Culture demanded by modern life: A Series of Addresses and Arguments on the Claims of Scientific ...

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Preface

iHEsystcm of Popular Educaticn in this country has become an established fact, and the cjttensivc provisions for it in all the States show how generally and thoroughly it is appreciated. But the movement which led to it proceeded from the feeling of a want to be supplied, rather than from any clear perception of the character of the thing wanted. While the struggle was to get it accepted, any thing passing under the name of Education — any thing learned from books at stated times and in set places — was sufficient.

But the first step being taken and the System secured, the question inevitably arises as to its character, defects, and the means of its improvement; and this is now the supreme consideration. D';epei than all questions of Reconstruction, Suffrage, a<id Finance, is the question, What kind of culture shall the growing mind of the nation have? The recent and exti'nsive organization of Normal Schools for the more thorough and systematic preparation f Teachers, is proof of a general desire to improve the

Vi PR£FAC£.

methods and raise the standard of popular instruction ; and there are many other indications of a growing disposition to carry educational inquiries down to first principles, and to bring the system into better harmony with the needs of the times.

Among other imperfections of the prevailing education, in all its grades, one of the most serious is a lack of the study of Nature. The importance of giving a larger space to scientific subjects, in our educational courses, is being every year more and more felt and acknowledged. In place of the excess of verbal acquisition and mechanical recitation, we need more thinking about things ; in place of the passive acceptance of mere book and tutorial authority^ more cultivation of independent judgment ; in place of the arbitrary presentation of unrelated subjects, the branches of knowledge require to be dealt with in a more rational and connected order ; and in place of much that is irrelevant, antiquated, and unpractical in our systems of study, there is needed a larger infusion of the living and available truth which belongs to the present time. A conviction of the extent of its defects and needs has led many of the most eminent thinkers to criticise the existing Educational Systems, and to urge the claims of the > arious sciences to increasing consideration. These opinions have generally been expressed in the form of lectures and inci* dental arguments, which are not convenient of access ; and a belief that it would be a useful service at the present time to collect some of the most important of them, has led to the present compilation.

Most of the lectures in this volume have not been before published in this country, and the authors of severa' have kindly revised their productions for the present work. It may be added that severa! of the discussions are important not only as presenting the claims and educational value of their subjects, but also as suggesting the best methods of their study. Professor LJebig's late lecture on the " Development of Ideas in Physical Science" has so direct a bearing upon the position and claims of science, especially in this country, as to deserve a place in tbe present collection ; and an excellent translation of it has been expressly made for this volume.

Nearly all the discussions it contains have been made within the last dozen years, and several of them quite recently ; so that they may be regarded as outgrowths and exponents of the present state of thought. Those of Tyndall, Paget, Faraday, Whcwell, and Hodgson, were parts of a course delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, on the claims of the various sciences as. means of the education of all classes. Although the reader may miss in this volume the connection and coherency of a systematic treatise on the subject by a single writer, and even note some minor points of disagreement, yet he will find that each statement is a section of a comprehensive and essentially harmonious argument which presents an attractive variety of treatment ; while the stamp of various and powerful minds, each speaking upon the subject with which he is best acquainted, must give the general discussion far greater authority than the work of fWi PREFACE.

any one man, no matter how able, could possibly po% sess.

The lecture on " The Scientific Study of Human Na tare,'' and the introductory essay on ^^ Mental Discipline in Education " have been contributed by the editor, nor because he thought himself at all competent to do justice to these interesting topics, but because, holding them to be of the first importance, he was unable to find any discussion of them in a form appropriate to the volume. In the Introduction he has attempted to show that a course of study, mainly scientific, not only meets the full requirements of mental training, but also affords the kind of culture or mental discipline which is especially needed in this country at the present time. He has there presented the phases of discipline as successive^ and the course of subjects should undoubtedly conform to the order stated ; yet, as President Hill, of Harvard, has pointed out in his admirable pamphlet on "The True Order of Studies," the pupil's mind requires to be variously exercised from the outset ; — several different lines of acquisition being carried along togethei; The organization of a scheme of study adapted to American wants is the educational prob lem immediately before us, and the present volume, it is hoped, will contribute valuable suggestions toward its so- .ution.

Niw York, May i, 1867.

Contents

PREFACE, V

INTRODUCTION— ON MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCA-

TION, I

Appendix

C^. ^,0'si^lt t» tsgtt M tk€ General Imfiuetue of ScUntifo Qtlturt^ . 418

He^^ytrr Zf^SMcer tm tie Order cf Diicoverj in the Progress cf KncwUdgc, 425

C^. L^iftr 99 tie IftficitneUi if Clerical Education^ . .427

t^, ^^^m im tke P/^tUlcgieal Basis of Pritmary Education, . 431

£^, ff^er^^snd Mr Midern Collegiate Studies, . •434

t^iftiiAir Ik S4sirgaM om TJktromgkness of Intellectual Attainment^ . 438

^ri/ii»sir tJuford F*rbet on the Educational Uus of Museums^ .443

Pritu4 Aihert om tie Educstional Claims of Science, .... 444

£/r, UiU im tie Cultivation of the Senses, 44^

pr^euufT Godwin Smith on Classical and Modern Culture, . . . 449

t/r, Alsad on Early Physiological Study, 450

Lti*^d Maeaulay on the Study of Classical Languages, . . . . 4^1

tXT'ACn rtOM CiriD£VCC ■EFOKE THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS* COMMISSION.

