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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Debt Which Agriculture Owes To Biology.
Yet One More Science Have We To Note As Bearing Directly On Industrial
Success--The Science Of Society. Men Who Daily Look At The State Of The
Money-Market Glance Over Prices Current; Discuss The Probable Crops Of
Corn, Cotton, Sugar, Wool, Silk; Weigh The Chances Of War; And From
These Data Decide On Their Mercantile Operations; Are Students Of Social
Science: Empirical And Blundering Students It May Be; But Still,
Students Who Gain The Prizes Or Are Plucked Of Their Profits, According
As They Do Or Do Not Reach The Right Conclusion. Not Only The
Manufacturer And The Merchant Must Guide Their Transactions By
Calculations Of Supply And Demand, Based On Numerous Facts, And Tacitly
Recognising Sundry General Principles Of Social Action; But Even The
Retailer Must Do The Like: His Prosperity Very Greatly Depending Upon
The Correctness Of His Judgments Respecting The Future Wholesale Prices
And The Future Rates Of Consumption. Manifestly, Whoever Takes Part In
The Entangled Commercial Activities Of A Community, Is Vitally
Interested In Understanding The Laws According To Which Those Activities
Vary.
Thus, To All Such As Are Occupied In The Production, Exchange, Or
Distribution Of Commodities, Acquaintance With Science In Some Of Its
Departments, Is Of Fundamental Importance. Each Man Who Is Immediately
Or Remotely Implicated In Any Form Of Industry (And Few Are Not) Has In
Some Way To Deal With The Mathematical, Physical, And Chemical
Properties Of Things; Perhaps, Also, Has A Direct Interest In Biology;
And Certainly Has In Sociology. Whether He Does Or Does Not Succeed Well
In That Indirect Self-Preservation Which We Call Getting A Good
Livelihood, Depends In A Great Degree On His Knowledge Of One Or More Of
These Sciences: Not, It May Be, A Rational Knowledge; But Still A
Knowledge, Though Empirical. For What We Call Learning A Business,
Really Implies Learning The Science Involved In It; Though Not Perhaps
Under The Name Of Science. And Hence A Grounding In Science Is Of Great
Importance, Both Because It Prepares For All This, And Because Rational
Knowledge Has An Immense Superiority Over Empirical Knowledge. Moreover,
Not Only Is Scientific Culture Requisite For Each, That He May
Understand The _How_ And The _Why_ Of The Things And Processes With
Which He Is Concerned As Maker Or Distributor; But It Is Often Of Much
Moment That He Should Understand The _How_ And The _Why_ Of Various
Other Things And Processes. In This Age Of Joint-Stock Undertakings,
Nearly Every Man Above The Labourer Is Interested As Capitalist In Some
Other Occupation Than His Own; And, As Thus Interested, His Profit Or
Loss Often Depends On His Knowledge Of The Sciences Bearing On This
Other Occupation. Here Is A Mine, In The Sinking Of Which Many
Shareholders Ruined Themselves, From Not Knowing That A Certain Fossil
Belonged To The Old Red Sandstone, Below Which No Coal Is Found.
Part 1 Chapter 1 (What Knowledge Is Of Most Worth?) Pg 13Numerous Attempts Have Been Made To Construct Electromagnetic Engines,
In The Hope Of Superseding Steam; But Had Those Who Supplied The Money
Understood The General Law Of The Correlation And Equivalence Of
Forces, They Might Have Had Better Balances At Their Bankers. Daily Are
Men Induced To Aid In Carrying Out Inventions Which A Mere Tyro In
Science Could Show To Be Futile. Scarcely A Locality But Has Its History
Of Fortunes Thrown Away Over Some Impossible Project.
And If Already The Loss From Want Of Science Is So Frequent And So
Great, Still Greater And More Frequent Will It Be To Those Who Hereafter
Lack Science. Just As Fast As Productive Processes Become More
Scientific, Which Competition Will Inevitably Make Them Do; And Just As
Fast As Joint-Stock Undertakings Spread, Which They Certainly Will; So
Fast Must Scientific Knowledge Grow Necessary To Every One.
