Education should be confined to some particular and narrow end, and should
issue in some definite work, which can be weighed and measured. They argue
as if every thing, as well as every person, had its price; and that where
there has been a great outlay, they have a right to expect a return in
kind. This they call making Education and Instruction “useful,” and
“Utility” becomes their watchword. With a fundamental principle of this
nature, they very naturally go on to ask, what there is to show for the
expense of a University; what is the real worth in the market of the
article called “a Liberal Education,” on the supposition that it does not
teach us definitely how to advance our manufactures, or to improve our
lands, or to better our civil economy; or again, if it does not at once
make this man a lawyer, that an engineer, and that a surgeon; or at least
if it does not lead to discoveries in chemistry, astronomy, geology,
magnetism, and science of every kind.
This question, as might have been expected, has been keenly debated in the
present age, and formed one main subject of the controversy, to which I
referred in the Introduction to the present Discourses, as having been
sustained in the first decade of this century by a celebrated Northern
Review on the one hand, and defenders of the University of Oxford on the
other. Hardly had the authorities of that ancient seat of learning, waking
from their long neglect, set on foot a plan for the education of the youth
committed to them, than the representatives of science and literature in
the city, which has sometimes been called the Northern Athens,
remonstrated, with their gravest arguments and their most brilliant
satire, against the direction and shape which the reform was taking.
Nothing would content them, but that the University should be set to
rights on the basis of the philosophy of Utility; a philosophy, as they
seem to have thought, which needed but to be proclaimed in order to be
embraced. In truth, they were little aware of the depth and force of the
principles on which the academical authorities were proceeding, and, this
being so, it was not to be expected that they would be allowed to walk at
leisure over the field of controversy which they had selected. Accordingly
they were encountered in behalf of the University by two men of great name
and influence in their day, of very different minds, but united, as by
Collegiate ties, so in the clear-sighted and large view which they took of
the whole subject of Liberal Education; and the defence thus provided for
the Oxford studies has kept its ground to this day.
3.
Let me be allowed to devote a few words to the memory of distinguished
persons, under the shadow of whose name I once lived, and by whose
doctrine I am now profiting. In the heart of Oxford there is a small plot
of ground, hemmed in by public thoroughfares, which has been the
possession and the home of one Society for above five hundred years. In
the old time of Boniface the Eighth and John the Twenty-second, in the age
of Scotus and Occam and Dante, before Wiclif or Huss had kindled those
miserable fires which are still raging to the ruin of the highest
interests of man, an unfortunate king of England, Edward the Second,
flying from the field of Bannockburn, is said to have made a vow to the
Blessed Virgin to found a religious house in her honour, if he got back in
safety. Prompted and aided by his Almoner, he decided on placing this
house in the city of Alfred; and the Image of our Lady, which is opposite
its entrance-gate, is to this day the token of the vow and its fulfilment.
King and Almoner have long been in the dust, and strangers have entered
into their inheritance, and their creed has been forgotten, and their holy
rites disowned; but day by day a memento is still made in the holy
Sacrifice by at least one Catholic Priest, once a member of that College,
for the souls of those Catholic benefactors who fed him there for so many
years. The visitor, whose curiosity has been excited by its present fame,
gazes perhaps with something of disappointment on a collection of
buildings which have with them so few of the circumstances of dignity or
wealth. Broad quadrangles, high halls and chambers, ornamented cloisters,
stately walks, or umbrageous gardens, a throng of students, ample
revenues, or a glorious history, none of these things were the portion of
that old Catholic foundation; nothing in short which to the common eye
sixty years ago would have given tokens of what it was to be. But it had
at that time a spirit working within it, which enabled its inmates to do,
amid its seeming insignificance, what no other body in the place could
equal; not a very abstruse gift or extraordinary boast, but a rare one,
the honest purpose to administer the trust committed to them in such a way
as their conscience pointed out as best. So, whereas the Colleges of
Oxford are self-electing bodies, the fellows in each perpetually filling
up for themselves the vacancies which occur in their number, the members
of this foundation determined, at a time when, either from evil custom or
from ancient statute, such a thing was not known elsewhere, to throw open
their fellowships to the competition of all comers, and, in the choice of
associates henceforth, to cast to the winds every personal motive and
feeling, family connexion, and friendship, and patronage, and political
interest, and local claim, and prejudice, and party jealousy, and to elect
solely on public and patriotic grounds. Nay, with a remarkable
independence of mind, they resolved that even the table of honours,
awarded to literary merit by the University in its new system of
examination for degrees, should not fetter their judgment as electors; but
that at all risks, and whatever criticism it might cause, and whatever
odium they might incur, they would select the men, whoever they were, to
be children of their Founder, whom they thought in their consciences to be
most likely from their intellectual and moral qualities to please him, if
(as they expressed it) he were still upon earth, most likely to do honour
to his College, most likely to promote the objects which they believed he
had at heart. Such persons did not promise to be the disciples of a low
Utilitarianism; and consequently, as their collegiate reform synchronized
with that reform of the Academical body, in which they bore a principal
part, it was not unnatural that, when the storm broke upon the University
from the North, their Alma Mater, whom they loved, should have found her
first defenders within the walls of that small College, which had first
put itself into a condition to be her champion.
