Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) by Herbert Spencer (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📖
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- Author: Herbert Spencer
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Similarly With The Correlative Requirement, That The Method Of Culture
Pursued Shall Be One Productive Of An Intrinsically Happy Activity,--An
Activity Not Happy Because Of Extrinsic Rewards To Be Obtained, But
Because Of Its Own Healthfulness. Conformity To This Requirement,
Besides Preventing Us From Thwarting The Normal Process Of Evolution,
Incidentally Secures Positive Benefits Of Importance. Unless We Are To
Return To An Ascetic Morality (Or Rather _Im_-Morality) The Maintenance
Of Youthful Happiness Must Be Considered As In Itself A Worthy Aim. Not
To Dwell Upon This, However, We Go On To Remark That A Pleasurable State
Of Feeling Is Far More Favourable To Intellectual Action Than A State Of
Indifference Or Disgust. Every One Knows That Things Read, Heard, Or
Seen With Interest, Are Better Remembered Than Things Read, Heard, Or
Seen With Apathy. In The One Case The Faculties Appealed To Are Actively
Occupied With The Subject Presented; In The Other They Are Inactively
Occupied With It, And The Attention Is Continually Drawn Away By More
Attractive Thoughts. Hence The Impressions Are Respectively Strong And
Weak. Moreover, To The Intellectual Listlessness Which A Pupil's Lack Of
Interest In Any Study Involves, Must Be Added The Paralysing Fear Of
Consequences. This, By Distracting His Attention, Increases The
Difficulty He Finds In Bringing His Faculties To Bear Upon Facts That
Are Repugnant To Them. Clearly, Therefore, The Efficiency Of Tuition
Will, Other Things Equal, Be Proportionate To The Gratification With
Which Tasks Are Performed.
It Should Be Considered Also, That Grave Moral Consequences Depend Upon
The Habitual Pleasure Or Pain Which Daily Lessons Produce. No One Can
Compare The Faces And Manners Of Two Boys--The One Made Happy By
Mastering Interesting Subjects, And The Other Made Miserable By Disgust
With His Studies, By Consequent Inability, By Cold Looks, By Threats, By
Punishment--Without Seeing That The Disposition Of The One Is Being
Benefited And That Of The Other Injured. Whoever Has Marked The Effects
Of Success And Failure Upon The Mind, And The Power Of The Mind Over The
Body, Will See That In The One Case Both Temper And Health Are
Favourably Affected, While In The Other There Is Danger Of Permanent
Moroseness, Or Permanent Timidity, And Even Of Permanent Constitutional
Depression. There Remains Yet Another Indirect Result Of No Small
Moment. The Relationship Between Teachers And Their Pupils Is, Other
Things Equal, Rendered Friendly And Influential, Or Antagonistic And
Powerless, According As The System Of Culture Produces Happiness Or
Misery. Human Beings Are At The Mercy Of Their Associated Ideas. A Daily
Minister Of Pain Cannot Fail To Be Regarded With Secret Dislike; And If
He Causes No Emotions But Painful Ones, Will Inevitably Be Hated.
Conversely, He Who Constantly Aids Children To Their Ends, Hourly
Provides Them With The Satisfactions Of Conquest, Hourly Encourages Them
Through Their Difficulties And Sympathises In Their Successes, Will Be
Liked; Nay, If His Behaviour Is Consistent Throughout, Must Be Loved.
And When We Remember How Efficient And Benign Is The Control Of A Master
Who Is Felt To Be A Friend, When Compared With The Control Of One Who Is
Looked Upon With Aversion, Or At Best Indifference, We May Infer That
The Indirect Advantages Of Conducting Education On The Happiness
Principle Do Not Fall Far Short Of The Direct Ones. To All Who Question
The Possibility Of Acting Out The System Here Advocated, We Reply As
Before, That Not Only Does Theory Point To It, But Experience Commends
It. To The Many Verdicts Of Distinguished Teachers Who Since
Pestalozzi's Time Have Testified This, May Be Here Added That Of
Professor Pillans, Who Asserts That "Where Young People Are Taught As
They Ought To Be, They Are Quite As Happy In School As At Play, Seldom
Less Delighted, Nay, Often More, With The Well-Directed Exercise Of
Their Mental Energies Than With That Of Their Muscular Powers."
As Suggesting A Final Reason For Making Education A Process Of
Self-Instruction, And By Consequence A Process Of Pleasurable
Instruction, We May Advert To The Fact That, In Proportion As It Is Made
So, Is There A Probability That It Will Not Cease When Schooldays End.
As Long As The Acquisition Of Knowledge Is Rendered Habitually
Repugnant, So Long Will There Be A Prevailing Tendency To Discontinue It
When Free From The Coercion Of Parents And Masters. And When The
Acquisition Of Knowledge Has Been Rendered Habitually Gratifying, Then
Will There Be As Prevailing A Tendency To Continue, Without
Superintendence, That Self-Culture Previously Carried On Under
Superintendence. These Results Are Inevitable. While The Laws Of Mental
Association Remain True--While Men Dislike The Things And Places That
Suggest Painful Recollections, And Delight In Those Which Call To Mind
By-Gone Pleasures--Painful Lessons Will Make Knowledge Repulsive, And
Pleasurable Lessons Will Make It Attractive. The Men To Whom In Boyhood
Information Came In Dreary Tasks Along With Threats Of Punishment, And
Who Were Never Led Into Habits Of Independent Inquiry, Are Unlikely To
Be Students In After Years; While Those To Whom It Came In The Natural
Forms, At The Proper Times, And Who Remember Its Facts As Not Only
Interesting In Themselves, But As The Occasions Of A Long Series Of
Gratifying Successes, Are Likely To Continue Through Life That
Self-Instruction Commenced In Youth.
