Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11), Herbert Spencer [historical books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
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Fabled Labours Of A Fabled Demi-God, Show Not The Slightest Shame In
Confessing That They Do Not Know Where The Eustachian Tubes Are, What
Are The Actions Of The Spinal Cord, What Is The Normal Rate Of
Pulsation, Or How The Lungs Are Inflated. While Anxious That Their Sons
Should Be Well Up In The Superstitions Of Two Thousand Years Ago, They
Care Not That They Should Be Taught Anything About The Structure And
Functions Of Their Own Bodies--Nay, Even Wish Them Not To Be So Taught.
So Overwhelming Is The Influence Of Established Routine! So Terribly In
Our Education Does The Ornamental Over-Ride The Useful!
Part 1 Chapter 1 (What Knowledge Is Of Most Worth?) Pg 11
We Need Not Insist On The Value Of That Knowledge Which Aids Indirect
Self-Preservation By Facilitating The Gaining Of A Livelihood. This Is
Admitted By All; And, Indeed, By The Mass Is Perhaps Too Exclusively
Regarded As The End Of Education. But While Every One Is Ready To
Endorse The Abstract Proposition That Instruction Fitting Youths For The
Business Of Life Is Of High Importance, Or Even To Consider It Of
Supreme Importance; Yet Scarcely Any Inquire What Instruction Will So
Fit Them. It Is True That Reading, Writing, And Arithmetic Are Taught
With An Intelligent Appreciation Of Their Uses. But When We Have Said
This We Have Said Nearly All. While The Great Bulk Of What Else Is
Acquired Has No Bearing On The Industrial Activities, An Immensity Of
Information That Has A Direct Bearing On The Industrial Activities Is
Entirely Passed Over.
For, Leaving Out Only Some Very Small Classes, What Are All Men Employed
In? They Are Employed In The Production, Preparation, And Distribution
Of Commodities. And On What Does Efficiency In The Production,
Preparation, And Distribution Of Commodities Depend? It Depends On The
Use Of Methods Fitted To The Respective Natures Of These Commodities; It
Depends On An Adequate Acquaintance With Their Physical, Chemical, Or
Vital Properties, As The Case May Be; That Is, It Depends On Science.
This Order Of Knowledge Which Is In Great Part Ignored In Our
School-Courses, Is The Order Of Knowledge Underlying The Right
Performance Of Those Processes By Which Civilised Life Is Made Possible.
Undeniable As Is This Truth, There Seems To Be No Living Consciousness
Of It: Its Very Familiarity Makes It Unregarded. To Give Due Weight To
Our Argument, We Must, Therefore, Realise This Truth To The Reader By A
Rapid Review Of The Facts.
Passing Over The Most Abstract Science, Logic, On The Due Guidance By
Which, However, The Large Producer Or Distributor Depends, Knowingly Or
Unknowingly, For Success In His Business-Forecasts, We Come First To
Mathematics. Of This, The Most General Division, Dealing With Number,
Guides All Industrial Activities; Be They Those By Which Processes Are
Adjusted, Or Estimates Framed, Or Commodities Bought And Sold, Or
Accounts Kept. No One Needs To Have The Value Of This Division Of
Abstract Science Insisted Upon.
For The Higher Arts Of Construction, Some Acquaintance With The More
Special Division Of Mathematics Is Indispensable. The Village Carpenter,
Who Lays Out His Work By Empirical Rules, Equally With The Builder Of A
Britannia Bridge, Makes Hourly Reference To The Laws Of Space-Relations.
The Surveyor Who Measures The Land Purchased; The Architect In Designing
A Mansion To Be Built On It; The Builder When Laying Out The
Foundations; The Masons In Cutting The Stones; And The Various Artizans
Who Put Up The Fittings; Are All Guided By Geometrical Truths.
Railway-Making Is Regulated From Beginning To End By Geometry: Alike In
The Preparation Of Plans And Sections; In Staking Out The Line; In The
Mensuration Of Cuttings And Embankments; In The Designing And Building
Of Bridges, Culverts, Viaducts, Tunnels, Stations. Similarly With The
Harbours, Docks, Piers, And Various Engineering And Architectural Works
That Fringe The Coasts And Overspread The Country, As Well As The Mines
That Run Underneath It. And Now-A-Days, Even The Farmer, For The Correct
Laying-Out Of His Drains, Has Recourse To The Level--That Is, To
Geometrical Principles.