That Which Our School-Courses Leave Almost Entirely Out, We Thus Find To
Be That Which Most Nearly Concerns The Business Of Life. Our Industries
Would Cease, Were It Not For The Information Which Men Begin To Acquire,
As They Best May, After Their Education Is Said To Be Finished. And Were
It Not For This Information, From Age To Age Accumulated And Spread By
Unofficial Means, These Industries Would Never Have Existed. Had There
Been No Teaching But Such As Goes On In Our Public Schools, England
Would Now Be What It Was In Feudal Times. That Increasing Acquaintance
With The Laws Of Phenomena, Which Has Through Successive Ages Enabled Us
To Subjugate Nature To Our Needs, And In These Days Gives The Common
Labourer Comforts Which A Few Centuries Ago Kings Could Not Purchase, Is
Scarcely In Any Degree Owed To The Appointed Means Of Instructing Our
Youth. The Vital Knowledge--That By Which We Have Grown As A Nation To
What We Are, And Which Now Underlies Our Whole Existence, Is A Knowledge
That Has Got Itself Taught In Nooks And Corners; While The Ordained
Agencies For Teaching Have Been Mumbling Little Else But Dead Formulas.
We Come Now To The Third Great Division Of Human Activities--A Division
For Which No Preparation Whatever Is Made. If By Some Strange Chance Not
A Vestige Of Us Descended To The Remote Future Save A Pile Of Our
School-Books Or Some College Examination Papers, We May Imagine How
Puzzled An Antiquary Of The Period Would Be On Finding In Them No Sign
That The Learners Were Ever Likely To Be Parents. "This Must Have Been
The _Curriculum_ For Their Celibates," We May Fancy Him Concluding. "I
Perceive Here An Elaborate Preparation For Many Things; Especially For
Reading The Books Of Extinct Nations And Of Co-Existing Nations (From
Which Indeed It Seems Clear That These People Had Very Little Worth
Reading In Their Own Tongue); But I Find No Reference Whatever To The
Bringing Up Of Children. They Could Not Have Been So Absurd As To Omit
All Training For This Gravest Of Responsibilities. Evidently Then, This
Was The School-Course Of One Of Their Monastic Orders."
Seriously, Is It Not An Astonishing Fact, That Though On The Treatment
Of Offspring Depend Their Lives Or Deaths, And Their Moral Welfare Or
Ruin; Yet Not One Word Of Instruction On The Treatment Of Offspring Is
Ever Given To Those Who Will By And By Be Parents? Is It Not Monstrous
That The Fate Of A New Generation Should Be Left To The Chances Of
Unreasoning Custom, Impulse, Fancy--Joined With The Suggestions Of
Ignorant Nurses And The Prejudiced Counsel Of Grandmothers? If A
Merchant Commenced Business Without Any Knowledge Of Arithmetic And
Book-Keeping, We Should Exclaim At His Folly, And Look For Disastrous
Consequences. Or If, Before Studying Anatomy, A Man Set Up As A Surgical
Operator, We Should Wonder At His Audacity And Pity His Patients. But
That Parents Should Begin The Difficult Task Of Rearing Children,
Without Ever Having Given A Thought To The Principles--Physical, Moral,
Or Intellectual--Which Ought To Guide Them, Excites Neither Surprise At
The Actors Nor Pity For Their Victims.
