LETTER VI.
TO THE PRINCIPAL OF A FRENCH COLLEGE.
The Author’s dread of protection in intellectual pursuits—Example from the Fine Arts—Prize poems—Governmental encouragement of learning—The bad effects of it—Pet pursuits—Objection to the interference of Ministers—A project for separate examinations.
What I am going to say will seem very strange to you, and is not unlikely to arouse as much professional animosity as you are capable of feeling against an old friend. You who are a dignitary of the University, and have earned your various titles in a fair field, as a soldier wins his epaulettes before the enemy, are not the likeliest person to hear with patience the unauthorized theories of an innovator. Take them, then, as mere speculations, if you will—not altogether unworthy of consideration, for they are suggested by a sincere anxiety for the best interests of learning, and yet not very dangerous to vested interests of any kind, since they can have little influence on the practice or opinion of the world.
I feel a great dread of what may be called protection in intellectual pursuits. It seems to me that when the Government of a country applies an artificial stimulus to certain branches of study for their encouragement by the offer of rewards in honor or in money beyond the rewards inherent in the studies themselves, or coming naturally from their usefulness to mankind, there is a great danger that men may give a disproportionate attention to those favored branches of study. Let me take an example from the practice of the Fine Arts. A Government, by medals and crosses, or by money, can easily create and foster a school of painting which is entirely out of relation to the century in which it exists, and quite incapable of working harmoniously with the contemporary national life. This has actually been done to a considerable extent in various countries, especially in France and in Bavaria. A sort of classicism which had scarcely any foundation in sincerity of feeling was kept up artificially by a system of encouragement which offered inducements outside the genuine ambition of an artist. The true enthusiasm which is the life of art impels the artist to express his own feeling for the delight of others. The offer of a medal or a pension induces him to make the sort of picture which is likely to satisfy the authorities. He first ascertains what is according to the rule, and then follows it as nearly as he is able. He works in a temper of simple conformity, remote indeed from the passionate enthusiasm of creation. It is so with prize poems. We all know the sort of poetry which is composed in order to gain prizes. The anxiety of the versifier is to be safe: he tries to compose what will escape censure; he dreads the originality that may give offence. But all powerful pictures and poems have been wrought in the energy of individual feeling, not in conformity to a pattern.
Now, suppose that, instead of encouraging poetry or painting, a Government resolves to encourage learning. It will patronize certain pursuits to the neglect of others, or it will encourage certain pursuits more liberally than others. The subjects of such a Government will not follow learning exclusively for its delightfulness or its utility; another consideration will affect their choice. They will inquire which pursuits are rewarded by prizes in honor or money, and they will be strongly tempted to select them. Therefore, unless the Government has exercised extraordinary wisdom, men will learn what they do not really care for and may never practically want, merely in order to win some academical grade. So soon as this object has been attained, they will immediately abandon the studies by which they attained it.
Can it be said that in these cases the purposes of the Government were fulfilled? Clearly not, if it desired to form a permanent taste for learning. But it may have done worse than fail in this merely negative way; it may have diverted its youth from pursuits to which Nature called them, and in which they might have effectually aided the advancement and the prosperity of the State.
Let us suppose that a Government were to have a pet study, and offer great artificial inducements for success in it. Suppose that the pet study were entomology. All the most promising youth of the country would spend ten years in emulating Messrs. Kirby and Spence, and take their degrees as entomological bachelors. But might it not easily happen that to a majority of the young gentlemen this pursuit would have acted positively as a hindrance by keeping them from other pursuits more likely to help them in their professions? It would not only cost a great deal of valuable time, it would absorb a quantity of youthful energy which the country can ill afford to lose. The Government would probably affirm that entomology, if not always practically useful in itself, was an invaluable intellectual training; but what if this training used up the early vigor which might be needed for other pursuits, and of which every human being has only a limited supply? We should be told, no doubt, that this powerful encouragement was necessary to the advancement of science, and it is true that under such a system the rudiments of entomology would be more generally known. But the vulgarization of rudiments is not the advancement of knowledge. Entomology has gone quite as far in discovery, though pursued simply for its own sake, as it would have gone if it had been made necessary to a bachelor’s degree.
You will ask whether I would go so far as to abolish degrees of all kinds, Certainly not; that is not my project. But I believe that no Government is competent to make a selection amongst intellectual pursuits and say, “This or that pursuit shall be encouraged by university degrees, whilst other pursuits of intellectual men shall have no encouragement whatever.” I may mention by name your present autocrat of Public Instruction, Jules Simon. He is a literary man of some eminence; he has written several interesting books, and on the whole he is probably more competent to deal with these questions than many of his predecessors. But however capable a man may be, he is sure to be biassed by the feeling common to all intellectual men which attributes a peculiar importance to their own pursuits. I do not like to see any Minister, or any Cabinet of Ministers, settling what all the young men of a country are to learn under penalty of exclusion from all the liberal professions.
What I should think more reasonable would be some such arrangement as the following. There might be a board of thoroughly competent examiners for each branch of study separately, authorized to confer certificates of competence. When a man believed himself to have mastered a branch of study, he would go and try to get a certificate for that. The various studies would then be followed according to the public sense of their importance, and would fall quite naturally into the rank which they ought to occupy at any given period of the national history. These separate examinations should be severe enough to ensure a serviceable degree of proficiency. Nobody should be allowed to teach anything who had not got a certificate for the particular thing he intended to profess. In the confusion of your present system, not only do you fail to insure the thoroughness of pupils, but the teachers themselves are too frequently incompetent in some speciality which accidentally fails to their share. I think that a Greek master ought to be a complete Hellenist, but surely it is not necessary that he should be half a mathematician.
To sum up. It seems to me that a Government has no business to favor some intellectual pursuits more than others, but that it ought to recognize competent attainment in every one of them by a sort of diploma or certificate, leaving the relative rank of different pursuits to be settled by public opinion. And as to the educators themselves, I think that when a man has proved his competence in one thing, he ought to be allowed to teach that one thing in the University without being required to pass an examination in any other thing.