JOHN LOCKE
(1632-1704)
When the second greatest educational work in the seventeenth century
appeared in 1693, the world was only a generation and a half older
than when it saw the “Great Didactic.” While we find in Comenius
a strange mixture of mediæval and modern thinking, Locke’s “Some
Thoughts concerning Education” reflects entirely modern conceptions and
tendencies. But the differences between the two works are not wholly
due to the difference of the times; they are due more to that of the
men themselves and their nationalities.
Though born a Slav, Comenius represents, in his personality and
pedagogy, the idealistic and theorizing genius of the German nation.
Locke, on the contrary, is a typical Englishman, and perfectly embodies
the practical genius of that people. Compare the titles of the two
books referred to above. How elaborate and ornate is the one and
how homely the other! One might compare the former to a great piece
of architecture, built up stone by stone with exactness of sequence
and plan. Every detail is manifestly studied and follows a scheme
previously laid out. The latter, on the contrary, is like a painting,
or a work of artisanship, if you please. There is the design, unity and
harmony, but these lie in the artist’s experience or mental make-up,
and develop themselves as he moves his hand. Comenius’s pedagogy starts
with the highest ideal of humanity, and then proceeds to consider how
each and all can be made to conform to it. His plans and practical
recommendations are also, in general, more of deductions from his
basal hypothesis or philosophy than inductions from the considerations
of the actual conditions and problems. With Locke the procedure
is very different: a particular boy concerning whose education he
was consulted is the starting-point. This boy has to grow up in a
particular age, environment, and social class, and must be fitted to
all these actual conditions. Not the ultimate end of the race, but the
particular destiny of a real boy, his mentality, the best educative
forces conducing to the possibly perfect fulfillment of his destiny,
are to be the chief considerations. Comenius was a practical as well as
theoretical reformer in education, but he was, above all, a scholarly
priest, probably the best type that his age could produce. Locke was
a great original thinker, the father of English psychology. But he
was, essentially, and in its highest sense, a man of the world. In
spite of his physical weakness, which hindered him from an active
participation in the social and political affairs of his country, he
was always concerned and identified with them. Thus the Christian
citizenship at which he aimed was not a gazing from the stepladder of
this earthly life toward the distant vision of heavenly perfection, but
a vigorous, efficient, working and living with others as a child of
this world. There is no bold brilliancy in his educational thoughts,
but they are full of living truths which come only from the actual
broad experience of life, and so can be applied to real life. There is
in them no soaring transcendentalism. Yet if we intelligently follow
his leadership, we shall find that it does not lack a glow of idealism
which can illumine our earthly path. It is a sound philosophy of a
sound personality who has seen the wide living world with his own eyes,
and expressed his views with the scrupulous conscientiousness and the
sincerity of conviction--a perfect product of great common sense.
Leibniz, the great German philosopher, who recognized Locke’s Essay on
“Human Understanding,” as “one of the most beautiful and most esteemed
work” of his time, was disposed to rate his “Thoughts on Education”
still higher. Even to-day, after we have become familiar with a host
of great and modern thinkers, he finds such an admirer as Professor
Laurie, of Edinburgh, who thinks “that no educational writer surpasses
him.” Rousseau’s indebtedness to him is a well-known fact, and through
Rousseau his influence extends to the whole continental development
of educational thought down to the present day. As to the wide and
deep effect which his thought directly exerted upon England there can
be no question. Oscar Browning, of Cambridge, believes that Locke’s
ideas “determine the character of our most characteristic educational
institution, the English public school” (2: p. 118). And yet Locke had
little interest in the public school of his day. England produced in
him her ideal type of a gentleman, and he, as the incarnation of her
genius, has formed the gentlemen of England.
Thus, the two greatest educational writers of the seventeenth century,
standing at the fountainhead of the pedagogical stream of the modern
era, present a very interesting contrast, which is not insignificant
in its effects. If one is the harbinger of the idealistic and the
theorizing pedagogy of the German type, the other is the champion of
the realistic and empirical school of the English type. A religious
tendency predominates in the former, a secular tendency in the latter.
If Comenius may be called the pedagogue of public education, Locke is
to be called that of private education. In the former, the emphasis
is on the order, system, and method; in the latter, the stress is
laid on the personal influence of the educator. While in the former,
instruction is the main thing; in the latter, discipline and training
are essential.