To Tens Of Thousands That Are Killed, Add Hundreds Of Thousand That
Survive With Feeble Constitutions, And Millions That Grow Up With
Constitutions Not So Strong As They Should Be; And You Will Have Some
Idea Of The Curse Inflicted On Their Offspring By Parents Ignorant Of
The Laws Of Life. Do But Consider For A Moment That The Regimen To Which
Children Are Subject, Is Hourly Telling Upon Them To Their Life-Long
Injury Or Benefit; And That There Are Twenty Ways Of Going Wrong To One
Way Of Going Right; And You Will Get Some Idea Of The Enormous Mischief
That Is Almost Everywhere Inflicted By The Thoughtless, Haphazard System
In Common Use. Is It Decided That A Boy Shall Be Clothed In Some Flimsy
Short Dress, And Be Allowed To Go Playing About With Limbs Reddened By
Cold? The Decision Will Tell On His Whole Future Existence--Either In
Illnesses; Or In Stunted Growth; Or In Deficient Energy; Or In A
Maturity Less Vigorous Than It Ought To Have Been, And In Consequent
Hindrances To Success And Happiness. Are Children Doomed To A Monotonous
Dietary, Or A Dietary That Is Deficient In Nutritiveness? Their Ultimate
Physical Power, And Their Efficiency As Men And Women, Will Inevitably
Be More Or Less Diminished By It. Are They Forbidden Vociferous Play, Or
(Being Too Ill-Clothed To Bear Exposure) Are They Kept Indoors In Cold
Weather? They Are Certain To Fall Below That Measure Of Health And
Strength To Which They Would Else Have Attained. When Sons And Daughters
Grow Up Sickly And Feeble, Parents Commonly Regard The Event As A
Misfortune--As A Visitation Of Providence. Thinking After The Prevalent
Chaotic Fashion, They Assume That These Evils Come Without Causes; Or
That The Causes Are Supernatural. Nothing Of The Kind. In Some Cases The
Causes Are Doubtless Inherited; But In Most Cases Foolish Regulations
Are The Causes. Very Generally, Parents Themselves Are Responsible For
All This Pain, This Debility, This Depression, This Misery. They Have
Undertaken To Control The Lives Of Their Offspring From Hour To Hour;
With Cruel Carelessness They Have Neglected To Learn Anything About
These Vital Processes Which They Are Unceasingly Affecting By Their
Commands And Prohibitions; In Utter Ignorance Of The Simplest
Physiologic Laws, They Have Been Year By Year Undermining The
Constitutions Of Their Children; And Have So Inflicted Disease And
Premature Death, Not Only On Them But On Their Descendants.
Equally Great Are The Ignorance And The Consequent Injury, When We Turn
From Physical Training To Moral Training. Consider The Young Mother And
Her Nursery-Legislation. But A Few Years Ago She Was At School, Where
Her Memory Was Crammed With Words, And Names, And Dates, And Her
Reflective Faculties Scarcely In The Slightest Degree Exercised--Where
Not One Idea Was Given Her Respecting The Methods Of Dealing With The
Opening Mind Of Childhood; And Where Her Discipline Did Not In The Least
Fit Her For Thinking Out Methods Of Her Own. The Intervening Years Have
Part 1 Chapter 1 (What Knowledge Is Of Most Worth?) Pg 14
Been Passed In Practising Music, In Fancy-Work, In Novel-Reading, And In
Party-Going: No Thought Having Yet Been Given To The Grave
Responsibilities Of Maternity; And Scarcely Any Of That Solid
Intellectual Culture Obtained Which Would Be Some Preparation For Such
Responsibilities. And Now See Her With An Unfolding Human Character
Committed To Her Charge--See Her Profoundly Ignorant Of The Phenomena
With Which She Has To Deal, Undertaking To Do That Which Can Be Done But
Imperfectly Even With The Aid Of The Profoundest Knowledge. She Knows
Nothing About The Nature Of The Emotions, Their Order Of Evolution,
Their Functions, Or Where Use Ends And Abuse Begins. She Is Under The
Impression That Some Of The Feelings Are Wholly Bad, Which Is Not True
Of Any One Of Them; And That Others Are Good However Far They May Be
Carried, Which Is Also Not True Of Any One Of Them. And Then, Ignorant
As She Is Of The Structure She Has To Deal With, She Is Equally
Ignorant Of The Effects Produced On It By This Or That Treatment. What
Can Be More Inevitable Than The Disastrous Results We See Hourly
Arising? Lacking Knowledge Of Mental Phenomena, With Their Cause And
Consequences, Her Interference Is Frequently More Mischievous Than
Absolute Passivity Would Have Been. This And That Kind Of Action, Which
Are Quite Normal And Beneficial, She Perpetually Thwarts; And So
Diminishes The Child's Happiness And Profit, Injures Its Temper
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