Emdenu of Pr, Carpenter, 452

Evidence of Sir Charles Lyell, 459

Evidence of Dr, Faraday, . 462

Evidence of Professor Owen . . • • . 466

Evidence of Dr. Hooker, . • « > • • 470

MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION.

<< If we consult reason, experience, and the common testimony of ancient and modern times, none of our intellectual studies tend to cultivate a tmalUr number of the faculties^ in a more partial or feeble manner^ than Mathematics, This is acknowledged by every writer on Education of the least pretension to judgment and experience.** Sir William Hamilton.

From the " vast preponderance of encouragement to Classical reading which the condition of English culture offers,** it will be seen « how important it is for those who know that mere Classical reading is a narroto and enfeebling Edu" nation to resist any attempts to add to this preponderance, by diminishing the encouragement which the University gives to studies of a larger or more vigorous kind.** Dr. Whkwxll.

'' To suppose that deciding whether a Mathematical or a Classical Education is the best, b deciding what is the proper curriculum, is much the same thing as to suppose that the whole of dietetics lies in ascertaining whether or no! bread is mo*-e nutritive than potatoes.** Hkroxrt Spencer.

All educational inquiries assume that man is individually improvable, and therefore collectively progressive. Through varied experiences he is slowly civilized, and there is a grovpth of knowledge with the course of ages. But while thought is ever advancing, it is the nature of institutions to fix the mental states of particular times ; and there hence arises a tendency to conflict between growing ideas and the external arrangements which are designed to express and embody them. Thought refuses to be stationary; institutions refuse to change, and war is the consequence.

This fact is familiarly illustrated in the case of government. Ideas and character, having outgrown the arbitrary institutions of the remoter past, there has arisen between them an antagonism, of the results of which modern history is full. So, too, religious conceptions having developed beyond the ecclesiastical organizations to which they at first gave rise, a struggle arose in the sixteenth century, which, resulting in the Protestant Reformation, has persisted under various aspects to the present time. And so it is also with the traditional systems of mental culture. Educational institutions which have been be-

2 INTRODUCTION.

queathed to us by the past, and which may have been suited to their times, have fallen out of harmony with the intellectual necessities of modern life, and a conflict has arisen which is deepening in intensity with the rapid growth of knowledge and the general progress of society. , The friends of educational improvement maintain that the system of culture which prevails in our higher institutions of learning, and which is limited chiefly to the acquisition of the mathematics, and of the ancient languages and literature, was shaped ages ago in a state of things so widely different from the present, that it has become inadequate to existing requirements. They urge that since its establishment the human mind has made immense advances ; has changed its attitude to nature and entered upon a new career ; that realm after realm of new truth has been discovered ; that ideas of government, religion, and society have been profoundly modified, and that new revelations of man's powers and possibilities, and nobler expectations of his future, have arisen. As man is a being of action, it is demanded that his education shall be a preparation for action. As the highest use of knowledge is for guidance, it is insisted that our Collegiate establishments shall give a leading place to those subjects of study which will afford a better preparation for the duties and work of the age in which we live.

The adherents of the traditional system reply that all this is but the unreasoning clamor of a restless and innovating age, which wholly misconceives the true aim of a higher culture, and would reduce every thing to the standard of a low and sordid utility. They maintain that knowledge is to be acquired not on account of its capability of useful application, but for its own intrinsic interest ; that the purpose of a liberal education is not to prepare for

MENTAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION.

i voaition or profession, but to train the intellectual faculties. They, therefore, hold that Mental Discipline is the true object of a higher culture, and that for its attainment the study of the ancient classics and mathematics is superioi to all other means. From the tone assumed by its defenders, wlien speaking of its incomparable fitness to develop all the mental faculties, it might be inferred that this scheme of study was formed by the help of a perfected science of the human mind. Nothing, however, could be more erroneous. Not only was that system devised ages anterior to any thing like true mental science, but it antedates by centuries the whole body of modern knowledge. There was abundance of vague metaphysics, but hardly a germ of that positive knowledge of the laws of mind, which could serve as a valid basis of education. The predominant culture of modern times had its origin, more than eight hundred years ago, in a superstition of the middle ages, A mystical reverence was attached to the sacred number ieven^ which was supposed to be a key to the order of the universe. That there were seven cardinal virtues, seven deadly sins, seven sacraments, seven days in the week, seven metals, seven planets, and seven apertures in a man's head, was believed to afford sufficient reason for making the course of libera! study consist of seven arts, and occupy seven years. Following another fancy about the relation of three to four, in a certain geometrical figure, these seven arts were divided into two groups. The first three, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, comprised what was called the Trivium ; and the remaining four. Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music (the latter as a branch of Arithmetic), formed the Quadrivium, This scheme has been handed down from age to age, and with but slight changes, still predominates in the higher institu