Essays on Educational Reformers

by Robert Hebert Quick

Now the historian is tempted to treat real men and women as the writer of fiction treats his puppets. Having fastened, quite correctly let us suppose, on their main peculiarity he considers it necessary to square everything with his theory of them, and whatever will not fall in with it he, if he is unscrupulous, misrepresents, or if he is scrupulous, suppresses.

Again, we are too apt to read into words meanings derived from controversies unknown at the time when the words were uttered. This is a well-known fact in the history of religious thought. We must always consider not merely the words used but the time when they were used. What a man might say quite naturally and orthodoxly at one period would be sufficient to convict him of sympathizing with some terrible heresy if uttered half a century later. We find something like this in the history of education. If anyone nowadays speaks of the pleasure with which as a young man he read Tacitus, he is understood to mean that he is opposed to the introduction of “modern studies” into the school-room. If on the other hand he extols botany, or regrets that he never learned chemistry, this is taken for an assault on classical instruction. But, of course, no such inference could be drawn if we went back to a time when the antithesis between classics and natural science had not been accentuated. In many other instances we have to be on our guard against forcing into language meaning which belongs rather to a later date.

§ 17. With these cautions in mind let us see how far Locke may be said (1) to be a trainer, and (2) how far a utilitarian.

§ 18. I. Mr. Browning attributes to Rabelais, Montaigne, and Locke the desire to bring up a well-developed man rather than a good scholar. But Rabelais certainly craved for the knowledge of things; and if he is to be classed at all I should put him rather with the Realists, albeit he lived before the realistic spirit became powerful. Montaigne went more on the lines of developing rather than teaching, and, shrewd man of the world as he was, he thought a great deal about the art of living. But his ideal was not so much the man as the gentleman. This was true also of Locke; and here we see some explanation why both Montaigne and Locke do not value classical learning.[119] On the Continent classical learning has never been associated with the character of an accomplished gentleman; and, as far as I know, the conception that the highest type of excellence is found in the union of “the scholar and the gentleman” is peculiar to this country. In the society of Locke’s day this union does not seem to have been recognized, and Locke observes: “A great part of the learning now in fashion in the schools of Europe, and that goes ordinarily into the round of education, a gentleman may in a good measure be unfurnished with, without any great disparagement to himself or prejudice to his affairs.” (Thoughts, § 94, p. 74.) So Locke sought as the true essential for the young gentleman “prudence and good breeding.” He puts his requisites in the following order of importance:—1, virtue; 2, wisdom; 3, manners; 4, learning; and so “places learning last and least.” Here he shews himself far ahead of those who still held to the learned ideal; but his notions of development were cramped by his thinking only of the gentleman and what was requisite for him.

§ 19. II. Was Locke a utilitarian in education? It is the fashion (and in history as in other things fashion is a powerful force), it is the fashion to treat of Locke as a great champion of utilitarianism. We might expect this in the ordinary historians, for “when they do agree their unanimity is” not perhaps very wonderful. But there is one great English authority quite uninfluenced by them who has said the same thing, viz.—Cardinal Newman. The Cardinal, as the champion of authority, is perhaps prejudiced against Locke, who holds that “the faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceived those who trusted to it.” Be this as it may, Newman asserts that “the tone of Locke’s remarks is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the general cultivation of the mind.” (Idea of a University. Discourse vij., § 4; see also § 6.) A very interesting point for us to consider is then, Is this reputation of Locke’s for utilitarianism well deserved?

§ 20. First let us be quite certain of our definition.

In learning anything there are two points to be considered; 1st, the advantage we shall find from knowing that subject or having that skill, and 2nd, the effect which the study of that subject or practising for that skill will have on the mind or the body.

These two points are in themselves distinct, though it is open to anyone to maintain that they need not be considered separately. Nature has provided that the bodies of most animals should get the exercise best for them in procuring food. So Mr. Herbert Spencer has come to the conclusion that it would be contrary to “the economy of nature” if one set of occupations were needed as gymnastics and another for utility. In other words he considers that it is in learning the most useful things we get the best training.

The utilitarian view of instruction is that we should teach things useful in themselves and either neglect the result on the mind and body of the learner or assume Mr. Spencer’s law of “the economy of nature.”

Again, when the subjects are settled the utilitarian thinks how the knowledge or skill may be most speedily acquired, and not how this method or that method of acquisition will affect the faculties.