ON FREEDOM.

Presidential Address Delivered Before The Birmingham Midland Institute,

October 20, 1879.

Not more than twenty years have passed since John Stuart Mill sent forth

his plea for Liberty.(1)

If there is one among the leaders of thought in England who, by the

elevation of his character and the calm composure of his mind, deserved

the so often misplaced title of Serene Highness, it was, I think, John

Stuart Mill.

But in his Essay “On Liberty,” Mill for once becomes passionate. In

presenting his Bill of Rights, in stepping forward as the champion of

individual liberty, he seems to be possessed by a new spirit. He speaks

like a martyr, or the defender of martyrs. The individual human soul, with

its unfathomable endowments, and its capacity of growing to something

undreamt of in our philosophy, becomes in his eyes a sacred thing, and

every encroachment on its world-wide domain is treated as sacrilege.

Society, the arch-enemy of the rights of individuality, is represented

like an evil spirit, whom it behooves every true man to resist with might

and main, and whose demands, as they cannot be altogether ignored, must be

reduced at all hazards to the lowest level.

I doubt whether any of the principles for which Mill pleaded so warmly and

strenuously in his Essay “On Liberty” would at the present day be

challenged or resisted, even by the most illiberal of philosophers, or the

most conservative of politicians. Mill’s demands sound very humble to

_our_ ears. They amount to no more than this, “that the individual is not

accountable to society for his actions so far as they concern the

interests of no person but himself, and that he may be subjected to social

or legal punishments for such actions only as are prejudicial to the

interests of others.”

Is there any one here present who doubts the justice of that principle, or

who would wish to reduce the freedom of the individual to a smaller

measure? Whatever social tyranny may have existed twenty years ago, when

it wrung that fiery protest from the lips of John Stuart Mill, can we

imagine a state of society, not totally Utopian, in which the individual

man need be less ashamed of his social fetters, in which he could more

freely utter all his honest convictions, more boldly propound all his

theories, more fearlessly agitate for their speedy realization; in which,

in fact, each man can be so entirely himself as the society of England,

such as it now is, such as generations of hard-thinking and hard-working

Englishmen have made it, and left it as the most sacred inheritance to

their sons and daughters?

Look through the whole of history, not excepting the brightest days of

republican freedom at Athens and Rome, and you will not find one single

period in which the measure of liberty accorded to each individual was

larger than it is at present, at least in England. And if you wish to

realize the full blessings of the time in which we live, compare Mill’s

plea for Liberty with another written not much more than two hundred years

ago, and by a thinker not inferior either in power or boldness to Mill

himself. According to Hobbes, the only freedom which an individual in his

ideal state has a right to claim is what he calls “freedom of thought,”

and that freedom of thought consists in our being able to think what we

like—so long as we keep it to ourselves. Surely, such freedom of thought

existed even in the days of the Inquisition, and we should never call

thought free, if it had to be kept a prisoner in solitary and silent

confinement. By freedom of thought we mean freedom of speech, freedom of

the press, freedom of action, whether individual or associated, and of

that freedom the present generation, as compared with all former

generations, the English nation, as compared with all other nations,

enjoys, there can be no doubt, a good measure, pressed down, and shaken

together, and sometimes running over.

It may be said that some dogmas still remain in politics, in religion, and

in morality; but those who defend them claim no longer any infallibility,

and those who attack them, however small their minority, need fear no

violence, nay, may reckon on an impartial and even sympathetic hearing, as

soon as people discover in their pleadings the true ring of honest

conviction and the warmth inspired by an unselfish love of truth.

It has seemed strange, therefore, to many readers of Mill, particularly on

the Continent, that this plea for liberty, this demand for freedom for

every individual to be what he is, and to develop all the germs of his

nature, should have come from what is known as the freest of all

countries, England. We might well understand such a cry of indignation if

it had reached us from Russia; but why should English philosophers, of all

others, have to protest against the tyranny of society? It is true,

nevertheless, that in countries governed despotically, the individual,

unless he is obnoxious to the Government, enjoys far greater freedom, or

rather license, than in a country like England, which governs itself.

Russian society, for instance, is extremely indulgent. It tolerates in its

rulers and statesmen a haughty defiance of the simplest rules of social

propriety, and it seems amused rather than astonished or indignant at the

vagaries, the frenzies, and outrages of those who in brilliant

drawing-rooms or lecture-rooms preach the doctrines of what is called

Nihilism or Individualism,(2)—viz., “that society must be regenerated by a

struggle for existence and the survival of the strongest, processes which

Nature has sanctioned, and which have proved successful among wild

animals.” If there is danger in these doctrines the Government is expected

to see to it. It may place watchmen at the doors of every house and at the

corner of every street, but it must not count on the better classes coming

forward to enrol themselves as special constables, or even on the

coöperation of public opinion which in England would annihilate that kind

of Nihilism with one glance of scorn and pity.

In a self-governed country like England, the resistance which society, if

it likes, can oppose to the individual in the assertion of his rights, is

far more compact and powerful than in Russia, or even in Germany. Even

where it does not employ the arm of the law, society knows how to use that

quieter, but more crushing pressure, that calm, Gorgon-like look which

only the bravest and stoutest hearts know how to resist.

It is against that indirect repression which a well-organized society

exercises, both through its male and female representatives, that Mill’s

demand for liberty seems directed. He does not stand up for unlimited

individualism; on the contrary, he would have been the most strenuous

defender of that balance of power between the weak and the strong on which

all social life depends. But he resents those smaller penalties which

society will always inflict on those who disturb its dignified peace and

comfort:—avoidance, exclusion, a cold look, a stinging remark. Had Mill

any right to complain of these social penalties? Would it not rather

amount to an interference with individual liberty to deprive any

individual or any number of individuals of those weapons of self-defence?

Those who themselves think and speak freely, have hardly a right to

complain, if others claim the same privilege. Mill himself called the

Conservative party the stupid party _par excellence_, and he took great

pains to explain that it was so not by accident, but by necessity. Need he

wonder if those whom he whipped and scourged used their own whips and

scourges against so merciless a critic?

Freethinkers—and I use that name as a title of honor for all who, like

Mill, claim for every individual the fullest freedom in thought, word, or

deed, compatible with the freedom of others—are apt to make one mistake.

Conscious of their own honest intentions, they cannot bear to be misjudged

or slighted. They expect society to submit to their often very painful

operations as a patient submits to the knife of the surgeon. This is not

in human nature. The enemy of abuses is always abused by his enemies.

Society will never yield one inch without resistance, and few reformers

live long enough to receive the thanks of those whom they have reformed.

Mill’s unsolicited election to Parliament was a triumph not often shared

by social reformers; it was as exceptional as Bright’s admission to a seat

in the Cabinet, or Stanley’s appointment as Dean of Westminster. Such

anomalies will happen in a country fortunately so full of anomalies as

England; but, as a rule, a political reformer must not be angry if he

passes through life without the title of Right Honorable; nor should a

man, if he will always speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth, be disappointed if he dies a martyr rather than a Bishop.

But even granting that in Mill’s time there existed some traces of social

tyranny, where are they now? Look at the newspapers and the journals. Is

there any theory too wild, any reform too violent, to be openly defended?

Look at the drawing-rooms or the meetings of learned societies. Are not

the most eccentric talkers the spoiled children of the fashionable world?

When young lords begin to discuss the propriety of limiting the rights of

inheritance, and young tutors are not afraid to propose curtailing the

long vacation, surely we need not complain of the intolerance of English

society.

Whenever I state these facts to my German and French and Italian friends,

who from reading Mill’s Essay “On Liberty” have derived the impression

that, however large an amount of political liberty England may enjoy, it

enjoys but little of intellectual freedom, they are generally willing to

be converted so far as London, or other great cities are concerned. But

look at your Universities, they say, the nurseries of English thought!

Compare their mediæval spirit, their monastic institutions, their

scholastic philosophy, with the freshness and freedom of the Continental

Universities! Strong as these prejudices about Oxford and Cambridge have

long been, they have become still more intense since Professor Helmholtz,

in an inaugural address which he delivered at his installation as Rector

of the University of Berlin, lent to them the authority of his great name.

“The tutors,” he says,(3) “in the English Universities cannot deviate by a

hair’s-breadth from the dogmatic system of the English Church, without

exposing themselves to the censure of their Archbishops and losing their

pupils.” In German Universities, on the contrary, we are told that the

extreme conclusions of materialistic metaphysics, the boldest speculations

within the sphere of Darwin’s theory of evolution, may be propounded

without let or hindrance, quite as much as the highest apotheosis of Papal

infallibility.

