To cause gross natures to pass from the life of the senses to the intellectual life; to make study agreeable to the end that the higher pleasures of the spirit may struggle successfully against the appetites for material pleasures; to put the book in the place of the wine bottle; to substitute the library for the saloon; in a word, to replace sensation by idea,—such is the fundamental problem of popular education.
434. Instruction and Progress.—Condorcet was a fanatic on the subject of progress. Up to the last moment of his life he dreamed of progress, its conditions, and its laws. Now the most potent means of hastening progress is to instruct men; and here is the final reason why instruction is so dear to him.
These are grand words:—
“If the indefinite improvement of our species is, as I believe, a general law of nature, man ought no longer to regard himself as a being limited to a transitory and isolated existence, destined to vanish after an alternative of happiness or of misery for himself, and of good and evil for those whom chance has placed near him; but he becomes an active part of the grand whole, and a fellow-laborer in a work that is eternal. In an existence of a moment, and upon a point in space, he can, by his works, compass all places, relate himself to all the centuries, and continue to act long centuries after his memory has disappeared from the earth.” And further on: “For a long time I have considered these views as dreams which were to be realized only in an indefinite future, and for a world where I should not exist. A happy event has suddenly opened an immense career to the hopes of the human race; a single instant has put a century of distance between the man of to-day and him of to-morrow.”
435. The Liberality of Condorcet.—Wrongly credited with a despotic and absolute habit of mind, Condorcet is, on the contrary, full of scruples and penetrated with respect as regards the liberty of individual opinions. In fact, he carefully distinguishes instruction from education. Instruction has to do with positive and certain knowledge, the truths of fact and of calculation; education, with political and religious beliefs. Now, if the State is the natural dispenser of instruction, it ought, on the contrary, in the matter of education, to forbear, and to declare itself incompetent. In other words, the State ought not to abuse its power by imposing by force on its citizens such or such a religious Credo, such or such a political dogma.
“Public authority cannot establish a body of doctrine which is to be exclusively taught. No public power ought to have the authority, or even the permission, to prevent the development of new truths, or the teaching of theories contrary to its particular policy or to its momentary interests.”
436. Five Grades of Instruction.—Condorcet distinguishes five grades of instruction: 1. Primary schools proper; 2. Secondary schools, that is, such as we now call higher primary schools; 3. Institutes, or colleges of secondary instruction; 4. Lycées, or institutions of higher instruction; 5. The National Society of Sciences and Arts, which corresponds to our Institute.
Two things are especially to be noted: first, Condorcet establishes for the first time higher primary schools, and demands one for each district, and in addition one for each town of four thousand inhabitants; then, for primary schools proper, he takes the population as a basis for their establishment, and requires one for each four hundred inhabitants.[206]
437. Purpose and Plan of Primary Instruction.—Condorcet has admirably defined the purpose of primary instruction:—