Lectures on popular education

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| LIBRARY OF C0X6RESS. I

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LECTURES

Preface To The Second Edition

The following Lectures were first delivered in April 1833, at the end of a course of Lectures on Phrenology ; and again in the month of November of the same year. At the request of the Directors of the Philosophical Association, they were then published, in the form of a pamphlet. Immediately afterwards they were, with my permission, reprinted by Messrs W. and R. Chambers in their widely-circulated journal. At a later period, a part of them was incorporated into the text of the ' ' Constitution of Man." In these circumstances it seemed unnecessary to reproduce the original lectures in a separate form, and they were allowed to remain for some time out of print. Having been informed, however, that the public continued to demand the work, the present edition has been prepared, and I have endeavoured to make some corrections, additions, and improvements, which I hope may increase its value. In its present form it contains a condensed and comprehensive summary of the chief objects which should be aimed at in popular education.

Since these Lectures first appeared, a great improvement has taken place in popular education ; and the principles and practices which they recommend, although at first assailed with ridicule, have already, to a considerable extent, been carried into effect. I allude particularly to the diffusion of useful knowledge by means of lectures on science to popular audiences. There is an increasing demand throughout the country for such instruction, and lecturers are much wanted. So far back as 1796 Dr Beddoes published " A Lecture introductory to a course of popular instruction on the Constitution and Management of the Human Body," and in 1797 lectures on Animal and Human Physiology were delivered to a miscellaneous audience of both sexes at Bristol. When I ventured to revive this practice in my own courses of instruction, and recommended it in these published Lectures, it was objected to as improper and dangerous. The subject, however, has proved so attractive and useful that already it has ceased to be a novelty, and numerous successful courses of lectures have been delivered on it in various parts of the country.

Edinburgh, ldth January 1837.

Preface To The Third Edition

A third Edition of these Lectures being now called for, I have endeavoured by notes, and also by enlargement and modification of the text, to adapt them to the present time. In doing so, I have been forcibly struck with the rapid progress made by the public mind since 1833, towards forming a just estimate, not only of the importance of education, but of its principles, objects, and practical development. In Edinburgh one branch of popular education has recently been instituted, and successfully carried into practice, that was not even contemplated when these lectures were composed. Dr Mainzer has taught singing and a knowledge of music to more than a thousand children of the humbler classes of society, to the

VI PREFACE.

manifest improvement of their taste and manners, and I have no doubt also of their morals ; for every means of supplying innocent and refined pleasure necessarily tends to moral advancement. The grounds on which this branch of education is recommended are ably and successfully expounded in Dr Mainzer's work on (i Music and Education."*

While this Edition is in the press, a new Revolution has taken place in France, Louis Philippe has been dethroned, and a Republic proclaimed. Whatever may be the immediate consequences of this event, I cannot doubt that its ultimate result will be the extension of the power of the people in every country of Europe, and especially in our own. Not a day should be lost, therefore, in qualifying the people, by instruction and training, to distinguish between good and evil, and between the possible and the impossible, in human institutions.

Hitherto, the cause of national education has been greatly impeded by contentions regarding the teaching of religious doctrines in schools . In a series of pamphlets lately published,! I have endeavoured to shew that the world, both moral and physical, is governed by natural laws, instituted by the Creator to serve as guides to human conduct, and that the great aim of secular education should be to communicate a knowledge of these laws, and of the mode in which they are administered, and to train the young to yield obedience to them in their actions. Such an education would tend to protect a country from the evils of revolution. If there be Divine arrangements in nature, connecting consequences of good or evil with every mode of action, and if it be impossible to reach either individual or social happiness except by submitting to them, the people may be enabled to understand that that form of government will be most perfect which coincides most closely with their requirements. No revolution can unseat the Eternal Ruler of the Universe, or alter, or enable men to evade 1 J is laws. If this truth were demonstrated to the youthful mind as a practical fact, and the rising generation were trained to pay homage to it and its consequences, in their conduct, we should at last feel that social order rested on the basis of nature. The points of religious doctrine on which rival sects differ, are feeble as cobwebs in restraining an excited people in the whirlwind of revolutionary passion ; but the truths of religion in which all are agreed, fortified by a deep conviction that the Divine Ruler has established, even in this world, an inseparable connection between virtue, both public and private, and prosperity, might probably furnish a firmer basis for the maintenance of social order, than these discordant doctrines have ever afforded. True religion would harmonize with . hallow, vivify, and render practical, a scheme of education founded on the principles revealed to man in the order of God's secular Providence. The chief object of the present publication, and of the others before named, is to promote this conviction in the public mind.