Here the facts on which Professor Helmholtz relies are entirely wrong, and

the writings of some of our most eminent tutors supply a more than

sufficient refutation of his statements. Archbishops have no official

position whatsoever in English Universities, and their censure of an

Oxford tutor would be resented as impertinent by the whole University. Nor

does the University, as such, exercise any very strict control over the

tutors, even when they lecture not to their own College only. Each Master

of Arts at Oxford claims now the right to lecture (_venia docendi_), and I

doubt whether they would submit to those restrictions which, in Germany,

the Faculty imposes on every _Privat-docent_. _Privat-docents_ in German

Universities have been rejected by the Faculty for incompetence, and

silenced for insubordination. I know of no such cases at Oxford during my

residence of more than thirty years, nor can I think it likely that they

should ever occur.

As to the extreme conclusions of materialistic metaphysics, there are

Oxford tutors who have grappled with the systems of such giants as Hobbes,

Locke, or Hume, and who are not likely to be frightened by Büchner and

Vogt.

I know comparisons are odious, and I should be the last man to draw

comparisons between English and German Universities unfavorable to the

latter. But with regard to freedom of thought, of speech, and action,

Professor Helmholtz, if he would spend but a few weeks at Oxford, would

find that we enjoy it in fuller measure here than the Professors and

_Privat-docents_ in any Continental University. The publications of some

of our professors and tutors ought at least to have convinced him that if

there is less of brave words and turbulent talk in their writings, they

display throughout a determination to speak the truth, which may be

matched, but could not easily be excelled, by the leaders of thought in

France, Germany, or Italy.

The real difference between English and Continental Universities is that

the former govern themselves, the latter are governed. Self-government

entails responsibilities, sometimes restraints and reticences. I may here

be allowed to quote the words of another eminent Professor of the

University of Berlin, Du Bois Reymond, who, in addressing his colleagues,

ventured to tell them,(4) “We have still to learn from the English how the

greatest independence of the individual is compatible with willing

submission to salutary, though irksome, statutes.” That is particularly

true when the statutes are self-imposed. In Germany, as Professor

Helmholtz tells us himself, the last decision in almost all the more

important affairs of the Universities rests with the Government, and he

does not deny that in times of political and ecclesiastical tension, a

most ill-advised use has been made of that power. There are, besides, the

less important matters, such as raising of salaries, leave of absence,

scientific missions, even titles and decorations, all of which enable a

clever Minister of Instruction to assert his personal influence among the

less independent members of the University. In Oxford the University does

not know the Ministry, nor the Ministry the University. The acts of the

Government, be it Liberal or Conservative, are freely discussed, and often

powerfully resisted by the academic constituencies, and the personal

dislike of a Minister or Ministerial Councillor could as little injure a

professor or tutor as his favor could add one penny to his salary.

But these are minor matters. What gives their own peculiar character to

the English Universities is a sense of power and responsibility: power,

because they are the most respected among the numerous corporations in the

country; responsibility, because the higher education of the whole country

has been committed to their charge. Their only master is public opinion as

represented in Parliament, their only incentive their own sense of duty.

There is no country in Europe where Universities hold so exalted a

position, and where those who have the honour to belong to them may say

with greater truth _Noblesse oblige_.

I know the dangers of self-government, particularly where higher and more

ideal interests are concerned, and there are probably few who wish for a

real reform in schools and Universities who have not occasionally yielded

to the desire for a Dictator, of a Bismarck or a Falk. But such a desire

springs only from a momentary weakness and despondency; and no one who

knows the difference between being governed and governing one’s self,

would ever wish to descend from that higher though dangerous position to a

lower one, however safe and comfortable it might seem. No one who has

tasted the old wine of freedom would ever really wish to exchange it for

the new wine of external rule. Public opinion is sometimes a hard master,

and majorities can be great tyrants to those who want to be honest to

their own convictions. But in the struggle of all against all, each

individual feels that he has his rightful place, and that he may exercise

his rightful influence. If he is beaten, he is beaten in fair fight; if he

conquers, he has no one else to thank. No doubt, despotic Governments have

often exercised the most beneficial patronage in encouraging and rewarding

poets, artists, and men of science. But men of genius who have conquered

the love and admiration of a whole nation are greater than those who have

gained the favor of the most brilliant Courts; and we know how some of the

fairest reputations have been wrecked on the patronage which they had to

accept at the hands of powerful Ministers or ambitious Sovereigns.

But to return to Mill and his plea for Liberty. Though I can hardly

believe that, were he still among us, he would claim a larger measure of

freedom for the individual than is now accorded to every one of us in the

society in which we move, yet the chief cause on which he founded his plea

for Liberty, the chief evil which he thought could be remedied only if

society would allow more elbow-room to individual genius, exists in the

same degree as in his time—aye, even in a higher degree. The principle of

individuality has suffered more at present than perhaps at any former

period of history. The world is becoming more and more gregarious, and

what the French call our _nature moutonnière_, our tendency to leap where

the sheep in front of us has leapt, becomes more and more prevalent in

politics, in religion, in art, and even in science. M. de Tocqueville

expressed his surprise how much more Frenchmen of the present day resemble

one another than did those of the last generation. The same remark, adds

John Stuart Mill, might be made of England in a greater degree. “The

modern _régime_ of public opinion,” he writes, “is in an unorganized form

what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an organized;

and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert itself

against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents and its

professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.”

I fully agree with Mill in recognizing the dangers of uniformity, but I

doubt whether what he calls the _régime_ of public opinion is alone, or

even chiefly, answerable for it. No doubt there are some people in whose

eyes uniformity seems an advantage rather than a disadvantage. If all were

equally strong, equally educated, equally honest, equally rich, equally

tall, or equally small, society would seem to them to have reached the

highest ideal. The same people admire an old French garden, with its

clipped yew-trees, forming artificial walls and towers and pyramids, far

more than the giant yews which, like large serpents, clasp the soil with

their coiling roofs, and overshadow with their dark green branches the

white chalk cliffs of the Thames. But those French gardens, unless they

are constantly clipped and prevented from growing, soon fall into decay.

As in nature, so in society, uniformity means but too often stagnation,

while variety is the surest sign of health and vigor. The deepest secret

of nature is its love of continued novelty. Its tendency, if unrestrained,

is towards constantly creating new varieties, which, if they fulfil their

purpose, become fixed for a time, or, it may be, forever; while others,

after they have fulfilled their purpose, vanish to make room for new and

stronger types.

The same is the secret of human society. It consists and lives in

individuals, each meant to be different from all the others, and to

contribute his own peculiar share to the common wealth. As no tree is like

any other tree, and no leaf on the same tree like any other leaf, no human

being is, or is meant to be, exactly like any other human being. It is in

this endless, and to us inconceivable, variety of human souls that the

deepest purpose of human life is to be realized; and the more society

fulfils that purpose, the more its allows free scope for the development

of every individual germ, the richer will be the harvest in no distant

future. Such is the mystery of individuality that I do not wonder if even

those philosophers who, like Mill, confine the use of the word _sacred_

within the very smallest compass, see in each individual soul something

sacred, something to be revered, even where we cannot understand it,

something to be protected against all vulgar violence.

Where I differ from Mill and his school is on the question as to the

quarter from whence the epidemic of uniformity springs which threatens the

free development of modern society. Mill points to the society in which we

move; to those who are in front of us, to our contemporaries. I feel

convinced that our real enemies are at our back, and that the heaviest

chains which are fastened on us are those made, not by the present, but by

past generations—by our ancestors, not by our contemporaries.

It is on this point, on the trammels of individual freedom with which we

may almost be said to be born into the world, and on the means by which we

may shake off these old chains, or at all events learn to carry them more

lightly and gracefully, that I wish to speak to you this evening.

You need not be afraid that I am going to enter upon the much discussed

subject of heredity, whether in its physiological or psychological

aspects. It is a favorite subject just now, and the most curious facts

have been brought together of late to illustrate the working of what is

called heredity. But the more we know of these facts, the less we seem

able to comprehend the underlying principle. Inheritance is one of those

numerous words which by their very simplicity and clearness are so apt to

darken our counsel. If a father has blue eyes and the son has blue eyes,

what can be clearer than that he inherited them? If the father stammers

and the son stammers, who can doubt but that it came by inheritance? If

the father is a musician and the son a musician, we say very glibly that

the talent was inherited. But what does _inherited_ mean? In no case does

it mean what _inherited_ usually means—something external, like money,

collected by a father, and, after his death, secured by law to his son.

