The Theory of Education.

Price One Shilling.

By J. G. S. Grant.

ducation, in this latter half of the nineteenth century, is the topic of every popular newspaper, the theme of every local politician, of every public orator, and the only subject of general interest and conversation. And yet, there is scarcely any subject, concerning which the minds of all classes of men are so much in the dark, as upon this parent subject. Education is, indeed, the seed, the root, and foundation of everything great and excellent. It is, on this very account, the most important of subjects. Nothing of such transcendent magnitude can employ the thoughts of men. On it everything natural, moral, and intellectual greatly depends. It is the central point of being. How absolutely essential, then, that we should have clear and practicable ideas and conceptions regarding so cardinal a question, as the Education of man. How urgent the demands upon us to explain the history of past institutions, to examine narrowly the prevailing systems of Education, and to establish the best, the noblest, and the most cosmopolitan seminaries for the cultivation of the human mind. The reigning principles of such institutions should be purely intellectual, and should be so liberal and catholic as to be co-extensive with the human family, and commensurate with the eternal laws of the universe. Is this the case? Survey the Halls of Education from, China to Peru—from England to New Zealand—divest your mind of prejudice, veneration for established customs, and precedents, and of every principle likely to warp your better reason, and you will see and be made to feel in your painful experience, that the guiding principles of the Institutions of the world are so far from being founded on the eternal reason, that, on the contrary, they are, in almost every practical application of them, notoriously antagonistic to it; they are, in short, the generalisations of morbid sentimentalism, hateful cant, and hypocrisy; or, at best, they have been the ratio ultima of a diseased intellect and perverted heart. The man, in the first-blossoms of being, is sacrificed; his opening mind is poisoned; his feelings and passions are awakened to visions of fear, avarice and servility; a spurious conscience is evoked, fed, and pampered, to torment him page 2 while he lives; his reason has been neglected—yea, this hydra-power has usurped its hereditary throne, and it requires supernatural force to hurl the tyrant from his seat; to soothe the jarring passions; to banish Fear and its hideous progeny; and to evoke Hope with her pleasing train; to besprinkle the whole system with the healing waters of Truth; to transplant it into the golden regions of beauty and love, and under the bending dome of the mansions of reason; in short, to restore it to a sound physiological organisation. Reason should form the moral basis of Educational seminaries. The dictates of Reason should, in every case, be consulted, accepted, and finally rested on, as oracular. Every rule, maxim, opinion, or tenet, which jars with these, ought to be discarded and ignored. The great business of Education, should be, to elicit into active operation the native principles of the human mind. As a plant is reared to maturity by the combined efforts of Nature and Art, so the mind ought to be trained by the joint action of nature and education. Every adventitious excressence should be shorn off by the pruning book of instruction. Every care should be taken to protect it in infancy, and to give a proper direction to the natural sallies and ebullitions of uncultivated powers and faculties. The Halls of Education should resemble a nursery for the rearing of plants from seeds—for nourishing these plants with warmth in winter, and with moisture in summer, till they become fit to be transplanted into the fields where they shall take root, deep and wide, into the soil, and send forth their umbrageous bows and foliage into the heavens, and resist the blasts, rains, and tempests. In like manner, the moral plant should be protected from evil influences, and be refreshed with the dews of knowledge, in the educational nursery; so that after it has been transplanted into the moral soil, it may be able to strike deep its healthful roots into society, and shoot forth in graceful and divine proportions, and bearing its twelve manner of fruits for the healing of the nations. It will thus form a striking contrast to the rude trees of the natural wilderness; for they have neither the form nor the comeliness which it, by virtue of education and nurture, displays. He, like a goodly tree, will bear his fruit in duo season, and, with his grateful influence, he will impregnate the social atmosphere and load it with virtues, whose counteracting tendency is to destroy every malign ingredient. As the tree extracts its life from the soil, and communicates vitality to every branch; so the man ought to draw life, strength, and action from his own reason. As the rain refreshes and animates the tree, and prevents it from being scorched by the sun, and from withering in a barren soil, so the man should be daily receiving spirit and action from the influences of society, nature, books, and education. The great function of public instruction, ought to consist in forming the mind to a severe habit of analysis. In other words, its principal aim should be to awaken the mind to a sense of its own divine powers and energies. Its first lesson should be the direct antipodes of what is universally inculcated. Instead of dwarfing it with the hateful tenet of humility, or, more properly speaking, servility, it should inspire it with the consciousness of self-respect, self-importance, and self-confidence. Let it be awakened to a lively appreciation of the great Stoical doctrine—obey thyself. Laws, customs, doctors and authority should fall prostrate before its frown, and reason only should claim the allegiance of the man. The study of history, philosophy, theology, and poetry, &c., are valuable in so far only as they show what man was, and how he may be rendered greater than hitherto. Let them inspire the mind to fortitude and daring. Let them not page 3 appal the man with a false glare of reverence for antiquity. Let them not present their facts in such an array before him as to make him feel his own personal insignificance, but let them rather teach him that he is a superior man enriched with larger experience and knowledge than the past generations of men; and that, therefore, he ought to shine forth to a greater advantage than they. The mind hath nothing to do with names and authority. She ought to embrace truth only as her spouse worthy of her love, her reverence and obedience. What have I to do with Plato, or with Socrates, with Luther, or with Calvin, or any other teacher whatever? I accept whatever sentiments flow from them, providing these harmonise with my real feelings of right and wrong, of true or false. But whenever they fail to do this, I reject them with scorn, though they were applauded as articles of faith by all the doctors of the world. Let their doctrines and biographies teach me that they, also, were men of like passions and feelings as myself; liable to error, as well as I; and therefore, to be regarded as only supplementary to my education, but in no respect entitled to exercise a lordship over my understanding. Some of them may have been placed in happier and more glorious stations than ever I may be. Still, let me feel that I, too, have a like right to title, authority, and respect, as they. I, also, am animated with the same divine principle—my heart is capable of loving as ardently, and my mind of thinking as loftily as they.