Turn Next To The Abstract-Concrete Sciences. On The Application Of The
Simplest Of These, Mechanics, Depends The Success Of Modern
Manufactures. The Properties Of The Lever, The Wheel-And-Axle, Etc., Are
Recognised In Every Machine, And To Machinery In These Times We Owe All
Production. Trace The History Of The Breakfast-Roll. The Soil Out Of
Which It Came Was Drained With Machine-Made Tiles; The Surface Was
Turned Over By A Machine; The Wheat Was Reaped, Thrashed, And Winnowed
By Machines; By Machinery It Was Ground And Bolted; And Had The Flour
Been Sent To Gosport, It Might Have Been Made Into Biscuits By A
Machine. Look Round The Room In Which You Sit. If Modern, Probably The
Bricks In Its Walls Were Machine-Made; And By Machinery The Flooring Was
Sawn And Planed, The Mantel-Shelf Sawn And Polished, The Paper-Hangings
Made And Printed. The Veneer On The Table, The Turned Legs Of The
Chairs, The Carpet, The Curtains, Are All Products Of Machinery. Your
Clothing--Plain, Figured, Or Printed--Is It Not Wholly Woven, Nay,
Perhaps Even Sewed, By Machinery? And The Volume You Are Reading--Are
Not Its Leaves Fabricated By One Machine And Covered With These Words By
Another? Add To Which That For The Means Of Distribution Over Both Land
And Sea, We Are Similarly Indebted. And Then Observe That According As
Knowledge Of Mechanics Is Well Or Ill Applied To These Ends, Comes
Success Or Failure. The Engineer Who Miscalculates The Strength Of
Materials, Builds A Bridge That Breaks Down. The Manufacturer Who Uses A
Bad Machine Cannot Compete With Another Whose Machine Wastes Less In
Friction And Inertia. The Ship-Builder Adhering To The Old Model Is
Out-Sailed By One Who Builds On The Mechanically-Justified Wave-Line
Principle. And As The Ability Of A Nation To Hold Its Own Against Other
Nations, Depends On The Skilled Activity Of Its Units, We See That On
Mechanical Knowledge May Turn The National Fate.
On Ascending From The Divisions Of Abstract-Concrete Science Dealing
With Molar Forces, To Those Divisions Of It Which Deal With Molecular
Forces, We Come To Another Vast Series Of Applications. To This Group Of
Sciences Joined With The Preceding Groups We Owe The Steam-Engine, Which
Does The Work Of Millions Of Labourers. That Section Of Physics Which
Formulates The Laws Of Heat, Has Taught Us How To Economise Fuel In
Various Industries; How To Increase The Produce Of Smelting Furnaces By
Substituting The Hot For The Cold Blast; How To Ventilate Mines; How To
Prevent Explosions By Using The Safety-Lamp; And, Through The
Thermometer, How To Regulate Innumerable Processes. That Section Which
Has The Phenomena Of Light For Its Subject, Gives Eyes To The Old And
The Myopic; Aids Through The Microscope In Detecting Diseases And
Adulterations; And, By Improved Lighthouses, Prevents Shipwrecks.
Researches In Electricity And Magnetism Have Saved Innumerable Lives And
Incalculable Property Through The Compass; Have Subserved Many Arts By
The Electrotype; And Now, In The Telegraph, Have Supplied Us With An
Agency By Which For The Future, Mercantile Transactions Will Be
Regulated And Political Intercourse Carried On. While In The Details Of
In-Door Life, From The Improved Kitchen-Range Up To The Stereoscope On
The Drawing-Room Table, The Applications Of Advanced Physics Underlie
Our Comforts And Gratifications.
