To Be Put, And There Built Up After The Teacher's Ideal.
In This Free-Trade Era, However, When We Are Learning That There Is Much
More Self-Regulation In Things Than Was Supposed; That Labour, And
Commerce, And Agriculture, And Navigation, Can Do Better Without
Management Than With It; That Political Governments, To Be Efficient,
Must Grow Up From Within And Not Be Imposed From Without; We Are Also
Being Taught That There Is A Natural Process Of Mental Evolution Which
Is Not To Be Disturbed Without Injury; That We May Not Force On The
Unfolding Mind Our Artificial Forms; But That Psychology, Also,
Discloses To Us A Law Of Supply And Demand To Which, If We Would Not Do
Harm, We Must Conform. Thus, Alike In Its Oracular Dogmatism, In Its
Harsh Discipline, In Its Multiplied Restrictions, In Its Professed
Asceticism, And In Its Faith In The Devices Of Men, The Old Educational
Regime Was Akin To The Social Systems With Which It Was Contemporaneous;
And Similarly, In The Reverse Of These Characteristics, Our Modern Modes
Of Culture Correspond To Our More Liberal Religious And Political
Institutions.
But There Remain Further Parallelisms To Which We Have Not Yet Adverted:
That, Namely, Between The Processes By Which These Respective Changes
Have Been Wrought Out; And That Between The Several States Of
Heterogeneous Opinion To Which They Have Led. Some Centuries Ago There
Was Uniformity Of Belief--Religious, Political, And Educational. All Men
Were Romanists, All Were Monarchists, All Were Disciples Of Aristotle;
And No One Thought Of Calling In Question That Grammar-School Routine
Under Which All Were Brought Up. The Same Agency Has In Each Case
Replaced This Uniformity By A Constantly-Increasing Diversity. That
Tendency Towards Assertion Of The Individuality, Which, After
Contributing To Produce The Great Protestant Movement, Has Since Gone On
To Produce An Ever-Increasing Number Of Sects--That Tendency Which
Initiated Political Parties, And Out Of The Two Primary Ones Has, In
These Modern Days, Evolved A Multiplicity To Which Every Year Adds--That
Tendency Which Led To The Baconian Rebellion Against The Schools, And
Has Since Originated Here And Abroad, Sundry New Systems Of Thought--Is
A Tendency Which, In Education Also, Has Caused Divisions And The
Accumulation Of Methods. As External Consequences Of The Same Internal
Change, These Processes Have Necessarily Been More Or Less Simultaneous.
The Decline Of Authority, Whether Papal, Philosophic, Kingly, Or
Tutorial, Is Essentially One Phenomenon; In Each Of Its Aspects A
Leaning Towards Free Action Is Seen Alike In The Working Out Of The
Change Itself, And In The New Forms Of Theory And Practice To Which The
Change Has Given Birth.
While Many Will Regret This Multiplication Of Schemes Of Juvenile
Culture, The Catholic Observer Will Discern In It A Means Of Ensuring
The Final Establishment Of A Rational System. Whatever May Be Thought Of
Theological Dissent, It Is Clear That Dissent In Education Results In
Facilitating Inquiry By The Division In Labour. Were We In Possession Of
The True Method, Divergence From It Would, Of Course, Be Prejudicial;
But The True Method Having To Be Found, The Efforts Of Numerous
Independent Seekers Carrying Out Their Researches In Different
Directions, Constitute A Better Agency For Finding It Than Any That
Could Be Devised. Each Of Them Struck By Some New Thought Which Probably
Contains More Or Less Of Basis In Facts--Each Of Them Zealous On Behalf
Of His Plan, Fertile In Expedients To Test Its Correctness, And Untiring
In His Efforts To Make Known Its Success--Each Of Them Merciless In His
Criticism On The Rest; There Cannot Fail, By Composition Of Forces, To
Be A Gradual Approximation Of All Towards The Right Course. Whatever
Portion Of The Normal Method Any One Has Discovered, Must, By The
Constant Exhibition Of Its Results, Force Itself Into Adoption; Whatever
Wrong Practices He Has Joined With It Must, By Repeated Experiment And
Failure, Be Exploded. And By This Aggregation Of Truths And Elimination
Of Errors, There Must Eventually Be Developed A Correct And Complete
Body Of Doctrine. Of The Three Phases Through Which Human Opinion
Passes--The Unanimity Of The Ignorant, The Disagreement Of The
Inquiring, And The Unanimity Of The Wise--It Is Manifest That The Second
Is The Parent Of The Third. They Are Not Sequences In Time Only, They
Are Sequences In Causation. However Impatiently, Therefore, We May
Witness The Present Conflict Of Educational Systems, And However Much We
May Regret Its Accompanying Evils, We Must Recognise It As A Transition
Stage Needful To Be Passed Through, And Beneficent In Its Ultimate
Effects.
