The General Idea of Education.
§ 12. A full treatment of Pedagogics must distinguish--
(1) The nature of Education;
(2) The form of Education;
(3) The limits of Education.
_I.--The Nature of Education._
§ 13. The nature of Education is determined by the nature of mind, the
distinguishing mark of which is that it can be developed only from
within, and by its own activity. Mind is essentially free--_i.e._, it
has the capacity for freedom--but it cannot be said to possess freedom
till it has obtained it by its own voluntary effort. Till then it cannot
be truly said to be free. Education consists in enabling a human being
to take possession of, and to develop himself by, his own efforts, and
the work of the educator cannot be said to be done in any sense where
this is not accomplished. In general, we may say that the work of
education consists in leading to a full development of all the inherent
powers of the mind, and that its work is done when, in this way, the
mind has attained perfect freedom, or the state in which alone it can be
said to be truly itself.[8]
The isolated human being can never become truly man. If such human
beings (like the wild girl of the forest of Ardennes) have been found,
they have only proved to us that reciprocal action with our fellow
beings is necessary for the development of our powers. Caspar Hauser, in
his subterranean prison, will serve as an example of what man would be
without men. One might say that this fact is typified by the first cry
of the newly-born child. It is as if the first expression of its
seemingly independent life were a cry for help from others. On the side
of nature the human being is at first quite helpless.
§ 14. Man is, therefore, the only proper object of education. It is true
that we speak of the education of plants and of animals, but we
instinctively apply other terms when we do so, for we say "raising"
plants, and "training" animals. When we "train" or "break" an animal, it
is true that we do, by pain or pleasure, lead him into an exercise of a
new activity. But the difference between this and Education consists in
the fact that, though he possessed capacity, yet by no amount of
association with his kind would he ever have acquired this new
development. It is as if we impress upon his plastic nature the imprint
of our loftier nature, which imprint he takes mechanically, and does not
himself recognize it as his own internal nature. We train him for our
recognition, not for his own. But, on the contrary, when we educate a
human being, we only excite him to create for himself, and out of
himself, that for which he would most earnestly strive had he any
appreciation of it beforehand, and in proportion as he does appreciate
it he recognizes it joyfully as a part of himself, as his own
inheritance, which he appropriates with a knowledge that it is his, or,
rather, is a part of his own nature. He who speaks of "raising" human
beings uses language which belongs only to the slave-dealer, to whom
human beings are only cattle for labor, and whose property increases in
value with the number.
Are there no school-rooms where Education has ceased to have any
meaning, and where physical pain is made to produce its only possible
result--a mechanical, external repetition? The school-rooms where the
creative word--the only thing which can influence the mind--has ceased
to be used as the means are only plantations, where human beings are
degraded to the position of lower animals.
§ 15. When we speak of the Education of the human race, we mean the
gradual growth of the nations of the earth, as a whole, towards the
realization of self-conscious freedom. Divine Providence is the teacher
here. The means by which the development is effected are the various
circumstances and actions of the different races of men, and the pupils
are the nations. The unfolding of this great Education is generally
treated of under the head of Philosophy of History.
§ 16. Education, however, in a more restricted sense, has to do with the
shaping of the individual. Each one of us is to be educated by the laws
of physical nature--by the relations into which we come with the
national life, in its laws, customs, etc., and by the circumstances
which daily surround us. By the force of these we find our arbitrary
will hemmed in, modified, and forced to take new channels and forms. We
are too often unmindful of the power with which these forces are daily
and hourly educating us--_i.e._, calling out our possibilities into
real existence. If we set up our will in opposition to either of these;
if we act in opposition to the laws of nature; if we seriously offend
the laws, or even the customs, of the people among whom we live; or if
we despise our individual lot, we do so only to find ourselves crushed
in the encounter. We only learn the impotence of the individual against
these mighty powers; and that discovery is, of itself, a part of our
education. It is sometimes only by such severe means that God is
revealed to the man who persistently misunderstands and defies His
creation. All suffering brought on ourselves by our own violation of
laws, whether natural, ethical, or divine, must be, however, thus
recognized as the richest blessing. We do not mean to say that it is
never allowable for a man, in obedience to the highest laws of his
spiritual being, to break away from the fetters of nature--to offend the
ethical sense of his own people, or to struggle against the might of
destiny. Reformers and martyrs would be examples of such, and our
remarks above do not apply to them, but to the perverse, the frivolous,
and the conceited; to those who are seeking in their action, not the
undoubted will of God, but their own individual will or caprice.
§ 17. But we generally use the word Education in a still narrower
sense than either of these, for we mean by it the working of one
individual mind upon or within another in some definite and premeditated
way, so as to fit the pupil for life generally, or for some special
pursuit. For this end the educator must be relatively finished in his
own education, and the pupil must possess confidence in him, or
docility. He must be teachable. That the work be successful, demands the
very highest degree of talent, knowledge, skill, and prudence; and any
development is impossible if a well-founded authority be wanting in the
educator, or docility on the part of the pupil.
Education, in this narrowest and technical sense, is an outgrowth of
city or urban life. As long as men do not congregate in large cities,
the three forces spoken of in § 16--_i.e._, the forces of nature,
national customs, and circumstances--will be left to perform most of the
work of Education; but, in modern city life, the great complication of
events, the uncertainty in the results--though careful forethought has
been used--the immense development of individuality, and the pressing
need of various information, break the power of custom, and render a
different method necessary. The larger the city is, the more free is the
individual in it from the restraints of customs, the less subjected to
curious criticism, and the more able is he to give play to his own
idiosyncrasies. This, however, is a freedom which needs the counterpoise
of a more exact training in conventionalities, if we would not have it
dangerous. Hence the rapid multiplication of educational institutions
and systems in modern times (one chief characteristic of which is the
development of urban life). The ideal Telemachus of Fenelon differs very
much from the real Telemachus of history. Fenelon proposed an education
which trained a youth to reflect, and to guide himself by reason. The
Telemachus of the heroic age followed the customs ("use and wont") of
his times with _naïve_ obedience. The systems of Education once
sufficient do not serve the needs of modern life, any more than the
defenses once sufficient against hostile armies are sufficient against
the new weapons adopted by modern warfare.