My mind is capable of conceiving, my hand as ready to execute designs, and perform works and exploits as great as those attributed to the heroes and sages of antiquity. When taught, at schools and colleges, the Iliad of Homer, the expedition of Xerxes, the victories of Alexander, the oratory of Demosthenes and of Cicero, and the commentaries of Cæsar, I feel the same holy ardour of purpose and indomitable perseverance and confidence in my own counsels as animated them. Why yield the palm of mind to them? Let me truly value them on account of what they really did, but let them only show me the infancy of man, his immense resources, capacities and possibilities. Let them fire my soul to still higher degrees of excellence. Let them fortify me with self-confidence. Let them awaken me out of the sleep of indolence, and tear me out of the ruinous embrace of the harlot of custom and opinion. Says Emerson—"That which shows God in me, fortifies me; that which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen." Education now serves one purpose, to wit, the conversion of men into serfs, idiots, and flunkies. Education should aim at fanning the flame of curiosity in the opening mind. It should strive, in season, to render the intellect sharp as a two-edged sword, to pierce the line between truth and falsehood. It should make the conscience enlightened to discern clearly between right and wrong, good and evil. If this were efficiently done, there should be no danger of man being seduced, by the sophistries and mysteries of sects and creeds, from the path of truth and right. Nor would there be any dangers likely to arise from the introduction of the Bible into every seminary, though filled with youths of every clime, kindred, tongue, and creed. The pure doctrines of Christianity would naturally recommend themselves to the enquiring mind—their superior excellence would be felt and acknowledged. Pagan superstition, sectarian bigotry, confessions of faith, mysteries, paradoxes, heresies, and nonsensical articles, should be driven, as chaff, before the pure and invigorating breeze of public opinion. The doctrine of Christ, being unquestionably the best standard and authority towards the formation of moral judgment re- page 4 specting what is good or evil, right or wrong, would form a bond—a common bond of unity, harmony, and peace, among men. Arnold, in his contentions with the London University, uttered a great truth when he uncompromisingly asserted that Education without Christianity is incomplete. The conflicting dogmas of sectarianism have the tendency to divorce Christianity from Education. Indeed, in these Colonial communities, this has already been done. The Bible—the only book that stirs up the deeper and holier feelings of the soul—has been banished from the schools. But to a sincere lover of truth, the chimeras of fanatics will appear in their naked absurdity, and the reconciliation of religion, as taught by Jesus, and education as taught by truly learned and great men, will seem the most easy and natural thing in the world. Away, then, with such questions as these:—"What religion shall be taught in public schools? What creed shall be inculcated? To what body or bodies of Christianity shall they belong?" &c. Let them be open to the children of all indiscriminately. Let the Koran, the Talmud, Confucius—the Bible be received and even commented upon, and let the mind be taught to discriminate truth from lies, chaff from wheat, sense from nonsense: and, in the natural upshot of things, it will be found that Christianity will rise infinitely superior to them all. Its native divinity will be felt thrilling through every vein and member of the body, and through every avenue of the soul. The profession of teaching which, for obvious reasons, such as the beggarly remuneration which it generally confers, and the low state of the education of those who practice it, hath dwindled down into almost universal contempt; ably discharged, it is the most honourable position on earth. He, who breaks and distributes the bread of life to others, should not forget to feed himself. Dr Arnold said—"I hold that a man is only fit to teach so long as he is himself learning daily." Unquestionably, "he is the best teacher of others who is best taught himself." Extensive reading, critical discernment, and lofty enthusiasm in the prosecution of Education and training of the young mind, are the best safeguards against bigotry, or fanaticism, or credulity, or simplicity. Every book which is read is an accession of moral power to the teacher over his pupil. The mind should be always active and buoyant in the search of knowledge—for, as Dr Arnold truly says—"If the mind once becomes stagnant, it can give no fresh draught to another mind; it is drinking out of a pond instead of from a spring. And whatever you road tends generally to your own increase of power, and will be felt by you in a hundred ways." Still, neither the teacher nor the pupil should read promiscuously or indiscriminately. Considering the brevity of life, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the thousand misfortunes to which flesh is heir, that only which is truly useful should be read, or studied, or pursued. To fritter away our moments upon trifles light as air, is highly criminal. No employment of mind or body, which is not healthful or beneficial should be encouraged. What sound mind can sympathize with the following sentiment of Wordsworth?—