These defenders, I have said, were two, of whom the more distinguished was
the late Dr. Copleston, then a Fellow of the College, successively its
Provost, and Protestant Bishop of Llandaff. In that Society, which owes so
much to him, his name lives, and ever will live, for the distinction which
his talents bestowed on it, for the academical importance to which he
raised it, for the generosity of spirit, the liberality of sentiment, and
the kindness of heart, with which he adorned it, and which even those who
had least sympathy with some aspects of his mind and character could not
but admire and love. Men come to their meridian at various periods of
their lives; the last years of the eminent person I am speaking of were
given to duties which, I am told, have been the means of endearing him to
numbers, but which afforded no scope for that peculiar vigour and keenness
of mind which enabled him, when a young man, single-handed, with easy
gallantry, to encounter and overthrow the charge of three giants of the
North combined against him. I believe I am right in saying that, in the
progress of the controversy, the most scientific, the most critical, and
the most witty, of that literary company, all of them now, as he himself,
removed from this visible scene, Professor Playfair, Lord Jeffrey, and the
Rev. Sydney Smith, threw together their several efforts into one article
of their Review, in order to crush and pound to dust the audacious
controvertist who had come out against them in defence of his own
Institutions. To have even contended with such men was a sufficient
voucher for his ability, even before we open his pamphlets, and have
actual evidence of the good sense, the spirit, the scholar-like taste, and
the purity of style, by which they are distinguished.
He was supported in the controversy, on the same general principles, but
with more of method and distinctness, and, I will add, with greater force
and beauty and perfection, both of thought and of language, by the other
distinguished writer, to whom I have already referred, Mr. Davison; who,
though not so well known to the world in his day, has left more behind him
than the Provost of Oriel, to make his name remembered by posterity. This
thoughtful man, who was the admired and intimate friend of a very
remarkable person, whom, whether he wish it or not, numbers revere and
love as the first author of the subsequent movement in the Protestant
Church towards Catholicism,(22) this grave and philosophical writer, whose
works I can never look into without sighing that such a man was lost to
the Catholic Church, as Dr. Butler before him, by some early bias or some
fault of self-education—he, in a review of a work by Mr. Edgeworth on
Professional Education, which attracted a good deal of attention in its
day, goes leisurely over the same ground, which had already been rapidly
traversed by Dr. Copleston, and, though professedly employed upon Mr.
Edgeworth, is really replying to the northern critic who had brought that
writer’s work into notice, and to a far greater author than either of
them, who in a past age had argued on the same side.
4.
The author to whom I allude is no other than Locke. That celebrated
philosopher has preceded the Edinburgh Reviewers in condemning the
ordinary subjects in which boys are instructed at school, on the ground
that they are not needed by them in after life; and before quoting what
his disciples have said in the present century, I will refer to a few
passages of the master. “’Tis matter of astonishment,” he says in his work
on Education, “that men of quality and parts should suffer themselves to
be so far misled by custom and implicit faith. Reason, if consulted with,
would advise, that their children’s time should be spent in acquiring what
might be _useful_ to them, when they come to be men, rather than that
their heads should be stuffed with a deal of trash, a great part whereof
they usually never do (’tis certain they never need to) think on again as
long as they live; and so much of it as does stick by them they are only
the worse for.”
And so again, speaking of verse-making, he says, “I know not what reason a
father can have to wish his son a poet, who does not desire him to _bid
defiance to all other callings and business_; which is not yet the worst
of the case; for, if he proves a successful rhymer, and gets once the
reputation of a wit, I desire it to be considered, what company and places
he is likely to spend his time in, nay, and estate too; for it is very
seldom seen that any one discovers _mines of gold or silver in Parnassus_.
’Tis a pleasant air, but a barren soil.”