Music and Education. ByDr Mainzee. Bvo, pp. 125. London : Longman & Co. burgh: A.dam and Charles Black, 1848.

narks on National Education, Svo,JFourth Edition, price 4d. on the Relation between Religion and Science. 8vo, Fhtrd Edition, price 6d. Whal should Secular Education Embrace ' 8vo, price 6d.

Contents

LECTURE I.

Page

Utility of Education, . . . . . 1

Appendix

No. I. The Philosophical Institution described, No. II. Improved method of teaching Drawing.

8$

LECTUBE L

OBJECTS OF EDUCATION.

A FEW years ago, no question was more frequently asked than, What is the use of Education 1 It was often difficult to give a satisfactory answer, not because education was of no use, but because utility itself was viewed so differently by different individuals, that it was impossible to shew that education was calculated to realise the precise advantage which, each aspired to attain. Besides, education is calculated to correct so many errors in practice, and to supply so many deficiencies in human institutions, that volumes would be necessary to render its real importance thoroughly conspicuous. Instead of obtaining from education a correct view of the nature of man, and of the objects and duties of life, each individual has been left to form, upon these points, theories for himself, derived from the impressions made upon his own mind by the particular circumstances in which he has been placed. This has arisen from the want of a practical philosophy of mind. No reasonable person assumes himself to know the sciences of Astronomy, Chemistry, or Physiology, without study and an appeal to nature ; yet, in the department of Mind, the practice is different. Almost every one has a set of notions of his own, which, in his mind, hold the place of a system of the philosophy of man ; and, although he may not have methodised his ideas, or even acknowledged them to himself as a theory, yet, to him, they constitute a standard by which he practically judges of all questions in morals, politics, and religion. He advocates whatever views coincide with them, and condemns all that differ from them, with as little hesitation as a professed theorist himself, and also without trying his own principles by any natural standard. In short, the great mass even of educated men, in judging of questions relating to morals, politics, and social institutions, proceed too much on first, or even on accidental, impressions. Hence, public measures, whether relating to education, religion, trade, manufactures, provision for the poor, criminal law, or to any other of the in-

THEORIES OF EDUCATION.

terests of society, instead of being treated as branches of one general system of economy, and adjusted on scientific principles, each in harmony with the others, are too often supported or opposed on narrow and empirical grounds, — and discussions regarding them occasionally call forth displays of ignorance, prejudice, and intolerance, calculated greatly to obstruct the progress of improvement. Indeed, general agreement on questions of which the first principles must be found in the constitution of human nature, will be impossible, even among sensible and virtuous men, so long as no standard of mental philosophy is admitted to guide individual feelings and perceptions. Hence, when a young man, educated as a merchant, asks the use of any thing, the answer which will most thoroughly interest him, will be one shewing how much wealth may be acquired by it. The sincerely religious will acknowledge that to be most useful, which tends most directly to salvation ; while the votaries of fashion will admit the utility of such pursuits only as are recognised by the refined but frivolous and generally ill-informed circle, which to them constitutes the highest tribunal of taste. To expound to such persons, principles affecting the general interests of society, and to talk to them of schemes for promoting the happiness of human beings, in their various conditions of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, teachers and pupils, governors and subjects, appears like indulging a warm imagination in fanciful harangues. They are of opinion that the experience of six thousand years is sufficient to shew, that man is not destined in this life to be different from what he has always been and now is ; and that any measures pretending greatly to improve his. condition, however desirable, are not at all to be believed in by sensible and practical people. This state of things could not exist if education were founded on a true system of human nature, and an exposition of its relations to the external world.

To enable us to form a just estimate of our position as intelligent and accountable beings in this world, let us briefly consider, 1st, the general aspect of external nature ; and, 2d, our own constitution.

All geological authorities agree in representing physical nature as having undergone a variety of changes, and having attained to the condition in which it now appears, before Man occupied its surface. l\ace after race of plants and animals flourished on the earth, and were successively destroyed before man appeared. " It is never pretended,'' •ir Lyell, "that our race co-existed with assemblages of animals and plants, of which all or even a large proportion

THE PHYSICAL WORLD. 6

of the species are extinct.''* — {Principles of Geology, p. 143, Seventh Edition.)

" In all these various formations," says Dr Buckland, " the coprolites" (or the dung of the saurian reptiles in a fossil state) " form records of warfare waged by successive generations of inhabitants of our planet on one another; and the general law of nature, which bids all to eat and to be eaten in their turn, is shewn to have been co-extensive with animal existence upon our globe, the carnivora in each period of the world's history fulfilling their destined office to check excess in the progress of life, and maintain the balance of creation."

