/' .- ^'^'^ifc LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ^: *oe . She 11 Fa. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Intcntational (fktfatiait ^txm EDITED BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A. M., LL. D. Volume XXI I I. THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. 12mo, cloth, uniform binding. n^HE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES was projected for the pur- -*- pose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old, upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training for teachers generally. It is edited by W. T. Harris, LL. D., now United States Commissioner of Education, who has contributed for the different volumes in the way of introductions, analysis, and commentary. The volumes are tastefully and substan- tially bound in uniform style. VOLUMES NOW READY: Vol. I.— THE PHILOSOPKY OF EDUCATION. ByJoHANN Karl Fried- RICH RosENKRANZ, Doctor of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at the Uni- versity of Konigsberg. Translated from the German by Anna C. Bkackett. Second edition, revised, and accompanied with Commentary and complete Analysis. Price, $1.50. Vol. II.— A HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By F. V. N. Painter, A. M., Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in Roanoke College, Va. Price, $1.50. Vol. III.— THE RISE AND EARLY CONSTITUTION OF UNIVER- SITIES. With a Survey of Medieval Education. By S. S. Laurie, LL. D., Professor of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of Edinburgh. Price, $1.50. Vol. IV.— THE VENTILATION AND V/ARMING OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS. By Gilbert B. Morrison, Teacher of Physics and Chem- istry in Kansas City High School. Price, $1.00. Vol. v.— THE EDUCATION OF MAN, By Friedrich Froebel. Trans- lated and furnished with ample notes by W. N. Hailmann, A. M., Superin- tendent of Public Schools, La Porte, Ind. Price, $1.50. Vol. VI.— ELEMENTARY PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. By Dr. J. Baldwin, author of " The Art of School Management." Price, $1.50. Vol- VII.— THE SENSES AND THE WILL. (Part I of "The Mind of the Child.") By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated from the original German by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Price, $1.50. Vol. VIII.— MEMORY : What it is and how to Improve it. By David Kay, F. R. G. S., author of "Education and Educators," etc. Price, $1.50. Vol. IX.— THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. (Part II of "The Mind of the Child.") By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated from the original German by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Price, $1.50. THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES.— {Continued.) Vol. X.— HOW TO STUDY GEOGRAPHY. A Practical Exposition of Methods and Devices in Teaching Geography which apply the Principles and Plans of Ritter and Guyot. By Francis W, Parker, Principal of the Cook County (Illinois) Normal School. Price, $1.50. Vol. XL— EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: Its History from the Earliest Settlements. By Richard G. Boone, A.M., Professor of Pedagogy in Indiana University. Price, $1 50. Vol. XII.— EUROPEAN SCHOOLS; or, What I Saw in the Schools of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland. By L. R. Klemm, Ph. D., Principal of the Cincinnati Technical School, author of "Chips from a Teacher's Workshop," etc. Fully illustrated. Price, $2.00. Vol. XIII.— PRACTICAL HINTS FOR THE TEACHERS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. By George Rowland, Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools. Price, $1.00. Vol. XIV.— PESTALOZZI : His Life and Work. By Roger de Guimps. Authorized translation from the second French edition, by J. Russell, B. A., Assistant Master in University College, London. With an Introduction by Rev. R. H. Quick, M. A. Price, $1.50. Vol. XV.— SCHOOL SUPERVISION. By J. L. Pickard, LL. D. Price, $1.00. Vol. XVL— HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN EUROPE. By Helene Lange, Berlin. Translated and accompanied by comparative statistics by L. R. Klemm. Price, $1.00. Vol. XVII. —ESSAYS ON EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS. By Robert Herbert Quick, M. A., Trinity College, Cambridge; formerly Assistant Mas- ter at Harrow, and Lecturer on the History of Education at Cambridge ; late Vicar of Ledbergh. Only authorized edition of the work as rewritten in 1890. Price, $1.50. Vol. XVIIL— A TEXT-BOOK IN PSYCHOLOGY. An Attempt to found THE Science of Psychology on Experience, Metaphysics, and Mathe- matics. By JoHANN Frijedrich Herbart. Translated from the original German by Margaret K. Smith, Teacher in the State Normal School at Oswego, New York. Price, $1.00. Vol. XIX.— PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO THE ART OF TEACHING. By Dr. Joseph Baldwin. Price, $1.50. Vol. XX.— ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. By W. H. Payne. Price, $1.50. Vol. XXI.— ETHICAL TRAINING IN SCHOOLS. By Felix Adler. Vol. XXII.— ENGLISH EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS. By Isaac Sharpless, LL. D. Price, $1.00. Vol. XXIIL— EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT, By Alfred Fouill^e. Price, $1.50. Circular, describing the volumes more in detail, mailed to any address on request. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. INTEJINATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES EDUCATION FEOM A NATIOITAL STANDPOINT ALFRED EOUILLEE TRANSLATED ANT) EDITED, WITH A PREFACE By W. J. GREENSTREET, M. A. ST. John's college, Cambridge HEAD MASTER OF THE MARLING SCHOOL, STROUD WITH A PREFACE By WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL.D. UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION AUG 2^ ' NEW YORK ^"S^2^/ APPLETON-AND COMPANY ^ 1892 uei Copyright, 189;:^, By D. APPLETON AND COIMPANY. Printed at the Appleton Press, U. S. A. EDITOE'S PEEFACE. Since the national disaster of 1870, France has struggled to rebuild itself from within. There is no more important spectacle before our eyes at the present time than this attempt at reconstruction. The cause of education all over the world has received a great impulse through the fact that French statesmen have chosen to mate free schools and compulsory attend- ance the corner-stone of the new state. The doctrine that universal education in schools makes a people strong and free, could be regarded as visionary by par- tisans of the old regime ; but when the statesmen of France proclaim that it was the schools of Germany that conquered at Sedan — when they proceed to organ- ize a thorough and universal system of schools — when England reforms on a new basis her own educational system, and when Italy and Spain manifest equal energy in founding an efficient system of popular edu- cation, no room for doubt is left in the mind of the conservative as to the practical necessity of education to national prosperity. It is not the doctrinaire^ but the statesman and public opinion, that assert it. The first question being settled, that of the indis- pensableness of schools for the people, there arises into prominence the second and more subtle question, What shall be the course of study in these people's schools? Here come in the conflicting claims of 2 vi editor's preface. BcieBce and literature. Tlie dazzling victories of science and invention in the conquest of Nature furnish the argument in behalf of science: The cen- tral branch of study in the people's schools should be natural science. On the other hand, tradition has made letters and literary study the chief instrument of education in the school. Much more than one half of the work in the school is devoted to the study of language. The humanists defend the traditional course of study, but the realists demand more science. This is the contest now going on everywhere within Chris- tian countries. In language-study it is not one's native tongue that has formed the center of instruction, but rather the classic tongues, Latin and Greek. This gives a further point of advantage to the advocates of natural science, who are not slow to urge the uselessness of devoting so much time to " dead " languages. The influence of the realistic party has prevailed in England and on the Continent to induce experiments in the line of scientific study. But a reaction has set in, and the present book of M. Fouillee represents the most advanced thought on the side of the humanists. It is not contended that natural science should be excluded from the course of study, but only that it should be subordinated to language-study. Science will undoubtedly occupy a large place in the pro- gramme of the school of the future, but it will never form the central interest of the school. This is the conclusion, according to science itself, rightly inter- preted by M. Guyau and M. Fouillee. It is shown by them that the foremost doctrine of natural science — that of evolution — demands for education as its central theme the study of the spiritual evolution of civiliza- tion. This is the reason why the youth of all Euro- pean countries, and of all countries that share in European civilization, are trained by the study of the two '^ dead " languages, Latin and Greek. It is be- Vll cause " the evolution of the civilization in which we live and move and have our being issued through Greece and Eome on its way to us. We kindled the torches of our institutions — the watch-tires of our civilization — at their sacred flames. The organism of the state, the invention of the forms in which man may live in a civil community and enjoy municipal and personal rights — these trace their ' descent in a direct line from Eome, and were indigenous to the people that spoke Latin. In our civil and political forms we live Eoman life to-day. That side or phase of the complex organism of modern civilization is Eoman. Our scientific and aesthetic forms come from beyond Eome ; they speak the language of their Greek home to this very day, just as much as jurisprudence and legislation pronounce their edicts in Eoman words. Eeligion points through Greece and Eome to a beyond in Judea for a still deeper spiritual presupposition." * There are two strands of our civilization that wo live unconsciously; we inherit our civilization as a life of habit and custom. If we are to become en- lightened, and understand this life of use and won't; if we are to become conscious of the grounds of the in- stinctive springs and blind impulses, and elevate them into reason, we must follow the traditional course of study prescribed for a " liberal " education. We must approach the Eoman and Athenian life, and put on its spiritual clothing. A language is a sort of spiritual clothing. Using the language of evolution, we must become acquainted with our spiritual embryology. Modern languages do not suffice for this purpose, for all mod- ern languages borrowed their two strands of culture ideas from the Greeks and Eomans. " To suggest a study of German or French as a substitute for Latin * Quoted from my Report of the St. Louis Public Schools for 1872-'73, p. 69. viii editor's preface. and Greek, would be paralleled in the science of zool- ogy by suggesting a study of snakes instead of tadpoles in the embryology of the frog." * This is the "national point of view " of which M. Fouillee speaks. Those nations whose civilization is derivative must learn to understand themselves by studying the language of the original source of their civilization. The Chinese must (and they do) study Confucius ; the Hindoos study Sanskrit ; the Moham- medans the Koran. Doubtless each nation has other important ele- ments in its national idea which render it necessary to give a particular bent to the course of study in its schools. France, for instance, must sustain its unique position in the world as arbiter of artistic taste and fashion by special studies in classic art. The reader of the writings of M. Fouillee and M. Guyau will be struck with their grasp of the psy- chology of Herbart. The fundamental thought of idees forces is Herbartian. The use of " hypnotic suggestion " in the explanation of model education, and the well-sustained attack on the scientific course of study as not furnishing mental stimulant for per- manent growth in intellect, are based on the Herbart- ian psychology. It is not what we perceive, but what we assimilate or apperceive, that nourishes the mind. Natural science furnishes at the outset a limited stock of new conceptions, and when these are exhausted no further growth of the intellect comes from the ma- nipulation of the details of the science. On the con- trary, in literature and history and philosophy these open up a never-ending series of greater syntheses, and the mind is obliged to expand ever anew to re- ceive them. W. T. Hakeis. Washington, D. C, June, 1892. * Report for 1873-73 above cited, p. 70. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. It is now more than three centuries since the "up- rising and reinstatement of Hellenism," with its new conceptions of life, revolutionized the thought of Europe. To the change in the existing order of things at that time we have a parallel at the present moment. The last half-century has seen the triumph of the scientific method, and the impulse given to modern thought by the invasion of the positive spirit has produced a malaise pedagogique, which is now reaching an acute stage. The spirit of reform is in the air. The question of the retention of Greek at the universities is but a ripple of the great wave that seems ready to burst upon us and to obliterate the characteristic features of our national system of education. The pressure of a complex civilization has introduced new elements into the problems per- plexing the statesmen of the day, and has given fresh impetus to the impending change. A glance at the various forms of the educational systems obtaining in Europe and America is sufficient to betray to the observant eye how near to the verge of chaos we are standing. Questions of special interest are constantly arising, and in the excitement of the moment we are X TRANSLATOK'S PEEFACE. apt to place them in a false perspective, to exaggerate or to minimize their relative importance, and so we run the danger of ignoring or treating with indifi'er- ence those fundamental principles which are of infinitely greater importance than anything of merely temporary interest. The present conflict between the claims of a literary and of a scientific curriculum in our secondary schools is an instance in point. Every- where we see the tendency of scientific and com- mercial studies to thrust what is more disinterested into the background. Grave as were the faults of the old regime, an impartial and dispassionate survey of the results of the purely scientific system does not seem to warrant the perfervid encomiums of its sup- porters. The investigations of Mr, Glazebrook, the Head Master of Clifton, into the post-university career of science " scholars " at Oxford and Cambridge, lead him to conclude that there is " a very marked advan- tage on the side of those who had the more liberal education." * Similar inquiries elsewhere lead to the conclusion that the powers of observation, correlation, and inference are not as fully developed by this train- ing as was anticipated, and that the mere erudition so frequent and so fatal in the classical system is equally fatal and equally frequent in a scientific training. It looks as if the " modern " system is after all but a system of imparting infoi mation — " the least part of knowledge," as Butler tells us. This is the kernel of the whole matter. And, if it be true that the "modern" system eflfectually stifles what is more important than knowledge itself — the desire for know- ♦ Thirteen Essays on Education (" The Universities and Specialization," p. 231). TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. XI ledofe — the indictment is a serious one. The result of this feeling is that, abroad, at any rate — for in this country we move slowly — there is felt the discomfort that, as Locke says, underlies every desire for change, France, Germany, and Italy are convulsed by the shock of the two opposing forces of Humanism and Realism, In this country we seem quite content with having supplemented the " classical side " by a " modern side," and we cheerfully throw the onus of choice between these alternatives upon the parents — who in most cases are the least competent to make that choice wisely. But abroad, the State has organized the secondary education of the whole com- munity, and the theoretical and practical difficulties of an exceedingly complex problem have been forced upon the attention of statesmen who, with or without the necessary qualifications, have had to attempt at least a provisional solution. At home the voice of Matthew Arnold has been crying to us from the wilderness : Organize, organize your secondary edu- cation! Your middle-class education must be a public service with the organization and guaran- tees of a public service, with the honest, single- minded, logically pursued aim of efficiency. But our Cassandra was ignored. Alone of the great European powers we leave our secondary education to the energy and enterprise of the individual. We have no definite centre of responsibility. Our efforts are spasmodic and ill-directed. We have devised a scheme of technical instruction which can effect but little until our system of primary instruction is reformed and extended, for the former is intended to aid the masses whose minds have been lying fallow from the age of twelve or thirteen. The University Extension xii TEANSLATOR'S PEEFACE. scheme has failed to touch the masses for the same reason; it brought "caviare" to "the general" by means of a picked body of men who, as a rule, are too inexperienced and unsympathetic to be able to make the untimely food palatable. Not attempts such as these, not people's palaces, polytechnics, and the host of forms which philanthropic endeavour has assumed in our large towns, are the crying need of the hour, but a sound organization of our secondary education. The longer our recognition of this is postponed the more difficult and costly will action become. When we do recognize it, our statesmen will have to discuss in sober earnest the question which is being fiercely debated at the present moment by the statesmen, savants, and litterateurs of Europe — What is the proper basis of a secondary education ? The rivalry between the gymnasiuTii and realschule has its counterpart in France in the conflict between the classical lycees and the ecoles speciales. The struggle has been intensified in the latter country by the descent into the arena of a third group of com- batants, advocating what is not a compromise but a rival scheme, under the name of enseignement das- sique frangais. The parties engaged in this triangular duel are by no means agreed, even when they profess to be directing their efforts to the same end. Some vigorously condemn any form of education that is not based upon both Greek and Latin. Others, to the gratification of the clergy, pronounce boldly in favour of a radical change, which must in the long run in- volve the relegation of both Greek and Latin to the ecoles libres. M. Bigot, for example, insists on much the same bifurcation as that obtaining in Germany, viz. an enseignement classique of Greek and Latin or TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Xlll of Latin alone. So far, all indignantly denounce the technical or professional side proposed for the secondary schools.* M. Dietz would make " modern humanities " the basis of all secondary education.f Most daring of all is M. Raoul Frary,| and he is the more formidable because, a scholar of exceptional brilliancy, he fights with weapons forged in the armoury of his opponents. Nothing will content M. Frary but the suppression of Latin and Greek. Delenda est Carthago ! Such are a few instances of the ideas afloat in France at the present moment. But these, on the whole, treat the subject far too much from the utilitarian point of view. Looking at the question of education from a wider standpoint, the late M. Guyau has joined in the discussion with a contribution which, from the very nature of its conception, has given a higher tone to controversy.