Meanwhile, May We Not Advantageously Take Stock Of Our Progress? After
Fifty Years Of Discussion, Experiment, And Comparison Of Results, May
We Not Expect A Few Steps Towards The Goal To Be Already Made Good? Some
Old Methods Must By This Time Have Fallen Out Of Use; Some New Ones Must
Have Become Established; And Many Others Must Be In Process Of General
Abandonment Or Adoption. Probably We May See In These Various Changes,
When Put Side By Side, Similar Characteristics--May Find In Them A
Common Tendency; And So, By Inference, May Get A Clue To The Direction
In Which Experience Is Leading Us, And Gather Hints How We May Achieve
Yet Further Improvements. Let Us Then, As A Preliminary To A Deeper
Consideration Of The Matter, Glance At The Leading Contrasts Between The
Education Of The Past And That Of The Present.
Part 1 Chapter 2 (Intellectual Education) Pg 24
The Suppression Of Every Error Is Commonly Followed By A Temporary
Ascendency Of The Contrary One; And So It Happened, That After The Ages
When Physical Development Alone Was Aimed At, There Came An Age When
Culture Of The Mind Was The Sole Solicitude--When Children Had
Lesson-Books Put Before Them At Between Two And Three Years Old, And The
Getting Of Knowledge Was Thought The One Thing Needful. As, Further, It
Usually Happens That After One Of These Reactions The Next Advance Is
Achieved By Co-Ordinating The Antagonist Errors, And Perceiving That
They Are Opposite Sides Of One Truth; So, We Are Now Coming To The
Conviction That Body And Mind Must Both Be Cared For, And The Whole
Thing Being Unfolded. The Forcing-System Has Been, By Many, Given Up;
And Precocity Is Discouraged. People Are Beginning To See That The First
Requisite To Success In Life, Is To Be A Good Animal. The Best Brain Is
Found Of Little Service, If There Be Not Enough Vital Energy To Work It;
And Hence To Obtain The One By Sacrificing The Source Of The Other, Is
Now Considered A Folly--A Folly Which The Eventual Failure Of Juvenile
Prodigies Constantly Illustrates. Thus We Are Discovering The Wisdom Of
The Saying, That One Secret In Education Is "To Know How Wisely To Lose
Time."
The Once Universal Practice Of Learning By Rote, Is Daily Falling More
Into Discredit. All Modern Authorities Condemn The Old Mechanical Way Of
Teaching The Alphabet. The Multiplication Table Is Now Frequently Taught
Experimentally. In The Acquirement Of Languages, The Grammar-School Plan
Is Being Superseded By Plans Based On The Spontaneous Process Followed
By The Child In Gaining Its Mother Tongue. Describing The Methods There
Used, The "Reports On The Training School At Battersea" Say:--"The
Instruction In The Whole Preparatory Course Is Chiefly Oral, And Is
Illustrated As Much As Possible By Appeals To Nature." And So
Throughout. The Rote-System, Like Ether Systems Of Its Age, Made More Of
The Forms And Symbols Than Of The Things Symbolised. To Repeat The Words
Correctly Was Everything; To Understand Their Meaning Nothing; And Thus
The Spirit Was Sacrificed To The Letter. It Is At Length Perceived That,
In This Case As In Others, Such A Result Is Not Accidental But
Necessary--That In Proportion As There Is Attention To The Signs, There
Must Be Inattention To The Things Signified; Or That, As Montaigne Long
Ago Said--_Sçavoir Par Coeur N'est Pas Sçavoir_.