Part 1 Chapter 1 (What Knowledge Is Of Most Worth?) Pg 12
Still More Numerous Are The Applications Of Chemistry. The Bleacher, The
Dyer, The Calico-Printer, Are Severally Occupied In Processes That Are
Well Or Ill Done According As They Do Or Do Not Conform To Chemical
Laws. Smelting Of Copper, Tin, Zinc, Lead, Silver, Iron, Must Be Guided
By Chemistry. Sugar-Refining, Gas-Making, Soap-Boiling,
Gunpowder-Manufacture, Are Operations All Partly Chemical; As Are
Likewise Those Which Produce Glass And Porcelain. Whether The
Distiller's Wort Stops At The Alcoholic Fermentation Or Passes Into The
Acetous, Is A Chemical Question On Which Hangs His Profit Or Loss; And
The Brewer, If His Business Is Extensive, Finds It Pay To Keep A Chemist
On His Premises. Indeed, There Is Now Scarcely Any Manufacture Over Some
Part Of Which Chemistry Does Not Preside. Nay, In These Times Even
Agriculture, To Be Profitably Carried On, Must Have Like Guidance. The
Analysis Of Manures And Soils; The Disclosure Of Their Respective
Adaptations; The Use Of Gypsum Or Other Substance For Fixing Ammonia;
The Utilisation Of Coprolites; The Production Of Artificial Manures--All
These Are Boons Of Chemistry Which It Behoves The Farmer To Acquaint
Himself With. Be It In The Lucifer Match, Or In Disinfected Sewage, Or
In Photographs--In Bread Made Without Fermentation, Or Perfumes
Extracted From Refuse, We May Perceive That Chemistry Affects All Our
Industries; And That, Therefore, Knowledge Of It Concerns Every One Who
Is Directly Or Indirectly Connected With Our Industries.
Of The Concrete Sciences, We Come First To Astronomy. Out Of This Has
Grown That Art Of Navigation Which Has Made Possible The Enormous
Foreign Commerce That Supports A Large Part Of Our Population, While
Supplying Us With Many Necessaries And Most Of Our Luxuries.
Geology, Again, Is A Science Knowledge Of Which Greatly Aids Industrial
Success. Now That Iron Ores Are So Large A Source Of Wealth; Now That
The Duration Of Our Coal-Supply Has Become A Question Of Great Interest;
Now That We Have A College Of Mines And A Geological Survey; It Is
Scarcely Needful To Enlarge On The Truth That The Study Of The Earth's
Crust Is Important To Our Material Welfare.
And Then The Science Of Life--Biology: Does Not This, Too, Bear
Fundamentally On These Processes Of Indirect Self-Preservation? With
What We Ordinarily Call Manufactures, It Has, Indeed, Little Connection;
But With The All-Essential Manufacture--That Of Food--It Is Inseparably
Connected. As Agriculture Must Conform Its Methods To The Phenomena Of
Vegetal And Animal Life, It Follows That The Science Of These Phenomena
Is The Rational Basis Of Agriculture. Various Biological Truths Have
Indeed Been Empirically Established And Acted Upon By Farmers, While Yet
There Has Been No Conception Of Them As Science; Such As That Particular
Manures Are Suited To Particular Plants; That Crops Of Certain Kinds
Unfit The Soil For Other Crops; That Horses Cannot Do Good Work On Poor
Food; That Such And Such Diseases Of Cattle And Sheep Are Caused By Such
And Such Conditions. These, And The Every-Day Knowledge Which The
Agriculturist Gains By Experience Respecting The Management Of Plants
And Animals, Constitute His Stock Of Biological Facts; On The Largeness
Of Which Greatly Depends His Success. And As These Biological Facts,
Scanty, Indefinite, Rudimentary, Though They Are, Aid Him So
Essentially; Judge What Must Be The Value To Him Of Such Facts When They
Become Positive, Definite, And Exhaustive. Indeed, Even Now We May See
The Benefits That Rational Biology Is Conferring On Him. The Truth That
The Production Of Animal Heat Implies Waste Of Substance, And That,
Therefore, Preventing Loss Of Heat Prevents The Need For Extra Food--A
Purely Theoretical Conclusion--Now Guides The Fattening Of Cattle: It Is
Found That By Keeping Cattle Warm, Fodder Is Saved. Similarly With
Respect To Variety Of Food. The Experiments Of Physiologists Have Shown
That Not Only Is Change Of Diet Beneficial, But That Digestion Is
Facilitated By A Mixture Of Ingredients In Each Meal. The Discovery That
A Disorder Known As "The Staggers," Of Which Many Thousands Of Sheep
Have Died Annually, Is Caused By An Entozoon Which Presses On The Brain,
And That If The Creature Is Extracted Through The Softened Place In The
Skull Which Marks Its Position, The Sheep Usually Recovers,
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