§ The present volume is so closely linked with that of M. Guyau, both in object and method, that in attempting to give the reader an idea of the part played in the discussion by M. Fouillee, it will perhaps be advisable to state the Hcope of the work of the younger philosopher. In all that Guyau wrote he kept one single end in view, " the linking together of ethics, sesthetics, and religion with the idea of life — life in its most intensive, extensive, and therefore most fruitful form." To him pedagogy is '' the art of adapting new generations to those conditions of life which are the most intensive ex- * " Questions d'enseignement secondaire " (1886). t " Etudes Classiques sans Latin " (1886). " Les Humauit^s Modernes " (1887). X " Question du Latin " (1886). § " Education and Heredity. A sociological study." Contemporary Science Series. 1891. (Walter Scott.) xiv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. tensive, and fruitful for the individual and the species." The claims of the individual and of society are com- plementary, each is necessary to the fullest develop- ment of the other. The object of all education is simultaneously individual and social, it is "the search for. means to bring the most intensive individual existence into harmony v^ith the most extensive social life." It therefore has a triple end: (1) "The harmonious development in the individual of all the capacities proper and useful to the race ; " (2) " The development in the individual of such capacities as are peculiar to him," as long as such development " will not disturb the equilibrium of the organism ; " (3) " To arrest and check the tendencies and instincts which may disturb that equilibrium, i.e. to aid heredity in proportion as it tends to create permanent supe- riority in the race, and to resist its influence when it tends to accumulate causes pernicious to the race itself" The freshness and ingenuity of Guyau's treatment of the problem in this form can be readily imagined by those who are familiar with his works on other subjects. An ardent evolutionist, he carries his doctrine to its logical consequences. "The whole system of education must be directed towards the maintenance and progress of the human race." " Every individual is a temporary depository of part of the force inherent in the race;" and Guyau's special claim to attention lies in his endeavour to show that the system of education best adapted to conserve the force of the race is also the best adapted to conserve the force stored up in the individual. The heads of the argument may be roughly stated as follows. The individual is a society composed of con- stituent cells ; hence " life" and "social life" are contro- TKANSLATOK'S PREFACE. XV vertible terms. The maintenance of the solidarity between the individual and the race is the only hope for the future of both. The education best adapted to secure the maintenance of this solidarity, upon which the persistence of the race depends, is that based upon the Humanities. The modern system, based upon science, is sterile, because it neglects the humanities contained in science, and science is only valuable from the humanities contained in it. So far are we led in M. Guj^au's posthumous work. In M. Fouiliee's opening chapters we find a brilliant application by analogy of the doctrine of selection to physical, intellectual, and moral education — an appli- cation as novel, ingenious, and stimulating as the analogical application by Guyau of the principle of "rotation of crops" in agriculture to intellectual education.* Particularizing from the race to the nation, M. Fouillee treats the subject of secondary education from the national standpoint. But although he has narrowed down Guyau's main thesis, t^e author does not present us with a mere supplement to "Education and Heredity,'* An experienced teacher, and one of the leading philosophers in France, his opinions on the burning question of the hour acquire additional weight at the present crisis. His eloquent exposition of the humanities contained in science,! his crushing indictment of the utilitarian tendency that confounds education with instruction, his damaging criticism of the educational doctrines of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Professor Bain,t his able * " Education and Heredity," c. viii. t It was once said of Professor Tyndall's lecture on "The Scientific Use of the Imagination," that it was really a lecture on "the imaginative use of science." What was meant as a quip had a mine of truth in it. X The student should read in this connection M. Thamin's excellent monograph, " Education et Positivisme " (1892). XVI TKANSLATOR'S PBEFACE. and temperate exposure of the fallacies that have found utterance during the present controversy, his luminous and convincing restatement of the arguments for the retention of the humanities as the basis of any system of secondary education, his grasp of detail as shown in the tables throughout the volume, and finally, the fact that the recent changes in the curriculum of the secondary schools in Italy have been on the lines laid down in this volume by M. Fouillee, may well give us pause.* I must express my deep sense of the courtesy and generosity of M, Fouillee, who gave me carte-hlanche to retrench the French edition where necessary, and to adapt it for the English and American reader. After due consideration I decided to omit just so much of the detail as would be irrelevant to the reader in this country or America, and also whatever would necessitate voluminous elucidation in footnotes. The main argument remains intact. The reader should bear in mind that the haccalaureat corresponds to the degree examinations at the British universities rather than to their matriculations. Wherever time- tables are given, I have added the average age of the classes for w^hich they are intended. M. Fouillee's tables can therefore be readily applied to boys of the same average age elsewhere. I have taken the liberty of inserting a few references that may be useful to the student of pedagogy. W. J. GREENSTREET. The Makijng School, Stroud, March, 1892. * The Italian government has practically adopted the compromise suggested by M. Fouillee between the conflicting claims of the classics and natural science, and has reorganized and co-ordinated the subjects taught in its secondary schools. CONTENTS, TAOR Introduction ... ... ... ... ,„ „. i BOOK 1. EDUCATION AND SELECTION FKOM THE NATIONAL POINT OF VIEW 10 CHAPTER L Power of Education and of Idea-foeces— Suggestions- Heredity ... ... ... ... ... ,.. 10 CHAPTER IL Physical Education from the Point of View of Evolution AND Selection ... ... ... ... ... 28 CHAPTER IIL The Objects of Intellectual and Moral Education from THE National Standpoint... ... ... ... 33 CHAPTER IV. The Selection of Superiorities — Rational Means Available 4] XVIU CONTENTS. PAGB CHAPTER Y. Utilitarian Education and True National Interests ... 4'5 BOOK 11. SCIENTIFIC HUMANITIES FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT 54 CHAPTER I. The Humanities and their General Object ... cc. 54 CHAPTER II. Faults in our Teaching of Science ... ,., ... 59 CHAPTER III. The Philosophical Reform of Scientific Studies — Their Transformation into Humanities ... ... ... 71 BOOK III. THE CLASSICAL HUMANITIES FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT 94 CHAPTER L Of the Parallel between Human Evolution and Individual Evolution ... ... ... ... ... ... 96 CHAPTER IL Great National Interests and the Classical Humanities 105 CONTENTS. xix PAQB BOOK IV. A. "MODERN" EDUCATION FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT 136 CHAPTER I. Unity in Secondary Education ... ... ... ,..139 CHAPTER II. Modern Languages and Litekatuke ... ... ... 153 CHAPTER in. Fkench ''Special" Insteuction, and the German Real- scHULE ... ... ... ... ... ... 17-4 CHAPTER IV. Proposed Refokm? ... ... ... ••• ... 181 BOOK V. PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS, AND SOCIAL SCIENCE FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT 193 CHAPTER L Moral and Social Science in the School the only Solution of the Problem ... ... ... ••* ... 195 CHAPTER IL Moral and Civic Instruction ... ... ... ... 204 CHAPTER III. Historical and Political Instruotion ... ... ... 21S XX CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. LlTEKATURE AND AESTHETICS ... 226 CHAPTER V. Instruction in Philosophy ... 246 CHAPTER VI. The Necessity of Philosophy to the Teacher ... 256 CHAPTER VII. EXAUIINATIONS AT THE EnD OF SCHOOL-LIFE — AbITURIENTEN- EXAMEN ... ... ... .•• ... ••• 261 CHAPTER VIII. Philosophy, and its Place in Higher Education ... e.. 264 CHAPTER IX. Conclusion Appendix I. Appendix II. Appendix III. Index ... ... 268 ... 293 ... 316 ... 323 ... 329 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. INTEODUCTION. A SOCIETY has been formed in France for the promotion of a physical renaissance; it is a matter of general opinion that combination is no less necessary for the promotion of an intellectual and moral renaissance. Educational ques- tions are the order of the day ; rarely have so many books been published with reference to problems in pedagogy. Most of the controversies relative to this vital question of educa- tion seem to me to arise from the fact that we fail to reach a sufficiently general point of view, i.e. the national, inter- national, or efven ethnical. Among books recently published and deserving of notice on various grounds, there is, I may almost say, only one in which the author places side by side the two essential factors in this problem — the individual and the race.* On this, as on all great questions of practical philosophy, Guyau has left his mark. His prin- cipal claim on our attention will be that he has treated from the " sociological " point of view the problems, not only of * "Education and Heredity :" Contemporary Science Series. 2 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. morals, but also of religion, sesthetics, and education. He has treated the question from the highest standpoint, and has stated it in a strictly scientific form : " Given the hereditary merits and faults of a race, how far can we modify existing heredity by means of education for the benefit of a new heredity ? " For the problem is nothing less than this ; it is not merely a matter of the instruction of individuals, but of the preservation and improvement of the race. Educa- tion must therefore be based upon the physiological and moral laws of the culture of races. These laws are not con- sidered unworthy of attention when we are dealing with the breeding of animals; but they are set aside or forgotten when we are dealing with man, "as if the education of humanity only concerned individuals." The ethnical is the true point of view. By means of education we must create such hereditary tendencies as will be useful to the race, both physically and intellectually. True education is that which, instead of sterilizing the brain by the exhaustion of its force, makes it more and more fruitful by the development of varied capacities in the midst of varied environments. In the following pages I propose to take a more restricted view of the problem than that taken by Guyau ; I shall devote myself in particular to educational questions, which I shall discuss from the national point of view. The nation is an organism endowed with a kind of collective consciousness, although not concentrated in an ego ; I there- fore take everything that maintains in a nation continuity of character, mind, habits, and aptitudes — in a word, a national consciousness and a national will — as a form of organic heredity and identity persisting from age to age. That strange saying of old Heraclitus has been rightly applied to the solidarity of the generations of mankind : " The death of the gods is our life ; " i.e., according to ancient modes of speech, we are living on our ancestors, on the moral forces incarnated in the history of our country, as well as on the natural forces incorporated in its chmate and in its soil. In my opinion, the final goal of education is to secure, not only INTRODUCTION. 3 the development of the race, but also that of our nation- ality, our native country. Among the means of attaining this end which we have to consider, the first is selection. The history of humanity exhibits the struggle of races, nationalities, and individuals, not only for existence — in the oft-quoted phraseology of a narrow interpretation of Darwinism — but also for vital progress of every kind, including intellectual, aesthetic, and moral life. Much is said in these days about the struggle for existence. There is a hasty and heedless application to humanity of the laws formulated by Darwin for the animal kingdom. The metamorphoses of selection, as it passes from the domain of brute force to that of intellectual and moral force, are ignored. All the more or less shocking deductions drawn from Darwinism are due to this logical blunder, and consist in the belief that the triumph of the most powerful force is always equivalent to that of the most brutal force. It is of importance, therefore, to note the analogies and differences between natural and social selec- tion ; these I shall attempt to point out. In the first place, we must endeavour to ascertain the true power and limits of education and of instruction, strictly so called ; we shall investigate how far it is true that " ideas lead the world," and how a selection of ideas is primarily affected in the brain by education, i.e. what we may call psychological selection. Then we shall discuss social selection and the conditions under which it will produce such a picked class as is necessary to the progress of the whole race. Here the doctrine of evolution will assist us to determine the most essential objects of that education which has as its aim the perfection of the species. Having thus laid down our general principles, we shall draw our theoretical and practical inferences as far as reform of the educational systems of Europe is concerned. The more civilization advances, the more pre-eminence lies with everything that is organized, systematized, and co- ordinated in hierarchic order. From the military point of 4 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. view, for instance, the more numerous the army, the more essential is the unity and subordination of those parts which are distinctive of a Hving being. From the poUtical point of view, it is equally clear that organization is of vast, and so to speak of vital, importance. The danger that, above all others, a democratic nation must avoid is the disintegration of society into units with no immediate concern but self-interest, into individuals to whom social duties and bonds are gradually ceasing to appeal. Is not the same danger to be anticipated in education ? There, as elsewhere, we must battle all the more vigorously agamst anarchy and want of organization, in proportion as the number of subjects of knowledge becomes more numerous and more complex ; science and industry are advancing with such rapid strides that the human brain cannot, save by more and more rigorous discipline, adapt itself to such a variety of laws, theories, and applications. That nation which can introduce into its education the most powerful and the most consolidated organization will, ipso facto, enjoy in the world of intellect a superiority analogous to that of well-organized governments and armies. Eeform has, so far, been chiefly confined either to the subjects taught or to the methods employed in teaching the various literary and scientific subjects ; no attempt has been made to harmonize and unify education as a whole ; in fact, the systems at present obtaining in Europe do not seem to have found their true centre of gravity. Some want the basis of education to be scientific, others literary ; the latter, again, may be subdivided into the partisans of ancient and of modern languages. In this volume we shall inquire if the link between science and literature is not to be found in the knowledge of man, of society, and of the great laws of the universe, i.e. in morals, social science, and £esthetics — in a word, in philosophy. This idea is becoming more and more familiar ; of this the recent reforms in education in Italy are a fresh proof. It has already been suggested in France that instead of INTRODUCTION. 5 being relegated to the last year of school life, the course of ethics, logic, {esthetics, and general philosophy should be introduced, in their more elementary form, as early as the ages of fourteen to sixteen. This new system has just been inaugurated in Italy ; psychology, logic, ethics, and general philosophy are taught in the three highest classes of the lyceums. In France, too, a proposal has been made to include in the teaching of each of the special sciences — physics, physiology, history, etc.— the study of their philo- sophical principles and general conclusions. The new ItaUan code gives a place, principally in natural science, to general and philosophical questions. This is, then, a first attempt in the direction of a philosophical organization and co-ordination of subjects. But as the code was drawn up in an exclusively positivist spirit, certain principles, which to my mind are essential, have been unwisely sacrificed. Of one thing, however, we may feel convinced — that a new group of sciences, i,e. social science, is extending its limits, and by the next century will have been awarded the first rank in importance. Too exclusively literary an educa- tion having provoked a reaction in favour of science, and scientific education in its tmii having disappointed expecta- tions, we may fairly prophesy that, in the more or less near future, the characteristic feature of education will be the moral and social tendency given from the outset to all sub- jects and to all methods ; this will ipso facto be system atiza- tion instead of the present vicious condition of aff'airs, Avhich is generally known by the barbarous names of " particulariz- ing," or "specializing." The "humanities," in the true sense of the word, which should be based upon the know- ledge of man and human societies, will then be brouo-hfe to the front. The humanities, with the philosophy which completes them, form the true and the only liberal education. In each of us must be " a free m.an," who keeps his freedom unimpaired by the ever-increasing servitude of life, able to communicate to industry itself, and to material labour of every kind, something of that " dignity " wliich, according 6 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. to Plato and Aristotle, " comes with knowledge and thouglit." We must each of us feel that we are citizens ; we must be animated by public spirit, always ready to place the interests of our country above those of self, above our own work and industry, above our business and our wealth. To obtain this twofold result, a liberal education was always considered a sine qua no?i, and it was supposed that for the dominant class it should be as extended in character as possible. I shall endeavour to determine accurately the necessary bases of such an education, truly humane and at the same time national ; for that purpose I shall discuss the problem not merely, as is usually the case, from the standpoint of vague and general pedagogy ; I shall transfer the question to the ground of present reality, into a given environment — the modern — and a given nation — French or English, as the case may be. A nation, like an individual, has its own instinct and genius. It has the more or less vague sense of its " mission " to humanity. If social science rejects every mystical interpretation of the common spirit animating a nation, it by no means re- jects the reflected consciousness or spontaneous divination possessed by every nation of the functions which has devolved upon it. History furnishes us with ample proofs of this ; the Jews were not the only people who believed, and rightly believed, that they were chosen to transform the world ; the Greeks considered their mission to be the propagation of the arts and sciences ; Rome claimed the dominion of the world — even when invaded by barbarians she still was queen : and finally, when deprived of her temporal power, she reduced the universe to spiritual servitude by the establish- ment of the Papacy. The English claim that their destiny is to rule the sea, and to found colonies in distant lands. Americans are fond of representing their country as a theatre for the trial and development of liberty in every form and in every direction of speculative and practical life ; INTRODUCTION. i scarcely an American can be found who has not in his mind, in a more or less nebulous form, this idea of illimitable individualism and indefinite expansion. We know the Germany of to-day believes in her scientific and political mission, just as iu the time of Luther she believed in her relio-ious mission. As for France, her belief in the universal triumph of reason, law, and fraternity is a commonplace. France prides herself on being, par excellence, the focus of