The History of Pedagogy

by Gabriel Compayré

We have, however, one grave reserve to make. Mr. Spencer is wrong in putting into the last category of activities that which is the crown of the others, all that which concerns the moral development of the individual. Between the second and the third class of activities we ask to interpolate another form of activity,—that which constitutes the individual moral life, that which, in every man, even the humblest and the poorest, calls into exercise the conscience, the reason, and the will. Mr. Spencer’s system is decidedly too aristocratic. It seems to reserve the moral life for men of leisure. In a democratic society, which believes in equality and which would not have this an empty term, there are efforts which must be made for the moral development of the human being in all conditions, and it would be wrong to reduce personal activity to the care of health and material well-being.

639. Effects on Education.—It is now easy to comprehend the duties of education. Conforming its efforts to nature, distributing its lessons according to the exact division of human functions, it will seek the branches of knowledge the most fit for making of the pupil, first, a sound and healthy man, then a toiler, a workman,—a man, in a word, capable of earning his livelihood; then it will train him for the family and the State, by endowing him with all the domestic and civic virtues; finally, it will open to him the brilliant domain of art under all its forms.

640. Science is the Basis of Education.—When we have once divided human life into a certain number of superimposed stages which education should teach us to ascend one after another, it becomes necessary to know what are the facts and the branches of knowledge which correspond to each one of these different steps. To this question Mr. Spencer replies that in all the grades of human development that which is pre-eminently necessary, that which is the basis of education, is science.

641. Science for Health and Industrial Activity.—It is in the first part of education, that which has for its object self-preservation, that science is the least useful. So far, education may be in great part negative, because nature has taken it upon herself to lead us to our destination. The child cries at the sight of a stranger, and throws himself into the arms of his mother when he feels the slightest sorrow. However, in proportion to his growth, man has more and more need of science, and he could not do without physiology and hygiene. By this means will he shun all those little acts of imprudence, all those physical faults, which shorten life, or pave the way for infirmities in old age. By this means he will diminish the interval, which is so considerable, between the length of life as it might be and the brevity of life as it is. Evident truths, but too often unheeded!

“How many scholars,” exclaims Mr. Spencer, “who would blush if caught saying Iphigénia instead of Iphigenía, show not the slightest shame in confessing that they do not know where the Eustachian tubes are, and what are the actions of the spinal cord!”

With respect to the activities which might be called lucrative, and to the kind of instruction which they require, Mr. Spencer still shows the utility of science. He knows how great a disposition there is in modern society to promote professional or industrial instruction; but he thinks, not without reason, that we do not proceed as we should in order to be completely successful in this direction. All the sciences, mathematics through its applications to the arts, mechanics through its connection with industries where machines play so great a part, physics and chemistry through the knowledge they furnish on matter and its properties, even the social sciences by reason of the relations of commerce with politics,—all the sciences, in a word, contribute to develop the skill and the prudence of the man who is employed in any trade or occupation whatever.

642. Science for Family Life.—A point in which the originality of Mr. Spencer’s thought is distinctly marked, and which he develops with an eloquent earnestness, is the necessity of enlightening parents, and particularly mothers, upon their obligations and duties, and of putting them in a condition to direct the education of their children by teaching them the natural laws of body and mind: “Is it not monstrous,” he says, “that the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy,—joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers.... In the actual state of things the best instruction, even among the favored by fortune, is scarcely more than an instruction of celibates.” We are ever saying that the vocation of woman is to bring up her children, and yet we teach her nothing of that which she ought to know in order to fulfill worthily this great task. Ignorant as she is of the laws of life and of the phenomena of the soul, knowing nothing of the nature of the moral emotions or of physical disorders, her intervention in the education of the child is often more disastrous than her absolute inaction would be.

643. Science in Æsthetic Education.—Mr. Spencer next shows that social and political activity also has need of being enlightened by science. One is a citizen only on the condition of knowing the history of his country.

That which it is more difficult to grant Mr. Spencer, is that æsthetic education, in its turn, is based on science. Is there not some exaggeration, for example, in asserting that poor musical compositions are poor because they are lacking in truth? and that they are lacking in truth “because they are lacking in science”? Does one become a man of letters and an artist as one becomes a geometrician? To cultivate with success those arts which are as the flower of civilization, is there not required, besides talent and natural gifts, a long practice, a slow initiation, something, in a word, more delicate than the attention which suffices for being instructed in science?

644. Exaggerations and Prejudices.—We believe as thoroughly as any one can in the efficiency and in the educational virtues of science, and we would willingly make it, as Mr. Spencer does, the basis of education. We must be on our guard, however, against cultivating this religion of science until it becomes a superstition. Our author is not completely exempt from this danger.