"To me the meanest flower that breathes can give

Thoughts that too often be too deep for tears."

The teacher should, in his own life, exemplify the model of an active, industrious, and select mode of study. He should be familiar, first of all, with the works of really great men—these he should be able to discriminate, and, therefore, recommend to his pupils. He ought to page 5 be to them a sun and a shield, to lighten their paths amid the mazes of opinions, and to defend them from the attacks of error, and the ensnaring influences of pretensions and impostures. The teacher him-self ought to be a man awfully influenced with the solemnity of life. He ought to enter upon the discharge of his duty with Christian earnestness. He should try to inspire into the minds of his pupils a habit of moral thought fulness. Like Arnold, he should direct all the energies of his mind and body towards the exercises of the school. He should labour with all his might to form their characters. In reading history, for example, at every step of the narration of noble actions flowing from fixed principles, he should graciously signify his cordial approbation, and laud virtue to the skies. On the contrary, when atrocious villainies and mean characters pass before his review, his face should be suffused with a black cloud of honest indignation, and he should brand the characters concerned with deserved infamy and contempt, and thus train up the young mind to a delicate fondness for good, in any phase or circumstance whatsoever. Vile men will thus be stripped of the false gloss of greatness, and, in their naked deformity, held up to the unmeasured scorn of generous and ingenuous youth. Even as Fenelon treated his royal pupil, so ought every preceptor to do; "He aimed not merely at scientific instruction, but at moral amelioration—he aspired to the formation of character." To be successful, the preceptor must first of all gain the affection of his pupil; then command respect, esteem, and unbounded confidence. Having thus enthroned himself in the citadel of his disciple's heart, he ought to take a virtuous pride and pleasure in transforming the mind from the grovelling mould of ignorance and sensuality to the glorious images of truth, beauty, and holiness.