those ideas and sentiments which in the true sense of the word are humane ; she is the country of " humanity," in the broad sense in which the fifteenth century understood the word. Her classical hterature and art form a literature and an art of an entirely human and universal expansion ; she is pre-eminently the classic land, the land of the " humani- ties." The first duty of every French government is to maintain, in the education it provides for the nation, the literary and artistic honour of France, and her faith in a profoundly human morality and philosophy. Above all, a great nation like France must foster the pro- duction and selection of the highest genius, or even of simple superiority. How, then, is genius born and developed ? By the combination of three factors : (1) The hereditary trans- mission of the qualities of the race, and in particular of the family; (2) The ''happy accidents" and peculiar circum- stances of spermatic or embryonic life ; (3) The influence of the national environment and of national education. We have no control over the embryo or over those chances which by a precious idiosyncrasy virtually create a genius ; but we can do something, we can even do a great deal, to prepare for the advent of minds of a higher order, by the accumula- tion of certain qualities in the race, and by the maintenance of that intellectual and aesthetic environment which is, as it were, the vital air of genius. An evolutionist has justly remarked, a projws of adaptation to environment, that in Greece, where every god^ had his o^\^l temple, every temple its statue, every house its altar, and every altar its minor divinities; in Greece, "where 8 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. marble was as common as brick in London," and wbere sculptors were as numerous as carpenters, we can understand how a Phidias was born and found admirers, while, on the other hand, he could not have been born in Germania. So in Italy, where from the earliest times nymphs and satyrs have been portrayed, succeeded in later days by Madonnas and St. Sebastians ; where little chapels have always been hung with votive offerings to Yenus Genetrix or to Our Lady of the Sea ; where countless generations of artists decorated the walls of Pompeii, or covered with rapid frescoes the commonest ceilings of Florence and Genoa ; need we wonder that a country, where a lofty level of taste and artistic finish was thus developed, should have produced a Leonardo da Yinci and a Eaphael ? * On the other hand, why has America produced an Edison, a Morse, a Bell, a Fulton, but no Schiller, Mozart, or Michael Angelo ? The reason is easily discovered both in the hereditary and in the existing national environment. Do we wish France to remain the land of letters, painting, disinterested scientific investigation, and philosophy .? We must be careful lest we reduce the classical elite to a few ; for then the production and selection of genius or simple superiority will be impossible. We want, as I shall show, a field of culture of sufiicient extent for the national mind to expand in every direction of intellectual work — of literature, art, and science. France must be literary, scientific, and artistic, if Frenchmen are to be literary, scientific, and artistic ; if they are to maintain their influence and glory as a nation. If France chooses to become "Americanized," she will perhaps cease to be France, but she will certainly never become an America. The classics are already the pledge of a certain dis- interestedness, of a certain literary taste ; even Latin, " apparently useless," is useful in turning the minds of the young from their immediate or future interests — ^personal interests — in carrying them back to great national and * Vide Grant Alien, " Idiosyncrasy " (i/mcZ, 1883, p. 500). INTRODUCTION. 9 historical interests, to French literature and to the ancient literature by which it was inspired, to that ancient art from which our modern art still derives its inspiration. That is Gallia Ferennis, beginning with Eome or earlier still, instead of "commencing with the French Eevolution."* Democracy having already betrayed only too strong a tendency to utilitarianism and industrialism, the State, far from removing the obstacles in the path of all who have not gone through a full course of the " humanities," should, on the contrary, do its utmost to favour the selection and con- stitution of a really hberal elite; this is its duty and its right, especially in republics, in which, in the interest of all, this guiding influence should be in the hands of men whose minds are of the highest order, who are superior to the interests of the moment, who are least affected by purely utilitarian tendencies, and most capable of perpetuating from generation to generation that historical and permanent national spirit which constitutes the true " national will." * An allusion to the fanaticism which advocates that school text-books of French history should begin with the French Kevolution. Vide <}uyau's " Education an I Heredity," p. 227 (Tr.). BOOK 1. EDUCATION AND SELECTION FROM THE NATIONAL POINT OF VIEW. CHAPTER I. POWER OF EDUCATION' AND OF IDEA-FORCES— SUGGES- TIONS— HEREDITY. The power of instruction and education, denied by some and exaggerated by others, being nothing but the power of ideas and sentiments, it is impossible to be too exact in determining at the outset the extent and limits of this force. This psychological problem is the foundation of pedagogy. I. The principle I assume at the outset is one that I have developed elsewhere,* that every idea tends to act itself out. If it is an isolated idea, or if it is not counter- balanced by a stronger force, its realization must take place. Thus the principle of the struggle for existence and of selection, taking the latter word in its broadest sense, is in my opinion as applicable to ideas as to individuals and living species ; a selection takes place in the brain to the advantage of the strongest and most exclusive idea, which is thus able to control the whole organism. In particular, * "Evolutionisrae des idees-forces." POWER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FOECES. 11 the child's brain is an arena of conflict for ideas and tlie impnises they inckide ; in the brain a new idea is a new force which encounters the ideas already installed, and the impulses already developed therein. Hence I maintain that education as a whole is a work of intellectual selection. I have elsewhere stated the principal facts that demonstrate the impeUing force of ideas. Assume a mind, as yet a blank, and suddenly introduce into it the representation of any movement, the idea of any action — such as raising the arm. This idea being isolated and unopposed, the wave of disturbance arising in the brain wdll take the direction of the arm, because the nerves terminating in the arm are disturbed by the representation of the arm. The arm will therefore be lifted. Before a movement begins, we must think of this ; now no movement that has taken place is lost ; it is necessarily communicated from the brain to the organs if unchecked by any other representation or impulse. The transmission of the idea to the limbs is inevitable as long as the idea is isolated or unopposed. This I have called the law of idea-forces,* and I think I have satis- factorily explained the curious facts in connection with the impulsive actions of the idea, f The well-known experi- ments of Chevreul on the " pendule explorateur," and on the divining rod, show that if we represent to ourselves a move- ment in a certain direction, the hand will finally execute this movement without our consciousness, and so transmit it to the instrument. Table-turning is the realization of the expected movement by means of the unconscious motion of the hands. Thought-reading is the interpretation of imperceptible movements, in which the thought of the subject betrays itself, even without his being conscious of it. In the process that goes on when we are fascinated or are on the point of fainting, a process more obvious in children than in adults, there is an inchoate movement which the paralysis of the will fails to check. When I was a lad, * " Evolutionisme des idees-forces," bk. iii. f Ibid. bk. iii. 12 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. I was once running over a plank across the weir of a river, it never entering my head that I ran any risk of faUing ; suddenly this idea came into play like a force obliquely compounded Avith the straight course of thought which had up to that moment been guiding my footsteps. I felt as if an invisible arm had seized me and was dragging me down. I shrieked and stood trembling above the foaming water until assistance came. Here the mere idea of vertigo produced vertigo. A plank on the ground may be crossed without arousing any idea of falling ; but if it is above a precipice, and we think of the distance below, the impulse to fall is very strong. Even when we are in perfect safety we may feel what is known as the " fascination " of a precipice.* The sight of the gulf below, becoming a fixed idea, produces a resultant inhibition on all other ideas. Temptation, which is always besetting a child because everything is new to it, is nothing but the power of an idea and its motor impulse. The power of an idea is the greater the more prominently it is singled out from the general content of consciousness. This selection of an idea, which becomes so exclusive that the whole consciousness is absorbed in it, is called mono'ideism. This state is precisely that of a person who has been hypnotised, f What is called hypnotic suggestion is nothing but the artificial selection of one idea to the exclusion of all others, so that it passes into action. Natural somnam- bulism similarly exhibits the force of ideas ; whatever idea is conceived by the somnambulist, he carries into action. The kind of dream in which children often live is not without analogy to somnambulism. The fixed idea is another instance of the same phenomenon, which is produced in the waking state, and which, when exaggerated, becomes monomania, a kind of morbid monoideism ; children, having very few ideas, would very soon acquire fixed ideas, * Bain, "Mental Science," p. 91 (2>.). t " Evolutionisme des idees-forces," bk. iv. Vido Gnyau, " Education and Heredity " (Walter Scott), pp. 14, 23 (Jr.). POWER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FORCES. 13 if it were not for the mobility of attention which the ceaseless variation of the surrounding world produces in them. Thus all the facts grouped nowadays under the name of auto-suggestion may, in my opinion, be explained. Here we shall generalize the law in this form : every idea conceived by the mind is an auto-suggestion, the selective effect of which is only counterbalanced by other ideas pro- ducing a different auto-suggestion. This is especially noticeable in the young, who so rapidly carry into action what is passing through their minds. The force of example, which plays so important a part in education, is likewise reducible to the communicative and selective force of every representation. In fact, we explain in the same way the second form of suggestion, that in which an act is suggested not to one's self, but to others by means of an idea. Perhaps the most interesting part of Guyau's researches is his exhaustive treatment of suggestion and its role in education.* Guyau was, I believe, the first to point out the close analogy between suggestion and instinct, with the possible application of suggestion to moral therapeutics, " as a corrective of abnormal instincts, or as a stimulant of normal instincts which are too weak." " Every suggestion is a nascent instinct wholly created by the hypnotiser." f Since these words were written, the thera- peutic results of suggestion have been numerous and important. By suggestion, Doctors Yoisin and Liegeois have cured melancholia, dipsomania, morphinism, drunken- ness, and excessive indulgence in tobacco. M. Belboeuf asserts that he has made a timid girl brave. M. Yoisin transformed the character of a woman who was idle and dishonest ; he also claims to have changed a married woman^ who had made domestic life unbearable to her husband, into a gentle and affectionate wife. This would have been a boon to Socrates, for instance. Finally, M. Liebault, of * Vide " Education and Heredity," pp. 23, et seq. (^Tr.) t Ibid. p. 5 (T/-.) 14: EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Nancy, cured a lad of incorrigible idleness for six months.* It is needless to say that Guyau does not advise, and even expressly condemns, any introduction of hypnotism into normal education ; it is far better, as he says, " to leave the boy in idleness than to make him a neuropath." His object in quoting pathological facts is merely for the purpose of deduction as to the normal state. In Guyau's opinion, hypnotic suggestion is nothing but the morbid exaggeration and artificial intensification of suggestive phenomena produced in a state of perfect health. Normal suggestion, which is the only suggestion that should be used in education, is psychological, moral, and social ; it consists in the transmission from one individual to another of ideas or impelling sentiments, and in the possibility of rendering these ideas or sentiments permanent. We are not, in the normal state, controlled by a particular magnetiser, but it by no means follows that we are nob *' accessible to a multitude of small suggestions, at one time at variance, at another accumulating and producing a very sensible mean eifect." Children, in particular, are open to every suggestion of the environment. Guyau shows that, from the moment it enters into the world, the child's con- dition may be compared to that of a hypnotized subject. There is the same absence of any ideas of its own, or the same dominance of a single idea. " Everything that the child sees or feels will be a suggestion ; this suggestion will give rise to a habit the effect of which will sometimes persist throughout the whole of life, just as impressions of terror excited in children by nurses may persist." If the introduction of new sentiments is possible by wholly pihysiological means, it should be equally possible by moral psychological means. Hence the importance of the fact that " recent studies in the nervous system seem likely to correct scientific prejudices against the power of education as science becomes more perfect." Suggestion, which * <' Education and Heredity/' pp. 9, 10 (Tr.). POWER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FORCES. 15 creates artificial instincts capable of counterpoising hereditary instincts, constitutes a new power comparable to heredity ; now education, as Guyau says, " is a totality of co-ordinated and reasoned suggestions, and we can therefore understand the importance and efficacy it may acquire from the physiological and psychological point of view." * In my opinion, suggestion is only a particular case of the most fundamental law of idea-forces, the law which dominates all pedagogic science, and to which the author of " Education and Heredity " has made in several chapters of that work a very important contribution. Ideas are sometimes considered of little consequence, and are supposed to have scarcely any influence upon the con- duct. On the other hand, the philosophers of the seven- teenth century, with Descartes and Pascal, considered, sentiments and passions as indistinct thoughts, as "thoughts, as it were, in process of precipitation." This is true. Beneath, all our sentiments lies a totality of imperfectly analyzed ideas, a swelling stream of crowded and indistinct reasons by the momentum of which we are carried away and swept along. Inversely, sentiments underlie all our ideas ; they smoulder in the dying embers of abstractions. Even language has a power because it arouses all the sentiments which it condenses in a formula ; the mere names " honour " and " duty " arouse infinite echoes in the consciousness. At the name of " honour " alone, a legion of images is on the point of surging up ; vaguely, as with eyes open in the dark, we see all the possible witnesses of our acts, from father and mother to friends and fellow-country- men ; further, if our imagination is vivid enough, we can see those great ancestors who did not hesitate under similar circumstances. " We must ; forward ! " We feel that we are enrolled in an army of gallant men ; the whole race, in its most heroic representatives, is urging us on. There is a social and even an historical element beneath moral ideas. * Vide " Education and Heredity," p. xxiv. 16 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Besides, language, a social product, is also a social force. The pious mind goes further still ; duty is personified as a being — the living Good whose voice we hear. Some speak of lifeless formulas ; of these there are very- few. A word, an idea, is a formula of possible action and of sentiments ready to pass into acts ; they are " verbs." Now, everj sentiment, every impulse which becomes formu- lated with, as it were, a fiat, acquires by this alone a new and quasi-creative force ; it is not merely rendered visible by its own light to itself, but it is defined, specified, and selected from the rest, and ipso facto directed in its course. That is why formulas relative to action are so powerful for good or evil ; a child feels a vague temptation, a tendency for which it cannot account. Pronounce in its hearing the formula, change the blind impulse into the luminous idea, and this will be a new suggestion which may, perhaps, cause it to fall in the direction to which it was already inclined.* On the other hand, some formulas of generous sentiments will carry away a vast audience immediately they are uttered. The genius is often the man who translates the aspirations of his age into ideas ; at the sound of his voice a whole nation is moved. Great moral, religious, and social revolutions ensue when the sentiments, long restrained and scarcely conscious of their own existence, become formulated into ideas and words ; the way is then opened, the means and the goal are visible alike, selection takes place, all the vohtions are simultaneously guided in the same direction, like a torrent which has found the weakest point in the dam. Conduct, therefore, depends in a great measure on the circle of ideas formed by each individual under the influence of experience, social relations, or of his intellectual and aesthetic culture. Every man eventually possesses a totality of general notions and maxims which become the source of his resolutions and actions, because the whole is blended * Guyau gives numerous interesting examples of this. Vide Ibid. pp. 19, e.). rOWER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FORCES. 21 type, wliicli unaklccl licrediby does not transform, and leaves persistent, cannot be transformed by other influences, and notably by education itself. Galton finds that in a cultured environment, out of every hundred women thirty-three are artistic, and twenty-eight are artistic out of every hundred men.* Instead of being satisfied with this result as far as women are concerned, he considers the difference very small, when we consider the large share occupied by accomplishments in the education of w^omen. And he concludes that the effect of education, compared with that of natural talent, is very small. This is a very arbitrary interpretation ; the preceding statistics rather show the power of education, because the weaker sex, whose education has for centuries been inferior to that of man, is nevertheless able to show thirty-three per cent, of artistic women as compared with twenty-eight per cent, of artistic men. Besides, it is clear that natm-al talent is of the greatest moment in art ; special aptitudes are necessary, partly due to the conformation of sensorial centres, and con- sequently to entirely organic causes over which education has little control. How can you make a singer out of one who cannot sing in tune, or a musician out of a man who has no ear and who cannot detect a false note, or a painter out of a man who has not a delicate sense of sight and a natural taste for form and colour ? Our problem is therefore the discovery of the qualities upon which education can exercise effectual influence. In the case of stature, this influence is, on the average, zero ; stature is the result of determined physiological conditions which can only vary within very narrow limits. If a man were five yards high, he would cease to be a man ; he would be a new species. To make use of the constancy of stature and the powerlessness of education to increase our height, in order to prove both the constancy of intellectual qualities and the powerlessness of education, is an unmistakable * *' Natural Inheritance," p. 154 (Jr.). 