§ 18. The problem with which modern Education has to deal may be said,
in general terms, to be the development in the individual soul of the
indwelling Reason, both practical (as will) and theoretical (as
intellect). To make a child good is only a part of Education; we have
also to develop his intelligence. The sciences of Ethics and Education
are not the same. Again, we must not forget that no pupil is simply a
human being, like every other human being; he is also an individual, and
thus differs from every other one of the race. This is a point which
must never be lost sight of by the educator. Human beings may be--nay,
must be--educated in company, but they cannot be educated simply in the
mass.
§ 19. Education is to lead the pupil by a graded series of exercises,
previously arranged and prescribed by the educator, to a definite end.
But these exercises must take on a peculiar form for each particular
pupil under the special circumstances present. Hasty and inconsiderate
work _may_, by chance, accomplish much; but no work which is not
_systematic_ can advance and fashion him in conformity with his tenure,
and such alone is to be called Education; for Education implies both a
comprehension of the end to be attained and of the means necessary to
compass that end.
§ 20. Culture, however, means more and more every year; and, as the
sum total of knowledge increases for mankind, it becomes necessary, in
order to be a master in any one line, to devote one's self almost
exclusively to that. Hence arises, for the teacher, the difficulty of
preserving the unity and wholeness which are essential to a complete
man. The principle of division of labor comes in. He who is a teacher by
profession becomes one-sided in his views; and, as teaching divides and
subdivides into specialities, this abnormal one-sideness tends more and
more to appear. Here we find a parallelism in the profession of
Medicine, with a corresponding danger of narrowness; for that, too, is
in a process of constant specialization, and the physician who treats
nervous diseases is likely to be of the opinion that all trouble arises
from that part of the organism, or, at least, that all remedies should
be applied there. This tendency to one-sideness is inseparable from the
progress of civilization and that of science and arts. It contains,
nevertheless, a danger of which no teacher should be unwarned. An
illustration is furnished by the microscope or telescope; a higher power
of the instrument implies a narrower field of view. To concentrate our
observation upon one point implies the shutting out of others. This
difficulty with the teacher creates one for the pupil.
In this view one might be inclined to judge that the life of the savage
as compared with that of civilized man, or that of a member of a rural
community as compared with that of an inhabitant of a city, were the
more to be desired. The savage has his hut, his family, his cocoa-palm,
his weapons, his passions; he fishes, hunts, amuses himself, adorns
himself, and enjoys the consciousness that he is the center of a little
world; while the denizen of a city must often acknowledge that he is, so
to speak, only one wheel of a gigantic machine. Is the life of the
savage, therefore, more favorable to human development? The
characteristic idea of modern civilization is: The development of the
individual as the end for which the State exists. The great empires of
Persia, Egypt, and India, wherein the individual was of value only as he
ministered to the strength of the State, have given way to the modern
nations, where individual freedom is pushed so far that the State seems
only an instrument for the good of the individual. From being the
supreme end of the individual, the State has become the means for his
advancement into freedom; and with this very exaltation of the value of
the mere individual over the State, as such, there is inseparably
connected the seeming destruction of the wholeness of the individual
man. But the union of State and individual, which was in ancient times
merely mechanical, has now become a living process, in which constant
interaction gives rise to all the intellectual life of modern
civilization.
§ 21. The work of Education being thus necessarily split up, we have
the distinction between general and special schools. The work of the
former is to give general development--what is considered essential for
all men; that of the latter, to prepare for special callings. The former
should furnish a basis for the latter--_i.e._, the College should
precede the Medical School, etc., and the High School the Normal. In the
United States, owing to many causes, this is unfortunately not the case.
The difference between city and country life is important here. The
teacher in a country school, and, still more, the private tutor or
governess, must be able to teach many more things than the teacher in a
graded school in the city, or the professor in a college or university.
The danger on the one side is of superficiality, on the other of
narrowness.
§ 22. The Education of any individual can be only relatively finished.
His possibilities are infinite. His actual realization of those
possibilities must always remain far behind. The latter can only
approximate to the former. It can never reach them. The term "finishing
an education" needs, therefore, some definition; for, as a technical
term, it has undoubtedly a meaning. An immortal soul can never complete
its development; for, in so doing, it would give the lie to its own
nature. We cannot speak properly, however, of educating an idiot. Such
an unfortunate has no power of generalization, and no conscious
personality. We can train him mechanically, but we cannot educate him.
This will help to illustrate the difference, spoken of in § 14, between
Education and Mechanical training.
We obtain astonishing results, it is true, in our schools for idiots,
and yet we cannot fail to perceive that, after all, we have only an
external result. We produce a mechanical performance of duties, and yet
there seems to be no actual mental growth. It is an exogenous, and not
an endogenous, growth, to use the language of Botany.[9] Continual
repetition, under the most gentle patience, renders the movements easy,
but, after all, they are only automatic, or what the physicians call
reflex.
