The application of scientific truths to the common industries of life is becoming every day more and more a necessity. The village carpenter, no less than the builder of the Niagara Suspension Bridge, makes hourly reference to scientific laws. The carpenter who misapplies his formulæ for the strength of materials, builds a house which falls down. The properties of the various mechanical powers are involved in every machine. Every machine, indeed, it has been well said, is a solidified mechanical theorem. The surveyor in determining the limits of one's farm, the architect in planning a house, the builder in planning his estimates, and the several master workmen who do the carpentry, masonry, and finishing, are all dependent upon geometric truths. Bleaching, dyeing, calico-printing, gas-making, soap-making, sugar-refining, the reduction of metals from their ores, with innumerable other productive industries, are dependent upon chemistry. Agriculture, the basis of all the other arts, is in the same condition. Chemical knowledge, indeed, is doing for the productive powers of the soil what the application of steam has done for the increase of mechanical power. The farmer who wishes to double his crops, finds the means of doing so, not in multiplying his acres, but in applying a knowledge of the laws of chemistry to the cultivation of the soil already possessed. Even physiology is adding to the wealth of the farming interest. The truth that the production of animal heat implies waste of substance, and that therefore preventing the loss of heat prevents the need for extra food—which is a purely theoretical conclusion—now guides the fattening of cattle. By keeping cattle warm, fodder is saved. Experiments of physiologists have proved, not only that change of diet is beneficial, but that digestion is facilitated by a mixture of ingredients in each meal. Both these truths are now influencing cattle-feeding. In the keen race of competition, the farmer who has a competent knowledge of the laws of animal and vegetable physiology and of agricultural chemistry, will surely distance the one who gropes along by guess and by tradition. A general diffusion of scientific knowledge saves the community from innumerable wasteful and foolish mistakes. In England, not many years ago, the partners in a large mining company were ruined from not knowing that a certain fossil belonged to the old red sandstone, below which coal is never found. In another enterprise, £20,000 were lost in the prosecution of a scheme for collecting the alcohol that distils from bread in baking, all of which might have been saved, had the parties known that less than one hundredth part by weight of the flour is changed in fermentation.
But it is not necessary to multiply illustrations. Suffice it to say, in conclusion, I hold it to be a most manifest truth, that the general education of a community increases largely its material wealth, both by the direct effect which knowledge has upon individuals in making them individually more productive, and by the increased control which the diffusion of knowledge gives to mankind over the powers of nature. A nation or a state is wisely economical which spends largely and even lavishly upon popular education.
XXX.
WHAT IS EDUCATION?
My last chapter, like the first, begins with a question. Strange to say, no satisfactory definition of education has yet been given, nor has a definition of it often been even attempted. The literature of the subject is copious enough. But writers have busied themselves mainly with details, with methods of teaching, and so forth. A few, of a more philosophical turn of mind, have discussed the principles of the subject, and among these some have undertaken to develop their theories from the true starting-point of a definition. But among all these, from Plato, who was the earliest systematic writer on the subject, to Herbert Spencer, the latest and the most pretentious, not one has given a definition of it which is not open to objection.
It may seem presumptuous, perhaps, to undertake again that in which so many have failed. But there can be no harm in making at least an endeavor. What then are some of the elements which enter into our idea of education?
To educate is, in the first place, to develop. It is to draw out and strengthen the powers and give them right direction. It is, therefore, something more than merely imparting knowledge. Knowledge is to the child's mind what food is to the body. Each is a means to an end. It is to cause growth. As by the proper use of food and exercise the limbs and muscles expand, and acquire their full and appointed size, symmetry, and strength, so by acquiring and using knowledge of various kinds, the various faculties of the mind attain their full power and proportion. For this reason mainly the pure mathematics and the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, have held their place in almost every course of liberal study, not because the knowledge of these branches is likely to be called for in ordinary professional business, but because the study of these branches is supposed to be particularly adapted to develop and invigorate certain important qualities of the mind. This development of the powers, then, is the first element involved in a just idea of education.
But, secondly, nature plainly indicates a certain order to be observed in the development of the faculties. "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." So in the human plant. The time for the efflorescence of some of the faculties is in early youth. Other faculties make little growth till near the age of manhood. A wise educator will carefully observe these facts, and not waste his energies and mar his work, either by attempting a premature development of those faculties which God seems to have meant to ripen later, or by neglecting to draw out and train in childhood those faculties which then most naturally and aptly spring into vigorous growth. Youth, for instance, is the season, of all others, when the memory is to be cultivated; the season of all others, when the instinctive principle of faith is to have free play. So, too, the moral and emotional faculties may receive the first germs of their development at a very early stage in the history of the human being. The education of this part of our nature begins, indeed, with the first smile of recognition that passes between the infant and its mother. Other faculties and powers, as the reason and the judgment, for instance, come to maturity nearer the age of manhood, and the normal period for their cultivation is accordingly near the end, rather than near the beginning, of an educational course. It is not, however, my object here to mark out an order for the development of the faculties, but only to note that there is such an order, and that the observance of this order is a most important element in our idea of what education is.
The next element in this idea is that a certain proportion and symmetry be observed in the development of the powers. Perhaps it might not be strictly accurate to say that any faculty may be cultivated too highly. Yet there certainly is an excess whenever one faculty or power is cultivated quite out of proportion to the other faculties and powers. A man in Boston a few years ago, by directing his attention exclusively for a long time to the single act of lifting, educated his body to the power of lifting enormous weights. But this power was gained at the expense of agility, grace, and many other bodily qualities quite as important as that of lifting weights. So the mental faculties may become one-sided by injudicious training. The memory may be inordinately developed at the expense of the reasoning power, the reason at the expense of the imagination, the feelings at the expense of the judgment, the mind at the expense of the body, the body at the expense of the mind. In all right education, therefore, the faculties are to be developed, not only in due order, but in due proportion.
The next element that enters into our idea is that of a proper comprehensiveness. The educator must bear in mind that the being committed to his care is one of a complex nature, and that every part of this complex nature is to receive its due attention. Physical education is included in his duties as well as mental, mental as well as moral and religious. No part is to be neglected. He should aim to secure for his subject full bodily health, agility, strength, symmetry, and power of endurance. The bodily senses are capable of a degree of cultivation that few seem to be aware of. Perhaps, in our ordinary schemes of education, no part of our complex nature is so inadequately provided for, so almost ignored, as the physical. But, as in regard to the other points that have been raised, so here, it is not my object so much to particularize the several parts of human nature that require attention, as to recognize distinctly the fact that we are thus complex, and that the business of the educator is necessarily a many-sided one, requiring most varied knowledge and experience.