22 EDUCATION FECM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. fallacy into which the fanatics of heredity are always falling. If the experience of ages teaches us that education is unable to modify stature or eye-colour (upon which Galton has brought some of his statistics to bear *), it also teaches us that it can modify intelligence and morality. The intel- lectual power of a man is obviously increased by instruction. Instruction will not, no doubt, create genius, but it can give to the recipient a considerable sum total of knowledge and talent. AYithout the aid of instruction even the born genius would remain sterile. All the arguments, therefore, of the statisticians on the constancy of stature and of eye- colour prove absolutely nothing against the possible increase of the intellectual and moral capacities. History demonstrates the view I advance. While stature and eye-colour in the same nation remain constant, the average intelligence and morality undergo the most obvious and often the most rapid changes. Take the Scotch of two hundred years ago — a sanguinary and vindictive race, with a heavier record of homicide than even Sicily and Corsica. Now, according to the statisticians, they are the mildest and most inoffensive people in Europe, and the list of murders and assassinations is less than anywhere else. Mr. Leslie Stephen has drawn attention to the rough and unfair national verdicts based upon the characteristics of " lay figures " of John Bull, etc. Their stature, their eyes, and the colour of their hair are nevertheless unchanged.! A similar change may be noticed in the Swiss, Piedmontese, Eoumelians, Cossacks, and Bulgarians. The inhabitants of the Marquesas are transformed from cannibals into peaceful and hard- working men. The Servians have become kind and gentle, while their kinsmen and neighbours, the Montenegrins, are still violent and vindictive. M. Colajanni also calls atten- tion to the fact that one tribe of the Redskins may be addicted to theft, while another of the same blood will be * ''Natural Inheritance," p. 138 (TV). f Vide Coiaj;mui, " La Sociologia Criminale," vol. ii. rOWER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FOECES. 23 honourable and straightforward. The Mongol is a coward in China, brave in Japan. The Jew is a business man, a banker, a money-lender in Europe ; in Abyssinia he hates business, and takes to agriculture; while in the Caucasus he is a warrior ! M. Tarde was perfectly right when he said that every race can be either " civilized or barbarized." Compare modern and ancient Greece, Calabria of the present day and Magna Graecia, and we descend from the highest civilization to the worst form of barbarism. In the history of Eome, M. Tarde sees open to every race, whatever its origin or colour, " a great and glorious competition," as it were, in which each in turn — Italy, Spain, Arabia, Gaul, Germany, Carthage, and Libya — won the prize of eloquence, poetry, and valour, and was seated upon the throne of the Caesars. "By the grafting on a vast scale of Roman influence far beyond even the limits of the empire, it came about that savage humanity was nowhere unaffected." And did not the "Christianizing" of so many different races produce still more astonishing metamorphoses ? Compare the German Christian with his savage predecessor, the Eussian Christian with the old Euss. Where do we see, in all these instances, hereditary fatalities and the impotence of education ? Even within short periods, statistics exhibit the variations of morality and the more serious forms of crime. From year to year crime among minors is sensibly increasing ; in a short time it has tripled. In England and in Spain, on the other hand, it is decreasing. The number of foundlings in the whole of France has risen from 26,000 in 1861 to 44,000 in 1885, and in Paris alone, from 2320 in 1877 to 3151 in 1883. The Assistance Pullique at Paris places (as far as it c^n) most of these children with respectable peasants in the department of Mevre. These children, " the off's]3ring of vice and misery," should be infected from their birth with germs of the most fatal character, and M. Joly forcibly remarks that, if heredity played the predominant role attributed to it by the school of Lombroso, the conduct 24 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. of these children would be deplorable. On the contrary, the peasants who have given them a home have rarely had to regret it, and in this department, " one of the freest from crime, these neo-peasants leave hardly any appreciable stain." The department of Herault, which up to 1857 ranked among the two or three most moral departments in France, " being freest from crime," has become by degrees since 1868 more and more crime-stained, until it is now the 81st on the list. We may add, with M. Joly, that three quarters of the inhabitants of Herault represent " individuals who have suddenly become enormously wealthy." What has heredity done against the temptations, suggestions, and examples of every kind which have sprung up in this depart- ment, and which have kindled the lust for pleasure with the lust for riches ? The short stature of the French with respect to the English has been attributed in a great measure to the devastating effect of the twenty-two years of war which followed the Revolution. Throughout that period, there was going on a continual selection of tall and strong men, and a rejection of all who were short and weak. The first mainly fell victims to death or disease, and those who returned home did not do so until they had spent the best years of their youth on the field of battle. The feeble remained at home to propagate the race. At first sight this would seem to have been a perturbing influence of great power. But according to even Galton's principles, this power is much exaggerated. On the one hand, the women were not affected by the process of selection, and therefore the perturb- ing influence was only one-half of what it would otherwise have been. Besides, the war only affected one generation ; even if it had swept away all the men of high stature, the effect on the next generation would have been practically nil, for stature is determined by the total ancestry, and by fortuitous circumstances, such as are here and there the cause of a great man being born of mediocre pareuts. Nevertheless, if selection were to go on for generations, POVv^ER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FORCES. 25 it would iu the long run be effectual. In artificial selection applied to animals, it proceeds by the persistent and un- relenting destruction of every individual not corresponding to the type, or by a suspension of natural functions continued from generation to generation. Nothing less than methodic and continuous action is necessary to main- tain a series of generations above what may be called the point of normal equilibrium. But education is nothing but action of this kind, a method continuously applied throughout the ages to whole generations. Society requires for all its f auctions a certain number of average capacities, and thus produces constant selection. The educator enlightens and moralizes masses of individuals, not merely for a single generation, but for all time. In fact, education acts on the most flexible and most malleable part of our being, on the intellect, on the sentiment, and on the will. Although it cannot add five yards to our stature, it can add circmnvolutions to the brain, or carve in it lines which without its aid would not have existed. It moulds the brains of a race. If, therefore, heredity always tends to restore the average equilibrium, education can raise the point of etjuilibrium, it can raise the centre of oscillation, and modify the normal average towards which heredity will produce regression. If heredity is the great force of conservation, ideas are the great force of progress ; the former is statical and ensures equilibrium, the latter dynamical and ensure motion. It is owing to the former that water finds its own level, but the latter raise that level, just as the stream rises above low-water mark. To secure in the physical domain the equivalent of what takes place iu the intellectual and moral domain, we must assume that the stature of the tallest and most gifted could be gradually attained by means of imitation. This would happen if a genius were to invent some way of adding an inch to his statm-e ; his proceedings would be eagerly imitated, and generations would very soon arise with stature slightly increased. Suppose another new invention for 26 EDUCATION FKOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. the same purpose, and a fresh imitation by all of moderate height ; we should have in a short time, owing to the fixative power of heredity, a new increase of stature in the human race. An idea, in its origin, is a novelty ; it is rapidly reproduced by imitation, and thus it goes to increase the common fund. Education fixes the acquired ideas, and develops the capacity for finding new ones. We are asked if progress, which is the raising of the average level, depends especially upon the quality of ordi- nary men or upon the worth of exceptional men. The second factor is obviously the most primitive and the most important ; first we must have an exceptional man to con- ceive a new idea, and ipso facto introduce a new force into the totality of social forces. But the role of mediocre men is to reproduce and imitate the idea, and thereby to fix it and to give it currency, and ipso facto to also make it one of the factors determining the average level of the species. The ultimate result is a raising of this level. Now, educa- tion acts simultaneously upon mediocre and superior men. It raises the mediocre to the level already attained by anterior generations ; it also raises higher natures to that level, and in virtue of their native and exceptional qualities enables them to surpass it. An attempt has been made to establish differences with respect to heredity between inferior, average, and superior men, by which the inferior and superior would be subjected to a stronger, and the average to a weaker heredity. These distinctions are artificial ; heredity acts in precisely the same way with each individual ; only in mediocre natures its effects are not so obvious, because they re-enter the common mould. Not less artificial is the distinction between men according to their educabiUty. M. Eibot believes that the influence of education is most marked in average natures, and leaves but slight trace upon the inferior or superior natures. This may be admitted in the case of very inferior or abnormal natures ; but as far as superior natures are concerned, Guyau fairly argues that the more POWER OF EDUCATION AND OF IDEA-FORCES. 27 naturally intelligent we are, the more we are capable of learning' and becoming clever by education ; the more we are naturally generous, the more easily can we be educated into heroism. His conclusion is that genius is the simul- taneous realization of the maximum of abundantly fruitful heredity and educability.* To smn up — there is a via media between the prejudicea for and against education. If education does not manifest all the power of which it is capable, it is because it is rarely directed towards its true end, and by the means appropriate to that end. Hence ensues a loss of living forces by the neutralization and disorder of ideas. Ideas are sown in a somewhat haphazard fashion in the mind, and they also germinate exposed to the chance of external circumstances and inward predispositions ; selection is here fortuitous, as in the domain of material forces. Instruction is not enough ; instruction must itself become an education, a process of self-conscious and methodical selection between the ideas that tend to issue in action. The French are always crying for instruction ; others cry for culture, and they are right. The first word brings us to consider the nature of the subjects taught ; the second brings us to the degree of fertility acquired by the mind. Education should not be a simple acquisition of knowledge, but a cultivation of living forces, with a view to assuring the supremacy of the highest idea-forces. * " Education and Heredity,'* p. 106. 28 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER II. PHYSICAL EDUCATION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF EVOLUTION AND SELECTION. After psychological selection within the individual, we must consider social selection, which takes place between different individuals, or races, or nations. Every race has two essential means of superiority, the one physiological, the other psychological. It is of supreme importance that a race should be physiologically strong, and here alone the ordinary laws of natural selection are applicable, because we are in the domain of life. There is no idealist illusion to guard against ; the mens sana can only exist in the corpore sano ; all mental refinements in a race are not collectively equivalent to its healthy vigour, and consequently ii^ fertility. Even genius can only persist and progress in a vigorous race ; in fact, selection can only come into operation and produce a natural elite — the necessary condition of all progress — in a fertile and numerous, i.e. in a vigorous race. Therefore, whenever the intellect is over- worked at the expense of the body, the physiological level is lowered, and thereby the intellectual level ; for, sooner or later, generations physiologically enfeebled will find their cerebral power impaired. This result has been fully and clearly stated by Spencer and by Guyau.* The laws of * Mr. James Sully, one of the principal psychologists in England, Avrites as follows in a critical notice of Guyau's " Education and Heredity," in Mind: "Never, perhaps, has the fundamental en-or underlying our present excessively narrow and intensified intellectual culture been more PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND EVOLUTION. 29 heredity are inevitable ; the lepjacy of impoverished organs to children means a lowering of mental capacity in the more or less near fntnre. In the struggle and selection of races throughout history, except when young and sometimes barbarous blood has been infused into the old stock of a nation, it fell lower and lower, become sterilized, and dis- appeared or declined, while other races were ascending. Instruction, in my opinion, may have two results — either dynamical, i.e. an increase of cerebral power, or purely statical, as, for instance, in the results of scientific and literary routine. In the former case it acts on heredity, and may produce hereditary transmission of cerebral power ; in the latter it does not act at all, or only acts in the wi^ong direction, by exhausting the nervous system. It is intel- lectual power ,that is transmitted from one generation to another, and not the knowledge acquired. Hence the criterion I lay down to test methods of education and in- struction : Is there an increase of mental, moral, and 83sthetic power ? then the method is good ; Is the memory simply turned into a storehouse ? then the method is bad, for the brain is not a storehouse to be filled, but an organ to act. The physical and intellectual dangers of over-pressure are not unreasonably in these days occupying our attention. In our system of instruction, over-pressure really does exist in the case of hard-working pupils who wish to pass an examination. In the case of the majority, however, there is no over-pressure ; they simply waste their time, " wearing out the school benches." They take good care to retain nothing but vague and indistinct notions of everything that has been made to pass through their minds ; they are present, mere idle spectators, while their clearly demonstrated in the light of scientific principles than in this volume. To Guyau every individual is the temporary depositary of a part of the force of the race ; and our modern system of education, instead of aiming at preserving this force in its most efficient forms, seems rather to be beut on consuming it. 80 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. masters make excursions through each special science ; what is over-pressure to others is only intellectual vagabondage to them. If all children were overworked, the race would very soon be lost ; as Guyau says, " The idle are, physically, the saviours of the race." Unfortunately, they contribute, on the other hand, to the maintenance of the race in intel- lectual and moral mediocrity, and they also give a wrong direction to public affairs. The advantages of their idle- ness, without its inconveniences, might have been secured if, instead of requiring from every one so much knowledge —most of which is useless — we had exacted only that amount of knowledge which is absolutely necessary, and a moderate quantum of ornamental knowledge, calculated to elevate the mind, and at the same time to interest it. If this were done, the numbers of the idle would be kept down, without falling into over-pressure and without eventually lowering the level of the race which we profess to elevate. We should not trouble ourselves about the number of things a child knows, but rather about hoiu he knows them, Jioiv he has learned them ; and especially must we inquire into the general vigour communicated to him by his lessons, for this vigour alone will be a net profit to the race. How is the soil renewed ? By the sun, the air, the rain, by the free action of forces incessantly at work ; un- disturbed on the surface, it is in a state of constant motion and germination beneath. So with the mind. At stated periods Nature must be aUowed her own way, nor must we rudely interrupt the work of unconscious and spontaneous organization, which is being accomplished within the brain ; we leave the power to which we owe the grass and the trees to act without interference beneath the soil. The Greeks knew and applied these laws. Did they not even separate gymnastics from music, i.e. from all the arts devoted to the muses ? Euripides wrote *' Iphigenia " after winning the crown at the Olympic games. In the schools of Charlemagne violent games and archery were practically compulsory. M. Philippe Daryll has justly remarked that PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND EVOLUTION. 81 the indolence of Italy was introdnced into France with the Renaissance, first into court life, and then into literary society. The peasantry alone kept all its energy, of which it g-ave ample proof at the end of the eighteenth century. What the Medicis began — the impoverishment of the French race — BuonajDarte finished with his "twenty consecutive years of bloodshed." Add to this eighty years of imprison- ment in school. The founders of the " Ligue pour 1' Educa- tion physique " were therefore justified in urging the State to increase the number of open spaces for exercise, of public gardens, of fields for gymnastics, and especially for games. Games, in fact, are the best gymnastics,* because they alone are at once complete and attractive ; they exercise all the muscles and every part of the body ; they exercise all the faculties of the intellect — rapid intuition, mental vivacity, imagination, and especially will and energy — all the funda- mental qualities which make for superiority in the vital and intellectual competition of races. The system of " muscles unexercised " and " brains under hard labour " is still more disastrous for women than for men. Woman is, par excellence^ an instrument of natural selection, because of the qualities or defects she transmits to her children. Further, woman is the object of that second form of selection of which Darwin has exhibited the importance under the name of " sexual selection." In the animal world, by pairing couples, sexual selection results in the choice and triumph of the quahties most advantageous to the race — typical beauty, vigom', health, and fertility. In the human race, sexual selection often deviates, but in spite of this, the law favom^able to the species is as a rule maintained. Observation and statistics, in fact, show us that to excite love and to decide voluntary selection, the most powerful means a woman possesses are those which spring from external advantages ; then come those supplied * Vide Journal of Education, March, 1891 ; " The Place of Gymnastics iu Physical Training" (?'r.). 32 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. by the moral qualities ; last and weakest are those due to intellectual attractions ; and even the latter depend far less upon acquired knowledge than upon natural faculties such as quickness, wit, insight.