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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Approached. All Transitions Are Dangerous; And The Most Dangerous Is The
Transition From The Restraint Of The Family Circle To The Non-Restraint
Of The World. Hence The Importance Of Pursuing The Policy We Advocate;
Which, By Cultivating A Boy's Faculty Of Self-Restraint, By Continually
Increasing The Degree In Which He Is Left To His Self-Restraint, And By
So Bringing Him, Step By Step, To A State Of Unaided Self-Restraint,
Obliterates The Ordinary Sudden And Hazardous Change From
Externally-Governed Youth To Internally-Governed Maturity. Let The
History Of Your Domestic Rule Typify, In Little, The History Of Our
Political Rule: At The Outset, Autocratic Control, Where Control Is
Really Needful; By And By An Incipient Constitutionalism, In Which The
Liberty Of The Subject Gains Some Express Recognition; Successive
Extensions Of This Liberty Of The Subject; Gradually Ending In Parental
Abdication.
Do Not Regret The Display Of Considerable Self-Will On The Part Of Your
Children. It Is The Correlative Of That Diminished Coerciveness So
Conspicuous In Modern Education. The Greater Tendency To Assert Freedom
Of Action On The One Side, Corresponds To The Smaller Tendency To
Tyrannise On The Other. They Both Indicate An Approach To The System Of
Discipline We Contend For, Under Which Children Will Be More And More
Led To Rule Themselves By The Experience Of Natural Consequences; And
They Are Both Accompaniments Of Our More Advanced Social State. The
Independent English Boy Is The Father Of The Independent English Man;
And You Cannot Have The Last Without The First. German Teachers Say That
They Had Rather Manage A Dozen German Boys Than One English One. Shall
We, Therefore, Wish That Our Boys Had The Manageableness Of German Ones,
And With It The Submissiveness And Political Serfdom Of Adult Germans?
Or Shall We Not Rather Tolerate In Our Boys Those Feelings Which Make
Them Free Men, And Modify Our Methods Accordingly?
Lastly, Always Recollect That To Educate Rightly Is Not A Simple And
Easy Thing, But A Complex And Extremely Difficult Thing, The Hardest
Task Which Devolves On Adult Life. The Rough-And-Ready Style Of Domestic
Government Is Indeed Practicable By The Meanest And Most Uncultivated
Intellects. Slaps And Sharp Words Are Penalties That Suggest Themselves
Alike To The Least Reclaimed Barbarian And The Stolidest Peasant. Even
Brutes Can Use This Method Of Discipline; As You May See In The Growl
And Half-Bite With Which A Bitch Will Check A Too-Exigeant Puppy. But If
You Would Carry Out With Success A Rational And Civilised System, You
Must Be Prepared For Considerable Mental Exertion--For Some Study, Some
Ingenuity, Some Patience, Some Self-Control. You Will Have Habitually To
Consider What Are The Results Which In Adult Life Follow Certain Kinds
Of Acts; And You Must Then Devise Methods By Which Parallel Results
Shall Be Entailed On The Parallel Acts Of Your Children. It Will Daily
Be Needful To Analyse The Motives Of Juvenile Conduct--To Distinguish
Between Acts That Are Really Good And Those Which, Though Simulating
Them, Proceed From Inferior Impulses; While You Will Have To Be Ever On
Your Guard Against The Cruel Mistake Not Unfrequently Made, Of
Translating Neutral Acts Into Transgressions, Or Ascribing Worse
Feelings Than Were Entertained. You Must More Or Less Modify Your Method
To Suit The Disposition Of Each Child; And Must Be Prepared To Make
Further Modifications As Each Child's Disposition Enters On A New Phase.
