A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education - Gall James

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of education, for one who cares nothing about it.

      This is a fearful odds where there is a likelihood of opposition;—and opposition may be expected. For there will be influences in many of the true friends of education, derived from old prejudices within, combined with the pressure of conflicting sentiments in their friends from without, which will render the task of establishing new and sound principles in this first of the sciences an irksome, and even a hazardous employment. Coldness or opposition from those whom we honour and love is always painful; and yet it should be endured, rather than that the best interests both of the present and future generations should be sacrificed. The opinions of all good men deserve consideration;—but when they are merely opinions, and are not founded on reason, they are at best but specious; and when they are opposed to truth, and are contrary to experience, a zealous adherence to them becomes sinful and dangerous. Such persons ought to commend, rather than blame, the reformer in education, when he declines to adopt ancient dogmas which he finds to be useless and hurtful: And at all events, if all have agreed to disregard the authority of an Aristotle or a Newton, when opposed to new facts and additional evidence, the Educationist must not allow himself to be driven from the path of fact and experience by either friends or enemies. No authority can make darkness light;—and although he may be opposed for a time, and the public mind may be abused for a moment, it will at last correct itself, and truth will prevail.

      But the friends of education ought in no case to put the perseverance of those who labour for its improvement to so severe a trial. They ought in justice, as well as charity, to cultivate a forbearing and a candid spirit; and they will have many opportunities of exercising these virtues during the progress of this science. Education is confessedly but in its infancy; and therefore it must grow much, and change much, before it can arrive at maturity. But if there be an increasing opposition to all advance, and if a stumbling-block be continually thrown in the way of those who labour to perfect it, the labourers may be discouraged, and the work be indefinitely postponed. Let all such then guard against a blind opposition, or an attempt to explain away palpable facts, merely because they lead to principles which are new, or to conclusions which are at variance with their pre-conceived opinions. If they persevere in a blind opposition, they may find at last that they have been resisting truth, and defrauding their neighbour. Truth can never be the enemy of man, although many inadvertently rank themselves among its opponents. The resistance which has invariably been offered to every important discovery hitherto, should be a beacon to warn the inconsiderate and the prejudiced against being over-hasty in rejecting discoveries in education; and the obloquy that now rests on the memory of such persons, should be a warning to them, not to plant thorns in their own pillows, or now to sow "the wind, lest they at last should reap the whirlwind."

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      As Education on account of its importance takes precedence in the sciences, so Teaching should rank first among the arts. The reasons for this arrangement are numerous; but the consideration of two will be sufficient.—The first is, that all the other arts refer chiefly to time, and the conveniences and comforts of this world; while the art of teaching not only includes all these, but involves also many of the interests of man through eternity.—And the second is, that without this art all the other arts would produce scarcely any advantage. Without education of some kind, men are, and must continue to be savages—it being the only effectual instrument of civilization. It is the chief, if not the only means for improving the condition of the human family, and for restoring man to the dignity of an intelligent and virtuous being.

      As "Science" is the investigation and knowledge of principles, so an "art" may be defined as a system of means, in accordance with these principles, for attaining some special end. Teaching is one of the arts; and it depends as entirely for its success upon a right application of the principles of the science of education, as the art of dying does upon the principles of chemistry. As an art, therefore, teaching must be subjected to all those laws which regulate the improvement of the other arts, and without which it can never be successfully carried on, far less perfected. These laws are now very generally understood; and we shall briefly advert to a few of them, which are necessary for our present purpose, and endeavour to point out their relation to the art of teaching.

      1. One of the first rules connected with the improvement of the arts is, that the artist have a specific object in view, for the attainment of which all his successive operations are to be combined.—The manufacturer has his cloth in prospect, before he has even purchased the wool of which it is to be composed; and it is the desire of procuring cloth of the most suitable quality, and by the easiest means, that compels him to draw liberally and constantly from the facts ascertained, and the principles developed, by the several sciences. From the science of mechanics he derives the various kinds of machinery used in the progressive stages of its production; and from the science of chemistry he obtains the processes of dying, and printing, and dressing. But he never troubles himself about the science of mechanics or of chemistry in the abstract; he thinks only of his cloth, and of these sciences as means to assist him in procuring it. He is careful of his machinery, and is constantly alive to the mode of its working, and is thus prompted to adopt such improvements as observation or experience may suggest; but it is not the machinery of itself that he either cares for, or thinks about. No; it is still the cloth that he keeps in view; and his machinery is esteemed or slighted, adopted or abandoned, exactly in proportion as it forwards his object. The processes necessary in the different departments of his establishment, are complicated and various, and to a stranger they are both curious and instructive; but it is neither the labour nor the variety that he is seeking. His is a very different object; and of this object he never loses sight; for the varied operations of stapling and carding, of spinning and weaving, are nothing more than means which he employs for accomplishing his end. He knows the uses of the whole complicated operations; and he sees at a glance, and can tell in a moment, how each in its turn contributes to the great object of all—the production of a good and marketable cloth.

      Now this law ought to be applied with the utmost strictness to the art of teaching. For if teaching be really an art—that is, a successive combination of means—it should undoubtedly be a combination of means to some specific end. Nothing can be more obvious, than that a man who sits down to work, should know what he intends to do, and how he is to do it. Such a line of conduct should be imperatively demanded of the teacher, both on account of the importance of his work, and of the immense value of the material upon which he is to operate. The end he has in view, whatever that end may be, ought to be correctly defined before he begins; and no exercise should upon any account be prescribed or demanded from his pupils, which does not directly, or indirectly at least, conduce to its attainment. To do otherwise is both injudicious and unjust. For if the operations of the husbandman during spring have to be selected and curtailed with the strictest attention to time and the seasons, how carefully ought the energies and the time of youth to be economized, when they have but one short spring time afforded them, during which they are to sow the seed which shall produce good or evil fruit for eternity? As to what this great end which the teacher ought steadily to contemplate should be, we shall afterwards enquire; at present we are desirous only of establishing this general law in the art of teaching, that there should be an end accurately defined, and constantly kept in view; and for the attainment of which every exercise prescribed in the school should assist. The teacher who does otherwise is travelling in the dark, and compelling labour for labour's sake;—like the manufacturer who would keep all his machinery in motion, not to make cloth, but to appear to be busy.

      2. Another law adopted in the successful prosecution of the arts is, to use the best known means for attaining any particular end.—This law is well known in all the other arts, and success invariably depends upon its adoption. The fields are not now tilled by the hoe, nor is cotton spun by the hand. These modes of

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