“Just as the Orinoco Indian paints and tattooes himself, so the child in this country learns Latin because it forms a part of the education of a gentleman.”
However, we do not construe this literally. Mr. Spencer does not go so far as to suppress the disinterested studies which are as much the more necessary as they seem to be the more superfluous. He merely demands that instruction be not reduced to a training in the trivial elegancies of a dead language, or to a study of trifles in history, such as the dates of battles, and the birth and death of princes.
636. Utilitarian Tendencies.—Utility, that is, the influence on happiness,—such is the true criterion by which are to be estimated, admitted or excluded, and finally classified, the subjects proposed for the study of man as the elements of his education. It is understood, however, that happiness is to be considered in its widest and highest sense. Happiness does not consist in the satisfaction of such or such a privileged inclination. It consists in being all that it is possible to be,—in complete living. To prepare us for a complete life,—such is the function of education.
637. Different Categories of Activity.—Complete life supposes different kinds of activity, which ought to be subordinated one to another according to their importance and dignity. The following statement shows how Mr. Spencer proposes to classify these different categories of activities according to an ascending scale of progress:—
1. In the first rank is placed the activity which ministers simply to self-preservation. It would be of no consequence to be an eminent scholar, or a citizen and a patriot, or a devoted father; or rather, all this would be impossible, if one did not first know how to assure his safety and his life.
2. Then comes the series of activities which tend indirectly to the same end of physical well-being, by the acquisition and production of the material goods necessary for existence, that is, industry and the different occupations.
3. In the third place, man employs his activities in the service of his family,—he has children to support and to bring up.
4. Social and political life is the fourth object of his efforts. This supposes, as a previous condition, the accomplishment of family duties, just as family life itself supposes the normal development of the individual life.
5. Finally, human existence is consummated and crowned, so to speak, in the exercise of the activities which, in a single word, we might call æsthetic, and which, taking advantage of the leisure left from care and business, will find satisfaction in the culture of letters and the arts.
638. Criticism of this Classification.—What exceptions can be taken to this exact and methodical table of the different elements of an existence complete, normal, and consequently human? Is it necessary to remark that the happiness thus understood does not differ from what we call virtue? None of the five elements distinguished by Mr. Spencer can be safely omitted. The first could not be neglected without endangering the material reality of life; nor the last, without impairing its moral dignity. In some degree they are mutually necessary, in this sense, that the lower, or selfish activities, are the conditions which make possible the other parts of human duty; and that the higher, or disinterested activities, become, as it were, the justification of the toil we endure in order to exist and to satisfy material necessities.