Your Faith Will Often Be Taxed To Maintain The Requisite Perseverance In
A Course Which Seems To Produce Little Or No Effect. Especially If You
Are Dealing With Children Who Have Been Wrongly Treated, You Must Be
Prepared For A Lengthened Trial Of Patience Before Succeeding With
Better Methods; Since That Which Is Not Easy Even Where A Right State Of
Feeling Has Been Established From The Beginning, Becomes Doubly
Difficult When A Wrong State Of Feeling Has To Be Set Right. Not Only
Will You Have Constantly To Analyse The Motives Of Your Children, But
You Will Have To Analyse Your Own Motives--To Discriminate Between Those
Internal Suggestions Springing From A True Parental Solicitude And Those
Which Spring From Your Own Selfishness, Your Love Of Ease, Your Lust Of
Dominion. And Then, More Trying Still, You Will Have Not Only To Detect,
But To Curb These Baser Impulses. In Brief, You Will Have To Carry On
Your Own Higher Education At The Same Time That You Are Educating Your
Children. Intellectually You Must Cultivate To Good Purpose That Most
Complex Of Subjects--Human Nature And Its Laws, As Exhibited In Your
Children, In Yourself, And In The World. Morally, You Must Keep In
Constant Exercise Your Higher Feelings, And Restrain Your Lower. It Is A
Truth Yet Remaining To Be Recognised, That The Last Stage In The Mental
Development Of Each Man And Woman Is To Be Reached Only Through A Proper
Discharge Of The Parental Duties. And When This Truth Is Recognised, It
Will Be Seen How Admirable Is The Arrangement Through Which Human Beings
Are Led By Their Strongest Affections To Subject Themselves To A
Discipline That They Would Else Elude.
While Some Will Regard This Conception Of Education As It Should Be With
Doubt And Discouragement, Others Will, We Think, Perceive In The Exalted
Ideal Which It Involves, Evidence Of Its Truth. That It Cannot Be
Realised By The Impulsive, The Unsympathetic, And The Short-Sighted,
But Demands The Higher Attributes Of Human Nature, They Will See To Be
Part 1 Chapter 3 (Moral Education) Pg 49Evidence Of Its Fitness For The More Advanced States Of Humanity. Though
It Calls For Much Labour And Self-Sacrifice, They Will See That It
Promises An Abundant Return Of Happiness, Immediate And Remote. They
Will See That While In Its Injurious Effects On Both Parent And Child A
Bad System Is Twice Cursed, A Good System Is Twice Blessed--It Blesses
Him That Trains And Him That's Trained.
[1] Of This Nature Is The Plea Put In By Some For The Rough Treatment
Experienced By Boys At Our Public Schools; Where, As It Is Said, They
Are Introduced To A Miniature World Whose Hardships Prepare Them For
Those Of The Real World. It Must Be Admitted That The Plea Has Some
Force; But It Is A Very Insufficient Plea. For Whereas Domestic And
School Discipline, Though They Should Not Be Much Better Than The
Discipline Of Adult Life, Should Be Somewhat Better; The Discipline
Which Boys Meet With At Eton, Winchester, Harrow, Etc., Is Worse Than
That Of Adult Life--More Unjust And Cruel. Instead Of Being An Aid To
Human Progress, Which All Culture Should Be, The Culture Of Our Public
Schools, By Accustoming Boys To A Despotic Form Of Government And An
Intercourse Regulated By Brute Force, Tends To Fit Them For A Lower
State Of Society Than That Which Exists. And Chiefly Recruited As Our
Legislature Is From Among Those Who Are Brought Up At Such Schools, This
Barbarising Influence Becomes A Hindrance To National Progress.