Whatever else inherited may mean, it does not mean that. But unfortunately

the word is there, it seems almost pedantic to challenge its meaning, and

people are always grateful if an easy word saves them the trouble of hard

thought.

Another apparent advantage of the theory of heredity is that it never

fails. If the son has blue, and the father black, eyes, all is right

again, for either the mother, or the grandmother, or some historic or

prehistoric ancestor, may have had blue eyes, and atavism, we know, will

assert itself after hundreds and thousands of years.

Do not suppose that I deny the broad facts of what is called by the name

of heredity. What I deny is that the name of heredity offers any

scientific solution of a most difficult problem. It is a name, a metaphor,

quite as bad as the old metaphor of _innate ideas_; for there is hardly a

single point of similarity between the process by which a son may share

the black eyes, the stammering, or the musical talent of his father, and

that by which, after his father’s death, the law secures to the son the

possession of the pounds, shillings, and pence which his father held in

the Funds.

But whatever the true meaning of heredity may be, certain it is that every

individual comes into the world heavy-laden. Nowhere has the consciousness

of the burden which rests on each generation as it enters on its journey

through life found stronger expression than among the Buddhists. What

other people call by various names, “fate or providence,” “tradition or

inheritance,” “circumstances or environment,” they call _Karman_,

deed—what has been done, whether by ourselves or by others, the

accumulated work of all who have come before us, the consequences of which

we have to bear, both for good and for evil. Originally this _Karman_

seems to have been conceived as personal, as the work which we ourselves

have done in our former existences. But, as personally we are not

conscious of having done such work in former ages, that kind of _Karman_,

too, might be said to be impersonal. To the question how _Karman_ began,

what was the nucleus of that accumulation which forms the condition of

present existence, Buddhism has no answer to give, any more than any other

system of religion or philosophy. The Buddhists say it began with

_avidyâ_, and _avidyâ_ means ignorance.(5) They are much more deeply

interested in the question how _Karman_ may be annihilated, how each man

may free himself from the influence of _Karman_, and Nirvâ_n_a, the

highest object of all their dreams, is often defined by Buddhist

philosophers as “freedom from _Karman_.”(6)

What the Buddhists call by the general name of _Karman_, comprehends all

influences which the past exercises on the present, whether physical or

mental.(7) It is not my object to examine or even to name all these

influences, though I confess nothing is more interesting than to look upon

the surface of our modern life as we look on a geological map, and to see

the most ancient formations cropping out everywhere under our feet.

Difficult as it is to color a geological map of England, it would be still

more difficult to find a sufficient variety of colors to mark the

different ingredients of the intellectual condition of her people.

That all of us, whether we speak English or German, or French or Russian,

are really speaking an ancient Oriental tongue, incredible as it would

have sounded a hundred years ago, is now recognized by everybody. Though

the various dialects now spoken in Europe have been separated many

thousands of years from the Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of

India, yet so close is the bond that holds the West and East together,

that in many cases an intelligent Englishman might still guess the meaning

of a Sanskrit word. How little difference is there between Sanskrit _sûnu_

and English _son_, between Sanskrit _duhitar_ and English _daughter_,

between Sanskrit _vid_, to know, and English to _wit_, between Sanskrit

_vaksh_, to grow, and English to _wax!_ Think how we value a Saxon urn, or

a Roman coin, or a Keltic weapon! how we dig for them, clean them, label

them, and carefully deposit them in our museums! Yet what is their

antiquity compared with the antiquity of such words as _son_ or

_daughter_, _father_ and _mother_? There are no monuments older than those

collected in the handy volumes which we call Dictionaries, and those who

know how to interpret those English antiquities—as you may see them

interpreted, for instance, in Grimm’s Dictionary of the German, in

Littré’s Dictionary of the French, or in Professor Skeats’ Etymological

Dictionary of the English Language—will learn more of the real growth of

the human mind than by studying many volumes on logic and psychology.

And as by our language we belong to the Aryan stratum, we belong through

our letters to the Hamitic. We still write English in hieroglyphics; and

in spite of all the vicissitudes through which the ancient hieroglyphics

have passed in their journey from Egypt to Phœnicia, from Phœnicia to

Greece, from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England, when we write a

capital F [Cursive F], when we draw the top line and the smaller line

through the middle of the letter, we really draw the two horns of the

cerastes, the horned serpent, which the ancient Egyptians used for

representing the sound of f. They write the name of the king whom the

Greeks called _Cheops_, and they themselves _Chu-fu_, like this:(8)—

[Three Egyptian signs.]

Here the first sign, the sieve, is to be pronounced _chu_; the second, the

horned serpent, _fu_, and the little bird, again, _u_. In the more cursive

or Hieratic writing the horned serpent appears as [Egyptian character]; in

the later Demotic as [Egyptian character] and [Egyptian character]. The

Phœnicians, who borrowed their letters from the Hieratic Egyptian, wrote

[Phoenician character] and [Phoenician character]. The Greeks, who took

their letters from the Phœnicians, wrote [Greek character]. When the

Greeks, instead of writing, like the Phœnicians, from right to left, began

to write from left to right, they turned each letter, and as [Phoenician

character] became [Greek character], our k, so [Phoenician character],

vau, became F, the Greek so-called Digamma, [Greek character], the Latin

F.

The first letter in _Chu-fu_, too, still exists in our alphabet, and in

the transverse line of our H we may recognize the last remnant of the

lines which divide the sieve. The sieve appears in Hieratic as [Egyptian

character], in Phœnician as [Phoenician character], in ancient Greek as

[Greek character], which occurs on an inscription found at Mycenæ and

elsewhere as the sign of the spiritus asper, while in Latin it is known to

us as the letter H.(9) In the same manner the undulating line of our

capital L [Cursive L] still recalls very strikingly the bent back of the

crouching lion, [Egyptian character], which in the later hieroglyphic

inscriptions represents the sound of L.

If thus in our language we are Aryan, in our letters Egyptian, we have

only to look at our watches to see that we are Babylonian. Why is our hour

divided into sixty minutes, our minute into sixty seconds? Would not a

division of the hour into ten, or fifty, or a hundred minutes have been

more natural? We have sixty divisions on the dials of our watches simply

because the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who lived in the second century

B. C., accepted the Babylonian system of reckoning time, that system being

sexagesimal. The Babylonians knew the decimal system, but for practical

purposes they counted by _sossi_ and _sari_, the _sossos_ representing 60,

the _saros_ 60 × 60, or 3,600. From Hipparchus that system found its way

into the works of Ptolemy, about 150 A. D., and thence it was carried down

the stream of civilization, finding its last resting-place on the

dial-plates of our clocks.

And why are there twenty shillings to our sovereign? Again the real reason

lies in Babylon. The Greeks learnt from the Babylonians the art of

dividing gold and silver for the purpose of trade. It has been proved that

the current gold piece of Western Asia was exactly the sixtieth part of a

Babylonian _mnâ_, or _mina_. It was nearly equal to our sovereign. The

difficult problem of the relative value of gold and silver in a

bi-metallic currency had been solved to a certain extent in the ancient

Mesopotamian kingdom, the proportion between gold and silver being fixed

at 1 to 13-1/3. The silver shekel current in Babylon was heavier than the

gold shekel in the proportion of 13-1/3 to 10, and had therefore the value

of one tenth of a gold shekel; and the half silver shekel, called by the

Greeks a drachma, was worth one twentieth of a gold shekel. The drachma,

or half silver shekel, may therefore be looked upon as the most ancient

type of our own silver shilling in its relation of one twentieth of our

gold sovereign.(10)

I shall mention only one more of the most essential tools of our mental

life—namely, our _figures_, which we call Arabic, because we received them

from the Arabs, but which the Arabs called Indian, because they received

them from the Indians—in order to show you how this nineteenth century of

ours is under the sway of centuries long past and forgotten; how we are

what we are, not by ourselves, but by those who came before us, and how

the intellectual ground on which we stand is made up of the detritus of

thoughts which were first thought, not on these isles nor in Europe, but

on the shores of the Oxus, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Indus.

