Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11), Herbert Spencer [historical books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
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Confounded Together--Only As Each Class Of Co-Existences And Sequences
Becomes Familiar Through The Recurrence Of Cases Coming Under It--Only
As The Various Classes Of Relations Get Accurately Marked Off From Each
Other By Mutual Limitation, Can The Exact Definitions Of Advanced
Knowledge Become Truly Comprehensible. Thus In Education We Must Be
Content To Set Out With Crude Notions. These We Must Aim To Make
Gradually Clearer By Facilitating The Acquisition Of Experiences Such As
Will Correct, First Their Greatest Errors, And Afterwards Their
Successively Less Marked Errors. And The Scientific Formulæ Must Be
Given Only As Fast As The Conceptions Are Perfected.
3. To Say That Our Lessons Ought To Start From The Concrete And End In
The Abstract, May Be Considered As In Part A Repetition Of The First Of
The Foregoing Principles. Nevertheless It Is A Maxim That Must Be
Stated: If With No Other View, Then With The View Of Showing In Certain
Cases What Are Truly The Simple And The Complex. For Unfortunately There
Has Been Much Misunderstanding On This Point. General Formulas Which Men
Have Devised To Express Groups Of Details, And Which Have Severally
Simplified Their Conceptions By Uniting Many Facts Into One Fact, They
Have Supposed Must Simplify The Conceptions Of A Child Also. They Have
Forgotten That A Generalisation Is Simple Only In Comparison With The
Whole Mass Of Particular Truths It Comprehends--That It Is More Complex
Than Any One Of These Truths Taken Singly--That Only After Many Of These
Single Truths Have Been Acquired Does The Generalisation Ease The Memory
And Help The Reason--And That To A Mind Not Possessing These Single
Truths It Is Necessarily A Mystery. Thus Confounding Two Kinds Of
Simplification, Teachers Have Constantly Erred By Setting Out With
"First Principles": A Proceeding Essentially, Though Not Apparently, At
Variance With The Primary Rule; Which Implies That The Mind Should Be
Introduced To Principles Through The Medium Of Examples, And So Should
Be Led From The Particular To The General--From The Concrete To The
Abstract.
4. The Education Of The Child Must Accord Both In Mode And Arrangement
With The Education Of Mankind, Considered Historically. In Other Words,
The Genesis Of Knowledge In The Individual Must Follow The Same Course
As The Genesis Of Knowledge In The Race. In Strictness, This Principle
May Be Considered As Already Expressed By Implication; Since Both, Being
Processes Of Evolution, Must Conform To Those Same General Laws Of
Evolution Above Insisted On, And Must Therefore Agree With Each Other.
Nevertheless This Particular Parallelism Is Of Value For The Specific
Guidance It Affords. To M. Comte We Believe Society Owes The Enunciation
Of It; And We May Accept This Item Of His Philosophy Without At All
Committing Ourselves To The Rest. This Doctrine May Be Upheld By Two
Reasons, Quite Independent Of Any Abstract Theory; And Either Of Them
Sufficient To Establish It. One Is Deducible From The Law Of Hereditary
Transmission As Considered In Its Wider Consequences. For If It Be True
That Men Exhibit Likeness To Ancestry, Both In Aspect And Character--If
It Be True That Certain Mental Manifestations, As Insanity, Occur In
Successive Members Of The Same Family At The Same Age--If, Passing From
Individual Cases In Which The Traits Of Many Dead Ancestors Mixing With
Those Of A Few Living Ones Greatly Obscure The Law, We Turn To National
Types, And Remark How The Contrasts Between Them Are Persistent From Age
To Age--If We Remember That These Respective Types Came From A Common
Stock, And That Hence The Present Marked Differences Between Them Must
Have Arisen From The Action Of Modifying Circumstances Upon Successive
Generations Who Severally Transmitted The Accumulated Effects To Their
Descendants--If We Find The Differences To Be Now Organic, So That A
French Child Grows Into A French Man Even When Brought Up Among