If we are justified in thinking that the intellectual side of the
Renaissance attained its true destiny in the Baconian conception of
science and its principles, so we might say with equal validity that
the practical genius of the ancient Greeks and Romans blossomed again
in Locke in the new soil of Christian consciousness. In spite of his
sharing with Bacon a strong intolerance of the prevailing humanistic,
classical education, it is evident that he imbibed deeply the spirit
of ancient culture. He once admitted that “amongst the _Grecians_
is to be found the original, as it were, and foundation of all that
learning which we have in this part of the world,” and “no man,” he
held, “can pass for a scholar that is ignorant of the Greek tongue” (7:
p. 170). Thus, Sparta’s example of building up a vigorous physique and
character in her youth through hard discipline, of inculcating wisdom
through free conversation with older people, Pythagoras’s teaching of
the harmony of body and soul, Socrates’s fidelity to truth and unbiased
attitude of mind, Plato’s exaltation of virtue above all things,
Aristotle’s ideal of a perfectly balanced life, regulated by reason,
the Roman fidelity, patriotism, and statesmanship,--these together
with the true spirit of Christianity flowed into his life and into
his philosophy of education. Locke had, like every other reformer,
his predecessors, such as Rabelais and Montaigne. But what was in
them, mainly mockery and ridicule of the current education, became in
Locke more positive and more comprehensive assertion. His philosophy
of education was grounded on his new empirical psychology, which was,
after Bacon, the next great stimulus to the intellectual activity of
the world.
With the Montaignean dictum: “A sound mind in a sound body,” Locke
begins his Thoughts on Education. This is, he says, “a short but full
description of a happy state in this world--he that has these two, has
little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be but
little the better for anything else” (7: p. 1). For Locke, the art
of education was synonymous with the art of hygiene in its broadest
sense--i. e., the formation and the maintenance of a healthful life,
mental and moral as well as physical. How can we form such a healthful
life? His answer is simple: By accustoming ourselves to a healthy mode
of living. Habituation is the keynote of his whole pedagogy.
Although the human body was conceived by him still as “the clay
cottage” of the mind, yet he wanted us to understand “how necessary
_Health_ is to our business and happiness, and how requisite a
strong constitution, able to endure hardship and fatigue” (7: p. 2). So
he began his treatise with the physical care of the child. A simple,
rigorous life was his ideal, and so he prescribed the following rules
for children: Plenty of open air, of exercise, and of sleep; plain
diet, no wine or strong drink, and very little or no drugs; not too
warm or straight clothing; the head and feet especially to be kept
cold, and the feet to be accustomed by exposure to wetness. Locke
studied medicine, and once practiced it with much success. And the
hygienic rules above cited, which were the result of his own experience
and experimentation, introduced almost a revolution in the physical
bringing up of children. We see how subsequent writers, like Rousseau
and Kant, reflect his thoughts.
His ideas of mental training rest on his theory of the mind. According
to him, the mind of a new-born child is a _tabula rasa_: there is
nothing innate in it; experience is what makes a mind. Every sensation
one receives or every act one does, however small and insignificant
it may seem, leaves some impression upon it, and contributes not only
to the constitution of its content, but also to the formation of a
definite tendency. He recognized the important rôle played by the
unconscious or automatic part of the mind in our actual life, which is
nothing more than an aggregate or a system of various habits. Volition
has but little power against it; it works more “constantly and with
greater facility than reason, which, when we have most need of it,
is seldom fairly consulted and more rarely obeyed” (7: p. 91). Habit
formation is, therefore, the great thing in education. The significance
of any act of a child, of any educational process, is to be measured
only by what kind of habit it is likely to lead to.
Although he compared children’s minds to water which we can easily
turn this way or that, or to wax upon which we can impress any figure
as we like, yet he meant to illustrate by this simply the extreme
plasticity and flexibility of childhood. He was not blind to the
great individual differences, and was perfectly aware that “there are
possibly scarce two children who can be conducted by exactly the same
method” (7: p. 187). Moreover, he says: “We must not hope wholly to
change their original tempers, nor make the gay pensive and grave, nor
the melancholy sportive, without spoiling them; God has stamped certain
characters upon men’s minds which, like their shapes, may perhaps be a
little mended, but can hardly be totally alter’d and transformed into
the contrary” (7: p. 40). The uniformatization of method, then, is a
crime of educational art instead of its aim. The only common rule to
be fixed is not to have any definite rule, but to find out about every
child, what his temperament, inclinations, defects are, and apply
methods or treatment that are “adapted to his capacity” and “suited to
his natural genius and constitution.”