After the examples of Aristotle and Fenelon in the discharge of their responsible duties to their respective charges, the teacher or the professor should invariably hold up to the admiring gaze of the young mind the highest models of moral excellence. He ought ever to treat his pupil—not as a child, but as a man—not as an obscure and unimportant unit of society, but as an intelligence of the highest order, and capable of influencing, for weal or woe, the destinies of nations yet unborn. He should regard him as an image of the Divinity, as a moral reformer and benefactor, and as an heir of immortality. In conducting him through the mazes of literature, and over the fields of philosophy, his uniform aim should be to show him the dignity of man amid all the wrecks of opinion, and to awaken in his mind boundless wishes and unsatiable desires after higher creations of intellect than have ever yet appeared. With persuasive eloquence falling in flaky words upon his ear, let him insensibly work up a great conviction in his mind that "nothing is great, not mighty Homer or Milton, beside the infinite reason;" beside the infinite possibilities of man—beside the yet to be produced creations of the soul of man. Let him direct his imagination to future times when men shall arise and shake off from their labouring minds thoughts and systems of belief which shall, with the irresistible impetuosity of a roaring torrent, sweep away the cobwebs of opinion and sandy edifices of the past, so that they shall be rendered as unsubstantial as the aerial visions of a dream. The sleep of death shall for ever nail the eyes of their authors and projectors; their brief hour of despotic sway shall be for ever forgotten in the Lethean flood of oblivion.

Seminaries of Education "can only highly serve us when they aim, not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray page 6 of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame." Thus awakened to a lively sense of the value of Knowledge, of the power which its possession confers upon them, and of the immense consequences flowing from Being, they will sally forth from the Halls of Knowledge with eager avidity after truth, with insatiable curiosity to learn the mind of the past as enshrined in the tomes of literature; and with keen observation they will turn over each successive page of the great volume of nature, and the further they advance, the more countries they explore, the more nations they converse with, and the more they study their laws and customs, the higher they will rise in the scale of intelligence; the more comprehensive their minds will become, the less they will rely upon authority, and the greater affiance will they place in the inexhaustible resources of their own minds. Thus slowly and laboriously does the soul of man dilate into colossal and infinite dimensions and proportions.

Emerson wisely remarks—"An individual man is a fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to form and ripen." Such being the case; how eagerly should the scholar search the pages of history, and how critically ought he to sift the volumes of biography in "the investigation of errors which should be anxiously avoided." Experience is the mother of wisdom. Life is too short to gain the needful quantum of personal knowledge of men and beings. Therefore, let us call to our aid the lights of the past which serve as beacons to warn us from approaching rocks whereon the vessels of preceding generations of men had been wrecked. Fenelon asks—"Who can avoid error, but by experience of its evil?" Let the youth, therefore, with the wrecks of the past staring him in the broad daylight of history and biography, learn wisdom and patience. Let not prosperity inflate him with too sanguine expectations, nor let adversity depress him with too overwhelming despondency and anxiety. When everything goes along smoothly at his wishes, let him imitate the example of the truly great who retained amid all their splendour, and while exposed to the dangerous allurements of pleasure, and the seductive influences of flattery, their unsullied honour and honesty to the last.

A careful study of biography will convince the student of the truth of Fenelon's aphorism:—"The greatest men have, in their natural dispositions, and the constitutional character of their minds, defects which naturally mislead them." To avoid these defects, and to eradicate our own peculiar defects, or at least to amend them, is the great business of life. There are, however, defects which cannot altogether be remedied, but certainly they may be greatly improved by vigilant introspection and laborious self-cultivation. Though "that which is crooked cannot be made straight;" yet it may be greatly altered and modified so that it may approximate much closer than is imagined to the standard of rectitude. Education greatly supplements the deficiencies of nature.—E.g.—In reading the exploits of Pyrrhus, what is the prominent feature which strikes the mind of the reader? In other words, what is the great defect in his character? He was a man of extraordinary military capacity—his genius was of the highest order—his valour and impetuosity were, perhaps, never equalled. He bad splendid opportunities for the exhibition of his physical prowess, his intellectual superiority, and his moral powers; but, blind impulse, not reason, swayed his mind in the determination and execution of his actions. He wanted patience and perseverance, prudence and circumspection— page 7 he could not, in critical cases, deliberate calmly, devise expedients, and exercise himself in the discipline of godlike forbearance and heroic magnanimity. His only and invariable shift and policy, in dangerous circumstances, lay in flight. Having no fixed principles, and settled plans of actions chalked out before his imagination, all his expeditions and exploits, though at the outset dazzlingly triumphant, eventually failed, and vanished from the scenes of action, like smoke before the wind. Education should be a dynamical, and not a mechanical avocation. The mind should be severely exercised in contemplations, varied and comprehensive. It should prosecute knowledge, not so much for information, as for a mental discipline to invigorate its faculties, and to enable it to grasp tangibly and forcibly a thought, and lay it before the reader or hearer, succinctly and comprehensively, with all the ornaments of eloquence and the attractive graces of composition. This is the most effective means to guard against childishness and imbecility. Childishness, which is a prevailing character in boys and men generally, is to be, in a great measure at least, attributed to the existence of countless hordes of fanciful and silly productions, flowing from the pens of such as do not estimate aright the mystery of life; but, turning literature into a trade, continually float upon the surface of the waters of life, and never plunge into the depths of nature and man's moral nature to throw some light upon their great secrets and undiscovered revelations. What do we know of God; of life; of the origin of thought; of perception; of memory; and of imagination? of the relation between mind and body—of the influence of climate and atmosphere upon both? God, nature, and the soul of man are as yet, notwithstanding all that have been written upon them, shrouded in the midst of darkness and ignorance. How important, therefore, to awaken, in the young mind, the flame of inquiry, and with all the fascinations of eloquence to incite the youth to embrace the universe, as a bride, that the issues of knowledge may flow.

