Follow Nature.
The proof of a good Elementary Course is, that it should follow nature in the multitude of its gifts, and that it should proceed in teaching as she does in developing. For as she is unfriendly wherever she is forced, so she is the best guide that anyone can have, wherever she shows herself favourable. Wherefore, if nature makes a child most fit to excel in many aptitudes, provided these are furthered by early training, is not that education much to be blamed that fails to do its part, allowing the child to be deprived by negligence of the excellence that nature intended for it? Again, seeing that there are no natural gifts that cannot be helped forward by training, is not that manner of study to be most highly approved which takes most pains where nature is most lavish? The hand, the ear, the eye, are the chief means of receiving and handing on our learning. And does not this course of study instruct the hand how to write, to draw, to play; the eye to read by letters, to distinguish form by lines, to judge by means of both; the ear to call for the sound of voice and instrument for its own pleasure and cultivation? And, in general, whatever gift nature has bestowed upon the body, to be brought out or improved by training, for any profitable use in life, does not this elementary course find it out and make the most of it? As for the capacities of the mind, whether they concern virtuous living or skill in learning, whatever be the art, science, or profession to which they belong, do they not all evidently depend upon reading and writing as their natural foundations? The study of language must be the basis of grammar, rhetoric, logic, and their derivatives, among which may be counted all the parts of philosophy, both moral and natural, as well as the three professions of divinity, law, and medicine, using as they do in all their branches the instrument of speech. If mathematics be in question, or any kindred subjects that have a bearing on mechanical science, though their secondary use is to whet the mental powers, yet they must rest on a study of the properties of number, figure, motion, and sound. And as for our pleasure in the beauties of art, that is obtained by the provision of drawing for the eye and music for the ear. So that, in my opinion, the fathers and founders of this elementary course (which I am only attempting to reintroduce, though with as much goodwill as so good a thing deserves) have shown great foresight in laying such sure foundations as to secure that all natural capacities shall not only be carefully fostered at their first sprouting, but brought to the fullest perfection when they are ripe for the harvest. When I use the term nature I mean that power which God has implanted in his creatures, both to preserve the race and to fulfil the end of their being. The continuance of their kind is the proof of their being, but the fulfilment of their end is the fruit of their being. This latter is the point to which education has a special eye (though it does not despise the other), so that the young fry may be brought up to prove good in the end, and serve their country well in whatever position they may be placed. For the performance of this end I take it that this elementary course is most sufficient, being the best means of perfecting all those powers with which nature endows our race, by using those studies which art and reflection appoint, and those methods which nature herself suggests. For the end of education and training is to help nature to her perfection in the complete development of all the various powers.
This is what I mean by following nature, not counterfeiting her in her own proper work by foolish imitation, or perverse attempt to produce her effects, like an Apelles in portraiture or an Archimedes in the laws of motion, but after considering and marking with good judgment what are the natural tendencies and inclinations, to frame a scheme of education in consonance with these, and bring to perfection by art all those powers which nature bestows in frank abundance.
For the physical life of man, in order to maintain and develop both the individual and the species, nature has provided organs that receive, prepare and distribute nourishment for the body, and has, besides, given us for self-preservation the power of perceiving all sensible things by means of feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting. These qualities of the outward world, being apprehended by the understanding and examined by the judgment, are handed over to the memory, and afterwards prove our chief—nay, our only—means of obtaining further knowledge. Moreover, we have also a power of movement, either under the influence of emotion or by the enticement of desire, either for the direct purposes of life, as in the action of the pulse and in breathing, or for outward action, such as walking, running, or leaping. To serve the end both of sense-perception and of motion, nature has planted in the body a brain, the prince of all our organs, which by spreading its channels through every part of our frame produces all the effects through which sense passes into motion.
Further, our soul has in it a desire to obtain what it holds to be good, and to avoid what it thinks evil. This desire is stirred either by quiet allurement or by violent incitement, and when once it is inflamed it strives to compass its end. To satisfy this desire nature has given us a heart to kindle heat, and as the sense is moved by the qualities of the object, and motion is effected by means of sinews, so appetite, being stirred by the object of desire or repulsion, is supplied with the means of satisfying itself.
Last of all, our soul has in it an imperial prerogative of understanding beyond sense, of judging by reason, of directing action for duty towards God and our fellowmen, for conquest in affection and attainment in knowledge, and for such other things as minister to the varied uses of our mortal life, and prove its title to continue beyond the sphere of this roaming pilgrimage. To serve this honourable purpose of understanding and reasoning, nature, though she has no place in this earthly body of ours worthy to receive such great and stately guests with their whole retinue, yet does what she can, and, herself acting as harbinger, assigns them for lodging her principal chamber, the very closet of the brain, where she bestows every one of reason’s understanding friends, according to their various ranks and special dignities. All those capacities in their first natural condition concern only the existence of an uncultivated man; but when they are fashioned to their best by good education, they form the life of a perfect and excellent man. For to exist merely, to feed, to multiply, to use the senses, to desire, to have natural and unimproved reason—what great thing is it, though it is something more than brute beasts have, if the other divine qualities that build upon these are not diligently followed? These higher powers not only rise out of the lower at the first, but honour them in the end, just as the best fruit honours its first blossom, or as the most skilful work graces the first ground on which it is wrought. Besides that they prove themselves to be the most excellent ends which nature meant from the first, though she herself made but a weak show, however pliable for man’s industry to work on for his own advantage. He who does not live at all cannot live well; he who does not feed at all cannot feed moderately; he who does not reproduce cannot exercise continence; he who has no sense cannot use it soberly; he who does not desire cannot desire considerately; he who uses no reason cannot use it advisedly. But he who exercises all these functions has in them all the capacities that nature can afford him to use them all well, and he will so use them if judgment rule as much in having them well as necessity in having them at all. For reason, as it is our difference in comparison with beasts, is our excellence in comparison with men, if we use it aright.
Those powers of reasoning and understanding in man, therefore, being handled in a workmanlike fashion and applied to their best uses by such devices and means as are thought fittest, direct the natural appetites so as to secure the health of the parts appointed for them, and of the whole body, which is compounded of those parts. They develop the senses and their organs to their best perfection and longest endurance. They restrain desire to the rule of reason and the advice of foresight. They enrich the mind and the soul itself by laying up in the treasury of remembrance all arts and imaginations, all knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, by which either God is to be honoured or the world is to be honestly and faithfully served; and this heavenly benefit is begun by education, and confirmed and perfected by continuous exercise, which crowns the whole work.