[1] Those Who Seek Aid In Carrying Out The System Of Culture Above
Described, Will Find It In A Little Work Entitled _Inventional
Geometry_; Published By J. And C. Mozley, Paternoster Row, London.
Part 1 Chapter 3 (Moral Education) Pg 37
The Greatest Defect In Our Programmes Of Education Is Entirely
Overlooked. While Much Is Being Done In The Detailed Improvement Of Our
Systems In Respect Both Of Matter And Manner, The Most Pressing
Desideratum Has Not Yet Been Even Recognised As A Desideratum. To
Prepare The Young For The Duties Of Life Is Tacitly Admitted To Be The
End Which Parents And Schoolmasters Should Have In View; And Happily,
The Value Of The Things Taught, And The Goodness Of The Methods Followed
In Teaching Them, Are Now Ostensibly Judged By Their Fitness To This
End. The Propriety Of Substituting For An Exclusively Classical
Training, A Training In Which The Modern Languages Shall Have A Share,
Is Argued On This Ground. The Necessity Of Increasing The Amount Of
Science Is Urged For Like Reasons. But Though Some Care Is Taken To Fit
Youth Of Both Sexes For Society And Citizenship, No Care Whatever Is
Taken To Fit Them For The Position Of Parents. While It Is Seen That For
The Purpose Of Gaining A Livelihood, An Elaborate Preparation Is Needed,
Part 1 Chapter 3 (Moral Education) Pg 38It Appears To Be Thought That For The Bringing Up Of Children, No
Preparation Whatever Is Needed. While Many Years Are Spent By A Boy In
Gaining Knowledge Of Which The Chief Value Is That It Constitutes "The
Education Of A Gentleman;" And While Many Years Are Spent By A Girl In
Those Decorative Acquirements Which Fit Her For Evening Parties; Not An
Hour Is Spent By Either In Preparation For That Gravest Of All
Responsibilities--The Management Of A Family. Is It That This
Responsibility Is But A Remote Contingency? On The Contrary, It Is Sure
To Devolve On Nine Out Of Ten. Is It That The Discharge Of It Is Easy?
Certainly Not: Of All Functions Which The Adult Has To Fulfil, This Is
The Most Difficult. Is It That Each May Be Trusted By Self-Instruction
To Fit Himself, Or Herself, For The Office Of Parent? No: Not Only Is
The Need For Such Self-Instruction Unrecognised, But The Complexity Of
The Subject Renders It The One Of All Others In Which Self-Instruction
Is Least Likely To Succeed. No Rational Plea Can Be Put Forward For
Leaving The Art Of Education Out Of Our _Curriculum_. Whether As Bearing
On The Happiness Of Parents Themselves, Or Whether As Affecting The
Characters And Lives Of Their Children And Remote Descendants, We Must
Admit That A Knowledge Of The Right Methods Of Juvenile Culture,
Physical, Intellectual, And Moral, Is A Knowledge Of Extreme Importance.
This Topic Should Be The Final One In The Course Of Instruction Passed
Through By Each Man And Woman. As Physical Maturity Is Marked By The
Ability To Produce Offspring, So Mental Maturity Is Marked By The
Ability To Train Those Offspring. _The Subject Which Involves All Other
Subjects, And Therefore The Subject In Which Education Should Culminate,
Is The Theory And Practice Of Education._
In The Absence Of This Preparation, The Management Of Children, And More
Especially The Moral Management, Is Lamentably Bad. Parents Either Never
Think About The Matter At All, Or Else Their Conclusions Are Crude And
Inconsistent. In Most Cases, And Especially On The Part Of Mothers, The
Treatment Adopted On Every Occasion Is That Which The Impulse Of The
Moment Prompts: It Springs Not From Any Reasoned-Out Conviction As To
What Will Most Benefit The Child, But Merely Expresses The Dominant
Parental Feelings, Whether Good Or Ill; And Varies From Hour To Hour As
These Feelings Vary. Or If The Dictates Of Passion Are Supplemented By
Any Definite Doctrines And Methods, They Are Those Handed Down From The
Past, Or Those Suggested By The Remembrances Of Childhood, Or Those
Adopted From Nurses And Servants--Methods Devised Not By The
Enlightenment, But By The Ignorance, Of The Time. Commenting On The
Chaotic State Of Opinion And Practice Relative To Family Government,
Richter Writes:--
"If The Secret Variances Of A Large Class Of Ordinary Fathers Were
Brought To Light, And Laid Down As A Plan Of Studies And Reading,
Catalogued For A Moral Education, They Would Run Somewhat After
This Fashion:--In The First Hour 'Pure Morality Must Be Read To The
Child, Either By Myself Or The Tutor;' In The Second, 'Mixed
Morality, Or That Which May Be Applied To One's Own Advantage;' In
The Third, 'Do You Not See That Your Father Does So And So?' In The
Fourth, 'You Are Little, And This Is Only Fit For Grown-Up People;'
In The Fifth, 'The Chief Matter Is That You Should Succeed In The
World, And Become Something In The State;' In The Sixth, 'Not The
Temporary, But The Eternal, Determines The Worth Of A Man;' In The
Seventh, 'Therefore Rather Suffer Injustice, And Be Kind;' In The
Eighth, 'But Defend Yourself Bravely If Any One Attack You;' In The
Ninth, 'Do Not Make A Noise, Dear Child;' In The Tenth, 'A Boy Must
Not Sit So Quiet;' In The Eleventh, 'You Must Obey Your Parents
Better;' In The Twelfth, 'And Educate Yourself.' So By The Hourly
Change Of His Principles, The Father Conceals Their Untenableness
And Onesidedness. As For His Wife, She Is Neither
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