We have the same result produced in a less degree when we attempt to
teach an intelligent child something which is beyond his active
comprehension. A child may be taught to do or say almost anything by
patient training, but, if what he is to say is beyond the power of his
mental comprehension, and hence of his active assimilation, we are only
training him as we train an animal (§ 14), and not educating him. We
call such recitations parrot recitations, and, by our use of the word,
express exactly in what position the pupils are placed. An idiot is only
a case of permanently arrested development. What in the intelligent
child is a passing phase is for the idiot a fixed state. We have idiots
of all grades, as we have children of all ages.
The above observations must not be taken to mean that children should
never be taught to perform operations in arithmetic which they do not,
in cant phrase, "perfectly understand," or to learn poetry whose whole
meaning they cannot fathom. Into this error many teachers have fallen.
There can be no more profitable study for a teacher than to visit one of
these numerous idiot schools. He finds the alphabet of his professional
work there. As the philologist learns of the formation and growth of
language by examining, not the perfectly formed languages, but the
dialects of savage tribes, so with the teacher. In like manner more
insight into the philosophy of teaching and of the nature of the mind
can be acquired by teaching a class of children to read than in any
other grade of work.
_II.--The Form of Education._
§ 23. The general form of Education follows from the nature of mind.
Mind is nothing but what it itself creates out of its own activity. It
is, at first, mind as undeveloped or unconscious (in the main); but,
secondly, it acquires the power of examining its own action, of
considering itself as an object of attention, as if it were a quite
foreign thing--_i.e._, it reflects (in this stage it is really ignorant
that it is studying its own nature); and, finally, it becomes conscious
that this, which it had been examining, and of whose existence it is
conscious, is its own self: It attains self-consciousness. It is through
this estrangement from itself, given back to itself again and restored
to unity, but it is no longer a simple, unconscious unity. In this third
state only can it be said to be free--_i.e._, to possess itself.
Education cannot create; it can only help to develop into reality the
previously-existent possibility; it can only help to bring forth to
light the hidden life.
§ 24. All culture, in whatever line, must pass through these two
stages of estrangement and of reunion; the reunion being not of two
different things, but the recognition of itself by thought, and its
acceptance of itself as itself. And the more complete is the
estrangement--_i.e._, the more perfectly can the thought be made to
view itself as a somewhat entirely foreign to itself, to look upon it as
a different and independent somewhat--the more complete and perfect will
be its union with and acceptance of its object as one with itself when
the recognition does finally take place. Through culture we are led to
this conscious possession of our own thought. Plato gives to the
feeling, with which knowledge must necessarily begin, the name of
wonder. But wonder is not knowledge; it is only the first step towards
it. It is the half-terrified attention which the mind fixes on an
object, and the half-terror would be impossible did it not dimly
forebode that it was something of its own nature at which it was
looking. The child delights in stories of the far-off, the strange, and
the wonderful. It is as if they hoped to find in these some solution to
themselves--a solution which they have, as it were, asked in vain of
familiar scenes and objects. Their craving for such is the proof of how
far their nature transcends all its known conditions. They are like
adventurous explorers who push out to unknown regions in hopes of
finding the freedom and wealth which lies only within themselves. They
want to be told about things which they never saw, such as terrible
conflagrations, banditti life, wild animals, gray old ruins, Robinson
Crusoes on far-off, happy islands. They are irresistibly attracted by
whatever is highly colored and dazzlingly lighted. The child prefers the
story of Sinbad the Sailor to any tales of his own home and nation,
because mind has this necessity of getting, as it were, outside of
itself so as to obtain a view of itself. As the child grows to youth he
is, from the same reasons, desirous of traveling.
§ 25. Work may be defined as the activity of the mind in a conscious
concentration on, and absorption in, some object, with the purpose of
acquiring or producing it. Play is the activity of the mind which gives
itself up to surrounding objects according to its own caprice, without
any thought as to results. The Educator gives out work to the pupil, but
he leaves him to himself in his play.
§ 26. It is necessary to draw a sharp line between work and play. If the
Educator has not respect for work as an activity of great weight and
importance, he not only spoils the relish of the pupil for play, which
loses all its charm of freedom when not set off by its antithesis of
earnest labor, but he undermines in the pupil's mind all respect for any
real existence. On the other hand, he who does not give to the child
space, time, and opportunity for play prevents the originality of his
pupil from free development through the exercise of his creative
ingenuity. Play sends the child back to his work refreshed, because in
it he loses himself without constraint and according to his own fancy,
while in work he is required to yield himself up in a manner prescribed
for him by another.
Let the teacher watch his pupils while at play if he would discover
their individual peculiarities, for it is then that they unconsciously
betray their real propensities. This antithesis of work and play runs
through the entire life, the form only of play varying with years and
occupations. To do what we please, as we please, and when we please, not
for any reason, but just because we please, remains play always.
Children in their sports like nothing better than to counterfeit what is
to be the earnest work of their after-lives. The little girl plays with
her dolls, and the boy plays he is a soldier and goes to mimic wars.
It is, of course, an error to suppose that the play of a child is
simply muscular. The lamb and the colt find their full enjoyment in
capering aimlessly about the field. But to the child play would be
incomplete which did not bring the mind into action. Children derive
little enjoyment from purely muscular exercise. They must at the same
time have an object requiring mental action to attain it. A number of
children set simply to run up and down a field would tire of the
exercise in five minutes; but put a ball amongst them and set them to a
game and they will be amused by it for hours.
Exceptional mental development is always preceded, and is, indeed,
produced by, an exceptional amount of exercise in the form of play on
the part of the special faculties concerned. The peculiar tendencies
exhibited in play are due to the large development of particular
faculties, and the ultimate giant strength of a faculty is brought about
by play. The genius is no doubt born, not made; but, although born, it
would dwindle away in infancy were it not for the constant exercise
taken in play, which is as necessary for development as food for the
maintenance of life.