Part 1 Chapter 4 (Physical Education) Pg 50
Equally At The Squire's Table After The Withdrawal Of The Ladies, At The
Farmers' Market-Ordinary, And At The Village Ale-House, The Topic Which,
After The Political Question Of The Day, Excites The Most General
Interest, Is The Management Of Animals. Riding Home From Hunting, The
Conversation Usually Gravitates Towards Horse-Breeding, And Pedigrees,
And Comments On This Or That "Good Point;" While A Day On The Moors Is
Very Unlikely To End Without Something Being Said On The Treatment Of
Dogs. When Crossing The Fields Together From Church, The Tenants Of
Adjacent Farms Are Apt To Pass From Criticisms On The Sermon To
Criticisms On The Weather, The Crops, And The Stock; And Thence To Slide
Into Discussions On The Various Kinds Of Fodder And Their Feeding
Qualities. Hodge And Giles, After Comparing Notes Over Their Respective
Pig-Styes, Show By Their Remarks That They Have Been Observant Of Their
Masters' Beasts And Sheep; And Of The Effects Produced On Them By This
Or That Kind Of Treatment. Nor Is It Only Among The Rural Population
That The Regulations Of The Kennel, The Stable, The Cow-Shed, And The
Sheep-Pen, Are Favourite Subjects. In Towns, Too, The Numerous Artisans
Who Keep Dogs, The Young Men Who Are Rich Enough To Now And Then Indulge
Their Sporting Tendencies, And Their More Staid Seniors Who Talk Over
Agricultural Progress Or Read Mr. Mechi's Annual Reports And Mr. Caird's
Letters To The _Times_, Form, When Added Together, A Large Portion Of
The Inhabitants. Take The Adult Males Throughout The Kingdom, And A
Great Majority Will Be Found To Show Some Interest In The Breeding,
Rearing, Or Training Of Animals, Of One Kind Or Other.
But, During After-Dinner Conversations, Or At Other Times Of Like
Intercourse, Who Hears Anything Said About The Rearing Of Children? When
The Country Gentleman Has Paid His Daily Visit To The Stable, And
Personally Inspected The Condition And Treatment Of His Horses; When He
Has Glanced At His Minor Live Stock, And Given Directions About Them;
How Often Does He Go Up To The Nursery And Examine Into Its Dietary, Its
Hours, Its Ventilation? On His Library-Shelves May Be Found White's
_Farriery_, Stephens's _Book Of The Farm_, Nimrod _On The Condition Of
Hunters_; And With The Contents Of These He Is More Or Less Familiar;
But How Many Books Has He Read On The Management Of Infancy And
Childhood? The Fattening Properties Of Oil-Cake, The Relative Values Of
Hay And Chopped Straw, The Dangers Of Unlimited Clover, Are Points On
Which Every Landlord, Farmer, And Peasant Has Some Knowledge; But What
Percentage Of Them Inquire Whether The Food They Give Their Children Is
Adapted To The Constitutional Needs Of Growing Boys And Girls? Perhaps
The Business-Interests Of These Classes Will Be Assigned As Accounting
For This Anomaly. The Explanation Is Inadequate, However; Seeing That
The Same Contrast Holds Among Other Classes. Of A Score Of Townspeople,
Few, If Any, Would Prove Ignorant Of The Fact That It Is Undesirable To
Work A Horse Soon After It Has Eaten; And Yet, Of This Same Score,
Supposing Them All To Be Fathers, Probably Not One Would Be Found Who
Had Considered Whether The Time Elapsing Between His Children's Dinner
And Their Resumption Of Lessons Was Sufficient. Indeed, On
Cross-Examination, Nearly Every Man Would Disclose The Latent Opinion
That The Regimen Of The Nursery Was No Concern Of His. "Oh, I Leave All
Those Things To The Women," Would Probably Be The Reply. And In Most
Cases The Tone Of This Reply Would Convey The Implication, That Such
Cares Are Not Consistent With Masculine Dignity.
Regarded From Any But A Conventional Point Of View, The Fact Seems
Strange That While The Raising Of First-Rate Bullocks Is An Occupation
On Which Educated Men Willingly Bestow Much Time And Thought, The
Bringing Up Of Fine Human Beings Is An Occupation Tacitly Voted Unworthy
Of Their Attention. Mammas Who Have Been Taught Little But Languages,
Music, And Accomplishments, Aided By Nurses Full Of Antiquated
Prejudices, Are Held Competent Regulators Of The Food, Clothing, And
Exercise Of Children. Meanwhile The Fathers Read Books And Periodicals,
Attend Agricultural Meetings, Try Experiments, And Engage In
Discussions, All With The View Of Discovering How To Fatten Prize Pigs!
We See Infinite Pains Taken To Produce A Racer That Shall Win The Derby:
None To Produce A Modern Athlete. Had Gulliver Narrated Of The Laputans
That The Men Vied With Each Other In Learning How Best To
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