The history of the globe appears to shew that it has been constituted by the Divine Author on the principle of progressive advancement ; but whether by distinct and successive acts of creation, or by the development of qualities and capacities bestowed by Him on inorganic matter and organic beings, we cannot determine. Great improvements have been effected in different species of vegetables and animals, by human sagacity and attention. " In the absence," says Mr Watson, " of any proper definition of the term improvement, we may safely leave it to the general verdict of the public, whether the green-gage plum-tree, with its luscious fruit, is not an improvement upon the austereberried sloe-bush ; whether the pippin and codlin apples are not improvements upon the wild crab ; and whether the swiftfooted greyhound, the intelligent lapdog, and the powerful mastiff, are not improvements upon any known wild race of dog, wolf, or fox, — for it is doubtful whether the dog has not descended from one or both of the two latter stocks."

* This subject, however, is still involved in great obscurity. Mr Hewett Watson remarks, that " Geology has shewn nothing whatever concerning the creation of races or individuals. Neither the mode of creation, nor the first state, nor yet the last state, of any race or species, has been in the slightest degree explained by geological discovery. The fossil records of past life are limited to incomplete representations of the state of individuals at death ; and in the older deposites the remains are scarcely more than mere copies of their shapes. In the more recent deposites, good skeletons, &c, are found ; but in all likelihood, the stony models and skeletons which have hitherto met the eye of man, will not bear the proportion of one individual out of every million that have existed. Granting this, how can any sober reasoner assert positively, on such meagre evidence, that intermediate forms and structures have not existed ? Geology is far too imperfect yet, to allow of any fair presumption, from its individual facts, either of the transition or non-transition of one species into another. On the great scale, it is as clear as such evidence can make it, that one species has been substituted for another, but we know not how this substitution has been brought about; and, alloiving for the difference of time, it may well be questioned whether the changes brought to light by geological researches, at all exceed the changes now effected in the vegetable world by human efforts." — Examination of Mr Scott's Attach, <Scc, p. 23.

4 ADAPTATION OF MAN

Let ns now contemplate Man himself, and Lis adaptation to the external creation. The world was inhabited by living beings, and death and reproduction prevailed before Man appeared. The order of creation seems not to have been changed at his introduction, but he appears to have been adapted to it. He received an organized structure, and animal instincts. He took his station among, yet at the head of, the beings that existed at his creation. Man is, to a certain extent, on a level with the lower animals in his structure, powers, feelings, and desires, and is adapted to a world in which death reigns, and generation succeeds generation. This fact, although so trite and obvious as to appear scarcely worthy of being noticed, is of importance in treating of education ; because the human being, in so far as he resembles the inferior creatures, is capable of enjoying a life like theirs ; he has pleasure in eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercising his limbs ; and one of the greatest obstacles to his improvement is, that many of the race are contented with these enjoyments, and consider it painful to be compelled to seek higher sources of gratification. But to man's animal nature have been added by a bountiful Creator, moral sentiments and a vastly superior endowment of the reflecting faculties, which not only place him above all other creatures on earth, but constitute him a different being from any of them, a rational and accountable creature. These faculties are his highest and his best gifts, and the sources of his purest and intensest pleasures. They lead him directly to those important objects of his existence, — obedience to God, and love to his fellow-men. But this peculiarity attends them, that while his animal faculties, which are necessary for his preservation, act powerfully of themselves, his moral and rational faculties require to be cultivated, exercised, and instructed, before they will yield their full harvest of enjoyment. In regard to them, education becomes of paramount importance.

The Creator has so arranged the external world as to hold forth great inducements to man to cultivate his higher powers, nay almost to constrain him to do so. The philosophic mind, in surveying the world as prepared for the rcception of the human race, perceives in external nature a assemblage of stupendous powers, too great for the Feeble hand of man entirely to control, but kindly subjected within certain limits to the influence of his will. Man is introduced on earth apparently helpless and unprovided for as a homeless stranger; but the soil on which he treads is endowed with a thousand capabilities of production, which re-