In another passage he distinctly limits utility in education to its
bearing on the future profession or trade of the pupil, that is, he scorns
the idea of any education of the intellect, simply as such. “Can there be
any thing more ridiculous,” he asks, “than that a father should waste his
own money, and his son’s time, in setting him to _learn the Roman
language_, when at the same time he _designs him for a trade_, wherein he,
having no use of Latin, fails not to forget that little which he brought
from school, and which ’tis ten to one he abhors for the ill-usage it
procured him? Could it be believed, unless we have every where amongst us
examples of it, that a child should be forced to learn the rudiments of a
language, which _he is never to use in the course of life that he is
designed to_, and neglect all the while the writing a good hand, and
casting accounts, which are of great advantage in all conditions of life,
and to most trades indispensably necessary?” Nothing of course can be more
absurd than to neglect in education those matters which are necessary for
a boy’s future calling; but the tone of Locke’s remarks evidently implies
more than this, and is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the
general cultivation of the mind.
Now to turn to his modern disciples. The study of the Classics had been
made the basis of the Oxford education, in the reforms which I have spoken
of, and the Edinburgh Reviewers protested, after the manner of Locke, that
no good could come of a system which was not based upon the principle of
Utility.
“Classical Literature,” they said, “is the great object at Oxford. Many
minds, so employed, have produced many works and much fame in that
department; but if all liberal arts and sciences, _useful to human life_,
had been taught there, if _some_ had dedicated themselves to _chemistry_,
_some_ to _mathematics_, _some_ to _experimental philosophy_, and if
_every_ attainment had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty
and _utility_, the system of such a University would have been much more
valuable, but the splendour of its name something less.”
Utility may be made the end of education, in two respects: either as
regards the individual educated, or the community at large. In which light
do these writers regard it? in the latter. So far they differ from Locke,
for they consider the advancement of science as the supreme and real end
of a University. This is brought into view in the sentences which follow.
“When a University has been doing _useless_ things for a long time, it
appears at first degrading to them to be _useful_. A set of Lectures on
Political Economy would be discouraged in Oxford, probably despised,
probably not permitted. To discuss the inclosure of commons, and to dwell
upon imports and exports, to come so near to common life, would seem to be
undignified and contemptible. In the same manner, the Parr or the Bentley
of the day would be scandalized, in a University, to be put on a level
with the discoverer of a neutral salt; and yet, _what other measure is
there of dignity in intellectual labour but usefulness_? And what ought
the term University to mean, but a place where every science is taught
which is liberal, and at the same time useful to mankind? Nothing would so
much tend to bring classical literature within proper bounds as a _steady
and invariable appeal to utility_ in our appreciation of all human
knowledge.… _Looking always to real utility as our guide_, we should see,
with equal pleasure, a studious and inquisitive mind arranging the
productions of nature, investigating the qualities of bodies, or mastering
the difficulties of the learned languages. We should not care whether he
was chemist, naturalist, or scholar, because we know it to be as
_necessary_ that matter should be studied and subdued _to the use of man_,
as that taste should be gratified, and imagination inflamed.”
Such then is the enunciation, as far as words go, of the theory of Utility
in Education; and both on its own account, and for the sake of the able
men who have advocated it, it has a claim on the attention of those whose
principles I am here representing. Certainly it is specious to contend
that nothing is worth pursuing but what is useful; and that life is not
long enough to expend upon interesting, or curious, or brilliant trifles.
Nay, in one sense, I will grant it is more than specious, it is true; but,
if so, how do I propose directly to meet the objection? Why, Gentlemen, I
have really met it already, viz., in laying down, that intellectual
culture is its own end; for what has its _end_ in itself, has its _use_ in
itself also. I say, if a Liberal Education consists in the culture of the
intellect, and if that culture be in itself a good, here, without going
further, is an answer to Locke’s question; for if a healthy body is a good
in itself, why is not a healthy intellect? and if a College of Physicians
is a useful institution, because it contemplates bodily health, why is not
an Academical Body, though it were simply and solely engaged in imparting
vigour and beauty and grasp to the intellectual portion of our nature? And
the Reviewers I am quoting seem to allow this in their better moments, in
a passage which, putting aside the question of its justice in fact, is
sound and true in the principles to which it appeals:—
“The present state of classical education,” they say, “cultivates the
_imagination_ a great deal too much, and other _habits of mind_ a great
deal too little, and trains up many young men in a style of elegant
imbecility, utterly unworthy of the talents with which nature has endowed
them.… The matter of fact is, that a classical scholar of twenty-three or
twenty-four is a man principally conversant with works of imagination. His
feelings are quick, his fancy lively, and his taste good. Talents for
_speculation_ and _original inquiry_ he has none, nor has he formed the
invaluable _habit of pushing things up to their first principles_, or of
collecting dry and unamusing facts as the materials for reasoning. All the
solid and masculine parts of his _understanding_ are left wholly without
_cultivation_; he hates the pain of thinking, and suspects every man whose
boldness and originality call upon him to defend his opinions and prove
his assertions.”
5.