* Here a lesson in pedagogy is given by Nature herself, condemning the unnatural education at present in vogue. If indignation is expressed that man should be swayed by this hierarchy of quahties, an evolu- tionist like Spencer or Guyau will have no difficulty in showing that the apparent folly of lovers is really wisdom. Nature acts for the interests of the race ; her supreme end is the welfare of posterity, her means — the selection of the couples best suited to that end. Now, as far as the race is concerned, "a cultivated intellect, based upon a bad physique, is of little worth, since its descendants will die out in one or two generations." " Conversely, a good physique, however poor the accompanying mental endowments, is worth preserving, because, throughout future generations, the mental endowments may be indefinitely developed." Justly does Schopenhauer see in love a ruse of Nature, utilizing the individual for her own ends ; the woman who is capable of bearing five children is more useful to humanity than a woman who has merely taken her B.Sc, And with health, morality is most important to the race; last in order of importance come intelligence and instruction — especially scientific instruction ; love, blind as it seems, is really more farsighted than our pedagogic reformers. To sum up : in both sexes, physical equilibrium is the foundation of mental equilibrium, especially if we consider the means and the race. We must therefore develop body and mind at the same time. The evolution of brain and of the faculties takes place under conditions which must not be transgressed; otherwise generation transmits to generation an unstable organism. This is an instance of what may be termed reversion. * Spencer, "Education," p. 187. CHAPTER III. THE OBJECTS OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCA^ TION FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT. "What are the essential objects of mental edacation, and what is their hierarchical order ? Here, again, the doctrine of evolution and of natural selection may help us to answer this question. From birth to manhood, the individual reproduces in him- self the phases of this evolution of his species ; now, which are the most stable and which are the most unstable of the characteristics acquired by the slow process of selection and eventually traditional in the species ? The most stable characteristics are the oldest, and they are also the lowest, the most rudimentary, and the nearest the savage state ; and they are also the most stable in the individual. To what, then, should education direct all its efforts ? To whatever is at once the most elevated and the most unstable, and, i.e.^io the most disinterested and most general sentiments, to the most philosophical, the most moral, and the most aesthetic ideas. The rest will come of itself. Education must cultivate faculties which are the most elevated in character, and which have been most recently developed in the species by natural selection ; it has no other aim than the giving to these faculties greater fixity and solidity. It must civilize the little stivage wliich we call a child, and must at the same time prepare a new selection to the advantage of the best. The really disinterested and human faculties, which 6 34 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. should be selected from all the others, are— the love of truth for its own sake, the love of the beautiful, and the love of the universal good ; these, therefore, education must take as its principal object, in order to preserve and increase in the man what distinguishes him from the animal. Further, in these three faculties is an hierarchy, in which precedence is due to their evolution as a whole and to their pre-eminence. Priority must belong to the moral sentiment which is the most essential of the three to the individual and to society. The moral sentiment is also the first to be developed in the child by home-education, in the forms of affection and obedience. The ancients did not separate the good from the beautiful, and rightly, for they appeal more to the heart and are more within the grasp of the young than is abstract truth. The beautiful is therefore the second object of education. Moreover, as Yico says, the child can only proceed to reason through the imagination. Finally, it is important to develop, if not in the child at any rate in the youth, the love of and dehght in the search for scientific truth, which is the third object of education. I cannot agree with Eenan, who urges that science is superior to morality for the human race, that the discovery of a fact or of a law surpasses in so&ial fecundity the accomplishment of duty, and that genius is above virtue. The sentiments of justice and sympathy are the very bond which maintains the different members of the social organism in unity ; they are the hfe of the social organism. An ignorant community, practising public and private virtues, might live and even be happy. A community of mvants without morality would be unlikely to persist and would be unhappy. Morality is no less necessary to the progress than to the preservation of society, which can only progress and prevail over its neighbours by courage, discipline, mutual cohesion, devotion to common interests, and by the spirit of abnegation and disinterestedness. Science is objective, and its objects are always present, hidden like treasure in the soil ; they cannot be lost, and may always INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION. 35 be discovered ; if one lucky blow with the pick does not lead to its discovery, another may, and many men may in this case replace an individual. On the other hand, in morality, as in art, there is something purely personal, a rare and precious combination of subjective elements which cannot be met with tAvice ; it is the imffahiU individuum. At the same time, a whole community of minds is condensed in a singie mind, a world of sentiments is condensed in a single heart ; and if this heart is not in existence to-day, it does not follow that it will be in existence to-morrow. Even in the development of the individual thought an idea is repeated ; an emotion, an impression can never be recalled. Guyau, the philosopher-poet, did not always take the trouble of writing down the thoughts that struck him. " It will come back when I want it," he used to say ; but if he felt an esthetic impression, one of those indefinable emotions which are due to the moment, the environment, and one's inmost nature, he hastened to wiite it in prose or verse and to fix this fugitive something which is really a " mental state." In fact, even science makes rapid progress only by the moral and assthetic sentiments which excite to the search after truth for its own sake. And in education, science is of far less importance than the scientific spirit which, traced to its remotest source, is essentially disinterested, and pro- duces an inevitable expansion of the ego. If the moral good, strictly so called, were ever taken from future humanity, there would still remain not only the beautiful, but also that other foretaste of the good, viz. the true. Would not a mind which has been elevated by a study of science for its own sake to general ideas and to the laws of the universe, retain a certain breadth, a certain habit of generalization, a capacity of abstracting the ego in the objective contempla- tion of things, i.e. a tendency to the impersonal and to the universal ? That is the educative power of science. It accustoms us to breathe the pm'e mountain air, to the sighfc of the distant horizon ; after descending to a lower level we feel confined and stifled. Can we conceive of a JSTewton, 36 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. a Pascal, a Laplace, a Darwin, as having a narrow mind ? Without claiming that a man who is devoted to science is ipso facto virtuous, it must, however, be recognized that the love of the true (of what Trinitarians call the Word, the Son) paves the way for the love and for the kingdom of the Holy Spirit. " Man will always be lost in wonder and con- templation, even though the day may come when he no longer falls on his knees in prayer." * This wonder at and contemplation of the universal laws of nature can no more be unaccompanied by a change of the moral attitude than a man can look at the stars without lifting up his head. But if science takes us outside our ego, it is only by its most general and most speculative ideas, not by its particular details and practical applications. On looking at the question closer, we see that it is only the beautiful side of science that elevates and moralizes. Purely theoretical science, although apparently useless, is reaUy that which is pre- eminently beautiful, or that which as yet appears to be beautiful, in spite of the profound utility it may be to the future. The brute scientific fact, so to speak, or the brute abstract law, has no educative virtue; the fact, taking a direction, must appear as the visible incarnation of the highest and most universal laws, and the law in its turn must appear as a world of truths enveloped and expressed in an infinite number of sensible facts ; in a word, the sentiment of beauty springs from rich variety in unity. If at any time Science should be confined to practical appli- cations, she will no longer discover either new truths or new utilities. In science the useful springs from the beautiful ; beautiful theorems are found to be the most useful, but their discovery was due to their beauty and not to their utility. Every important truth was first a truth sought and admired for its beauty, and found by that instinct for the beautiful, which in scientific speculation is confounded with the instinct for the true. At first Kepler only saw in * Guyau, " L'Irreligion de ravenir.' INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION. 37 the laws of the planetary orbits their sublimity ; similarly, Xewton asserted the doctrine of universal gravitation because he saw in it a universal harmony, a reduction of variety to unity, an infinite fertility in simplicity itself. " Rien n'est beau que le vral, dit un vei's respects, Et moi je lui i-eponds, sans crainte d'un blaspheme : Riea n'est vrai que le beau, rien n'est vrai sans beaute." * Further, Science needs for progress a certain idealism 'which transports her from the world of narrow realities to the vast field of the possible. Even to the geometer, the ordinary figures presented to us by reality are only particular cases of infinite possible combinations. Nowadays the quantities we call real are no longer considered as anything but particular cases of the quantities we call imaginary. What is called real is quite a secondary matter to a Descartes, or a Pascal, or a Leibnitz ; they see beyond all realities, and live in a kind of " perpetual dream of the possible," f and see in physical phenomena but echoes of higher har- monies. Faraday compares his intuitions of scientific truth to " inward illuminations," ecstasies, as it were, raising him above himself. One day, after long reflection on thought and matter, he suddenly saw in a poetic vision the whole world '' traversed by lines of force," the infinite trembling of which produced light and heat throughout the immensities. And this instinctive vision was the origin of his theory. Let us pass in review the great initiators of modern science and the creators -of industry, the Keplers and Fultons, and we shall be struck by the idealistic and sometimes even Utopian tendency peculiar to them. They are in their own way dreamers, artists, poets, controlled by experience. Now, how can we develop this idealism, this Hfe of imagination, this enthusiasm for the possible soaring beyond realities ? By sound moral, aesthetic, and intellectual culture. Huxley proposes to make the natural and physical sciences the basis of education. Spencer, in his turn, by a kind of • Alfred de Musset, " Apres une Lecture " (Tr.). t M. Laugel. 38 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDrOINT idolatry of science which is widespread in these days, makes of positive science ahnost exclusively the subject for youth, under the pretext that, in this hfe, geometry is necessary for the construction of bridges and railways, and that in every definite trade, even in poetry, we must have hiotvledge. How conclusive is poetry as an instance ! Is a Yirgil or a Eacine made by learning rules of versification ? The scientific man is not made by teaching him science, for true science, like poetry, is invention. We can learn to build a railway by rule of thumb, but those who invented railways did so only by the force of the intellectual power they had acquired, and not by the force of the mere knowledge they had received ; it is therefore intellectual force that we must aim at developing. And then returns the question : — Is the best means of strengthening and developing the intellect of our youth, to load the memory with the results of modern science, or is it to teach them to reason, to imagine, to combine, to divine, to know beforehand what oicght to be true from an innate sense of order and harmony, of the simple and the fruitful, — a sense near akin to that of the beautiful ? And besides, are youths educated to be engineers or poets ? Education is not an apprenticeship to a trade, it is the culture of moral and intellectual forces in the individual and in the race. Science is only relatively a good thing, according to the use we make of it; even art has its dangers; morality alone is absolutely good. This makes instruction, especially scientific instruction, a two-edged weapon ; its advantages are not without correlative disadvantages ; it may effect a disproportion between the knowledge acquired and the environment in which the individual is placed, and it thus exposes the community to a kind of universal " unclassing," from which spring discontent with one's lot in life, restless ambition, jealousy, and revolt against social order. It is, therefore, necessary to choose the objects of instruction and to adapt them to the circumstances of each individual ; we must not believe, as is too often believed in these days, that INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION. 39 all knowledge is always profitable. Again, nothing is certain and nniversally good but lofty sentiments and great ideas ; moral education is profitable to all and for all ; instrnction, especially scientific instrnction, has no value except what education gives it. Acquired knowledge eventually produces good or bad effects according to the good or bad orientation of the ideas directing the condnct. In France the moral and social importance of a half-and-half grammatical and scientific instruction — ^left to chance, without any direction being given to it — has been considerably exaggerated. Instruction pure and simple is only a means, as yet indirect and uncertain, of moralizing and raising the nation, and this is because its end is twofold ; it becomes of value for good only when the ideas that dominate it make for good. Eor mind and body alike, health is the only thing of constant and certain value, and morality is the health of the mind. Further, entirely in opposition to the proposals of Huxley, Spencer, Bain, and many others, I do not give to positive science the first rank in the education of youth, because the sentiments are for us superior to the knowledge of facts or to abstract knowledge, and among the sentiments those in particular which have as their object the good and the beautiful. Too many savants forget that man does not live on bread or on algebra alone. Nowadays, positive science tends to suppress the traditionary morality of absolute duty and of sanction ; it tends to suppress the religions by which egoistic sentiments are restrained ; it tends, in fact, to suppress all social institutions which are not based upon the rights of majorities and on democratic principles. It would be idle to oppose the inevitable ; but do we not see that to prevent a return to the strife between men left to vital laws alone, we must appeal to all the resources of morality and [esthetics, such as the sentiment of beauty and the cultm-e of art ? Here are two children with a flower ; one, educated according to the "scientific method," tells us it is a gamopetalous, hypogynous dicotyledon; family, borragi neons; name, myosotis annua ; the other does not know all these 40 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. names, but he admires it, loves it, and carries it to his mother ; you give a good mark to the former and a kiss to the latter. A poet is far more important to humanity than a botanist. If we lose a botanist, we can get another ; if we lose a poet, he is never replaced. Happily, the true botanist is himself sensible of the beauty of the flower he studies ; he plucks it in the forest or on the mountain, in the presence of nature, beneath the radiant heavens ; he becomes a poete malgre lui, a poet without knowing it. Monocotyledons and dicotyledons disappear. But the fields, the glaciers, remain behind — and the flower itself, with its charm. What does the beauty of nature prove ? Nothing more than the beauty of a tragedy ; but there are few theorems of greater importance to humanity than the senti- ment of beauty. The eye of the astronomer sees further than the heavens, and his disinterested admiration is more useful to humanity than even his discoveries. CHAPTER IV. THE SELECTION OF SUPERIORITIES. RATIONAL MEANS AVAILABLE. The education of the mind, as " we have seen, has as its aim the development of moral, sesthetic, and intellectual capacities ; as this development is unequal in different individuals, education issues in the manifestation and selec- tion of natural superiorities. These superiorities are not necessarily oppressive to others, unless they are at the dis- posal of an egoistic and tyrannical ambition ; of themselves, they are indispensable to the different and unequally elevated functions which every nation requires. On the whole, in fact, the only means available for the elevation of a nation is the existence in its midst of individuals and groups, elevated above the rest by talent, merit, and morality. Besides, the intellectual and moral elite is, in a measure, the hereditary depositary of great national traditions ; it connects the present with the past, and its duty is therefore to connect the past with the future. Hence the spirit of conservation and the spirit of progress equally call for the free selection of capacities, and their free access to the functions they are best fitted to perform. An imperfectly developed democracy may be instinctively and naturally hostile to everything that seems an elite ; it believes that equality, which is necessary and just in the domain of rights, is in all cases the only law ; it does not know (never having been taught) that the whole of nature progresses by the development of superiorities, by the onward march of the best — the best not only, as in the 42 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. animal world, from the point of view of force, but also from the point of view of intellect, and especially from the point of view of morality. The first act of the collective life of an organism is to give the rest of the body a brain, which the rest of the body foUows for its own conservation and progress. The individuals forming the national body, although equal in rights, are no more equal in function and in importance than the cellules that compose the human body. We must not, therefore, wish to reduce everything to a dead level under the pretence of equalizing. The paradox of pseudo-equalky is equivalent to the statement : — "the human body is nothing but cellules, and all cellules are equal because in each we find nothing but carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen." However, as M. Laffitte replies, let Shylock take his ounce of flesh off my arm or leg, and I remain myself ; but let him take it from the heart or from my brains, and my life is over.* It is the duty of the dominant class and the government to look high and to look ahead, to prevent this blind levelling down, to react against the natural downward tendency of the masses. A real democracy, far from excluding natural superiorities, on the contrary, favours them. In olden times the institution of a nobility was an attempt at a process of natural selection. M. Eibot has given excellent reasons why it might be illusory to count nowadays on either this form of selection, or, as Renan proposes, on imitating it for the advantage of savants^ academies, etc. The nobility formed an elite only in a very restricted sense, that of the w^arlike virtues. If the absolute superiority of the nobility is ah'eady a moot point, the dogma of hereditary transmission is in an equally precarious condition. Heredity, acting under quite ideal conditions, would no doubt end in continuous repetition of the same types ; but, as a matter of fact, so many other laws come into competition with it, so many accidental circumstances come into play and thwart it, * " Le Paradoxe de I'egalite," p. 38. THE SELECTION OF SUPERIOIUTIES. 