Along With Rote-Teaching, Is Declining Also The Nearly-Allied Teaching
By Rules. The Particulars First, And Then The Generalisation, Is The New
Method--A Method, As The Battersea School Reports Remarks, Which, Though
"The Reverse Of The Method Usually Followed, Which Consists In Giving
The Pupil The Rule First," Is Yet Proved By Experience To Be The Right
One. Rule-Teaching Is Now Condemned As Imparting A Merely Empirical
Knowledge--As Producing An Appearance Of Understanding Without The
Reality. To Give The Net Product Of Inquiry, Without The Inquiry That
Leads To It, Is Found To Be Both Enervating And Inefficient. General
Truths To Be Of Due And Permanent Use, Must Be Earned. "Easy Come Easy
Go," Is A Saying As Applicable To Knowledge As To Wealth. While Rules,
Lying Isolated In The Mind--Not Joined To Its Other Contents As
Out-Growths From Them--Are Continually Forgotten; The Principles Which
Those Rules Express Piecemeal, Become, When Once Reached By The
Understanding, Enduring Possessions. While The Rule-Taught Youth Is At
Sea When Beyond His Rules, The Youth Instructed In Principles Solves A
New Case As Readily As An Old One. Between A Mind Of Rules And A Mind Of
Principles, There Exists A Difference Such As That Between A Confused
Heap Of Materials, And The Same Materials Organised Into A Complete
Whole, With All Its Parts Bound Together. Of Which Types This Last Has
Not Only The Advantage That Its Constituent Parts Are Better Retained,
But The Much Greater Advantage That It Forms An Efficient Agent For
Inquiry, For Independent Thought, For Discovery--Ends For Which The
First Is Useless. Nor Let It Be Supposed That This Is A Simile Only: It
Is The Literal Truth. The Union Of Facts Into Generalisations _Is_ The
Organisation Of Knowledge, Whether Considered As An Objective Phenomenon
Or A Subjective One; And The Mental Grasp May Be Measured By The Extent
To Which This Organisation Is Carried.
From The Substitution Of Principles For Rules, And The Necessarily
Co-Ordinate Practice Of Leaving Abstractions Untaught Till The Mind Has
Been Familiarised With The Facts From Which They Are Abstracted, Has
Resulted The Postponement Of Some Once Early Studies To A Late Period.
This Is Exemplified In The Abandonment Of That Intensely Stupid Custom,
The Teaching Of Grammar To Children. As M. Marcel Says:--"It May Without
Hesitation Be Affirmed That Grammar Is Not The Stepping-Stone, But The
Finishing Instrument." As Mr. Wyse Argues:--"Grammar And Syntax Are A
Collection Of Laws And Rules. Rules Are Gathered From Practice; They Are
The Results Of Induction To Which We Come By Long Observation And
Comparison Of Facts. It Is, In Fine, The Science, The Philosophy Of
Language. In Following The Process Of Nature, Neither Individuals Nor
Nations Ever Arrive At The Science _First_. A Language Is Spoken, And
Poetry Written, Many Years Before Either A Grammar Or Prosody Is Even
Thought Of. Men Did Not Wait Till Aristotle Had Constructed His Logic,
To Reason." In Short, As Grammar Was Made After Language, So Ought It To
Be Taught After Language: An Inference Which All Who Recognise The
Relationship Between The Evolution Of The Race And That Of The
Individual, Will See To Be Unavoidable.
Of New Practices That Have Grown Up During The Decline Of These Old
Ones, The Most Important Is The Systematic Culture Of The Powers Of
Observation. After Long Ages Of Blindness, Men Are At Last Seeing That
The Spontaneous Activity Of The Observing Faculties In Children Has A
Meaning And A Use. What Was Once Thought Mere Purposeless Action, Or
Play, Or Mischief, As The Case Might Be, Is Now Recognised As The
Process Of Acquiring A Knowledge On Which All After-Knowledge Is Based.
Hence The Well-Conceived But Ill-Conducted System Of _Object-Lessons_.
The Saying Of Bacon, That Physics Is The Mother Of The Sciences, Has
Come To Have A Meaning In Education. Without An Accurate Acquaintance
With The Visible And Tangible Properties Of Things, Our Conceptions Must
Be Erroneous, Our Inferences Fallacious, And Our Operations
Unsuccessful. "The Education Of The Senses Neglected, All After
Education Partakes Of A Drowsiness, A Haziness, An Insufficiency, Which
It Is Impossible To Cure." Indeed, If We Consider It, We Shall Find That
Exhaustive Observation Is An Element In All Great Success. It Is Not To
Artists, Naturalists, And Men Of
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