Now, I am not at present concerned with the specific question of classical
education; else, I might reasonably question the justice of calling an
intellectual discipline, which embraces the study of Aristotle,
Thucydides, and Tacitus, which involves Scholarship and Antiquities,
_imaginative_; still so far I readily grant, that the cultivation of the
“understanding,” of a “talent for speculation and original inquiry,” and
of “the habit of pushing things up to their first principles,” is a
principal portion of a _good_ or _liberal_ education. If then the
Reviewers consider such cultivation the characteristic of a _useful_
education, as they seem to do in the foregoing passage, it follows, that
what they mean by “useful” is just what I mean by “good” or “liberal:” and
Locke’s question becomes a verbal one. Whether youths are to be taught
Latin or verse-making will depend on the _fact_, whether these studies
tend to mental culture; but, however this is determined, so far is clear,
that in that mental culture consists what I have called a liberal or
non-professional, and what the Reviewers call a useful education.
This is the obvious answer which may be made to those who urge upon us the
claims of Utility in our plans of Education; but I am not going to leave
the subject here: I mean to take a wider view of it. Let us take “useful,”
as Locke takes it, in its proper and popular sense, and then we enter upon
a large field of thought, to which I cannot do justice in one Discourse,
though to-day’s is all the space that I can give to it. I say, let us take
“useful” to mean, not what is simply good, but what _tends_ to good, or is
the _instrument_ of good; and in this sense also, Gentlemen, I will show
you how a liberal education is truly and fully a useful, though it be not
a professional, education. “Good” indeed means one thing, and “useful”
means another; but I lay it down as a principle, which will save us a
great deal of anxiety, that, though the useful is not always good, the
good is always useful. Good is not only good, but reproductive of good;
this is one of its attributes; nothing is excellent, beautiful, perfect,
desirable for its own sake, but it overflows, and spreads the likeness of
itself all around it. Good is prolific; it is not only good to the eye,
but to the taste; it not only attracts us, but it communicates itself; it
excites first our admiration and love, then our desire and our gratitude,
and that, in proportion to its intenseness and fulness in particular
instances. A great good will impart great good. If then the intellect is
so excellent a portion of us, and its cultivation so excellent, it is not
only beautiful, perfect, admirable, and noble in itself, but in a true and
high sense it must be useful to the possessor and to all around him; not
useful in any low, mechanical, mercantile sense, but as diffusing good, or
as a blessing, or a gift, or power, or a treasure, first to the owner,
then through him to the world. I say then, if a liberal education be good,
it must necessarily be useful too.
6.
You will see what I mean by the parallel of bodily health. Health is a
good in itself, though nothing came of it, and is especially worth seeking
and cherishing; yet, after all, the blessings which attend its presence
are so great, while they are so close to it and so redound back upon it
and encircle it, that we never think of it except as useful as well as
good, and praise and prize it for what it does, as well as for what it is,
though at the same time we cannot point out any definite and distinct work
or production which it can be said to effect. And so as regards
intellectual culture, I am far from denying utility in this large sense as
the end of Education, when I lay it down, that the culture of the
intellect is a good in itself and its own end; I do not exclude from the
idea of intellectual culture what it cannot but be, from the very nature
of things; I only deny that we must be able to point out, before we have
any right to call it useful, some art, or business, or profession, or
trade, or work, as resulting from it, and as its real and complete end.
The parallel is exact:—As the body may be sacrificed to some manual or
other toil, whether moderate or oppressive, so may the intellect be
devoted to some specific profession; and I do not call _this_ the culture
of the intellect. Again, as some member or organ of the body may be
inordinately used and developed, so may memory, or imagination, or the
reasoning faculty; and _this_ again is not intellectual culture. On the
other hand, as the body may be tended, cherished, and exercised with a
simple view to its general health, so may the intellect also be generally
exercised in order to its perfect state; and this _is_ its cultivation.
Again, as health ought to precede labour of the body, and as a man in
health can do what an unhealthy man cannot do, and as of this health the
properties are strength, energy, agility, graceful carriage and action,
manual dexterity, and endurance of fatigue, so in like manner general
culture of mind is the best aid to professional and scientific study, and
educated men can do what illiterate cannot; and the man who has learned to
think and to reason and to compare and to discriminate and to analyze, who
has refined his taste, and formed his judgment, and sharpened his mental
vision, will not indeed at once be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator,
or a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a man of business,
or a soldier, or an engineer, or a chemist, or a geologist, or an
antiquarian, but he will be placed in that state of intellect in which he
can take up any one of the sciences or callings I have referred to, or any
other for which he has a taste or special talent, with an ease, a grace, a
versatility, and a success, to which another is a stranger. In this sense
then, and as yet I have said but a very few words on a large subject,
mental culture is emphatically _useful_.