Now you may well ask, _Quorsum hæc omnia?_ What has all this to do with

freedom and with the free development of individuality? Because a man is

born the heir of all the ages, can it be said that he is not free to grow

and to expand, and to develop all the faculties of his mind? Are those who

came before him, and who left him this goodly inheritance, to be called

his enemies? Is that chain of tradition which connects him with the past

really a galling fetter, and not rather the leading-strings without which

he would never learn to walk straight?

Let us look at the matter more closely. No one would venture to say that

every individual should begin life as a young savage, and be left to form

his own language, and invent his own letters, numerals, and coins. On the

contrary, if we comprehend all this and a great deal more, such as

religion, morality, and secular knowledge, under the general name of

_education_, even the most advanced defenders of individualism would hold

that no child should enter society without submitting, or rather without

being submitted, to education. Most of us would even go farther, and make

it criminal for parents or even for communities to allow children to grow

up uneducated. The excuse of worthless parents that they are at liberty to

do with their children as they like, has at last been blown to the winds,

and among the principal advocates of compulsory education, and of the

necessity of curtailing the freedom of savage parents of savage children,

have been Mill and his friends, the apostles of liberty and

individualism.(11) I remember the time when pseudo-Liberals were not

ashamed to say that, whatever other nations, such as the Germans, might

do, England would never submit to compulsory education; but that

faint-hearted and mischievous cry has at last been silenced. A new era may

be said to date in the history of every nation from the day on which

“compulsory education” becomes part of its statute-book; and I may

congratulate the most Liberal town in England on having proved itself the

most inexorable tyrant in carrying it into effect.

But do not let us imagine that compulsory education is without its

dangers. Like a powerful engine, it must be carefully watched, if it is

not to produce, what all compulsion will produce, a slavish receptivity,

and, what all machines do produce, monotonous uniformity.

We know that all education must in the beginning be purely dogmatic.

Children are taught language, religion, morality, patriotism, and

afterwards, at school, history, literature, mathematics, and all the rest,

long before they are able to question, to judge, or choose for themselves,

and there is hardly anything that a child will not believe, if it comes

from those in whom the child believes.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic, no doubt, must be taught dogmatically,

and they take up an enormous amount of time, particularly in English

schools. English spelling is a national misfortune, and in the keen

international race among all the countries of Europe, it handicaps the

English child to a degree that seems incredible till we look at

statistics. I know the difficulties of a Spelling Reform, I know what

people mean when they call it impossible; but I also know that personal

and national virtue consists in doing so-called impossible things, and

that no nation has done, and has still to do, so many impossible things as

the English.

But, granted that reading, writing, and arithmetic occupy nearly the whole

school time and absorb the best powers of the pupils, cannot something be

done in play-hours? Is there not some work that can be turned into play,

and some play that can be turned into work? Cannot the powers of

observation be called out in a child while collecting flowers, or stones,

or butterflies? Cannot his judgment be strengthened either in gymnastic

exercises, or in measuring the area of a field or the height of a tower?

Might not all this be done without a view to examinations or payment by

results, simply for the sake of filling the little dull minds with one

sunbeam of joy, such sunbeams being more likely hereafter to call hidden

precious germs into life than the deadening weight of such lessons as, for

instance, that _th-ough_ is though, _thr-ough_ is through, _en-ough_ is

enough. A child who believes that will hereafter believe anything. Those

who wish to see Natural Science introduced into elementary schools

frighten school-masters by the very name of Natural Science. But surely

every school-master who is worth his salt should be able to teach children

a love of Nature, a wondering at Nature, a curiosity to pry into the

secrets of Nature, an acquisitiveness for some of the treasures of Nature,

and all this acquired in the fresh air of the field and the forest, where,

better than in frowzy lecture-rooms, the edge of the senses can be

sharpened, the chest widened, and that freedom of thought fostered which

made England what it was even before the days of compulsory education.

But in addressing you here to-night, it was my intention to speak of

higher rather than of elementary education.

All education—as it now exists in most countries of Europe—may be divided

into three stages—_elementary_, _scholastic_, and _academical_; or call it

_primary_, _secondary_, and _tertiary_.

Elementary education has at last been made compulsory in most civilized

countries. Unfortunately, however, it seems impossible to include under

compulsory education anything beyond the very elements of knowledge—at

least for the present; though I know from experience that, with proper

management, a well-conducted elementary school can afford to provide

instruction in extra subjects—such as natural science, modern languages,

and political economy—and yet, with the present system of government

grants, be self-supporting.(12)

The next stage above the elementary is _scholastic_ education, as it is

supplied in grammar schools, whether public or private. According as the

pupils are intended either to go on to a university, or to enter at once

on leaving school on the practical work of life, these schools are divided

into two classes. In the one class, which in Germany are called

_Realschulen_, less Latin is taught, and no Greek, but more of

mathematics, modern languages, and physical science; in the other, called

_Gymnasia_ on the Continent, classics form the chief staple of

instruction.

It is during this stage that education, whether at private or public

schools, exercises its strongest levelling influence. Little attention can

be paid at large schools to individual tastes or talents. In Germany—even

more, perhaps, than in England—it is the chief object of a good and

conscientious master to have his class as uniform as possible at the end

of the year; and he receives far more credit from the official examiner if

his whole class marches well and keeps pace together, than if he can

parade a few brilliant and forward boys, followed by a number of

straggling laggards.

And as to the character of the teaching at school, how can it be otherwise

than authoritative or dogmatic? The Sokratic method is very good if we can

find the _viri Socratici_ and leisure for discussion. But at school, which

now may seem to be called almost in mockery σχολή, or leisure, the true

method is, after all, that patronized by the great educators of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Boys at school must turn their mind

into a row of pigeon-holes, filling as many as they can with useful notes,

and never forgetting how many are empty. There is an immense amount of

positive knowledge to be acquired between the ages of ten and

eighteen—rules of grammar, strings of vocables, dates, names of towns,

rivers, and mountains, mathematical formulas, etc. All depends here on the

receptive and retentive powers of the mind. The memory has to be

strengthened, without being overtaxed, till it acts almost mechanically.

Learning by heart, I believe, cannot be too assiduously practised during

the years spent at school. There may have been too much of it when, as the

Rev. H. C. Adams informs us in his “Wykehamica” (p. 357), boys used to say

by heart 13,000 and 14,000 lines, when one repeated the whole of Virgil,

nay, when another was able to say the whole of the English Bible by rote:

“Put him on where you would, he would go fluently on, as long as any one

would listen.”

No intellectual investment, I feel certain, bears such ample and such

regular interest as gems of English, Latin, or Greek literature deposited

in the memory during childhood and youth, and taken up from time to time

in the happy hours of solitude.

One fault I have to find with most schools, both in England and on the

Continent. Boys do not read enough of the Greek and Roman classics. The

majority of our masters are scholars by profession, and they are apt to

lay undue stress on what they call accurate and minute scholarship, and to

neglect wide and cursory reading. I know the arguments for minute

accuracy, but I also know the mischief that is done by an exclusive

devotion to critical scholarship before we have acquired a real

familiarity with the principal works of classical literature. The time

spent in our schools in learning the rules of grammar and syntax, writing

exercises, and composing verses, is too large. Look only at our Greek and

Latin grammars, with all their rules and exceptions, and exceptions on

exceptions! It is too heavy a weight for any boy to carry; and no wonder

that when one of the thousand small rules which they have learnt by heart

is really wanted, it is seldom forthcoming. The end of classical teaching

at school should be to make our boys acquainted, not only with the

language, but with the literature and history, the ancient thought of the

ancient world. Rules of grammar, syntax, or metre, are but means towards

that end; they must never be mistaken for the end itself. A young man of

eighteen, who has probably spent on an average ten years in learning Greek

and Latin, ought to be able to read any of the ordinary Greek or Latin

classics without much difficulty; nay, with a certain amount of pleasure.

He might have to consult his dictionary now and then, or guess the meaning

of certain words; he might also feel doubtful sometime whether certain

forms came from ἵημι, I send, or εἶμι, I go, or εἰμί, I am, particularly

if preceded by prepositions. In these matters the best scholars are least

inclined to be pharisaical; and whenever I meet in the controversies of

classical scholars the favorite phrase, “Every school-boy knows, or ought

to know, this,” I generally say to myself, “No, he ought not.” Anyhow,

those who wish to see the study of Greek and Latin retained in our public

schools ought to feel convinced that it will certainly not be retained

much longer, if it can be said with any truth that young men who leave

school at eighteen are in many cases unable to read or to enjoy a

classical text, unless they have seen it before.