§ 27. Work should never be treated as if it were play, nor play as if it
were work. Those whose work is creative activity of the mind may find
recreation in the details of science; and those, again, whose vocation
is scientific research can find recreation in the practice of art in its
different departments. What is work to one may thus be play to another.
This does not, however, contradict the first statement.
§ 28. It is the province of education so to accustom us to different
conditions or ways of thinking and acting that they shall no longer seem
strange or foreign to us. When these have become, as we say, "natural"
to us--when we find the acquired mode of thinking or acting just what
our inclination leads us to adopt unconsciously, a _Habit_ has been
formed. A habit is, then, the identity of natural inclination with the
special demands of any particular doing or suffering, and it is thus the
external condition of all progress. As long as we require the conscious
act of our will to the performance of a deed, that deed is a somewhat
foreign to ourselves, and not yet a part of ourselves. The practical
work of the educator may thus be said to consist in leading the mind of
the pupil over certain lines of thought till it becomes "natural" or
spontaneous for him to go by that road. Much time is wasted in schools
where the pupil's mind is not led aright at first, for then he has to
unlearn habits of thought which are already formed. The work of the
teacher is to impress good methods of studying and thinking upon the
minds of his pupils, rather than to communicate knowledge.
§ 29. It is, at first sight, entirely indifferent what a Habit shall
relate to--_i.e._, the point is to get the pupil into the way of
forming habits, and it is not at first of so much moment what habit is
formed as that a habit is formed. But we cannot consider that there is
anything morally neutral in the abstract, but only in the concrete, or
in particular examples. An action may be of no moral significance to one
man, and under certain circumstances, while to another man, or to the
same man under different circumstances, it may have quite a different
significance, or may possess an entirely opposite character. Appeal must
be made, then, to the individual conscience of each one to decide what
is and what is not permissible to that individual under the given
circumstances. Education must make it its first aim to awaken in the
pupil a sensitiveness to spiritual and ethical distinctions which knows
that nothing is in its own nature morally insignificant or indifferent,
but shall recognize, even in things seemingly small, a universal human
significance. But, yet, in relation to the highest interests of morality
or the well-being of society, the pupil must be taught to subordinate
without hesitation all that relates exclusively to his own personal
comfort or welfare for the well-being of his fellow-men, or for moral
rectitude.
When we reflect upon habit, it at once assumes for us the character of
useful or injurious. The consequences of a habit are not indifferent.
Whatever action tends as a harmonious means to the realization of our
purpose is desirable or advantageous, and whatever either partially
contradicts or wholly destroys it is disadvantageous. Advantage and
disadvantage being, then, only relative terms, dependent upon the aim or
purpose which we happen to have in view, a habit which may be
advantageous to one man under certain circumstances may be
disadvantageous to another man, or even to the same man, under other
circumstances. Education must, then, accustom the youth to consider for
himself the expediency or inexpediency of any action in relation to his
own vocation in life. He must not form habits which will be inexpedient
with regard to that.
§ 31. There is, however, an _absolute_ distinction of habits as morally
good and bad. From this absolute stand-point we must, after all, decide
what is for us allowable or forbidden, what is expedient and what
inexpedient.
§ 32. As to its form, habit may be either passive or active. By passive
habit is meant a habit of composure which surveys undisturbed whatever
vicissitudes, either external or internal, may fall to our lot, and
maintains itself superior to them all, never allowing its power of
acting to be paralyzed by them. It is not, however, merely a stoical
indifference, nor is it the composure which comes from inability to
receive impressions--a sort of impassivity. It is that composure which
is the highest result of power. Nor is it a selfish love of ease which
intentionally withdraws itself from annoyances in order to remain
undisturbed. It is not manifested because of a desire to be out of these
vicissitudes. It is, while in them, to be not of them. It is the
composure which does not fret itself over what it cannot change. The
soul that has built for itself this stronghold of freedom within itself
may vividly experience joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, and yet
serenely know that it is intrenched in walls which are inaccessible to
their attacks, because it knows that it is infinitely superior to all
that may chance or change. What is meant by active habit in distinction
from passive habit is found in our external activity, as skill,
facility, readiness of information, etc. It might be considered as the
equipping of our inner selves for active contest with the external
world; while passive habit is the fortifying of our inner selves against
the attack of the external world. The man who possesses habit in both
these forms impresses himself in many different ways on the outer world,
while at the same time, and all the time, he preserves intact his
personality from the constant assaults of the outer world. He handles
both spear and shield.
§ 33. All education, in whatever line, must work by forming habits
physical, mental, or moral. It might be said to consist in a conversion
of actions which are at first voluntary, by means of repetition, into
instructive actions which are performed, as we say, naturally--_i.e._,
without any conscious volition. We teach a child to walk, or he teaches
himself to walk by a constant repetition of the action of the will upon
the necessary muscles; and, when the thinking brain hands over the
mechanism to the trained spinal cord, the anxious, watchful look
disappears from the face, and the child talks or laughs as he runs: then
that part of his education is completed. Henceforth the attention that
had been necessary to manage the body in walking is freed for other
work. This is only an illustration, easily understood, of what takes
place in all education. Mental and moral acts, thoughts, and feelings in
the same way are, by repetition, converted into habits and become our
nature; and character, good or bad, is only the aggregate of our habits.
