Parents and children

by Charlotte M. Mason

Since Locke established a school of English educational thought, based on English philosophy, our tendency has been exclusively towards naturalism, if not materialism; to the exclusion of a vital element in education—the force of the idea.

Madame de Staël has a remarkable passage concerning this tendency in English philosophy which, though we may not be disposed to admit her conclusions en bloc, should certainly give us pause, and lead us to consider whether we should not wisely modify the tendencies of our national thought by laying ourselves open to foreign influences:—

“Hobbes prit à la lettre la philosophie qui fait dériver toutes nos idées des impressions des sens; il n’en craignit point les conséquences, et il a dit hardiment que l’âme était, soumise à la nécessité comme la société au despotisme. Le culte des tous les sentiments élévés et purs est tellement consolidé en Angleterre par les institutions politiques et religieuses, que les spéculations de l’esprit tournent autour de ces imposantes colonnes sans jamais les ébranler. Hobbes eut donc peu de partizans dans son pays; mais l’influence de Locke fut plus universelle. Comme son caractère était morale et religieuse, il ne se permit aucun des raisonnements corrupteurs qui dérivaient nécessairement de sa métaphysique; et la plupart de ses compatriotes, en l’adoptant, ont eu comme lui la noble inconséquence de séparer les résultats des principes, tandis que Hume et les philosophes français, après avoir admis le système, l’ont appliqué d’une manière beaucoup plus logique.

“La métaphysique de Locke n’a eu d’autre effet sur les esprits, en Angleterre, que de ternir un peu leur originalité naturelle; quand même elle dessécherait la source des grandes pensées philosophiques, elle ne saurait détruire le sentiment religieux, qui sait si bien y suppléer; mais cette métaphysique reçue dans le reste de l’Europe, l’Allemagne exceptée, a été l’une des principales causes de l’immoralité dont on s’est fait une théorie pour en mieux assurer la pratique.”

It is well that we should recognise the continuity of English educational thought, and perceive that we have in Spencer and Baine the lineal descendants of the earlier philosophers. Probably the chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome of philosophy. We deal with the issue and ignore the source. Hence our efforts lack continuity and definite aim. We are content to pick up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints and suggestions are the output.

Mr. Greenstreet’s translation of M. Fouillée’s remarkable work[10] should not be without its effect upon the burning questions of the hour. As the translator well says in his preface: “The spirit of reform is in the air; the question of the retention of Greek at the Universities is but a ripple of the great wave that seems ready to burst upon us and to obliterate the characteristic features of our national system of education.... A glance at the various forms of the educational systems obtaining in Europe and America is sufficient to betray to the observant eye how near to the verge of chaos we are standing.”

These are words of insight and wisdom, but let us not therefore despair as though the end of all things were at hand. The truth is, we are in the throes of an educational revolution; we are emerging from chaos rather than about to plunge into it; we are beginning to recognise that education is the applied science of life, and that we really have existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of our children and regulate our own. We need not aspire to a complete and exhaustive code of educational laws. This will come to us duly when humanity has, so to speak, fulfilled itself. Meantime, we have enough to go on with if we would believe it. What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources; to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy. Hence, if our educational thought is to be sound and effectual, we must look to the philosophy which underlies it, and must be in a condition to trace every counsel of perfection for the bringing up of children to one or other of the two schools of philosophy of which it must needs be the outcome.

Is our system of education to be the issue of naturalism or of idealism, or is there indeed a media via? This is practically the question which M. Fouillée sets himself to answer in the spirit of a philosophical educationalist. He examines his premisses and draws his deductions with a candour, culture, and philosophic insight which carry the confidence of the reader. No doubt he is of a mind with that umpire in a cricket-match who lays down the dictum that one must be quite fair to both sides with a little leaning to one’s own. M. Fouillée takes sides with classical as opposed to scientific culture. But he is not a mere partisan; he has philosophic reasons for the faith that is in him, and his examination of the question of national education is full of instruction and inspiration for the thoughtful parent as well as for the schoolmaster.

M. Fouillée gives in his preamble a key to his treatment of the subject. He says:

“On this as on all great questions of practical philosophy Guyau has left his mark.... He has treated the question from the highest standpoint, and has treated it in a strictly scientific form. ‘Given the hereditary merits and faults of a race, how far can we modify existing heredity by means of education for a new heredity?’ For the problem is nothing less than this. It is not merely a matter of the instruction of individuals, but of the preservation and improvement of the race. Education must therefore be based upon the physiological and moral laws of the culture of races.... The ethnical is the true point of view. By means of education we must create such hereditary tendencies as will be useful to the race both physically and intellectually.”