43 that the resemblance of parent and child is only approximate Is this resemblance in a given case sufficient or insufficient ? lias the law of heredity been stronger than the exception, or vice versa ? Experience alone can answer these questions ; but " to submit the nobility to the test of experience," says M. Ribot, " to discuss its title at every birth, would mean its extinction." Besides, there is another law, with which the institution of a nobility clashes, viz. the " impoverish- ment of heredity." Every aristocracy, every close corpora- tion, which has only been renewed from its own ranks, becomes gradually extinct. Water not renewed becomes foul ; the ocean alone is large enough to contain within it enough waves, motion, and life to prevent it from becoming stagnant. M. Ribot has determined the causes of this physical and mental impoverishment by showing that heredity is a force incessantly struggling against opposing forces, that it has its " struggle for existence," and that, each generation, even when victorious, issues from the struggle more weakened than before by its losses. It follows that, instead of a selection of superiorities, it, if isolated, produces in the long run a selection of inferiorities. Education alone is able, but imperfectly, to counterbalance these effects of heredity. As an hereditary nobility is no longer possible in these days, and as, moreover, it has lost all its advantages, we must seek other processes of selection to constitute that natural aristocracy which we aU agree is necessary, an aristocracy open and not closed, founded on talent and merit, and therefore what we may call a democratical aristocracy. Nature, to carry out her selections, acts on the maximum number of individuals ; this is a primary process it will be as well to imitate, but it can only be partially imitated, for nature is blind, and man is intelligent. It is impossible to give to all alike an instruction such as that dreamed of by the partisans of "integral instruction." There is an antinomy between the law of selections, of capacities, and the law of adaptation. If the field offered to selection be 44 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. not wide enough, it ceases to operate ; if it were too wide, it would end in the development of capacities or pretensions which no longer find their use and ultimate adaptation. The uuclassed will then apply to the State itself, and accuse it of not having furnished them with employment for the real or professed capacities education has developed in them. But the acquisition of knowledge is one thing, and the culture of the moral and intellectual faculties is another. The former, if beyond due bounds, and unadapted to the environment in which the child should live, must in the long run create a number of the uuclassed ; but we can always, with advantage to all, supply in lavish profusion noble ideas and noble sentiments. The moral qualities — ■ courage, justice, goodness, devotion — are equally necessary under any circumstances ; and more, they constitute, with physical vigour, the main strength of the species ; we must therefore develop them in each individual. The intellectual capacities — observation, reflection, judgment, method, etc. — are both useful to the individual and to the race. But it is by no means necessary for their development to apply thsm in the case of each individual to every object, nor to the maximum number of possible objects. The choice of objects must be regulated — but only in its sum total — by the present and future condition of the child. The mistake into which we nowadays fall, and with our eyes open, is that of confounding the general education of the faculties with general and more or less encyclopgedic instruction. It is by no means necessary, to be an intelli- gent man, to have learned organic chemistry, the history of Egypt, or the geography of Patagonia. I should therefore propose to lay down this rule : make moral and intellectual education as universal as possible, and restrict oljects of instruction to the minimum absolutely necessary. In a word, the culture of the faculties is always good, for all subjects; what may be mischievous is the choice of the objects of knowledge. Unfortunately, our educators turn their whole attention to the objects and to the matter of THE SELECTION OF SUPERIOEITIES. 45 instruction ; a kind of pedagogic materialism makes them neglect the mind to the advantage of everything external to it. It is of importance in education to avoid all premature classification and specialization of minds, other than that which results from the degree of instruction chosen by the parents for their children. There must be a primary, a secondary, and a higher education, forming a natural hierarchy ; and each of these should maintain the maximum unity, generality, and elevation. For "the wind bloweth where it listeth ; " we can never tell beforehand where it will blow, unless we are on the mountain's crest where it has more liberty and space. The second process of selection employed by nature is the subordination of the purely individual interest to the general interest of the species. But there again nature and man proceed in different ways. Nature, in her disdain for individualities, sacrifices them to the strongest ; in humanity it is impossible for the greatest number to be, according to Kenan's aristocratic theory, " sacrificed " to a few privileged individuals ; on the contrary, only by not sacrificing any one do the superiorities emerge in the intellectual and moral world. This is a predominant distinction between human selection and animal or vegetable selection. The more the higher order of minds is surrounded by minds already elevated and capable of understanding them, the more is this environ- ment favourable to their development. Education must therefore be harmful to none and useful to all. Many of the reforms advocated at the present moment in France would end in raising the level of intellectual and moral education for a few selected individuals, but would lower it as a whole for the rest. Such means as these are in contradiction to the end in view. If you narrowly restrict your field of operations and of the culture of the faculties, you thereby diminish the intellectual and moral fecundity of the race. The " scientific " elite dreamed of by Kenan, VN'hich with science as its instrument would have the right and the power to govern the world, can itself be only the 46 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. product of an artificial and narrow selection ; tlie elite should rise spontaneously and from our midst ; its rule must be accepted. It is true that education should not directly propose to itself, with the utilitarians (after Bentham), " the greatest interest of the greatest number," the completest possible satisfaction of the greatest number of private interests. Suppose, for instance, that a system of culture (classical culture, for example) were recognized as the most capable of raising the intellectual and moral level of the nation, "without perhaps being the method of treatment best adapted to educe from mediocrities the greatest possible positive and immediately useful return to each individual ; we should then have to choose between quahty and quantity ; we should have to ask ourselves if it be of more importance to this nation to increase its moral and intellectual greatness, by means of a sufficient number of elevated minds, or to have within it only a large number of mediocrities keeping to the statu quo and busying themselves each with his own individual interests. Before a great ship is launched, she must have tall masts, and therefore there must be such things as high trees ; so we have to decide between that method of culture which produces the largest number of small plants all of the same size, and that which is calculated to raise pines to a towering height. But there is this difference, that in the moral and intellectual order, the high plants do not stifle the smaller, on the contrary, they help them by their shelter, by their sap, and by their strength. The educator must not consider the mere brute advantage that each individual will derive for himself, but the degree of elevation attained by all, and especially by the best, to the profit of all. To lower the level, under the pretence of equalizing those low down in the scale, is the safest way of making them descend lower still with those who might have been able to ascend. Let us, on the contrary, raise the moral and intellectual level ; let us ever raise it, not of course so as to make it inaccessible, but so as to gradually elevate the best, who in their turn will raise the others. CHAPTER y. UTILITARIAN EDUCATION AND TRUE NATIONAL INTERESTS. The principles I have laid down condemn ntilitarianisiii in education. As science only progresses by the spirit of dis- interestedness, and as industry assumes scientific theory, industry itself only advances by aid of the disinterested love of the true, which is connected with the beauty of truth itself. Genius is only this love aided by exceptional faculties ; it only finds because it seeks, and it only seeks because it loves. Further, the universal craving for know- ledge that may be applied prevents the selection of genius ; to look for useful truths before beautiful truths is to look for the fruit before the tree. And besides, how can we gauge beforehand the utility of a truth ? When he shouted " Eureka ! " Archimedes did not know that he had also invented balloons. A Montgolfier, limited to the applica- tion of the principle discovered by another, is not as valu- able to humanity as a EucHd or an Archimedes ; an Edison is not equivalent to a Leibnitz. It is not with the utili- tarians that the pre-eminence will remain, for they will be barren as far as genius or even simple superiorities are con- cerned. A Descartes, a Leibnitz, or a Newton is neither born nor developed in a race exclusively devoted to the search for immediate utility ; such men can only breathe the atmosphere in which truth and beauty shine with a dazzling light, and where they are sought for their own sake. To the French a utilitarian education would be peculiarly 48 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. harmful, because it would be in contradiction to the temperament of the race. "With all our faults of mobility, thoughtlessness, our over-hasty or superficial judgment, we have a quality of the first rank which has always saved us from the gravest consequences of om- fau'ts — enthusiasm. If France is to be faithful to her genius, she must remain " the land of enthusiasm," and this sentiment, which can in time of need arouse a whole nation, is best excited by the beautiful. Eealistic and utilitarian education is the bane of political communities, and especially of democracies like France. We know that an imperfect democracy is the cult either of the individual or of the number considered as a mass of individuals. Hence every notion of a real and continuous fatherland, extending beyond the present collection of indi- viduals and beyond the present majority, tends to disappear, to the advantage of individuals, whether dispei'sed or massed together. The will of the whole nation is therefore con- fused with the suffrage of the greatest number, i.e. with the interest of those who chance to have the upper hand at the time, and who should only consider themselves as the repre- sentatives of the whole, including the very minority whom they have defeated. The real national will is not exhausted when we speak of the sum total of individual wills at any moment. Millions of incoherent and scattered wills do not make a national will, and the present generations are only a fraction of the fatherland ; a jjISbiscite dictated by circmn- stances, by the passions or interests of the mass at a given moment, is not the national will, and still less is it the ethnical will. It is a momentary cyclone, and not a con- stant and continuous current like the Gulf Stream. That policy which only considers the votes of the moment, with- out looking far ahead, is a tempestuous policy, and if education followed the same method, if it did not work for the whole race, for real " universality " which includes the future and the present, it would tend to compromise the existence of the nation, which would only be hving from UTILITARIAN EDCCATION. 49 hand to moufch. Public spirit would be weakened in the seeking after personal and immediate interests ; numbers woukl stifle intellect, and the ultimate result would be univei'sal debasement. Again, suppose a country alone in the world or surrounded with a kind of wall of China ! It still must struggle against its neighbours and obtain, not only equality with, but superiority over, them under pain of degeneration. Nations, as we know, are far from submitting to the beautiful laws of equality, of which a Rousseau or a Proudhon dreamed ; now, to be superior to other nations, or even not to be simply inferior to fchem, a nation must perforce arouse within it every possible superiority. That is why education is not only a national but an international problem. The French felt this very keenly after their disasters in 1870 — as did the Germans after Jena and in the days of Fichte. But the French have gone too far in attributing their defeats to a low level of knowledge and mere instruction ; and con- sequently they have been carried away by utilitarian con- siderations. The French people, in their ignorance, cried, " We are defeated, we have been betrayed ; " no less naively did educated men say in their turn, "We were defeated because we do not hioiv geography, or history, or mathe- matics, or mechanics." And from highest to lowest they have overloaded the scientific side of- the curriculum at the expense of classical literature. The result has been, as is now recognized, the lowering of the level of all subjects. Yictories are due to much deeper causes than to the intel- lectual condition or to scientific knowledge ; they are due to the directing ideas, to the sentiments and the will, to organization and discipline, to the esiMt de corps animating the whole of the army and the nation. M. Hoenig, the author of a volume on " L'Importance de la discipline pour I'Etat, le peuple, et I'armee," tells us that the German recruits enrolled in his company had preserved but little recollection of what they learned on the benches at school. For some years he had to ascertain the amount of instruction of these 50 EDUCATION FI10.^I A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. recruits ; now tke simplest facts of their own country were often unknown by these new additions to the regiment. " We set a number of questions on their own country, and the answers were incredible. After the war of 1870-71, many did not even know the name of the Emperor of Germany." Here, comments Urad,* we are a long way off that wonderful knowledge of geography which was so wide- spread among the rank and file as to enable them to find their way along any road in a foreign country. According to Marshal Yon Moltke, " education is far more important than scientific instruction, because knowledge alone does not give that self-sacrifice which is wanted for the service of the country. Authority above, obedience below, discipline is the whole soul of the army. An undisciplined army is an institution always costly, unreliable in war, full of danger in peace. It is this discipline that fitted our armies to win three campaigns." And by discipline the Germans mean all the military virtues, the qualities of the will and heart, and not merely those of the intellect. At the beginning of the century, on the eve of the catastrophe that nearly proved the ruin of Prussia, Schaarnhorst, the future reorganizer of the German army, wrote to his king, " We have begun to think more of the science of war than of military viitues ; but this has ever been the ruin of nations." And miUtary virtues become more and more necessary as armies increase in size ; individual heroism loses its importance and general discipline becomes essential. Great armies, in fact, find cohesion, rapidity, and security necessary to their existence. In case of a normal mobilization, Germany would gather beneath her standards three million armed men, and with the reserves six millions ; the war footing of Russia is 2,900,000 ; of France, 1,900,000. If the present German army were set in motion on a single road, with all its reserves and trains complete, it would reach from one end of the empire to the other. With such masses of men, » "Le Peuple Allemaud." UTILITARIAN EDUCATION- 51 moral and material discipline alone can maintain unity and promptitude of movement, as well as safety of supplies. Certainly the schoolmaster contributes to the final success, if he himself has taught and clearly formulated discipline, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty — for these are at the same time ideas and sentiments. The principal conditions of victory for a modern army are, therefore, the develop- ment of solidarity, respect for the hierarchy, in a word, everything that organizes and unifies ; geography and history, physics and chemistry, go for nexc to nothing, and that is why a Von Moltke places moral education far above purely intellectual and scientific instruction. What is true of an army is true of a whole nation ; every people divided, disorganized, and individualized to excess, becomes mere human dust ; a whirlwind sweeps it away. The Emperor Frederick III., at the beginning of his reign, wrote to Bismarck : " I consider that the problem of the care to be given to the education of youth is intimately connected with social questions. A higher education should be made accessible to more and more extended strata^ but we must avoid a semi-instruction which will create grave danger, and give rise to pretensions which the economic forces of the nation will be unable to satisfy. We must equally avoid neglecting our educative mission by exclusively attempting to increase instruction." The pedagogic problem, in fact, is eventually confused, not only with questions of internal and external policy, but also with the social question. The Germans realize this more readily than any other people, because, with them, the danger is more pressing. The increase of nations and races is to modern communities an element of internal force and external expansion, but it also threatens them with far- reaching disturbance. In Germany the socialist vote has increased from 311,000 in 1881, to 800,000 in 1887, and to a milhon and a half in 1890. "When Germany," said one of the socialist leaders in the Reichstag, " has a popula- tion of sixty milhons, the government tvill pass into the hands 52 EDUCATION FKOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. of the luorlcinj classes ly the mere effect of universal suffrage. Now, wliile the population of France remains stationary and is comparatively decreasing, the Germans have a yearly increase of half a million ; i.e. the population of Germany by the end of the twentieth century will be 170 millions. By the end of the next century the government and the disposal of the mihtary power of Germany may be in the hands of this ever-increasing socialism ; we see that invasion might threaten the French race from without at the very time she is threatened with disruption within. It has been rightly said that the policy " of blood and iron " now advocated between nations by Germany may some day be quite as legitimately invoked between classes. To sum up — education has to take into account a twofold group of forces, those of conservation and those of progress. The former are at first maintained in the race by natural heredity, the latter by tradition of every possible kind, i.e. a sort of self -imitation by society throughout all time. The latter are chiefly developed by the initiative, invention, and search after novelty of minds constituting a governing elite and an aristocratical democracy. Education, by natural and not by artificial means, must assure the selection of capacities with a view to progress, with no less care than she must pay to securing the persistence of the conservative tradition which is the basis of society itself. It must therefore, in the true sense of the word, elevate every mind, it must only bestow attention upon what is moralizing, what is disinterested, and upon that which looks far ahead. It must renounce the superstition of knowledge which is only knowledge, of truth which is only truth, of fact which is only fact. A nation pre-eminently needs what is known as " public spirit," i.e. a spirit of devotion to the common weal ; it needs all the social and also all the intellectual virtues, which as we have seen consist in the disinterested love of the true and the beautiful. Utilitarian and positive education, or what goes by that name, is therefore more fatal than any other system to the fertility and force UTILITARIAN EDUCATION. 