When we say a person has no character, we mean exactly this: that he has
no fixed habits. But, as the great end of human life is freedom, he must
be above even habit. He must not be wholly a machine of habits, and
education must enable him to attain the power of breaking as well as of
forming habits, so that he may, when desirable, substitute one habit for
another. For habits may be (§ 29), according to their nature, proper or
improper, advantageous or disadvantageous, good or bad; and, according
to their form, may be (§ 32) either the acceptance of the external by
the internal or the reaction of the internal upon the external. Through
our freedom we must be able, not only to renounce any habit formed, but
to form a new and better one. Man should be supreme above all habits,
wearing them as garments which the soul puts on and off at will. It must
so order them all as to secure for itself a constant progress of
development into still greater freedom. In this higher view habits
become thus to our sight only necessary accompaniments of imperfect
freedom. Can we conceive of God, who is perfect Freedom, as having any
habits? We might say that, as a means toward the ever-more decided
realization of the Good, we must form a habit of voluntarily making and
breaking off habits. We must characterize as bad those habits which
relate only to our personal convenience or enjoyment. They are often not
essentially blameworthy, but there lies in them a hidden danger that
they may allure us into luxury or effeminacy. It is a false and
mechanical way of looking at the affair to suppose that a habit which
had been formed by a certain number of repetitions can be broken off by
an equal number of refusals. We can never utterly renounce a habit which
we decide to be undesirable for us except through decision and firmness.
§ 34. Education, then, must consider the preparation for authority and
obedience (§ 17); for a rational ordering of one's actions according to
universal principles, and, at the same time, a preservation of
individuality (§ 18); for work and play (§ 25); for habits of
spontaneity or originality (§ 28). To endeavor by any set rules to
harmonize in the pupil these opposites will be a vain endeavor, and
failure in the solution of the problem is quite possible by reason of
the freedom of the pupil, of surrounding circumstances, or of mistakes
on the part of the teacher, and the possibility of this negative result
must, therefore, enter as an element of calculation into the work
itself. All the dangers which may in any way threaten the youth must be
considered in advance, and he must be fortified against them. While we
should not intentionally expose the youth to temptation in order to
prove his strength of resistance, neither should we, on the other hand,
endeavor to seclude him from all chance of dangerous temptation. To do
the former would be satanic; while to do the latter would be ridiculous,
useless, and in fact dangerous in the highest degree, for temptation
comes more from within than from without, and any secret inclination
will in some way seek, or even create, its own opportunity for
gratification. The real safety from sin lies, not in seclusion of one's
self from the world[10]--for all the elements of worldliness are innate
in each individual--but in an occupying of the restless activity in
other ways, in learning and discipline; these being varied as time goes
on, according to the age and degree of proficiency. Not to crush out,
but to direct, the child's activity, whether physical or mental, is the
key to all real success in education. The sentimentalism which has,
during the last few years, in this country (the United States), tended
to diminish to so great an extent the actual work to be performed by our
boys and girls, has set free a dangerous amount of energy whose new
direction gives cause for grave alarm. To endeavor to prevent the youth
from all free and individual relations with the real world, implies a
never-ending watch kept over him. The consciousness of being thus
"shadowed" destroys in the youth all elasticity of spirit, all
confidence, and all originality. A constant feeling of, as it were, a
detective police at his side obscures all sense of independent action,
systematically accustoming him to dependence. Though, as the
tragic-comic story of Peter Schlemihl shows, the loss of a man's own
shadow may involve him in a series of fatalities,[11] yet to be
"shadowed" constantly by a companion, us in the pedagogical system of
the Jesuits, undermines all naturalness. And, if we endeavor to guard
too strictly against what is evil and wrong, the pupil reacts, bringing
all his intelligence into the service of his craft and cunning, till the
would-be educator stands aghast at the discovery of such evil-doing as
he had supposed impossible under his strict supervision. Within the
circle of whatever rules it may be found necessary to draw around the
young there must always be left space for freedom. Pupils should always
be led to see that all rules against which they fret are only of their
own creation; and that as grave-stones mark the place where some one has
fallen, so every law is only a record of some previous wrong-doing. The
law "Thou shalt not kill" was not given till murder had been committed.
In other words, the wrong deed preceded the law against it, and perfect
obedience is the same as perfect freedom. No obedience except that which
we gain from the pupil's own convictions has real educational
significance.
§ 35. If there appears in the youth any decided deformity opposed to
the ideal which we would create in him, we should at once inquire into
its history and origin. The negative and positive are so closely
related, and depend so intimately on each other, in our being that what
appears to us to be negligence, rudeness, immorality, foolishness, or
oddity may arise from some real necessity of the pupil which in its
process of development has only taken a wrong direction.
§ 36. If it should appear, on such examination, that the wrong action
was the result of avoidable ignorance, of caprice, or willfulness on the
part of the pupil, this calls for a simple prohibition on the part of
the teacher, no reason being assigned. His authority must be sufficient
for the pupil without any reason. When the fault is repeated, and the
pupil is old enough to understand, then only should the grounds of the
prohibition be stated with it. This should, however, be done in few
words, and the educator must never allow himself to lose, in a doctrinal
lecture, the idea of discipline. If he do, the pupil will soon forget
that it was his own misbehavior which was the cause of all the remarks.
The statement of the reason must be honest, and must be presented to the
youth on the side most easy for him to appreciate. False reasons are not
only morally wrong, but they lead the mind astray. We also commit a
grave error when we try to unfold to the youth all the possible
consequences of his wrong act, for those possible consequences are too
far off to affect his mind. The long lecture wearies him, especially if
it be in a stereotyped form; and with teachers who are fault-finding,
and who like to hear themselves talk, this is apt to be the case. Still
more unfortunate would it be if we really should affect the lively
imagination of a sensitive youth by our description of the wretchedness
to which his wrong-doing, if persisted in, might lead him, for then the
conviction that he has already taken one step in that direction may
produce in him a fear which in the future man may become terrible
depression and lead to degradation.