TO THE PHYSICAL WOULD. O

quire only to be elicited by his intelligence to make it yield him the richest returns. The impetuous torrent rolls its waters to the main ; but as it dashes over the mountain-cliff, the human hand is capable of withdrawing it from its course, and rendering its powers subservient to his will. Ocean extends over half the globe her liquid plain, in which no path appears, and the rude winds oft lift her waters to the sky ; but, there the skill of man may launch the strongknit bark, spread forth the canvas to the gale, and make the trackless deep a highway through the world. In such a state of things, knowledge is truly power ; and it is obviously the interest of human beings to become acquainted with the constitution and relations of every object around them, that they may discover its capabilities of ministering to their own advantage. Farther, where these physical energies are too great to be controlled, man has received intelligence by which he may observe their course, and accommodate his conduct to their influence. This capacity of adaptation is a valuable substitute for the power of regulating them by his will. Man cannot arrest the sun in its course, so as to avert the wintry storms, and cause perpetual spring to bloom around him ; but, by the proper exercise of his intelligence and corporal energies, he is able to foresee the approach of bleak skies and rude winds, and to place himself in safety from their injurious effects. These powers of controlling nature, and of accommodating his conduct to its course, are the direct results of his rational faculties ; and in proportion to their cultivation is his sway extended. Man, while ignorant, is in a helpless condition. But let him put forth his proper human capacities, and he will then find himself invested with the power to rear, to build, to fabricate, and to store up provisions ; and, by availing himself of these resources, and accommodating his conduct to the course of nature's laws, he will be able to smile in safety beside the cheerful hearth, when the elements maintain their fiercest war abroad.

Again : We are surrounded by countless beings, inferior and equal to ourselves, whose qualities yield us happiness, or bring upon us bitter evil, according as we affect them agreeably or disagreeably by our conduct. To draw forth their excellencies, and cause them to diffuse joy around us — to avoid touching the harsher springs of their constitution, and exciting painful discord — it is necessary that we should know their nature, and act with a habitual regard to the relations established by the Creator between them and ourselves.

6 NECESSITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

Man, ignorant and uncivilized, is prone to become ferocious, sensual, and superstitious. The external world affords some enjoyments to his animal feelings, but it often confounds his moral and intellectual faculties. Nature exhibits to his mind a mighty chaos of events, and a dread display of power. The chain of causation appears too intricate to be unravelled, and the power too stupendous to be controlled. Order and beauty, indeed, occasionally gleam forth to his eye, from detached portions of creation, and seem to promise happiness and joy; but more frequently, clouds and darkness brood over the scene, and disappoint his fondest expectations. Evil seems so mixed up with good, that he regards it either as a direct product or an inseparable accompaniment of nature's arrangements. Nature is rarely contemplated with a clear perception of its adaptation to the purpose of promoting the enjoyment of man, or with a well-founded confidence in the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Man, when civilized and illuminated by knowledge, on the other hand, discovers in the objects and occurrences around him a scheme beautifully arranged for the gratification of his whole powers, animal, moral, and intellectual; he recognises in himself the intelligent and accountable subject of an all-bountiful Creator, and in joy and gladness desires to study the Creator's works, to ascertain their laws, and to yield to them a steady and a willing obedience. Without undervaluing the pleasures of his animal nature, he tastes the higher, more refined, and more enduring delights of his moral and intellectual capacities. He then calls aloud for education as indispensable to the full enjoyment of his rational powers.

If this representation of the condition of the human being on earth be correct, we perceive clearly the unspeakable advantage of applying our minds to gain knowledge, and of regulating our conduct according to rules drawn from acquired information. Our constitution and our position equally imply, that the grand object of our existence is, not to remain contented with the pleasures of more animal life, but to take the dignified and far more delightful station of moral, religious, .-iiid rational occupants of this lower world.

Education, then, moans the process of acquiring that knowledge of our Creator, of ourselves, and of external nature, and the formation of those habits of religious, moral, and intellectual enterprise and activity, which are indispensable to the evolution of all our faculties, and to the performance of our parts, with intelligence and success, in such a scene as I have described.

These views may appear to many persons to be so clearly

LOWER ANIMALS. 7

founded in reason, as to require neither proof nor illustration : but there are others who are little familiar with such contemplations, and to whom a few elucidations may be useful. As the latter are precisely those whom I desire to benefit, I solicit permission to enter into a few details, even at the risk of appearing tedious to the more enlightened among my hearers.