Classical teaching, and all purely scholastic teaching, ought to be

finished at school. When a young man goes to a University, unless he means

to make scholarship his profession, he ought to be free to enter upon a

new career. If he has not learnt by that time so much of Greek and Latin

as is absolutely necessary in after-life for a lawyer, or a student of

physical science, or even a clergyman, either he or his school is to

blame. I do not mean to say that it would not be most desirable for every

one during his University career to attend some lectures on classical

literature, on ancient history, philosophy, or art. What is to be

deprecated is, that the University should have to do the work which

belongs properly to the school.

The best colleges at Oxford and Cambridge have shown by their

matriculation examinations what the standard of classical knowledge ought

to be at eighteen or nineteen. That standard can be reached by boys while

still at school, as has been proved both by the so-called local

examinations, and by the examinations of schools held under the Delegates

appointed by the Universities. If, therefore, the University would

reassert her old right, and make the first examination, called at Oxford

Responsions, a general matriculation examination for admission to the

University, not only would the public schools be stimulated to greater

efforts, but the teaching of the University might assume, from the very

beginning, that academic character which ought to distinguish it from mere

school-boy work.

Academic teaching ought to be not merely a continuation, but in one sense

a correction of scholastic teaching. While at school instruction must be

chiefly dogmatic, at the University is it to be Sokratic? for I find no

better name for that method which is to set a man free from the burden of

purely traditional knowledge; to make him feel that the words which he

uses are often empty, that the concepts he employs are, for the most part,

mere bundles picked up at random; that even where he knows facts he does

not know the evidence for them; and where he expresses opinions, they are

mostly mere dogmas, adopted by him without examination.

But for the Universities, I should indeed fear that Mill’s prophecies

might come true, and that the intellect of Europe might drift into dreary

monotony. The Universities always have been, and, unless they are diverted

from their original purpose, always will be, the guardians of the freedom

of thought, the protectors of individual spontaneity; and it was owing, I

believe, to Mill’s want of acquaintance with true academic teaching that

he took so desponding a view of the generation growing up under his eyes.

When we leave school, our heads are naturally brimful of dogma—that is, of

knowledge and opinions at second-hand. Such dead knowledge is extremely

dangerous, unless it is sooner or later revived by the spirit of free

inquiry. It does not matter whether our scholastic dogmas be true or

false. The danger is the same. And why? Because to place either truth or

error above the reach of argument is certain to weaken truth and to

strengthen error. Secondly, because to hold as true on the authority of

others anything which concerns us deeply, and which we could prove

ourselves, produces feebleness, if not dishonesty. And, thirdly, because

to feel unwilling or unable to meet objections by argument is generally

the first step towards violence and persecution.

I do not think of religious dogmas only. They are generally the first to

rouse inquiry, even during our school-boy days, and they are by no means

the most difficult to deal with. Dogma often rages where we least expect

it. Among scientific men the theory of evolution is at present becoming,

or has become, a dogma. What is the result? No objections are listened to,

no difficulties recognized, and a man like Virchow, himself the strongest

supporter of evolution, who has the moral courage to say that the descent

of man from any ape whatsoever is, as yet, before the tribunal of

scientific zoölogy, “not proven,” is howled down in Germany in a manner

worthy of Ephesians and Galatians. But at present I am thinking not so

much of any special dogmas, but rather of that dogmatic state of mind

which is the almost inevitable result of the teaching at school. I think

of the whole intellect, what has been called the _intellectus sibi

permissus_, and I maintain it is the object of academic teaching to rouse

that intellect out of its slumber by questions not less startling than

when Galileo asked the world whether the sun was really moving and the

earth stood still; or when Kant asked whether time and space were objects,

or necessary forms of our sensuous intuition. Till our opinions have thus

been tested and stood the test, we can hardly call them our own.

How true this is with regard to religion has been boldly expressed by

Bishop Beveridge.

“Being conscious to myself,” he writes in his “Private Thoughts on

Religion,” “how great an ascendant Christianity holds over me beyond the

rest, as being that religion whereinto I was born and baptized; that which

the supreme authority has enjoined and my parents educated me in; that

which every one I meet withal highly approves of, and which I myself have,

by a long-continued profession, made almost natural to me: I am resolved

to be more jealous and suspicious of this religion than of the rest, and

be sure not to entertain it any longer without being convinced, by solid

and substantial arguments, of the truth and certainty of it.”

This is bold and manly language from a Bishop, nearly two hundred years

ago, and I certainly think that the time has come when some of the

divinity lecturers at Oxford and Cambridge might well be employed in

placing a knowledge of the sacred books of other religions within the

reach of undergraduates. Many of the difficulties—most of them of our own

making—with regard to the origin, the handing down, the later corruptions

and misinterpretations of sacred texts, would find their natural solution,

if it was shown how exactly the same difficulties arose and had to be

dealt with by theologians of other creeds. If some—aye, if many—of the

doctrines of Christianity were met with in other religions also, surely

that would not affect their value, or diminish their truth; while nothing,

I feel certain, would more effectually secure to the pure and simple

teaching of Christ its true place in the historical development of the

human mind than to place it side by side with the other religions of the

world. In the series of translations of the “Sacred Books of the East,” of

which the first three volumes have just appeared,(13) I wished myself to

include a new translation of the Old and New Testaments; and when that

series is finished it will, I believe, be admitted that nowhere would

these two books have had a grander setting, or have shone with a brighter

light, than surrounded by the Veda, the Zendavesta, the Buddhist

Tripi_t_aka, and the Qurân.

But as I said before, I was not thinking of religious dogmas only, or even

chiefly, when I maintained that the character of academic teaching must be

Sokratic, not dogmatic. The evil of dogmatic teaching lies much deeper,

and spreads much farther.

Think only of language, the work of other people, not of ourselves, which

we pick up at random in our race through life. Does not every word we use

require careful examination and revision? It is not enough to say that

language assists our thoughts or colors them, or possibly obscures them.

No language and thought are indivisible. It was not from poverty of

expression that the Greeks called reason and language by the same word,

λόγος. It was because they knew that, though we may distinguish between

thought and speech, as we distinguish between force and function, it is as

impossible to tear the one by violence away from the other as it is to

separate the concave side of a lens from its convex side. This is

something to learn and to understand, for, if, properly understood, will

it supply the key to most of our intellectual puzzles, and serve as the

safest thread through the whole labyrinth of philosophy.

“It is evident,” as Hobbes remarks,(14) “that truth and falsity have no

place but amongst such living creatures as use speech. For though some

brute creatures, looking upon the image of a man in a glass, may be

affected with it, as if it were the man himself, and for this reason fear

it or fawn upon it in vain; yet they do not apprehend it as true or false,

but only as like; and in this they are not deceived. Wherefore, as men owe

all their true ratiocination to the right understanding of speech, so also

they owe their errors to the misunderstanding of the same; and as all the

ornaments of philosophy proceed only from man, so from man also is derived

the ugly absurdity of false opinion. For speech has something in it like

to a spider’s web (as it was said of old of Solon’s laws), for by

contexture of words tender and delicate wits are ensnared or stopped, but

strong wits break easily through them.”

Let me illustrate my meaning by at least one instance.

Among the words which have proved spider’s webs, ensnaring even the

greatest intellects of the world from Aristotle down to Leibniz, the terms

_genus_, _species_, and _individual_ occupy a very prominent place. The

opposition of Aristotle to Plato, of the Nominalists to the Realists, of

Leibniz to Locke, of Herbart to Hegel, turns on the true meaning of these

words. At school, of course, all we can do is to teach the received

meaning of _genus_ and _species_; and if a boy can trace these terms back

to Aristotle’s γένος and εἶδος, and show in what sense that philosopher

used them, every examiner would be satisfied.

But the time comes when we have to act as our own examiners, and when we

have to give an account to ourselves of such words as _genus_ and

_species_. Some people write, indeed, as if they had seen a _species_ and

a _genus_ walking about in broad daylight; but a little consideration will

show us that these words express subjective concepts, and that, if the

whole world were silent, there would never have been a thought of a

_genus_ or a _species_. There are languages in which we look in vain for

corresponding words; and if we had been born in the atmosphere of such a

language, these terms and thoughts would not exist for us. They came to

us, directly or indirectly, from Aristotle. But Aristotle did not invent

them, he only defined them in his own way, so that, for instance,

according to him, all living beings would constitute a _genus_, men a

_species_, and Sokrates an _individual_.