§ 37. If to censure we add the threat of punishment, we have then what
in common language is called scolding.
If threats are made, the pupil must be made to feel that they will be
faithfully executed according to the word.
The threat of punishment is, however, to be avoided; for circumstances
may arise which will render its fulfillment not only objectionable, but
wrong, and the teacher will then find himself in the position of Herod
and bound "for his oath's sake" to a course of action which no longer
seems the best. Even the law in affixing a penalty to definite crimes
allows a certain latitude in a maximum and minimum of awarded
punishment.
§ 38. It is only after other means of reformation have been tried, and
have failed, that punishment is justifiable for error, transgression, or
vice. When our simple prohibition (§ 36), the statement of our reason
for the prohibiting (§ 36), and threat of punishment (§ 37) have all
failed, then punishment comes and intentionally inflicts pain on the
youth in order to force him by this last means to a realization of his
wrong-doing. And here the punishment must not be given for general bad
conduct or for a perverse disposition--those being vague
generalities--but for a special act of wrong-doing at that time. He
should not be punished because he is naturally bad or because he is
generally naughty, but for this one special and particular act which he
has committed. Thus the punishment will act on the general disposition,
not directly, but through this particular act, as a manifestation of the
disposition. Then it will not accuse the innermost nature of the
culprit. This way of punishment is not only demanded by justice, but it
is absolutely necessary in view of the fact of the sophistry inherent in
human nature which is always busy in assigning various motives for its
actions. If the child understands, then, that he is punished for that
particular act which he knows himself to have committed, he cannot feel
the bitter sense of injustice and misunderstanding which a punishment
inflicted for general reasons, and which attributes to him a depravity
of motives and intentions, so often engenders.
§ 39. Punishment as an educational means must, nevertheless, be always
essentially corrective, since it seeks always to bring the youth to a
comprehension of his wrong-doing and to a positive alteration in his
behavior, and, hence, has for its aim to improve him. At the same time
it is a sad testimony of the insufficiency of the means which have
been previously tried. We should on no account aim to terrify the
youth by physical force, so that to avoid that he will refrain from
doing the wrong or from repeating a wrong act already done. This would
lead only to terrorism, and his growing strength would soon put him
beyond its power and leave him without motive for refraining from
evil. Punishment may have this effect in some degree, but it should,
above all, be made to impress deeply upon his mind the eternal truth
that the evil deed is never allowed in God's universe to act
unrestrained and according to its own will, but that the good and true
is the only absolute power in the world, and that it is never at a
loss to avenge any contradiction of its will and design.
It may be questioned whether the moral teaching in our schools be not
too negative in its measures; whether it do not confine itself too much
to forbidding the commission of the wrong deed, and spend too little
force in securing the performance of the right deed. Not a simple
refraining from the wrong, but an active doing of the right would be the
better lesson to inculcate.
In the laws of the state the office of punishment is first to satisfy
justice,[12] and only after this is done can the improvement of the
criminal be considered. If government should proceed on the same basis
as the educator, it would make a grave mistake, for it has to deal, not
with children, but with adults, to whom it concedes the dignity of full
responsibility for all their acts. It has not to consider the reasons,
either psychological or ethical, which prompted the deed. The actual
deed is what it has first of all to deal with, and only after that is
considered and settled can it take into view any mitigating
circumstances connected therewith, or any peculiarity of the individual.
The educator, on the other hand, has to deal with those who are immature
and only growing toward responsibility. As long as they are under the
care of a teacher, he is at any rate partially accountable for what they
do. We must never confound the nature of punishment in the State with
that of punishment as an educational means.
§ 40. As to punishment, as with all other work in education, it can
never be abstractly determined beforehand, but it must be regulated with
a view to the individual pupil and his peculiar circumstances. What it
shall be, and how and when administered, are problems which call for
great ingenuity and tact on the part of the educator. It must never be
forgotten that punishments vary in intensity at the will of the
educator. He fixes the standard by which they are measured in the
child's mind. Whipping is actual physical pain, and an evil in itself to
the child. But there are many other punishments which involve no
physical pain, and the intensity of which, as felt by the child, varies
according to an artificial standard in different schools. "To sit under
the clock" was a great punishment in one of our public schools--not that
the seat was not perfectly comfortable, but that one was never sent
there to sit unless for some grave misdemeanor. The teacher has the
matter in his own hands, and it is well to remember this and to grade
his punishments with much caution, so as to make all pass for their full
value. In some schools even suspension is so common that it does not
seem to the pupil a very terrible thing. "Familiarity breeds contempt,"
and frequency implies familiarity. A punishment seldom resorted to will
always seem to the pupil to be severe. As we weaken, and in fact
bankrupt, language by an inordinate use of superlatives, so, also, do we
weaken any punishment by its frequent repetition. Economy of resources
should be always practiced.
§ 41. In general, we might say that, for very young children, corporal
punishment is most appropriate; for boys and girls, isolation; and for
older youth, something which appeals to the sense of honor.
