Comte took for his guide the natural and specific evolution of humanity.
“Individual education can be adequately estimated only according to its necessary conformity with collective evolution.”
As positivism represents, in the view of Comte, the supreme degree of the evolution of humanity, the new education ought to be positive.
“Right-minded men universally recognize the necessity of replacing our European education, a system essentially theological, metaphysical, and literary, by a positive education, conformed to the spirit of our epoch, and adapted to the needs of modern civilization.”
The teaching of science, then, shall be the basis of education; but this teaching will bear its fruits only on one condition, and this is, that at last we renounce “the exclusive specialty, the too pronounced isolation, which still characterizes our manner of conceiving and cultivating the sciences.” The precise purpose of the Course in Positive Philosophy was to remedy the deleterious influence of a too great specialization of research, by establishing the relations and the hierarchy of the sciences. Comte made of mathematics the point of departure in scientific instruction. This was the very reverse of the modern tendency, which consists in beginning with the concrete and physical studies.
Auguste Comte, in his project for social reform, demanded universal instruction, and he bitterly complains of the indifference of the ruling classes for the instruction of the poor.
“Nothing is more profoundly characteristic of the existing anarchy than the shameful indifference with which the higher classes of to-day habitually regard the total absence of popular education, the exaggerated prolongation of which, however, threatens to exert on their approaching destiny a frightful reaction.”
Comte does not go so far, however, as to dream of an identical education for all men, an integral education, as it has been called. He admits degrees in instruction, “which,” he says, “will allow varieties of extension in a system constantly similar and identical.”
624. Dupanloup (1803-1878).—Of all the ecclesiastical writers of our century, he who has the most ardently studied the problems of education is certainly Bishop Dupanloup. Important works give proof of the educational zeal of the eloquent prelate. But they were composed with more spirit than wisdom, and they betray the zeal of the Christian apologist more than the inspiration of an impartial love for the truth. Extravagances of language and exaggerations of thought too often prevent the reader from feeling, as he ought, the moral and religious inspiration out of which proceeded those books of ardent and profound faith, but of faith more than of charity. Notwithstanding their length and their vast proportions, these books are pamphlets, works of combat. One should be on his guard against taking them for scientific treatises. Serenity is lacking in them, and from the very first, we feel ourselves enveloped in an atmosphere of trouble and storm.
625. Analysis of the Treatise on Education.—However, the three volumes of the Education will be read with profit. The first volume treats of education in general, and contains three books. In the first book the author determines the character of education, which has for its purpose to cultivate the faculties, to exercise them, to develop them, to strengthen them, and, finally, to polish them. In the following books the author studies the nature of the child, of whom he sometimes speaks with a touching tenderness; and examines the means of education, which are “religion, instruction, discipline, and physical culture.” Discipline consists in supporting, preventing, and repressing. Discipline is to education “that which the bark is to the tree which it surrounds. It is the bark which holds the sap, and forces it to ascend to the heart of the tree.”