No one would say that Aristotle had not a perfect right to define these

terms, if those who use them in his sense would only always remember that

they are thinking the thoughts of Aristotle, and not their own. The true

way to shake off the fetters of old words, and to learn to think our own

thoughts, is to follow them up from century to century, to watch their

development, and in the end to bring ourselves face to face with those who

first found and framed both words and thoughts. If we do this with _genus_

and _species_, we shall find that the words which Aristotle defined—viz.,

γένος and εἶδος—had originally a very different and far more useful

application than that which he gave to them. γένος, _genus_, meant

generation, and comprehended such living beings only as were believed to

have a common origin, however they might differ in outward appearance, as,

for instance, the spaniel and the bloodhound, or, according to Darwin, the

ape and the man. εἶδος, or species, on the contrary, meant appearance, and

comprehended all such things as had the same form or appearance, whether

they had a common origin or not, as if we were to speak of a species of

four-footed, two-footed, horned, winged, or blue animals.

That two such concepts, as we have here explained, had a natural

justification we may best learn from the fact that exactly the same

thoughts found expression in Sanskrit. There, too, we find _g_âti,

generation, used in the sense of _genus,_ and opposed to âk_ri_ti,

appearance, used in the sense of _species_.

So long as these two words or thoughts were used independently (much as we

now speak of a genealogical as independent of a morphological

classification) no harm could accrue. A family, for instance, might be

called a γένος, the _gens_ or clan was a γένος, the nation (_gnatio_) was

a γένος, the whole human kith and kin was a γένος; in fact, all that was

descended from common ancestors was a true γένος. There is no obscurity of

thought in this.

On the other side, taking εἶδος or species in its original sense, one man

might be said to be like another in his εἶδος or appearance. An ape, too,

might quite truly be said to have the same εἶδος or species or appearance

as a man, without any prejudice as to their common origin. People might

also speak of different εἴδη or forms or classes of things, such as

different kinds of metals, or tools, or armor, without committing

themselves in the least to any opinion as to their common descent.

Often it would happen that things belonging to the same εἶδος, such as the

white man and the negro, differed in their εἶδος or appearance; often also

that things belonged to the same εἶδος, such as eatables, differed in

their γένος, as, for instance, meat and vegetables.

All this is clear and simple. The confusion began when these two terms,

instead of being coördinate, were subordinated to each other by the

philosophers of Greece, so that what from one point of view was called a

_genus_, might from another be called a species, and _vice versâ_. Human

beings, for instance, were now called a _species_, all living beings a

_genus_, which may be true in logic, but is utterly false in what is older

than logic—viz., language, thought, or fact. According to language,

according to reason, and according to nature, all human beings constitute

a γένος, or generation, so long as they are supposed to have common

ancestors; but with regard to all living beings we can only say that they

form an εἶδος—that is, agree in certain appearances, until it has been

proved that even Mr. Darwin was too modest in admitting at least four or

five different ancestors for the whole animal world.(15)

In tracing the history of these two words, γένος and εἶδος, you may see

passing before your eyes almost the whole panorama of philosophy, from

Plato’s "ideas" down to Hegel’s _Idee_. The question of _genera_, their

origin and subdivision, occupied chiefly the attention of natural

philosophers, who, after long controversies about the origin and

classification of _genera_ and _species_, seem at last, thanks to the

clear sight of Darwin, to have arrived at the old truth which was

prefigured in language—namely, that Nature knows nothing but _genera_, or

generations, to be traced back to a limited number of ancestors, and that

the so-called _species_ are only _genera_, whose genealogical descent is

_as yet_ more or less obscure.

But the question as to the nature of the εἶδος became a vital question in

every system of philosophy. Granting, for instance, that women in every

clime and country formed one species, it was soon asked what constituted a

species? If all women shared a common form, what was that form? Where was

it? So long as it was supposed that all women descended from Eve, the

difficulty might be slurred over by the name of heredity. But the more

thoughtful would ask even then how it was that, while all individual women

came and went and vanished, the form in which they were cast remained the

same?

Here you see how philosophical mythology springs up. The very question

what εἶδος or species or form was, and where these things were kept,

changed those words from predicates into subjects. εἶδος was conceived as

something independent and substantial, something within or above the

individuals participating in it, something unchangeable and eternal. Soon

there arose as many εἴδη or forms or types as there were general concepts.

They were considered the only true realities of which the phenomenal world

is only as a shadow that soon passeth away. Here we have, in fact, the

origin of Plato’s ideas, and of the various systems of idealism which

followed his lead, while the opposite opinion that ideas have no

independent existence, and that the one is nowhere found except in the

many (τὸ ἕν παρὰ τὰ πολλά), was strenuously defended by Aristotle and his

followers.(16)

The same red thread runs through the whole philosophy of the Middle Ages.

Men were cited before councils and condemned as heretics because they

declared that _animal_, _man_, or _woman_ were mere names, and that they

could not bring themselves to believe in an ideal animal, an ideal man, an

ideal woman as the invisible, supernatural, or metaphysical types of the

ordinary animal, the individual man, the single woman. Those philosophers,

called _Nominalists_, in opposition to the _Realists_, declared that all

general terms were _names only_, and that nothing could claim reality but

the individual.

We cannot follow this controversy farther, as it turns up again between

Locke and Leibniz, between Herbart and Hegel. Suffice it to say that the

knot, as it was tied by language, can be untied by the science of language

alone, which teaches us that there is and can be no such thing as “a name

only.” That phrase ought to be banished from all works on philosophy. A

name is and always has been the subjective side of our knowledge, but that

subjective side is as impossible without an objective side as a key is

without a lock. It is useless to ask which of the two is the more real,

for they are real only by being, not two, but one. Realism is as one-sided

as Nominalism. But there is a higher Nominalism, which might better be

called the Science of Language, and which teaches us that, apart from

sensuous perception, all human knowledge is by names and by names only,

and that the object of names is always the general.

This is but one out of hundreds and thousands of cases to show how names

and concepts which come to us by tradition must be submitted to very

careful snuffing before they will yield a pure light. What I mean by

academic teaching and academic study is exactly this process of snuffing,

this changing of traditional words into living words, this tracing of

modern thought back to ancient primitive thought, this living, as it were,

once more, so far as it concerns us, the whole history of human thought

ourselves, till we are as little afraid to differ from Plato or Aristotle

as from Comte or Darwin.

Plato and Aristotle are, no doubt, great names; every school-boy is awed

by them, even though he may have read very little of their writings. This,

too, is a kind of dogmatism that requires correction. Now, at his

University, a young student might chance to hear the following, by no

means respectful, remarks about Aristotle, which I copy from one of the

greatest English scholars and philosophers: “There is nothing so absurd

that the old philosophers, as Cicero saith, who was one of them, have not

some of them maintained; and I believe that scarce anything can be more

absurdly said in natural philosophy than that which now is called

Aristotle’s Metaphysics; or more repugnant to government than much of that

he hath said in his Politics; nor more ignorantly than a great part of his

Ethics.” I am far from approving this judgment, but I think that the shock

which a young scholar receives on seeing his idols so mercilessly broken

is salutary. It throws him back on his own resources; it makes him honest

to himself. If he thinks the criticism thus passed on Aristotle unfair, he

will begin to read his works with new eyes. He will not only construe his

words, but try to reconstruct in his own mind the thoughts so carefully

elaborated by that ancient philosopher. He will judge of their truth

without being swayed by the authority of a great name, and probably in the

end value what is valuable in Aristotle, or Plato, or any other great

philosopher far more highly and honestly than if he had never seen them

trodden under foot.

Do not suppose that I look upon the Universities as purely iconoclastic,

as chiefly intended to teach us how to break the idols of the schools. Far

from it! But I do look upon them as meant to supply a fresher atmosphere

than we breathed at school, and to shake our mind to its very roots, as a

storm shakes the young oaks, not to throw them down, but to make them

grasp all the more firmly the hard soil of fact and truth! “_Stand upright

on thy feet_” ought to be written over the gate of every college, if the

epidemic of uniformity and sequacity which Mill saw approaching from

China, and which since his time has made such rapid progress Westward, is

ever to be stayed.

Academic freedom is not without its dangers; but there are dangers which

it is safer to face than to avoid. In Germany—so far as my own experience

goes—students are often left too much to themselves, and it is only the

cleverest among them, or those who are personally recommended, who receive

from the professors that individual guidance and encouragement which

should and could be easily extended to all.