§ 42. (1) Corporal punishment implies physical pain. Generally it
consists of a whipping, and this is perfectly justifiable in case of
persistent defiance of authority, of obstinate carelessness, or of
malicious evil-doing, so long or so often as the higher perceptions of
the offender are closed against appeal. But it must not be administered
too often, or with undue severity. To resort to deprivation of food is
cruel. But, while we condemn the false view of seeing in the rod the
only panacea for all embarrassing questions of discipline on the
teacher's part, we can have no sympathy for the sentimentality which
assumes that the dignity of humanity is affected by a blow given to a
child. It is wrong thus to confound self-conscious humanity with
child-humanity, for to the average child himself a blow is the most
natural form of retribution, and that in which all other efforts at
influence at last end. The fully grown man ought, certainly, not to be
flogged, for this kind of punishment places him on a level with the
child; or, where it is barbarously inflicted, reduces him to the level
of the brute, and thus absolutely does degrade him. In English schools
the rod is said to be often used; if a pupil of the first class, who is
never flogged, is put back into the second, he becomes again subject to
flogging. But, even if this be necessary in the schools, it certainly
has no proper place in the army and navy.
§ 43. (2) To punish a pupil by isolation is to remove him temporarily
from the society of his fellows. The boy or girl thus cut off from
companionship, and forced to think only of himself, begins to understand
how helpless he is in such a position. Time passes wearily, and he is
soon eager to return to the companionship of parents, brothers and
sisters, teachers and fellow-students.
But to leave a child entirely by himself without any supervision, and
perhaps in a dark room, is as wrong as to leave two or three together
without supervision. It often happens when they are kept after school by
themselves that they give the freest rein to their childish wantonness,
and commit the wildest pranks.
§ 44. (3) Shutting children up in this way does not touch their sense
of honor, and the punishment is soon forgotten, because it relates only
to certain particular phases of their behavior. But it is quite
different when the pupil is isolated from his fellows on the ground that
by his conduct he has violated the very principles which make civilized
society possible, and is, therefore, no longer a proper member of it.
This is a punishment which touches his sense of honor, for honor is the
recognition of the individual by others as their equal, and by his
error, or by his crime, he had forfeited his right to be their equal,
their peer, and has thus severed himself from them.
The separation from them is thus only the external form of the real
separation which he himself has brought to pass within his soul, and
which his wrong-doing has only made clearly visible. This kind of
punishment, thus touching the whole character of the youth and not
easily forgotten, should be administered with the greatest caution lest
a permanent loss of self-respect follow. When we think our wrong-doing
to be eternal in its effects, we lose all power of effort for our own
improvement.
This sense of honor cannot be developed so well in family life, because
in the family the ties of blood make all in a certain sense equal, no
matter what may be their conduct. He who has by wrong-doing severed
himself from society is still a member of the family, and within its
sacred circle is still beloved, though it may be with bitter tears. No
matter how wrong he may have been, he still can find there the deepest
sympathy, for he is still father, brother, etc. It is in the contact of
one family with another that the feeling of honor is first developed,
and still more in the contact of the individual with an institution
which is not bound to him by any natural ties, but is an organism
entirely external to him. Thus, to the child, the school and the
school-classes offer a means of development which can never be found in
the family.
This fact is often overlooked by those who have the charge of the
education of children. No home education, no private tutorship, can take
the place of the school as an educational influence. For the first time
in his life the child, on being sent to school, finds himself in a
community where he is responsible for his own deeds, and where he has no
one to shield him. The rights of others for whom he has no special
affection are to be respected by him, and his own are to be defended.
The knowledge gained at the school is by no means the most valuable
acquisition there obtained. It must never be forgotten by the teacher
that the school is an institution on an entirely different basis from
the family, and that personal attachment is not the principle on which
its rule can be rightly based.
§ 45. This gradation of punishment from physical pain, up through
occasional isolation, to the touching of the innermost sense of honor is
very carefully to be considered, both with regard to the different ages
at which they are severally appropriate and to the different discipline
which they necessarily produce. Every punishment must, however, be
always looked at as a means to some end, and is thus transitory in its
nature. The pupil should always be conscious that it is painful to the
teacher to punish him. Nothing can be more effectual as a means of cure
for the wrong-doer than to perceive in the manner and tone of the voice,
in the very delay with which the necessary punishment is administered,
that he who punishes also suffers in order that the wrong-doer may be
cured of his fault. The principle of vicarious suffering lies at the
root of all spiritual healing.
_III.--The Limits of Education._
§ 46. As far as the external form of education is concerned, its limit
is reached in the instrumentality of punishment in which we seek to turn
the activity which has been employed in a wrong direction into its
proper channel, to make the deed positive instead of negative, to
substitute for the destructive deed one which shall be in harmony with
the constructive forces of society. But education implies its real
limits in its definition, which is to build up the individual into
theoretical and practical Reason. When this work goes properly on, the
authority of the educator, as authority, necessarily loses, every day,
some of its force, as the guiding principles come to form a part of the
pupil's own character, instead of being super-imposed on him from
without through the mediation of the educator. What was authority
becomes now advice and example; unreasoning and implicit obedience
passes into gratitude and affection. The pupil wears off the rough edges
of his crude individuality, which is transfigured, so to speak, into the
universality and necessity of Reason, but without losing his identity in
the process. Work becomes enjoyment, and Play is found only in a change
of activity. The youth takes possession of himself, and may now be left
to himself. There are two widely differing views with regard to the
limits of education; one lays great stress on the powerlessness of the
pupil and the great power of the teacher, and asserts that the teacher
must create something out of the pupil.