In discussing the process of discipline, he first makes a plea for
the free expression of the play instinct. “This gamesome humour,” he
says, “which is wisely adapted by Nature to their age and temper should
rather be encourag’d to keep up their spirits, and improve strength
and health, than curb’d or restrain’d” (7: p. 38). A “misapply’d and
useless correction” in this case may serve “only to spoil the temper
both of body and of mind.” Our hope of education will be gone if we
kill this tendency to spontaneous activity at its growth. For here is
just the point of grasp by which alone we can lead children anywhere we
desire. “The chief art of the educator is to make all that they have to
do sport and play, too.” (7: p. 38).
Shall we then put no restraint whatever upon their conduct? No, far
from that. Locke insists that even “the plays and diversions of
children should be directed towards good and useful habits or else
they will introduce ill ones” (7: p. 113). He demands a stern and
rigorous discipline, and accuses parents of weakening their little
ones by too much fondling. Children ought not to be allowed to satisfy
a craving which comes from their whims and fancies and not from their
natural wants. They ought to learn the control of their passions and
appetites from their cradles, and so be kept in absolute subjection to
the parents’ authority while their own reason is not yet developed.
Their instinctive sense of awe should be utilized and obedience be
made implicit and natural. But as they grow up, more liberty should be
allowed, and friendliness, love, and even respect should take the place
of authority.
Nevertheless, Locke does not believe in severe punishment. “The usual
lazy and short way by chastisement and rod,” he thinks, encourages
“our natural propensity to indulge in corporeal and present pleasure
and to avoid pain at any cost,” instead of conducing to its mastery,
and “thereby strengthens that in us which is the root from whence
spring all vicious actions, and the irregularities of life” (7:
p. 30). Again, “such a sort of _slavish Discipline_ makes a
_slavish Temper_” (7: p. 31). It creates a hypocrite who
dissembles obedience, yet with his natural inclination only heightened
and increased on account of external suppression. It creates “a
low-spirited, moped creature, who, however, with his unnatural sobriety
may please silly people, who commend tame inactive children, because
they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet, at last, will
probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he will be
all his life as useless a thing to himself and others” (7: p. 31). It
severs a child from the parent or the teacher who administers it, and
causes disgust for work when applied for its enforcement. But in case
of lying and obstinacy, which he considered as the two grave moral
faults issuing from the conscious volition of the child, Locke allows
and even advises us to resort to severe measures, in order to check
them at their first manifestation. Here the rod should be heavy and
unswerving, and not laid down until it has brought the child’s will
into a complete subjugation. But he thinks that if we keep our strict
hand constantly over the unnatural desires of the child, from its
cradle, and at the same time give a full freedom to its natural wants
and activities, we shall seldom find an occasion which calls for the
rod.
Material rewards are equally condemned by Locke as the physical
punishment. He admits, however, that pain and pleasure, reward and
punishment, are “the only motives to a rational creature,” “the spur
and reins whereby all mankind are set to work and guided.” “Remove hope
and fear, and there is an end of all discipline” (7: p. 33). What he
wished, was to accustom children to connect their hope and fear, pain
and pleasure, with proper objects, in such a way as not to form those
habits which are detrimental to their future happiness and virtue.
There is a force or motive power in human life equally strong or even
stronger than material, physical pain and pleasure. It is the sense
of honor, the desire for esteem and the hate of disgrace. This shall
be used as the lever to move the young. “Make his mind as sensible of
credit and shame as may be; and when you have done that, you have put
a principle into him which will influence his actions when you are not
by; to which the fear of a little smart of a rod is not comparable;
and which will be the proper stock whereon afterwards to graft the
true principles of morality and religion” (7: p. 177). If you succeed
in this, “by all arts imaginable,” “the business is done and the
difficulty is over” (7: p. 34).
Locke does not believe in “charging children’s memories upon all
occasions with _Rules_ and precepts, which they often do not
understand, and constantly so soon forget as given” (7: p. 38). Mere
admonition or verbal instruction cannot teach what long experience
and broad generalization alone taught the race. Even commanding is
more effective than teaching. But the lesson by example, learning by
imitation, is the method he recommends. “The tincture of company sinks
deeper than the outside; and possibly, if a true estimate were made of
the morality and religions of the world, we should find that the far
greater part of mankind received even those opinions and ceremonies
they would die for, rather from the fashions of their countries, and
the constant practice of those about them than from any conviction of
their reasons” (7: p. 128). If this is true of those in whom reason is
already developed, still more so with children. So, the self-discipline
of parents themselves, the most careful choice of tutor, friends,
nurse, governess, and servants, are spoken of by Locke as a matter
of the first importance. Nobody has felt the great significance of
environment in education deeper than Locke. He says:
“Having named _Company_, I am almost ready to throw away my pen
and trouble you no further on this subject: For, since that does more
than all precepts, rules, and instructions, methinks it is almost
wholly in vain to make a long discourse of other things, and to talk
of that almost to no purpose” (7: p. 45).