53 of the nation. It is just now making some pro::^ress in Germany by the development of the Realschulen, which is causing no Uttle anxiety to enUghtened minds, and no doubt is preparing some checks for the G-ermans in the future ; let us maintain in our midst, so as to preserve and increase all OLir chances of success, a really liberal education, the only education that has ever been at the root of a nation's power. If individuals, if parents themselves, are always tempted to forget the general and national aim of education, the State ought to keep it constantly in view. France cannot, in the instruction of her children, consider the immediate and individual interest of the child, as the children them- selves and the parents do ; she must work for the future of the nationality and of the race, for those future genera- tions which represent an infinitely greater number of men than the present generation, and who are certainly the better part of our fatherland. The greater part of the knowledge that will be useful to the individual in his future profession, he will acquire by degrees as he wants it, but education has to make men and citizens incarnations of humanity itself. A liberal education can only deal with the necessary and the beautiful ; in mo3t cases there is too much of " the useful " in it. Everything that is only useful is only relatively so, and therefore, relatively useless. The beautiful, the good, and speculative truth are alike universally and eternally useful. 54 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. BOOK II. SCIENTIFIC HUMANITIES EEOM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER I. THE HUMANITIES AND THEIR GENERAL OBJECT. The object of the humanities, as the name implies, is to awaken in the mind of the child ideas and sentiments which are really human, and which, if we may say so, connect the mind of youth with that of the whole of humanity. In other words, we must implant the best part of human evolution in the mind of the individual. For that purpose we must develop in the subject the faculties which make the man, and we must give for odjects to those faculties the highest traths and the loftiest sentiments to which the mind of man has attained. Higher education, assuming minds already formed, treats these objects from every side, and even seeks to discover new objects. Knoivledge is its principal end. Primary education, while aiming at the development of the faculties of the child, is reduced to occupying itself chiefly with these objects, the knowledge of which is essential to all ; its object is the minimum of indispensable knowledge, just as the object of higher education is the maximum of possible knowledge. With secondary education it is quite different, and this is forgotten THE HUMAXITIES AND THEIR GENERAL OBJECT. 55 hj almost all who have not studied the problem philoso- phically. No doubt secondary education has objects which it brings mto relation witli the mind, for, as M. Kabier says, *' the mind is never exercised on nothing," but it is none the less true that the proper aim of secondary education is the formation, development, and evolution of the mind. Vie must therefore take not things, but man himself — or more generally speaking, humanity — as our object, and that is why studies of this kind deserve par excellence the name of humanities. It also follows that the first rank in the humanities must be given, not to material, but to moral and social subjects. As M. Lachelier neatly puts it, " the real object of these studies is the nature and the moral life of man." Hence their character of lofty dis- interestedness, which has won for them the name of liberal studies. Primary education cannot be severed from a certain utilitarianism, because its object is the necessary^ what is essentially useful ; secondary education has mainly in view the good and the leautiful ; higher education is chiefly occupied with the tni?, either with what is already known, or with the discovery of new truths. These objects of instruction in secondary education are therefore not a matter of complete indifference ; we must choose by preference those the knowledge of which is best adapted to secure the evolution of the individual and of the nation to which he belongs. Instruction is here a means, education an end. In fact, literature being the freest and broadest expression of the human mind, it has been hitherto taken as the foundation of the humanities, just as philosophy is their crown. Such are the principles that have inspired education in France from the days of Montaigne, Bossuet, and Fenelon, to EolUn and the great names of the French University. Other nations have but followed in our wake. Germany absorbed and still retains the spirit of our great schools and universities. In Germany the distinction between students in letters and science is unknown. Those who intend to be 56 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. doctors and engineers receive the same classical culture as those who are to be teachers or lawyers. The same Ahiturientenexamen, corresponding to the English matricu- lation or the French B. es. L., admits them to the universities, and comprises : (1) a German essay ; (2) a Latin essay ; (3) Latin prose ; (4) Greek prose ; (5) French prose (no dictionaries allowed) ; * (6) mathematics. The latter is all the science required ! In the viva voce they are examined in Latin and Greek authors, in Greek and Eoman, or German history. Geography is associated with history, lut is not made the otject of special study. Here we see to what is reduced the important part attributed by legend to geography among the Germans. Finally, they are questioned on arithmetic, geometry, and elementary algebra. No questions are asked in physics or natural history. In other words, all that is required is a sound knowledge of Latin, Greek, and mathematics. If students want to study science, they may do so to their hearts' content at the universities. There they will remain for four years, being on the average about nineteen when they take their aUturientenexanien, i.e. they will study until they are about twenty-three. This system shows that we can have scientific men without overloading them with science at school ; and that a good classic may afterwards build solid bridges or superintend the working of mines. In the gymnasiums there are not even special teachers for science.f At the State examination each candidate who proposes to adopt teaching as his profession has to offer him- self for examination in at least two branches ; for examjDle, classics and natural history, history and modern languages, mathematics and geography, etc. Their minds are, there- fore, less wrapped up in their special work, and, therefore, less narrow. Besides, fewer teachers are necessary. The German gymnasium has nine ordinary masters and four or five assistants, forming a simple and compact staff, such as * A Latin-German Dictionary is now allowed (Tr.). t This is gradually ceasing to be the CUse (2r.). THE HUMANITIES AND THEIR GENERAL OBJECT. 57 tlic French had about 1840, before the deplorable line of demarcation was drawn between science and letters. Since then, in addition to students in letters and science, the French have naval students, students at St. Cyr and the Poljtechnique, technical students — all fascinated by the practical end at which they aim, and profoundly indifferent to everything but just what is required from them. This parcelling out of studies into specialities, besides involving an inevitable lowering of general studies, is extremely mischievous in its influence on the special subjects which it is fondly imagined are thereby fostered. While remaining faithful to the traditions of classical education, Germany has wished to avoid the excesses into which, in some of our schools, the culture of the faculties for their own sake had fallen ; I mean that purely formal culture held in honour by the Jesuits, which exercised but did not nourish the mind, as if the mind as well as the body did not need the nourishment that stores up the living power and the exercises by which that power is made avail- able. But Germany, avoiding one pitfall, has fallen into another. In education she has given the first rank in moral and social science to historical and philological science ; i.e. she has fallen into erudition. Now, to learn facts, dates, and words is an arresting of what may be called the material of human evolution, instead of a penetrating into the real spirit of the humanities. Disconnected from moral, social, and philosophical considerations, history, geography, and hnguistics are still material sciences, just as physics or geology. And they have an additional inferiority in being not only much less scientific, but much less useful. In England, the school of evolution, originating in the school of utilitarians, and finding, moreover, in the nation itself, traditions of utilitarianism, has allowed itself to be led astray by the mirage of the natural sciences, and has aimed at making those sciences the bases of instruction. In the science of education it had thus opposed naturalism to what may be called " humanism." Spencer opens his volume 68 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. on education by the statement that in all things the end in view is knowledge, a principle the falsity of which we have seen. Thus, throughout the book, Spencer is wavering between the ideal of primary and the ideal of higher educa- tion, without even a suspicion of what secondary instruction is. This idolizing of science is all the more surprising because, in his " Sociology," Spencer insists on the power- lessness of instruction to modify individuals and nations, on the inefficacy of elementary knowledge, on the omni- potence of heredity, and on the superiority of sentiments to abstract ideas. Spencer's pedagogy is thus at variance with his own views, and is eagerly pursuing an end of which it has exhibited the inadequacy. Fm-ther, he confuses the inward evolution of man with those outward objects the knowledge of which may modify but cannot cause it ; man is absorbed in nature, and the " humanities " are eliminated from such a system. CHAPTER II. FAULTS IN OUR TEACHING OF SCIENCE. "The natural sciences," it has been said, "are chiefly vahiable from the humanities they contain," The properly organized study of science has recently and justly been called " the scientific humanities." I propose to show what is meant by this organization. In my opinion the aim of the real scientific humanities should be the transformation of the material sciences into moral science, by teaching their spirit, methods, principles, and conclusions, and, fina-ly, their history and social consequences. We shall afterwards take up the question of the classic humanities, which, in my opinion, should be reformed in the same direction. Spencer can no longer in these days compare science to Cinderella, and literature to her haughty and frivolous sisters ; it seems clear that science nowadays is proud, and not litei'ature. The French University has allowed itself to be invaded by the different sciences, and has given to each of them an important part in the programme of 1885. It is now unanimously recognized that this scientific instruc- tion, far from raising the level of studies, has only lowered it. In spite of that, positive science is still so tyrannical in its influence on our educational system — thanks to its being a sine qua non in the competition for admission into the State schools — that it is important to ascertain its real value in education. Science gives us a model of what truth is ; it accustoms us to weigh evidence ; it gives us method — which has been 60 EDUCATION niOlM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. called the virtue of the intellect. But if it presents advantages, it also, when isolated, presents grave dis- advantages which are forgotten by those who wish to make it the foundation of education. To justify the increasing importance attached to it, elementary instruction in science must avoid three pitfalls — it must neither be too material, too utilitarian, nor too special. You say you accustom the child to observe. To observe what ? Material objects, that it tm^ns round and round, takes to pieces, or breaks, if necessary, to discover their properties and structure ; it may be a stalk of hemp or flax, it may be corn or a flower, a piece of chalk or quartz, the pen he is using, a brush — any of the usual objects around him. Thus the child is accustomed to believe nothing lut ivhat he sees. This development of the positive spirit is useful in the domain of natural science, but it is not without danger in other fields, and needs a corrective. You also tell the child that each word should by its scientific definition express a thing absolutely accurate, represent able, and, in ultimate analysis, sensible ; an excellent habit in geometry and physics, in which we have to do with material things ; but material precision does not also give us clearness of moral vision ; when you speak to him of honour, duty, or his native country, what can they materiafly represent to his imagination ? What objects observable by the senses will be attached to these sublime names ? Eealities in the moral order ; but these realties are ignored by scientific instruction. The present study of science, with its infinity of detail and application, and unaccompanied by general and philo- sophical views, has a second fault — its too utilitarian tendency. No lofty aim is presented to the child's mind ; he can only say, " I learn arithmetic because some day it will be useful to me to know bow to count ; I learn physics because it will be useful to me to know the properties of bodies ; I learn mechanics because the subject is useful in making machines ; I learn natural history because it is FAULTS IN OUR TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 6L useful in hygiene and in medicine ; I learn geography because it is useful to know about different countries, and because it is said to be useful in time of war, etc. The child thus runs the risk of taking self-interest as the universal standard, and the more our curricula are over- loaded with unconnected special sciences, the less educated virtue they have. Let us go a step further. Supposing that the study of science — i.e. of science as at present conceived — gives depth to the mind, they continue in reality to restrict instruction to formal science. What are mathematics ? Pm^ely formal science. Arithmetic and algebra are the rhetoric of numbers. Given any abstract data you like, upon those data we then reasoD and reason, and from those data we draw deduction after deduction. General principles are applied to particular problems, and the solution of these problems becomes a petty mechanical talent, like the syllogistic talent of the Middle Ages, or like Eaymond-LuUe's reasoning-machine. The very science of motion, mechanics, the queen of the ages, is still based upon formal relations in space and time ; it is always making its deductions and reasoning as far as it can on an hypothesis which is the equivalent in science of the subject of a Latin speech in hteratm-e. It is true that in the one case we must reason accurately, and that in the other it is not necessary to do so ; but even then, when the cause we have to sustain is a bad one, it is good to talk nonsense. But the mathematician will never in real life reason better than others, because he is accustomed to abstract reasoning, to deducing the rectilinear consequences of an hypothesis, and is not accustomed to observing and connecting all the data of experience, nor to the induction, the guessing, and the appraising of probabilities. In private and public life, the mathematical spirit is the art of seeing only one side of the question. In mathematical science we make our own depositions ; in the world of reality experience furnishes us with definitions, and is ever transforming and correcting them by fresh determinations. We always find 62 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. in results more than we had found in our definitions and principles. We had said, " Two and two make four ; " but we find five, and our narrow formulas are invaded by nature and life. Mathematics develop that kind of reasoning by signs, so happily termed by Leibnitz symbolic reasoning ; they replace objects by more or less conventional substitutes. It follows that they may give the habit of thinking by formulas, without taking into account the things themselves, the habit of retailing the results of reasoning without having gone through the process of reasoning. Leibnitz called this " psittacism." Algebraists look down on grammarians ; but they should not forget that if the latter have mainly to do with words, they themselves are taken up with signs, which are still further removed from intuitive reality. The mind is only exercised on quantities, not on qualities, and we may be able to solve problems in the differential calculus without being thereby any the wiser in our moral and social life. "We do not learn to draw the delicate lines of the human face by drawing straight lines, triangles, or squares ; what is wanted is the power of taking things in at a glance, and the artistic instinct. Similarly, the solution of scientific problems is not of the same order as that of a moral or literary problem. But the physical sciences ? some one will say. They lift us into the world of form ; they give to the youthful mind the depth it lacks ; they accustom the young to observe, to experiment, and to draw inferences. This is an optical illusion, as more than one philosopher has pointed out, from Herbart to Guyau. It is supposed that the teaching of science ex professo, as in classes at school, develops the same mental qualities that were necessary to great scientists in the construction and advancement of science ; but instruction even in natural and physical science chiefly develops the memory, and not the inductive reason- ing, and the spirit of speculation and hypothesis, which are the indispensable requisites for any discovery. Think how FAULTS IN OUR TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 63 Pascal groped in the dark, recall the series of experiments and assumptions he had to make before he could prove that air had weight, — a series which began with Galileo and Torricelli. Is the natural science master of to-day making inductions, or observations, or hypotheses ? Nothing of the kind ; he does not make his pupils go through the inductive chain anew. He begins at the other end ; he lays down dogmatically the theory of the weight of the air, deduces the principal consequences, and finally gives the boys new deductions to draw, in the form of problems. There is no mental process going on in the boys analogous to that which was going on in Torricelli, Galileo, or Pascal. They are told— It has been proved that air has weight ; it has been proved that the earth revolves. Still, extraordinarily enough, they do te^ch them a little history apropos of these two important discoveries. That alone is worth all the theory taught, because it is 9f good example of the intellectual virtues without which discoveries cannot be made. The teaching of science ex cathedrd and science itself are so different as to be almost antithetic, just as the active is the opposite of the passive, and invention the opposite of memory. Now let us see at work this intellectual gymnastics to which young people, according to Spencer, Bain, Huxley, and their disciples in France, are subjected by the teaching of positive science. The chemistry-master enters the class- room; the subject of his lesson is chemical affinity. The boys take their pens and wait. " To explain the union of different simple bodies in the same composite molecule, we must admit the existence of a force which first of all attracts them one to the other, and then maintains the union thus effected. This force is called affinity y * The boy, know- ing nothing about this force which maintains the union of bodies, writes as rapidly as possible a simple "definition of words," which he is told to learn by heart. " We are going * A lesson taken down in shorthand at one of the great lyceums. 