Lectures on chemistry were, however, given at the academy by Matthew Turner, who is believed to have first turned Priestley’s attention to that science. Turner, who practised medicine in Liverpool, although an eccentric man, applied his knowledge of chemistry to industrial purposes, and he is credited with having revived the art of glass-painting.
Priestley was now wholly engrossed in the business of teaching, and although nominally tutor in the classical languages and in the belles lettres, there was practically no department of education in which at one time or other during the half-dozen years of his sojourn at Warrington he was not called upon, or did not offer, to instruct. He enlarged and published the Grammar to which reference has already been made, and began a treatise on “The Structure and Contemporary State of the English Language,” the material for which he eventually gave to Croft of Oxford for the compilation of his Grammar and Dictionary.
But what particularly impressed him as a practical educationist was that whilst most of his pupils were designed for situations in civil and active life, every article in the plan of their education was adapted to the learned professions. There was hardly any medium between an education for the counting-house, consisting of writing, arithmetic and merchants’ accounts, and a method of instruction in the abstract sciences. He proceeds to trace how this came about:—
“Formerly none but the clergy were thought to have any occasion for learning. It was natural, therefore, that the whole plan of education, from the Grammar School to the finishing at the University, should be calculated for their use. If a few other persons, who were not designed for Holy Orders, offered themselves for education, it could not be expected that a course of studies should be provided for them only. And, indeed, as all those persons who superintended the business of education were of the clerical order, and had themselves been taught nothing but the rhetoric, logic and school-divinity, or civil law, which comprised the whole compass of human learning for several centuries, it could not be expected that they should entertain larger, or more liberal, views of education; and still less that they should strike out a course of study for the use of men who were universally thought to have no need of study, and of whom few were so sensible of their own wants as to desire any such advantages.
“Besides, in those days, the great ends of human society seem to have been but little understood. Men of the greatest rank, fortune and influence, and who took the lead in all the affairs of State, had no idea of the great objects of wise and extensive policy, and therefore could never apprehend that any fund of knowledge was requisite for the most eminent stations in the community. Few persons imagined what were the true sources of wealth, power and happiness in a nation. Commerce was little understood, or even attended to; and so slight was the connection of the different nations of Europe that general politics were very contracted. And thus, men’s views being narrow, little previous furniture of mind was requisite to conduct them.”
These paragraphs constitute the introduction to an Essay on Education which Priestley published in 1764, with the object of drawing attention to the necessity for a reform in our educational system. Although written nearly a century and a half ago, Priestley’s main contention that the education of youth should be directed and adapted to the circumstances and needs of the time in which they live is just as valid now as then, and needs the same insistence. He points out that “the severe and proper discipline” of the Grammar Schools, which are subservient to the Universities, is become a “topic of ridicule.”
“This is certainly a call upon us to examine the state of education in this country, and to consider how those years are employed which men pass previous to their entering into the world; for upon this their future behaviour and success must, in a great measure, depend. A transition, which is not easy, can never be made with advantage; and therefore it is certainly our wisdom to contrive that the studies of youth should tend to fit them for the business of manhood; and that the objects of their attention, and turn of thinking in younger life, should not be too remote from the destined employment of their riper years. If this be not attended to they must necessarily be mere novices upon entering the great world, be almost unavoidably embarrassed in their conduct, and, after all the time and experience bestowed upon their education, be indebted to a series of blunders for the most useful knowledge they will ever acquire.”
“That man is a friend of his country who observes and endeavours to supply any defects in the methods of educating youth.”
At the risk of being called “a projector, a visionary, or whatever anybody pleases,” he proceeds to show “how to fill up with advantage those years which immediately precede a young gentleman’s engaging in those higher spheres of active life in which he is destined to move.”
It will be observed that Priestley is not dealing with any scheme of national or universal education adapted to every youth in the community. He is concerned only with the young man who is destined for a station in which his conduct may considerably affect the liberty and the property of his countrymen, and the riches, the strength and the security of his country; and who is within the influence of an honourable ambition to appear as a legislator in the State, or of standing near the helm of affairs and guiding the secret springs of Government—in a word, that class which the universities thought they alone were specially concerned with.
“That the parents and friends of young gentlemen destined to act in any of these important spheres may not think a liberal education unnecessary to them, and that the young gentlemen themselves may enter with spirit into the enlarged views of their friends and tutors, I would humbly propose some new articles of academical instruction, such as have a nearer and more evident connection with the business of active life, and which may therefore bid fairer to engage the attention and rouse the thinking powers of young gentlemen of an active genius. The subjects I would recommend are ‘Civil History,’ and more especially the important objects of ‘Civil Policy’; such as the theory of laws, government, manufactures, commerce, naval force, etc., with whatever may be demonstrated from history to have contributed to the flourishing state of nations, to rendering a people happy and populous at home and formidable abroad; together with those articles of previous information, without which it is impossible to understand the nature, connections and mutual influences of those great objects.”
He then gives plans and detailed syllabuses of three distinct courses of lectures subservient to this design. The first is on the “Study of History in General”; the second on the “History of England,” and the third on the “Present Constitution and Laws of England.” This scheme is so daring an innovation on the established order of things 150 years ago, that Priestley then proceeds with care to anticipate, examine and rebut the objections which may be urged against it. There is no necessity to dwell upon them now. Much water has flowed under the Folly Bridge or past the “Backs” since Priestley’s essay was penned, and everything for which he contended, and even more, now finds its proper place in the educational schemes of all our universities, ancient and modern. But it is significant of the condition of things in the older seats of learning in the middle of the eighteenth century, that he should have to urge his project apologetically and to labour points which to-day appear almost axiomatic. The essay is characteristic of the author in the breadth and liberality of its tone, in its declaration of the real functions and objects of government, and in its note of true patriotism. Of course it was fiercely attacked, among others, by Griffiths in the Monthly Review, but it enlisted Josiah Wedgwood’s sympathy with its author and formed the basis of a friendship as cordial and enduring as it was useful.