This view is often seen to have undesirable results, where large
numbers are to be educated together. It assumes that each pupil is only
"a sample of the lot" on whom the teacher is to affix his stamp, as if
they were different pieces of goods from some factory. Thus
individuality is destroyed, and all reduced to one level, as in
cloisters, barracks, and orphan asylums, where only one individual seems
to exist. Sometimes it takes the form of a theory which holds that one
can at will flog anything into or out of a pupil. This may be called a
superstitious belief in the power of education. The opposite extreme may
be found in that system which advocates a "severe letting alone,"
asserting that individuality is unconquerable, and that often the most
careful and circumspect education fails of reaching its aim because the
inherent nature of the youth has fought against it with such force as to
render abortive all opposing efforts. This idea of Pedagogy produces a
sort of indifference about means and ends which would leave each
individuality to grow as its own instinct and the chance influences of
the world might direct. The latter view would, of course, preclude the
possibility of any science of education, and make the youth only the
sport of blind fate. The comparative power of inherited tendencies and
of educational appliances is, however, one which every educator should
carefully study. Much careless generalization has been made on this
topic, and opinion is too often based upon some one instance where
accurate observation of methods and influences have been wanting.
§ 47. Education has necessarily a definite _subjective limit_ in the
individuality of the youth, for it can develop in him only that which
exists in him as a possibility. It can lead and assist, but it has no
power to create. What nature has denied to a man education cannot give
him, any more than it can on the other hand annihilate his original
gifts, though it may suppress, distort, and measurably destroy them. And
yet it is impossible to decide what is the real essence of a man's
individuality until he has left behind him the years of growth, because
it is not till then that he fully attains conscious possession of
himself. Moreover, at this critical time many traits which were supposed
to be characteristic may prove themselves not to be so by disappearing,
while long-slumbering and unsuspected talents may crop out. Whatever has
been forced upon a child, though not in harmony with his individuality,
whatever has been driven into him without having been actively accepted
by him, or having had a definite relation to his culture--will remain
perhaps, but only as an external foreign ornament, only as a parasitic
growth which weakens the force of his real nature. But we must
distinguish from these little affectations which arise from a
misconception of the limits of individuality that effort of imitation
which children and young people often exhibit in trying to copy in their
own actions those peculiarities which they observe and admire in
perfectly-developed persons with whom they may come in contact. They see
a reality which corresponds to their own possibility, and the
presentiment of a like or a similar attainment stirs them to imitation,
although this external imitation may be sometimes disagreeable or
ridiculous to the lookers-on. We ought not to censure it too severely,
remembering that it springs from a positive striving towards true
culture, and needs only to be properly directed, and never to be roughly
put down.
§ 48. _The objective limit_ of education consists in the means
which can be applied for it. That the capacity for culture should exist
is the first condition of success, but it is none the less necessary
that it be cultivated. But how much cultivation shall be given to it
must depend in very great degree on the means which are practicable, and
this will undoubtedly again depend on the worldly possessions and
character of the family to which the pupil belongs. If he comes of a
cultivated and refined family, he will have a great advantage at the
start over his less favored comrades; and, with regard to many of the
arts and sciences, this limitation of education is of great
significance. But the means alone will not answer. Without natural
capacity, all the educational apparatus possible is of no avail. On the
other hand, real talent often accomplishes incredible feats with very
limited means; and, if the way is only once open, makes of itself a
center of attraction which draws to itself as with magnetic power the
necessary means. Moral culture is, however, from its very nature, raised
above such dependence.
If we fix our thought on the subjective limit--that of individuality (§
47)--we detect the ground for that indifference which lays little stress
on education (§ 46, end). If, on the other hand, we concentrate our
attention on the means of culture, we shall perceive the reason of the
other extreme spoken of--of that pedagogical despotism (§ 46) which
fancies that it is able to prescribe and enforce at will upon the pupil
any culture whatever, without regard to his special characteristics.
§ 49. Education comes to its _absolute limit_ when the pupil has
apprehended the problem which he is to solve, has comprehended the means
which are at his disposal, and has acquired the necessary skill in using
them. The true educator seeks to render himself unnecessary by the
complete emancipation of the youth. He works always towards the
independence of the pupil, and always with the design of withdrawing so
soon as he shall have reached this stand-point, and of leaving him to
the full responsibility for his own deeds. To endeavor to hold him in
the position of a pupil after this time has been reached would be to
contradict the very essence of education, which must find its result in
the independent maturity of the youth. The inequality which formerly
existed between pupil and teacher is now removed, and nothing becomes
more oppressive to the former than any endeavor to force upon him the
authority from which, in reality, his own efforts have freed him. But
the undue hastening of this emancipation is as bad an error as an effort
after delay. The question as to whether a person is really ready for
independent action--as to whether his education is finished--may be
settled in much the same way in education as in politics. When any
people has progressed so far as to put the question whether they are
ready for freedom, it ceases to be a question; for, without the inner
consciousness of freedom itself, the question would never have occurred
to them.
§ 50. But, although the pupil may rightly now be freed from the hands of
instructors, and no longer obtain his culture through them, it is by no
means to be understood that he is not to go on with the work himself. He
is now to educate himself. Each must plan out for himself the ideal
toward which he must daily strive. In this process of
self-transformation a friend may aid by advice and example, but he
cannot educate, for the act of educating necessarily implies inequality
between teacher and pupil. The human necessity for companionship gives
rise to societies of different kinds, in which we may, perhaps, say that
there is some approach to educating their members, the necessary
inequality being supplied by various grades and orders. They presuppose
education in the usual sense of the word, but they wish to bring about
an education in a higher sense, and, therefore, they veil the last form
of their ideal in mystery and secrecy.
By the term _Philister_ the Germans indicate the man of a civilized
state who lives on, contented with himself and devoid of any impulse
towards further self-culture. To one who is always aspiring after an
Ideal, such a one cannot but be repulsive. But how many are they who do
not, sooner or later, in mature life, crystallize, as it were, so that
any active life, any new progress, is to them impossible?