There is too much time spent in the German Universities in mere lecturing,

and often in simply retailing to a class what each student might read in

books in a far more perfect form. Lectures are useful if they teach us how

to teach ourselves; if they stimulate; if they excite sympathy and

curiosity; if they give advice that springs from personal experience; if

they warn against wrong roads; if, in fact, they have less the character

of a show-window than of a workshop. Half an hour’s conversation with a

tutor or a professor often does more than a whole course of lectures in

giving the right direction and the right spirit to a young man’s studies.

Here I may quote the words of Professor Helmholtz, in full agreement with

him. “When I recall the memory of my own University life,” he writes, “and

the impression which a man like Johannes Müller, the professor of

physiology, made on us, I must set the highest value on the personal

intercourse with teachers from whom one learns how thought works in

independent heads. Whoever has come in contact but once with one or

several first-class men will find his intellectual standard changed for

life.”

In English Universities, on the contrary, there is too little of academic

freedom. There is not only guidance, but far too much of constant personal

control. It is often thought that English undergraduates could not be

trusted with that amount of academic freedom which is granted to German

students, and that most of them, if left to choose their own work, their

own time, their own books, and their own teachers, would simply do

nothing. This seems to me unfair and untrue. Most horses, if you take them

to the water, will drink; and the best way to make them drink is to leave

them alone. I have lived long enough in English and in German Universities

to know that the intellectual fibre is as strong and sound in the English

as in the German youth. But if you supply a man, who wishes to learn

swimming, with bladders—nay, if you insist on his using them—he will use

them, but he will probably never learn to swim. Take them away, on the

contrary, and depend on it, after a few aimless strokes and a few painful

gulps, he will use his arms and his legs, and he will swim. If young men

do not learn to use their arms, their legs, their muscles, their senses,

their brain, and their heart too, during the bright years of their

University life, when are they to learn it? True, there are thousands who

never learn it, and who float happily on through life buoyed up on mere

bladders. The worst that can happen to them is that some day the bladders

may burst, and they may be left stranded or drowned. But these are not the

men whom England wants to fight her battles. It has often been pointed out

of late that many of those who during this century have borne the brunt of

the battle in the intellectual warfare in England, have not been trained

at our Universities, while others who have been at Oxford and Cambridge,

and have distinguished themselves in after life, have openly declared that

they attended hardly any lectures in college, or that they derived no

benefit from them. What can be the ground of that? Not that there is less

work done at Oxford than at Leipzig, but that the work is done in a

different spirit. It is free in Germany; it has now become almost

compulsory in England. Though an old professor myself, I like to attend,

when I can, some of the professorial lectures in Germany; for it is a real

pleasure to see hundreds of young faces listening to a teacher on the

history of art, on modern history, on the science of language, or on

philosophy, without any view to examinations, simply from love of the

subject or of the teacher. No one who knows what the real joy of learning

is, how it lightens all drudgery and draws away the mind from mean

pursuits, can see without indignation that what ought to be the freest and

happiest years in a man’s life should often be spent between cramming and

examinations.

And here I have at last mentioned the word, which to many friends of

academic freedom, to many who dread the baneful increase of uniformity,

may seem the cause of all mischief, the most powerful engine for

intellectual levelling—_Examination_.

There is a strong feeling springing up everywhere against the tyranny of

examinations, against the cramping and withering influence which they are

supposed to exercise on the youth of England. I cannot join in that

outcry. I well remember that the first letters which I ventured to address

to the _Times_, in very imperfect English, were in favor of examinations.

They were signed _La Carrière ouverte_, and were written before the days

of the Civil Service Commission! I well remember, too, that the first time

I ventured to speak, or rather to stammer, in public, was in favor of

examinations. That was in 1857, at Exeter, when the first experiment was

made, under the auspices of Sir T. Acland, in the direction of what has

since developed into the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations. I have

been an examiner myself for many years, I have watched the growth of that

system in England from year to year, and, in spite of all that has been

said and written of late against it, I confess I do not see how it would

be possible to abolish it, and return to the old system of appointment by

patronage.

But though I have not lost my faith in examinations, I cannot conceal the

fact that I am frightened by the manner in which they are conducted, and

by the results which they produce. As you are interested yourselves at

this Midland Institute in the successful working of examinations, you will

perhaps allow me in conclusion to add a few remarks on the safeguards

necessary for the efficient working of examinations.

All examinations are a means to ascertain how pupils have been taught;

they ought never to be allowed to become the end for which pupils are

taught. Teaching with a view to them lowers the teacher in the eyes of his

pupils; learning with a view to them is apt to produce shallowness and

dishonesty.

Whatever attractions learning possesses in itself, and whatever efforts

were formerly made by boys at school from a sense of duty, all this is

lost if they once imagine that the highest object of all learning is to

gain marks in a competition.

In order to maintain the proper relation between teacher and pupil, all

pupils should be made to look to their teachers as their natural examiners

and fairest judges, and therefore in every examination the report of the

teacher ought to carry the greatest weight. This is the principle followed

abroad in examining candidates at public schools; and even in their

examination on leaving school, which gives them the right to enter the

University, they know that their success depends far more on the work

which they have done during the years at school, than on the work done on

the few days of their examination. There are outside examiners appointed

by Government to check the work done at schools and during the

examinations; but the cases in which they have to modify or reverse the

award of the master are extremely rare, and they are felt to reflect

seriously on the competency or impartiality of the school authorities.

To leave examinations entirely to strangers reduces them to the level of

lotteries, and fosters a cleverness in teachers and taught often akin to

dishonesty. An examiner may find out what a candidate knows _not_, he can

hardly ever find out all he knows; and even if he succeeds in finding out

_how much_ a candidate knows, he can seldom find out _how_ he knows it. On

these points the opinion of the masters who have watched their pupils for

years is indispensable for the sake of the examiner, for the sake of the

pupils, and for the sake of their teachers.

I know I shall be told that it would be impossible to trust the masters,

and to be guided by their opinion, because they are interested parties.

Now, first of all, there are far more honest men in the world than

dishonest, and it does not answer to legislate as if all school-masters

were rogues. It is enough that they should know that their reports would

be scrutinized, to keep even the most reprobate of teachers from bearing

false witness in favor of their pupils.

Secondly, I believe that unnecessary temptation is now being placed before

all parties concerned in examinations. The proper reward for a good

examination should be honor, not pounds, shillings, and pence. The

mischief done by pecuniary rewards offered in the shape of scholarships

and exhibitions at school and University, begins to be recognized very

widely. To train a boy of twelve for a race against all England is

generally to overstrain his faculties, and often to impair his usefulness

in later life; but to make him feel that by his failure he will entail on

his father the loss of a hundred a year, and on his teacher the loss of

pupils, is simply cruel at that early age.

It is said that these scholarships and exhibitions enable the sons of poor

parents to enjoy the privilege of the best education in England, from

which they would otherwise be debarred by the excessive costliness of our

public schools. But even this argument, strong as it seems, can hardly

stand, for I believe it could be shown that the majority of those who are

successful in obtaining scholarships and exhibitions at school or at the

University are boys whose parents have been able to pay the highest price

for their children’s previous education. If all these prizes were

abolished, and the funds thus set free used to lessen the price of

education at school and in college, I believe that the sons of poor

parents would be far more benefited than by the present system. It might

also be desirable to lower the school fees in the case of the sons of poor

parents, who were doing well at school from year to year; and, in order to

guard against favoritism, an examination, particularly _vivâ voce_, before

all the masters of a school, possibly even with some outside examiner,

might be useful. But the present system bids fair to degenerate into mere

horse-racing, and I shall not wonder if, sooner or later, the two-year

olds entered for the race have to be watched by their trainer that they

may not be overfed or drugged against the day of the race. It has come to

this, that schools are bidding for clever boys in order to run them in the

races, and in France, I read, that parents actually extort money from

schools by threatening to take away the young racers that are likely to

win the Derby.(17)

If we turn from the schools to the Universities we find here, too, the

same complaints against over-examination. Now it seems to me that every

University, in order to maintain its position, has a perfect right to

demand two examinations, but no more: one for admission, the other for a

degree. Various attempts have been made in Germany, in Russia, in France,

and in England to change and improve the old academic tradition, but in

the end the original, and, as it would seem, the natural system, has

generally proved its wisdom and reasserted its right.