The main aim of education for Locke is character-building, since he
conceived virtue as “the first and most necessary of those endowments
that belong to a man or a gentleman.” Next to virtue, wisdom is the
most necessary quality for a man. Wisdom means “a man’s managing his
business ably and with foresight in this world.” And since “this is the
product of a good natural temper, application of mind, and experience
together,” we cannot teach it to children. “To accustom a child to
have true notions of things, and not to be satisfied till he has them;
to raise his mind to great and worthy thoughts, and to keep him at a
distance from falsehood and cunning, which has always a broad mixture
of falsehood in it, is the fittest preparation of a child for wisdom”
(7: pp. 119-120). The rest is “to be learned from time, experience and
observation, and an acquaintance with men.” Let him inform his mind
by engaging in conversation with “men of parts and breeding,” as soon
as he is capable of benefitting by it, and send him to travel when he
reaches mature adolescence.
The third important quality is good breeding. “The happiness that all
men so steadily pursue consisting in pleasure--he that knows how to
make those he converses with easy, without debasing himself to low
and servile flattery, has found the true art of living in the world,
and being both welcomed and valued everywhere” (7: p. 124). The aim
of good breeding is to avoid a sheepish bashfulness on the one hand,
and a misbecoming negligence and disrespect on the other; to cultivate
a modest but assured, courteous yet not mean attitude of mind and
outward demeanor accompanying it, this is “a great skill which good
sense, reason, and good company can only reach.” Here, again, rules and
exhortation avail little, unless good examples are shown. “Be as busy
as you like with discourses of _Civility_ to your son, such as is
his company, such will be his manners” (7: p. 125). But young children
should not be too much interfered with as to the outward manners;
carelessness and clumsiness are natural to them, and age will cure
them, if you only “teach them humility and to be good-natured,” and
always choose for them good company. Dancing should be taught as soon
as they are capable of learning it, for “nothing appears to me to give
children so much becoming confidence and behavior, and so to raise them
to the conversation of those above their age, as _Dancing_” (7: p.
42). To give a “freedom and ease to all the motions of the body” is the
main thing in dancing. “One that teaches not this is worse than none at
all: natural unfashionableness being much better than apish affected
postures; and I think it much more passable to put off the hat and
make a leg like an honest country gentleman than like an ill-fashioned
dancing master. For as for the jigging part and the figures of dances,
I count that little or nothing further than as it tends to perfect
graceful carriage” (7: p. 174).
Learning is the last and least concern in Locke’s philosophy of
education. It is, he recognizes, a great help both to virtue and
wisdom in all well-disposed minds; but “in others not so disposed, it
helps them only to be the most foolish or worse men.” When Locke saw
“what ado is made about a little _Latin_ and _Greek_, how
many years are spent in it, and what a noise and business it makes
to no purpose,” he could not but despise it, and say: “A great part
of learning now in fashion in the schools of Europe, and that goes
ordinarily into the round of education, a gentleman may in a good
measure be unfurnished with, without any disparagement to himself or
prejudice to his affairs” (7: p. 74). “_Learning_,” he declares,
“must be had, but in the second place, as subservient to greater
qualities.... Place him (your child) in hands where you may, as much
as possible, secure his innocence, cherish and nurse up the good, and
gently correct and weed out any bad inclinations, and settle in him
good habits. This is the main point, and this being provided for,
learning may be had into the bargain” (7: pp. 128-129).