To understand correctly the constitution of the human mind, and its need of instruction, it is useful to compare it with that of the inferior animals. The lower creatures are destined to act chiefly from instinct ; and instinct is a tendency to act in a certain way, planted in the animal by the Creator, without its knowing the ultimate design, or the nature of the means by which its aim is to be accomplished. A bee, for example, constructs its cell in conformity with the most rigid principles of mathematical science, according to which it is necessary that the fabric should possess a particular form, and be joined to other cells at a particular angle, in preference to all others, in order to give it the greatest capacity and strength, with the least possible expenditure of material. The creature has no knowledge of the principles of mathematics such as man possesses ; but it acts in accordance with them, by an impulse obviously planted in it by the Author of its being. Man is not directed by unerring impulses like this. Before he could construct a similar fabric with success, it would be necessary for him, by means of observation and experiment, to become acquainted with the nature of the materials to be employed, and to form a clear conception of the mode of adapting them to the accomplishment of his design. A mother, among the inferior animals, is impelled by pure instinct to administer to her offspring that kind of protection, food, and training, which its nature and circumstances require ; and so admirably does she fulfil this duty even at the first call, that human sagacity could not improve, or rather could not at all equal, her treatment. These animals proceed without consciousness of the wisdom displayed in their actions ; — they do not act from knowledge and design. Wherever design appears, there must be intelligence ; yet the wisdom resides not in the animals, but in their Author. The Creator, therefore, in constituting the bee, possessed perfect knowledge of the external circumstances in which he was about to place it, and of its relations, when so placed, to all other creatures and objects; and conferred on it powers or instincts of action adapted to secure its preservation and enjoyment. Hence, when enlightened men contemplate the habits and powers of animals, and compare

8 CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

them with their condition, they perceive wisdom and benevolence conspicuously displayed by the Creator.

Man also has received instincts which resemble those of the lower animals, such as the love of sex, of offspring, of society, and of praise, the instinct of resentment, and many others ; by the exercise of which, as I have said, he may maintain his purely animal existence, with very little aid from education. But he is distinguished from the inferior creatures, 1st, By the possession of moral sentiments — such as the love of justice, of piety, of universal happiness, and, 2(Hy, By great superiority in the reflecting faculties, fitted to acquire knowledge of the qualities and modes of action of external objects, and of their effects.

These two classes of faculties render man a different being from the inferior creatures. The function of reason being to acquire knowledge of qualities and modes of action and effects, Man is not prompted to follow the most beneficial mode of promoting his own happiness in the direct and unrenectinc: manner in which the inferior creatures are led to that end. The human female, for example, because she possesses the innate love of offspring, will feel as lively joy at the birth of a child and as warm an attachment towards it, and will as ardently desire its welfare, as the most devoted among the inferior creatures. But, devoid of all instruction and experience, she will not administer towards it the same perfect treatment, with reference to its wants, as the mother in the lower scale ; and for this reason, that, in the animal, the instinct is directed to its proper mode of gratification by the Author of Nature : He prompts her to do exactly what J lis wisdom knows to be necessary ; whereas, in the human being, the propensity is left to the guidance of reason. Woman is commanded to exert her intellect in studying the physical and mental constitution of herself and her offspring, in order that she may rear it with success while it needs her assistance ; and if she shall neglect to perform this duty, she and it may suffer evil in being exposed to the unfavourable influence of external objects and beings, to the action of which, in her state of ignorance, she does not know how to adapt her conduct,

Every day affords examples of the truth of this remark. A young holy, when in infancy, lost both parents; but sufficient property was left to her to enable her to attain what is generally called a good education. She was reared in a fashionable boarding-school, and in due time was respectably married. When her first child was born, she was extremely perplexed. Never having lived where there were infants

LOWEIi ANIMALS. 9

in the family, she had had no opportunity of learning by observation how to rear such tender beings ; and never having been taught any thing of the structure, or functions, or wants, of the human infant, she possessed no principles by which she could judge of the treatment proper for her child. In her anxiety to do it justice, she asked advice of every female visitor, and was speedily bewildered amidst the incongruous recommendations which she received. Unable to decide for herself, she followed now one method and then another, till in a few weeks the unhappy infant died. This is an extreme case : but an intelligent female friend, who communicated it to me, had no doubt that the child perished through lack of knowledge in the mother.

Many persons are not aware that human feelings are more blind than those of the lower animals, and that they lead to worse results when not directed by reason. They imagine that if they possess a feeling strongly, such as the love of offspring, or the love of God, they cannot err in the mode of gratifying it ; consequently, they act with all the energy of impulse, and all the blindness of infatuation. A mighty change will be effected in human conduct, when the people at large become acquainted with the indispensable necessity of knowledge and reflection to the proper direction of their feelings, and with the fact that knowledge is the grand element without which reason cannot be sufficiently exerted.

Man, therefore, being an improvible being, has been furnished with reason, and been left to discover, by the exercise of it, his own nature, the nature of external objects, and the relations between himself and them, and to adapt the one to the other in this temporal sphere for his own advantage. When he shall do so, and fulfil also his moral and religious duties, he will assume his proper station as a rational being. The only limit to this proposition is, that each of his faculties, bodily and mental, and every external object, has received a definite constitution, and is regulated by precise laws, so that limits have been set to human aberration, and also to human attainments ; but within these limits, a wide scope for producing happiness, by harmonious and wise adaptations, or misery, by discordant and foolish combinations, exists.