Strangers--And If The General Fact Thus Illustrated Is True Of The Whole
Nature, Intellect Inclusive; Then It Follows That If There Be An Order
In Which The Human Race Has Mastered Its Various Kinds Of Knowledge,
There Will Arise In Every Child An Aptitude To Acquire These Kinds Of
Knowledge In The Same Order. So That Even Were The Order Intrinsically
Indifferent, It Would Facilitate Education To Lead The Individual Mind
Through The Steps Traversed By The General Mind. But The Order Is _Not_
Intrinsically Indifferent; And Hence The Fundamental Reason Why
Education Should Be A Repetition Of Civilisation In Little. It Is
Provable Both That The Historical Sequence Was, In Its Main Outlines, A
Necessary One; And That The Causes Which Determined It Apply To The
Child As To The Race. Not To Specify These Causes In Detail, It Will
Suffice Here To Point Out That As The Mind Of Humanity Placed In The
Midst Of Phenomena And Striving To Comprehend Them, Has, After Endless
Comparisons, Speculations, Experiments, And Theories, Reached Its
Present Knowledge Of Each Subject By A Specific Route; It May Rationally
Be Inferred That The Relationship Between Mind And Phenomena Is Such As
To Prevent This Knowledge From Being Reached By Any Other Route; And
That As Each Child's Mind Stands In This Same Relationship To Phenomena,
They Can Be Accessible To It Only Through The Same Route. Hence In
Deciding Upon The Right Method Of Education, An Inquiry Into The Method
Of Civilisation Will Help To Guide Us.
5. One Of The Conclusions To Which Such An Inquiry Leads, Is, That In
Each Branch Of Instruction We Should Proceed From The Empirical To The
Rational. During Human Progress, Every Science Is Evolved Out Of Its
Corresponding Art. It Results From The Necessity We Are Under, Both
Individually And As A Race, Of Reaching The Abstract By Way Of The
Concrete, That There Must Be Practice And An Accruing Experience With
Its Empirical Generalisation, Before There Can Be Science. Science Is
Organised Knowledge; And Before Knowledge Can Be Organised, Some Of It
Must Be Possessed. Every Study, Therefore, Should Have A Purely
Experimental Introduction; And Only After An Ample Fund Of Observations
Has Been Accumulated, Should Reasoning Begin. As Illustrative
Applications Of This Rule, We May Instance The Modern Course Of Placing
Grammar, Not Before Language, But After It; Or The Ordinary Custom Of
Prefacing Perspective By Practical Drawing. By And By Further
Applications Of It Will Be Indicated.
6. A Second Corollary From The Foregoing General Principle, And One
Which Cannot Be Too Strenuously Insisted On, Is, That In Education The
Process Of Self-Development Should Be Encouraged To The Uttermost.
Children Should Be Led To Make Their Own Investigations, And To Draw
Their Own Inferences. They Should Be _Told_ As Little As Possible, And
Induced To _Discover_ As Much As Possible. Humanity Has Progressed
Solely By Self-Instruction; And That To Achieve The Best Results, Each
Mind Must Progress Somewhat After The Same Fashion, Is Continually
Proved By The Marked Success Of Self-Made Men. Those Who Have Been
Brought Up Under The Ordinary School-Drill, And Have Carried Away With
Them The Idea That Education Is Practicable Only In That Style, Will
Think It Hopeless To Make Children Their Own Teachers. If, However, They
Will Consider That The All-Important Knowledge Of Surrounding Objects
Which A Child Gets In Its Early Years Is Got Without Help--If They Will
Remember That The Child Is Self-Taught In The Use Of Its Mother
Tongue--If They Will Estimate The Amount Of That Experience Of Life,
That Out-Of-School Wisdom, Which Every Boy Gathers For Himself--If They
Part 1 Chapter 2 (Intellectual Education) Pg 29Will Mark The Unusual Intelligence Of The Uncared-For London _Gamin_, As
Shown In Whatever Directions His Faculties Have Been Tasked--If,
Further, They Will Think How Many Minds Have Struggled Up Unaided, Not
Only Through The Mysteries Of Our Irrationally-Planned _Curriculum_, But
Through Hosts Of Other Obstacles Besides; They Will Find It A Not
Unreasonable Conclusion That If The Subjects Be Put Before Him In Right
Order And Right Form, Any Pupil Of Ordinary Capacity Will Surmount His