In learning, too, acquirement of habits is the chief educational
process. Not so much to supply ready-made knowledge nor to impart
the teacher’s own ideas, as to implant, by practice, a proper habit
of reading, thinking, observing, and doing is the goal to be striven
for. The educator must see to the constant and correct exercise of
the powers to be developed. But premature use or overexercise is as
detrimental to the vigorous development of the mind as neglect or too
little exercise. “The mind, by being engaged in a task beyond its
strength, like the body strained by lifting at a weight too heavy, has
often its force broken, and thereby gets an unaptness or an aversion
to any vigorous attempt ever after” (8: pp. 87-88). Children’s natural
weakness of mind should be understood and not taken for their willful
fault. Healthful activity of mind is the thing to be secured, and for
this the following principles are laid down by Locke, which we may
regard as the laws of hygiene of attention and association:
* * * * *
1. Keep up the natural tendency of children to free, spontaneous
activity; if they lack this, awaken it. Introduce them to something,
anything, which they can do with pleasure and enthusiasm. “None of
the things they are to learn should ever be made a burden, or imposed
upon them as a _Task_. Whatever is so proposed, presently becomes
irksome” (7: p. 52), and they will form an habitual prejudice against
it. This manifestation of spontaneous activity has its ebb and flow; so
catch the proper moment as well as the proper subject for setting them
to work.
2. Cherish the curiosity or natural inquisitiveness of children and
give it encouragement. However foolish and trifling their questions may
appear to you, do not forget that for them these questions are matters
of great moment. Treat them as “a stranger in an unknown land,” and
thus lead them to useful knowledge that they should know. Knowledge
grows by constant quest, and thus only.
3. The wandering mind and the fleeting thought are the result of
the natural constitution of childhood. It is the law of mental
economy, especially dominant in children, that “their thoughts should
be perpetually shifting from what disgusts them, and seek better
entertainment in more pleasing objects” (7: p. 143). A frequent
change of subject, introduction of some new, strange objects, making
instruction interesting, and thus holding the involuntary attention,
are therefore necessary in teaching children.
4. Children’s minds are strongly susceptible to emotional disturbances.
“Passionate words or blows from the tutor fill the child’s mind with
terror and affrightment, which immediately takes it wholly up, and
leaves no room for other impressions” (7: p. 143). Therefore, “keep
the mind in an easy, calm temper, when you would have it receive your
instructions or any increase of knowledge. It is as impossible to draw
fair and regular characters on a trembling mind as on a shaking paper”
(7: p. 143).
5. However great the part which involuntary attention plays in the
process of learning, the cultivation of the power of voluntary
attention should not be neglected. Children should be habituated to the
voluntary direction or control of attention “by trying them sometimes,
when they are by laziness unbent, or by avocation bent another way,
and endeavoring to make them buckle to the thing proposed” (7: p. 54).
Some bodily labor which requires a constant vigilance and application
of mind is recommended as a remedy for a diffused attention. The work
interest stands to the voluntary attention in the same relation as the
play interest to the involuntary attention. So, the former should be
stimulated by letting the child see “by what he has learned, that he
can do something which he could not do before; something, which gives
him some power and real advantage above others who are ignorant of it”
(7: p. 144).
6. We find in our mind often an association of ideas which is
accidental and arbitrary in its origin, but once being established is
almost inseparable and imperative. This wrong association “has such an
influence, and is of so great force to set us awry in our action, as
well moral as natural, passions, reasonings, and notions themselves,
that perhaps there is not any one thing that deserves more to be
looked after” (9: vol. ii, Book II, chapter 33, § 9). To prevent such
erroneous associations in the mind of children, the strict order of
learning should be observed. “Give them first one simple idea, and see
that they take it right, and perfectly comprehend it, before you go
any further; and then add some other simple idea which lies next in
your way to what you aim at; and so proceeding by gentle and insensible
steps, children without confusion and amazement will have their
understandings opened and their thoughts extended farther than could
have been expected” (7: p. 158).
* * * * *
Mathematics is recommended as a help to the training of reasoning
power, for a mathematical demonstration represents the coherent process
of reasoning. As for logic, he thinks with Bacon that it, “catching
at what it cannot reach, has served to confirm and establish errors,
rather than to open a way to truth” (8: p. 19).
No general improvement of memory is affected by any usual method of
“committing to memory,” or “learning by heart.” For in his psychology
(9: vol. ii, Book II, chapter xxxiii, xxxix; vol. i, Book II, chapter
x) our memory of ideas or impressions depends upon the strength of
power to hold them in mind--namely, attention, on the one hand, and
upon that of the power to retain and recall them, on the other. Yet
the intensity and duration of attention is largely determined by
interest, and the retentive power is owing to our constitution, and
therefore beyond education. Thus he says: “What the mind is intent upon
and careful of, that it remembers best, ... to which if method and
order be joined, all is done, I think, that can be for the help of a
weak memory; and he that will take any other way to do it, especially
that of charging it with a train of other people’s words, which he
that learns cares not for, will, I guess, scarce find the profit
answer half the time and pains employed in it.” For memory is not a
power that is transferable from one thing to another. “The learning
pages of _Latin_ by heart, no more fits the memory for retention
of anything else, than the graving of one sentence in lead makes it
the more capable of retaining firmly any other characters” (7: pp.