If a University surrenders the right of examining those who wish to be

admitted, the tutors will often have to do the work of school-masters, and

the professors can never know how high or how low they should aim in their

public lectures; and the result will be a lowering of the standard at the

Universities, and consequently at the public schools. Some Universities,

on the contrary, like over-anxious mothers, have multiplied examinations

so as to make quite sure, at the end of each term or each year, that the

pupils confided to them have done at least some work. This kind of forced

labor may do some good to the incorrigibly idle, but it does the greatest

harm to all the rest. If there is an examination at the end of each year,

there can be no freedom left for any independent work. Both teachers and

taught will be guided by the same pole-star—examinations; no deviation

from the beaten track will be considered safe, and all the pleasure

derived from work done for its own sake, and all the just pride and joy,

which those only know who have ever ventured out by themselves on the open

sea of knowledge, must be lost.

We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the brilliant show of

examination papers.

It is certainly marvellous what an amount of knowledge candidates will

produce before their examiners; but those who have been both examined and

examiners know best how fleeting that knowledge often is, and how

different from that other knowledge which has been acquired slowly and

quietly, for its own sake, for our own sake, without a thought as to

whether it would ever pay at examinations or not. A candidate, after

giving most glibly the dates and the titles of the principal works of

Cobbett, Gibbon, Burke, Adam Smith, and David Hume, was asked whether he

had ever seen any of their writings, and he had to answer, No. Another who

was asked which of the works of Pheidias he had seen, replied that he had

only read the first two books. This is the kind of dishonest knowledge

which is fostered by too frequent examinations. There are two kinds of

knowledge, the one that enters into our very blood, the other which we

carry about in our pockets. Those who read for examinations have generally

their pockets cram full; those who work on quietly and have their whole

heart in their work are often discouraged at the small amount of their

knowledge, at the little life-blood they have made. But what they have

learnt has really become their own, has invigorated their whole frame, and

in the end they have often proved the strongest and happiest men in the

battle of life.

Omniscience is at present the bane of all our knowledge. From the day he

leaves school and enters the University a man ought to make up his mind

that in many things he must either remain altogether ignorant, or be

satisfied with knowledge at second-hand. Thus only can he clear the decks

for action. And the sooner he finds out what his own work is to be, the

more useful and delightful will be his life at the University and later.

There are few men who have a passion for all knowledge; there is hardly

one who has not a hobby of his own. Those so-called hobbies ought to be

utilized, and not, as they are now, discouraged, if we wish our

Universities to produce more men like Faraday, Carlyle, Grote, or Darwin.

I do not say that in an examination for a University degree a minimum of

what is now called general culture should not be insisted on; but in

addition to that, far more freedom ought to be given to the examiner to

let each candidate produce his own individual work. This is done to a far

greater extent in Continental than in English Universities, and the

examinations are therefore mostly confided to the members of the _Senatus

Academicus_, consisting of the most experienced teachers, and the most

eminent representatives of the different branches of knowledge in the

University. Their object is not to find out how many marks each candidate

may gain by answering a larger or smaller number of questions, and then to

place them in order before the world like so many organ pipes. They want

to find out whether a man, by the work he has done during his three or

four University years, has acquired that vigor of thought, that maturity

of judgment, and that special knowledge, which fairly entitle him to an

academic degree, with or without special honors. Such a degree confers no

material advantages;(18) it does not entitle its holder to any employment

in Church or State; it does not vouch even for his being a fit person to

be made an Archbishop or Prime Minister. All this is left to the later

struggle for life; and in that struggle it seems as if those who, after

having surveyed the vast field of human knowledge, have settled on a few

acres of their own and cultivated them as they were never cultivated

before, who have worked hard and have tasted the true joy and happiness of

hard work, who have gladly listened to others, but always depended on

themselves, were, after all, the men whom great nations delighted to

follow as their royal leaders in the onward march towards greater

enlightenment, greater happiness, and greater freedom.

To sum up, no one can read Mill’s Essay “On Liberty” at the present moment

without feeling that even during the short period of the last twenty years

the cause which he advocated so strongly and passionately, the cause of

individual freedom, has made rapid progress—aye, has carried the day. In

no country _may_ a man be so entirely himself, so true to himself, and yet

loyal to society, as in England.

But, although the enemy whose encroachments Mill feared most and resented

most has been driven back and forced to keep within his own bounds—though

such names as Dissenter and Nonconformist, which were formerly used in

society as fatal darts, seem to have lost all the poison which they once

contained—Mill’s principal fears have nevertheless not been belied, and

the blight of uniformity which he saw approaching with its attendant evils

of feebleness, indifference, and sequacity, has been spreading more widely

than ever.

It has ever been maintained that the very freedom which every individual

now enjoys has been detrimental to the growth of individuality; that you

must have an Inquisition if you want to see martyrs, that you must have

despotism and tyranny to call forth heroes. The very measures which the

friends of individual development advocated so warmly, compulsory

education and competitive examinations, are pointed out as having chiefly

contributed to produce that large array of pass-men, that dead level of

uninteresting excellence, which is the _beau idéal_ of a Chinese Mandarin,

while it frightened and disheartened such men as Humboldt, Tocqueville,

and John Stuart Mill himself.

There may be some truth in all this, but it is certainly not the whole

truth. Education, as it has to be carried on, whether in elementary or in

public schools, is no doubt a heavy weight which might well press down the

most independent spirit; it is, in fact, neither more nor less than

placing, in a systematized form, on the shoulders of every generation the

ever-increasing mass of knowledge, experience, custom, and tradition that

has been accumulated by former generations. We need not wonder, therefore,

if in some schools all spring, all vigor, all joyousness of work is

crushed out under that load of names and dates, of anomalous verbs and

syntactic rules, of mathematical formulas and geometrical theories which

boys are expected to bring up for competitive examinations.

But a remedy has been provided, and we are ourselves to blame if we do not

avail ourselves of it to the fullest extent. Europe erected its

Universities, and called them the homes of the Liberal Arts, and

determined that between the mental slavery of the school and the physical

slavery of busy life every man should have at least three years of

freedom. What Sokrates and his great pupil Plato had done for the youth of

Greece,(19) these new academies were to do for the youth of Italy, France,

England, Spain, and Germany; and, though with varying success, they have

done it. The mediæval and modern Universities have been from century to

century the homes of free thought. Here the most eminent men have spent

their lives, not in retailing traditional knowledge, as at school, but in

extending the frontiers of science in all directions. Here, in close

intercourse with their teachers, or under their immediate guidance,

generation after generation of boys fresh from school have grown up into

men during the three years of their academic life. Here, for the first

time, each man has been encouraged to dare to be himself, to follow his

own tastes, to depend on his own judgment, to try the wings of his mind,

and, lo, like young eagles thrown out of their nest, they could fly. Here

the old knowledge accumulated at school was tested, and new knowledge

acquired straight from the fountain-head. Here knowledge ceased to be a

mere burden, and became a power invigorating the whole mind, like snow

which during winter lies cold and heavy on the meadows, but when it is

touched by the sun of spring melts away, and fertilizes the ground for a

rich harvest.

That was the original purpose of the Universities; and the more they

continue to fulfil that purpose, the more will they secure to us that real

freedom from tradition, from custom, from mere opinion and superstition,

which can be gained by independent study only; the more will they foster

that “human development in its richest diversity” which Mill, like

Humboldt, considered as the highest object of all society.

Such academic teaching need not be confined to the old Universities. There

is many a great University that sprang from smaller beginnings than your

Midland Institute. Nor is it necessary, in order to secure the real

benefits of academic teaching, to have all the paraphernalia of a

University, its colleges and fellowships, its caps and gowns. What is

really wanted is the presence of men who, having done good work in their

life, are willing to teach others how to work for themselves, how to think

for themselves, how to judge for themselves. That is the true academic

stage in every man’s life, when he learns to work, not to please others,

be they schoolmasters or examiners, but to please himself, when he works

from sheer love of work, and for the highest of all purposes, the quest of

truth. Those only who have passed through that stage know the real

blessings of work. To the world at large they may seem mere drudges—but

the world does not know the triumphant joy with which the true

mountaineer, high above clouds and mountain walls that once seemed

unsurpassable, drinks in the fresh air of the High Alps, and away from the

fumes, the dust, and the noises of the city, revels alone, in freedom of

thought, in freedom of feeling, and in the freedom of the highest faith.