"A profound thought will lift Olympus," says Emerson—and, let me add, will fling into the ocean of oblivion every work which is not based on the everlasting reason of man. An original and profound philosopher actually works a social revolution greater far than a Cæsar, or a Napoleon. Arnold, writing of English divines, says, "I cannot find in any of them a really great man." And why? Because they toil, laboriously and laudably indeed, upon given materials. They arrange and combine, but never create, great thoughts. They employ their judgment on given data—the pure reason and capacious imagination are allowed to languish and die. They are compilers, not authors—men of narrow minds and contracted ideas. "You know," says Dr Arnold, "full well that wisdom in the higher sense, and practical knowledge are rarely found in the same man." Why so? Because men, who are esteemed wise and learned by the world, pass their valetudinarian lives in cloisters and cells, interpreting obscure texts, and commenting upon venerable dogmas, instead of casting a wide and minute glance over the works of God, and the affairs of men.

"Rise! let us be going;" let us throw off the fetters of opinion! let us awaken out of our lethargy, and consecrate our living energies for the melioration of man in his physical, social, moral, and mental condition. Let us convince him of the real value of Knowledge, and of the blessings which it confers upon mankind: for the mass of men "have really no more ideas"—as Arnold said—"of the use to be made of all the manifold inventions and revelations of six thousand years, page 8 than Sir Isaac Newton's dog had of the value of his master's problems." Let us, above all, open men's minds that they may behold the wretchedness of all things when viewed apart from God! The largest acquisitions natural, moral, and mental, are beggarly compensations for the lack of divine knowledge. The Archbishop of Cambray says—"Happy are they whose supreme delight is the cultivation of the mind." Happier still are they whose supreme joy consists in communion with the Eternal Creator of the universe through the medium of reason, imagination, affection, and devotion. Their course shall be as the Sun in the everlasting firmament. They shall prosecute the journey of life in an even, uniform, and consistent manner. Like the declining sun, they shall emit cheerful, if not dazzling rays of moral illumination over their fellow creatures. They shall discover no symptoms of languor, restlessness, peevishness, and disquietude of mind. They will maintain their composure and tranquillity to the last. They will be doing good while life throbs in their veins. The ingratitude, or, perhaps, contempt of mankind shall not be able to disturb their repose.

Though frustrated in their undertakings, they will not drown their thoughts and recollections in sensual indulgences. To the wounds of the world, there are to be found healing balms in their own sublime reflections, meditations, and imaginations. They walk by the dictates of eternal reason; they partake of the "infinite and immutable Intelligence which communicates itself to all, but is not divided; the sovereign and universal Truth which illuminates intellectual nature, as the sun enlightens the material world; the ocean, of which they are but small streams, that are quickly re-absorbed in the abyss from which they flowed."

To achieve this sublime consummation, there is—let me emphatically assert, in these Atheistic times and amid these materialistic communities—no Book so potent as the grand old Hebrew Oracles. They are the poetical, philosophical, and sublime language of devotion—of the yearning of the soul after God—virtue and truth.