154-155). Improvement of memory can come only through the formation of
habits of fixating attention and of orderly association.
Thus, to sum up, learning by self-active, pleasurable exercise of
mental powers, directed in an orderly manner and constantly repeated,
is the fundamental principle of intellectual education.
Although learning was a matter of secondary importance in Locke’s plan
for the education of a “young gentleman,” the curriculum he proposed
was as rich as that of Comenius, and the practical suggestions he
gives as to the teaching of each subject are of much worth. The
subject-matter comprises: reading, writing, drawing, shorthand, French,
Latin, geography, arithmetic, chronology, history, geometry, astronomy,
anatomy, ethics, law, English grammar, rhetoric taught in a practical
way, letter-writing, natural philosophy containing biblical history,
and physics. Gardening, carpentry, turning, varnishing, graving, metal
and jeweler’s work, and other manual occupations are recommended as
healthful diversions. Bookkeeping also makes a part of a gentleman’s
useful accomplishments. He recommends dancing and wrestling, but
depreciates music, painting, fencing, and riding, from one reason
or another. The main difference between Locke and Comenius lies in
that, while one considers knowledge and information in themselves of
great value, as deserving the dignity of man, the other values these
rather for their influence on the efficiency and happiness of actual
life. Comenius is often called the father of realistic pedagogy,
but in my opinion his ideals of education and curriculum are still
largely humanistic and even scholastic. It is in Locke that we see
the complete victory of realism. Bacon’s influence upon Comenius was
mainly in his ideal of universal knowledge. But the real spirit of the
new scientific learning found its true supporter in Locke. Comenius
drew his philosophical arguments for education from the Bible and from
the analogy of Nature. But by Locke pedagogy was put upon a scientific
basis--namely, physiology and psychology.
At the opening of the chapter, I contrasted Locke as the pedagogue of
private education with Comenius as that of public education. Comenius
aimed at the enlightenment of the masses, so the machinery of school
was necessarily of high importance; hence the dictum: “Good teacher,
good books, good method.” Locke, on the other hand, had in view the
perfect bringing up of an individual; consequently, a good home with a
good tutor was naturally esteemed above everything else. The advantage
of group education lies, according to him, in that it will make a boy
“bolder, and better able to bustle and shift among boys of his own age;
and the emulation of school-fellows often puts life and industry into
young lads” (7: p. 46). And the main disadvantage of home education
lies in that it makes a youth more ignorant of the world; “wanting
there change of company, and being used constantly to the same faces,
he will, when he comes abroad, be a sheepish or conceited creature”
(7: p. 46). But these shortcomings can be remedied by providing him
good company at home and by later traveling. As for the inculcation of
virtues and manners, home is decidedly the better place.
“The difference is great between two or three pupils in the same
house, and three or four score boys lodged up and down; for let the
master’s industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible he
should have fifty or a hundred scholars under his eye any longer than
they are in the school together; nor can it be expected that he should
instruct them successfully in anything but their books; the forming of
their minds and manners requiring a constant attention, and particular
application to every single boy, which is impossible in a numerous
flock, and would be wholly in vain, (could he have time to study and
correct every one’s particular defects and wrong inclinations) when
the lad was to be left to himself, or the prevailing infection of his
fellows, the greatest part of the four and twenty hours”.
“What qualities are ordinarily to be got from such a troop of
play-fellows as schools usually assemble together from parents of all
kinds, that a father should so much covet, is hard to divine” (7: pp.
48-49).
Thus we see that while Comenius pointed to an ideal school and
preached its gospel, Locke, by showing us the defects of the school,
persuades us to flee into his idealized home. The actual condition of
the average home and the increasing need of modern society makes the
school indispensable, in spite of its imperfections as an educational
institution. Nevertheless, it is well for us always to keep our eyes
open to the defects and dangers of mass education.
REFERENCES
1. +Bourne, Henry Richard Fox.+ The Life of John Locke. 2 vols.
Harper, New York, 1876.
2. +Browning, Oscar.+ An Introduction to the History of
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