Successive Difficulties With But Little Assistance. Who Indeed Can Watch
The Ceaseless Observation, And Inquiry, And Inference Going On In A
Child's Mind, Or Listen To Its Acute Remarks On Matters Within The Range
Of Its Faculties, Without Perceiving That These Powers It Manifests, If
Brought To Bear Systematically Upon Studies _Within The Same Range_,
Would Readily Master Them Without Help? This Need For Perpetual Telling
Results From Our Stupidity, Not From The Child's. We Drag It Away From
The Facts In Which It Is Interested, And Which It Is Actively
Assimilating Of Itself. We Put Before It Facts Far Too Complex For It To
Understand; And Therefore Distasteful To It. Finding That It Will Not
Voluntarily Acquire These Facts, We Thrust Them Into Its Mind By Force
Of Threats And Punishment. By Thus Denying The Knowledge It Craves, And
Cramming It With Knowledge It Cannot Digest, We Produce A Morbid State
Of Its Faculties; And A Consequent Disgust For Knowledge In General. And
When, As A Result Partly Of The Stolid Indolence We Have Brought On, And
Partly Of Still-Continued Unfitness In Its Studies, The Child Can
Understand Nothing Without Explanation, And Becomes A Mere Passive
Recipient Of Our Instruction, We Infer That Education Must Necessarily
Be Carried On Thus. Having By Our Method Induced Helplessness, We Make
The Helplessness A Reason For Our Method. Clearly Then, The Experience
Of Pedagogues Cannot Rationally Be Quoted Against The System We Are
Advocating. And Whoever Sees This, Will See That We May Safely Follow
The Discipline Of Nature Throughout--May, By A Skilful Ministration,
Make The Mind As Self-Developing In Its Later Stages As It Is In Its
Earlier Ones; And That Only By Doing This Can We Produce The Highest
Power And Activity.
7. As A Final Test By Which To Judge Any Plan Of Culture, Should Come
The Question,--Does It Create A Pleasurable Excitement In The Pupils?
When In Doubt Whether A Particular Mode Or Arrangement Is Or Is Not More
In Harmony With The Foregoing Principles Than Some Other, We May Safely
Abide By This Criterion. Even When, As Considered Theoretically, The
Proposed Course Seems The Best, Yet If It Produces No Interest, Or Less
Interest Than Some Other Course, We Should Relinquish It; For A Child's
Intellectual Instincts Are More Trustworthy Than Our Reasonings. In
Respect To The Knowing-Faculties, We May Confidently Trust In The
General Law, That Under Normal Conditions, Healthful Action Is
Pleasurable, While Action Which Gives Pain Is Not Healthful. Though At
Present Very Incompletely Conformed To By The Emotional Nature, Yet By
The Intellectual Nature, Or At Least By Those Parts Of It Which The
Child Exhibits, This Law Is Almost Wholly Conformed To. The Repugnances
To This And That Study Which Vex The Ordinary Teacher, Are Not Innate,
But Result From His Unwise System. Fellenberg Says, "Experience Has
Taught Me That _Indolence_ In Young Persons Is So Directly Opposite To
Their Natural Disposition To Activity, That Unless It Is The Consequence
Of Bad Education, It Is Almost Invariably Connected With Some
Constitutional Defect." And The Spontaneous Activity To Which Children
Are Thus Prone, Is Simply The Pursuit Of Those Pleasures Which The
Healthful Exercise Of The Faculties Gives. It Is True That Some Of The
Higher Mental Powers, As Yet But Little Developed In The Race, And
Congenitally Possessed In Any Considerable Degree Only By The Most
Advanced, Are Indisposed To The Amount Of Exertion Required Of Them. But
These, In Virtue Of Their Very Complexity, Will, In A Normal Course Of
Culture, Come Last Into Exercise; And Will Therefore Have No Demands
Made On Them Until The Pupil Has Arrived At An Age When Ulterior Motives
Can Be Brought Into Play, And An Indirect Pleasure Made To
Counterbalance A Direct Displeasure. With All Faculties Lower Than
These, However, The Immediate Gratification Consequent On Activity, Is
The Normal Stimulus; And Under Good Management The Only Needful
Stimulus. When We Have To Fall Back On Some Other, We Must Take The Fact
As Evidence
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