64 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. to examine the cliaracteristics of affinity, and the principal causes that modify it." Boy writes : " Oharacteys, modifij- ing causesy Meanwhile, the master proceeds : " (1) Before affinity can be exercised between two bodies there must be contact. A very simple experiment will be enough to show us this." During the experiment the pen has a moment's rest. " This is an aqueous solution of baryta, and this is a rod dipped in H2SO4. Sulphuric acid and baryta have a strong tendency to combine and form a body known as baric sulphate." This is a new name to be engraved on the memory, " Now I bring the baryta as close as possible to the surface of the liquid, and you see that combination does not take place. Now I touch the solution of baryta. You see baric sulphate is produced immediately contact takes place. It takes the form of a white insoluble powder." The boys look on, and the only scientific effort, the only induction, the only experiment they have to make is the ascertaining the presence of a white powder at the end of the rod. Certainly, the experiment is an interesting and even an amusing one, but has it in the least initiated those boys into the method by which the beautiful laws of affinity were discovered, the philosophical inter-relation of forces, or their marvellous transformation one into the other ? Every chemical or physical experiment, however ingenious it may be, is laid down in every detail beforehand. It develops before absolutely passive spectators just as if it were merely a description. They will never be experimenters because they have seen a series of experiments. They will have seen a vacuum created in a pneumatic machine, they will have seen a heated ball unable to pass through the ring through which it easily slipped when cold, etc. That is all very good in its way, but teaching by watching experiments is not teaching by action, and our boys do not act at these lessons, they watch, make notes, and summarize. All it comes to is stringing together fugitive phrases caught at random. The mind is very little developed by this, even from the scientific point of view. FAULTS IN OUR TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 65 But the course of Natural History ! There, at any rate, the boys learu to observe, get a knowledge of things, and (as it is more extended), according to M. Blanchard, a knowledge of " men." Here is another shorthand report : " After what I said in our last lesson of the role played by liquid nourishment in the animal economy and of the in- fluence of respiration on the physiological properties of these liquids, it is evident that they should be in perpetual motion, in order that every part of the body may receive the materia] necessary to its nutrition. This movement constitutes what physiologists call the circulation of the Moody Here we find the inductive and experimental method in the act of being transformed into the deductive and dogmatic method in science-teaching. Instead of telhng the boys by what prodigies of patience and intelligence the circulation of the blood was discovered, they are told — " it is evident that the blood must circulate, and, as a matter of fact, it does circulate." As a rule, the master limits himself to adding — " This phenomenon was unknown to the ancients ; its dis- covery is due to Harvey, physician to Charles I., King of England (1618)." Thus summed up, this fact — far more important than any battle that ever was fought — remains a lifeless detail, and simply a little more added to the burden on the memory. " In the higher animals, the circulation takes place in the interior of a very complicated piece of apparatus, composed' of — (1) A system of canals and membranous tubes," etc. Then follows a minute descrip- tion, assisted by anatomical drawings, and with none of the experiments which form the foundation of physics. The pupils look on and try to fix in their memories the names of the different arteries, of the veins, and their definitions. Here, again, the boys will have exercised no intellectual faculty but that of memory, which, while their hands were mechanically travelling over the paper, was no less mechani- cally inscribing', in the frontal convolutions of their brains, a certain number of facts and words. After that, certain scientific men will ridicule the lad who writes Latin prose 1 66 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. and Latin verse. There is no paradox, however, in maintaining that the study of grammar and literature is more adapted than the study of science to the development of a scientific spirit, i.e. the spirit of induction, research, divination, hypothesis, observation, experiment, ingenuity, and patience (the patience of a Newton). Yes, to analyze a phrase and thoroughly grasp its meaning, to translate one's o^vIl thoughts mto expressions accurately conveying their meaning — especially in an ancient language — induction, observation, experiment and test, divination, hypothesis, and speculation of every kind are necessary. This exercise will make you more like the inventors of the barometer or thermometer than if you are simply present in a class in which a thermometer is being made. All the notes a science student ever made go for next to nothing in communicating the spirit of scientific and speculative invention, compared with a translation, with a piece of prose, or even with Latin verses. The spu'it of insight is more necessary to the doctor, the naturalist, and the geometer than the spirit of geometry. Gladstone was reading Homer and writing Latin verses during his whole life at Eton ; he was barely taught the elements of arithmetic. Reverse the circum- stances, imagine him a profound arithmetician, but with no literary training. It is very doubtful if he ever would have become an incomparable financial minister. Claude Bernard began by writing plays and by ideal experiments on character before his experiments upon organisms. There is much exaggeration also in the habit of observa- tion that is supposed to be developed by the study of external objects. In France the elements of geology are taught to boys under twelve — "Silicious stones, rock crystal, flint, quarry-stone, sandstone, granite, the complex structure of granite, gravel, clay, limestone," etc. In the fifth (still under twelve)—" stratified and un stratified rocks, trilobites, fossil molluscs and fish, the Silurian formation, slate, Devonian formation, Pyrenean marbles, secondary formation, ammonites, belemnites, Triassic formation, rock- FAULTS IN OUR TP:ACH[XG OF SCIENCE. 67 salt and gypsum, Jurassic formation, calcareous Oolites," et?. The best part of this programme is the excursions in the open air for which it serves as a pretext. But they do not lead to any better " observation of man," or appraising or controlling of character, because the nature of a formation has been ascertained, or a piece of quartz recognized, or a host of learned names committed to memory, or the number of petals of a flower counted, or even because botanical rambles have been made. The learning of external observation does not imply the learning of internal observation. A great naturalist may be the simplest of men and the simplest of psychologists. In fact it is almost always so. The observa- tion of animals is closely akin to the observation of human beings, but how can children be expected to become observers of animals, quite apart from the fact that animal is far more difficult than human psychology ? The study of natural history, which is the most passive of all from the purely descriptive and narrative character it assumes in our teaching, is knowledge rather than science ; it is either a mere exercise of the memory, or amusement and relaxation, or a study of practical utility ; on its poetic and philosophical side alone, with which our method of teaching does not, however, concern itself, has it any educative value. The third defect which science-teaching should avoid is what is called " specialization," which restricts each special science to its own domain, without linking it with others, and without eliciting the synthetic connection of the whole. As it exists at present, our teaching of various sciences, not only many in number but each isolated from the rest, is a second tower of Babel, added to that erected by the teachers of ancient and modern languages and of ancient and modern history ; each gives a course of lessons in an idiom of his own, and the result is eventually nothing but a series of specialities which is unfolded before the student. The fragmentary and disconnected knowledge which is thus given to our youth no longer possesses either scientific con- sistency or educative virtue. As our intellectual faculties 68 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. aim at unity of principles, so our moral faculties aim at the unity of different ends in the good. If instruction is not reduced to a unity from Avhich springs a conception of the great laws of the world and of human society, it ipso facto neglects the ideal ends of hfe, and ceases to make science useful for conduct. With their supreme truth and beauty, the different sciences also lose their morality. They run the risk of favouring the same vicious tendency which is at present evident in literature and in art. Who is not struck in these days with what is called the " subjectivism " of men of letters, poets, artists, critics, each concerned mainly with his own ego, his own impressions, his own more or less narrow personahty ? This is the invasion of literature, poetry, and art by egoism. Do we want this intellectual egoism to penetrate further into science itself ? The lowering of the mental level consequent on extreme division of labour extends to those who are destined to enlighten and instruct others. As John Stuart Mill says : "A man's mind is as fatally narrowed, and his feelings towards the great ends of humanity as miserably stunted, by giving all his thoughts to the classification of a few insects, or the resolution of a few equations, as to sharpening the points or putting on the heads of pins." * " Specializing " is adapted to the disaggregration of all it affects ; it is the failing of too many savants, who, contrary to their true interests, betray a decided aversion to broad and philosophic views. The minute details with which they are perpetually occupied, the infinitely small wheels they turn in the great social mechanism, prevent them from grasping the sentiment of total unity, and the sentiment of their unity with their fellow-men ; but this sentiment constitutes " public spirit." Hence their work becomes "simply a tribute to material necessity," instead of being the "happy accomplishment of a social function." Oar system of education is no more in accord with the » J. S. Mill, " Auguste Comte and Positivism," p. 95 (Tr.). FAULTS IN OUR TEACHING OF SCIENCE. G9 positive than with the idealistic conception. Anguste Comte tells us that, " the first and essential condition of intel- lectual and moral education should consist in its rigorous imiversalifi/." He expressly claims " an instruction capable of varied extension in a constantly identical and equal system." ISTow, according to Comte, the universal part of science is its spirit, its method, and its great results ; these, then, are the positive bases of scientific education. He also sees in specializing a most formidable and a very rapidly increasing evil which will retard our moral and. intellectual regeneration. "All the forces of society should be brought into play to combat this direction of the mind." And there is only one remedy — a broad, general, and really unified education which may serve as the common founda- tion of ulterior specializing. The evil exists even in Germany ; the illustrious Eector of the Academy at Berhn, M. Dubois-Eeymond, protests against the indusiricdism which is presented as the aim of scientific instruction. " Science, minus the philosophical spirit, narrows the mental field, and destroys the sense of the ideal." If science, on the one hand, issues in the progress of industry, it should tend, on the other hand, to the progress of the moral world. Moreover, wdiat is po.4tive science outside morality but a superior form of force, more dangerous perhaps than brute force, because it is more powerful, although it is, as has been Bai3, scarcely more worthy of respect ? A wider extension of scientific instruction into primary education has by no means raised the moral level ; the moral level has, on the contrary, been lowered. I do not say that the fault is due to the study of science, but it is certain that when science is separated from moral education, it develops in the child a certain vain presumption which ultimately tends to relegate him to the ranks of the unclassed. Besides, the tool with which it furnishes him is two-edged. AVe know that the criminal records of the early part of the century gave sixty-one per cent, of persons who had received no instiTiciijn. In the face of such a proportion, it was 70 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. supposed that ignorance was tlie main cause of criminality, and the authorities set to work to extend primary instruc- tion. " Now that it is obligatory," says Guyao, " the propor- tion is simply reversed ; out of a hundred prisoners, seventy have received grammatical and scientific instruction, and thirty have not." * We also know that the number of crimes and offences committed by minors is increasing. It follows that the subjects of every kind with which our curricula are over-crowded are no substitute for a sound moral education. In secondary instruction, if science ulti- mately absorbs everything at the expense of literature and phDosophy, I am persuaded that in some form or other a general demoralization must ensue. * Guyau, "Education and Heredity," pp. 178, 179 (Tr.). CHAPTER ITT. THE PHILOSOPHICAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES, THEIR TRANSFORMATION INTO HUMANITIES Reform of scientific studies must keep a twofold end in view : simplification, unification ; and these are only possible by a philosophical organization of education, I. With what part of the tree of science must we familiarize the child ? The roots, the trunk, and the great branches ; do not make them count all the leaves. In the case of the young we must reduce everything to just what is essential \ the more the detailed study of science is re- duced, the more will the really scientific spirit be developed — that spirit which is the antithesis to diversity of applica- tion and to mechanical memory. If a Descartes were in these days to write another " Discourse on Method," how clearly he would demonstrate the profound inutility of most of the so-called scientific studies ! — their practical and pedagogic inutility, to say the least of it. What a magis- terial rending of programmes would there be, of programmes which seem to have no object but to deaden and, as would have been said in the time of Descartes, to astonish the mind ! What is the type of a bad scientific book ? The manual. Well, our so-called scientific— and let me add historical and geographical — instruction, tends nowadays to make the student into a living but mutilated and inaccurate text- book, full of blunders and confusion. That is too often the meaning of the diploma given after an examination. Teachers of science, as well as of history and geography, 72 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. forget that excessive development of the memory is fatal to the other functions of the intellect. The cerebral powers, at each period of life, are limited, and we can only exact from them a certain total effort. Eobert Brown knew nearly twenty-five thousand names of vegetable species ; Kant, twenty thousand. When they wanted to learn new names, they forgot those they already knew. When a child's memory is overweighted in one direction it discharges its contents in another. " To learn science " is an empty phrase, for, as a matter of fact, science is not learned, it is created ; and Aristotle rightly asserted that in this connection knowledge is creation. Results alone may be the object of knowledge ! but results are only a table of contents, they are neither the book itself nor the spirit that dictated it. When we wish to make young people learn too many subjects, and even these too rapidly, we are overtasking their will and intellect, and we are giving them no leisure for reflection to grasp what they have done, or to prepare for fresh conquests. We are, therefore, fashioning brains adapted to the application of cufc-and-dried formulas; but we also are weakening the power of invention and decision. In a word, knowledge that is too extended and, ipso facto too superficial, will stifle the intellect and relax the character. Hence springs the "dearth of men" prophesied by Alexander de Humboldt half a century ago. We treat the brain as a passive piece of parchment on which is to be written in close lines the maximum quantity of geometry, physics, and natural history, etc. And this passivity tends to extend from the intellect to the character, from the individual to the race. The savants themselves are forced to confess with M. 0. Yogt, that, by the present style of science-teaching, "individual initiative is more and more lessened, and tends to become replaced by work of an ever more and more mechanical character." We are content with grinding equations in a mill w^hich works almost automatically ever since its inven- tion by Leibnitz and Descartes. FIIILOSOnilCAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 73 If a cataclysm in its destructive course were to destroy our civilization, and if, years after, one of the programmes of the baccalaureat were discovered under the ruins, we should be stupefied by the encyclopasdic science of our matriculants — Grandiaqne effossis mirahitur ossa sepulchris. We, their contemporaries, know the real value of these giants of science. The real intellectual dynamometer is the conception and realization of ideas which have become living- forces. One of the maxims of German pedagogy — and it was also a maxim in the pedagogy of the ancients — is that our knoAvledge is not ours until it is converted into a faculty and into an instinct. Wil] any one assert that this heavy technical apparatus is necessary to artisans, engineers, doctors, officers in the army, etc. ? If we look at things a little closer, we may be able to convince him that this is an illusion. Every career requires the knowledge of a good many special subjects, and of a few general subjects. The special knowledge is acquired by immediate preparation for the profession, and chiefly by practice in that profession, which puts our opponents, in the popular phrase, " in a fix." As for general scientific knowledge, it need not be so extensive ; to know what is absolutely necessary, and to know it thoroughly, is all that is wanted. The founders of the Ecole Polytechnique, says Biot, " men accustomed to general ideas, whose minds had been elevated and whose views had been widened by the Revolution, . . . knew that the science of a good engineer is composed of general notions, common to all the professions, of practical details which are proper to each. x\mong the former and in the first rank are higher mathe- matics, which give mental grasp and sagacity. Then come the principal theories in Chemistry and Physics." * If it is good for my intellectual education to learn the formulas NO, NOo, NO.3, NO4, NO5, it is only as an example of * Biot, "Histoire des Sciences," p. 59. 74 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. the marvellous structure, the regular combinations, and the union of atoms. Practically, when I want, for the purposes of any trade, a thorough knowledge of chemical formulas, I shall only have to study them in a good text-book, and I shall have no occasion to draw upon my schoolboy reminiscences. It is considered logical to teach young people at school the science they will afterwards require in their professions ; for instance, natural science and physiology to our future doctors. The contrary principle would be more logical. A medical student can only really learn anatomy and physi- ology in the lecture and dissecting rooms, and he will have plenty of time for that. What is the use of giving him at school a superficial acquaintance with what he will be obliged to learn all over again ? It is far better to teach the young what they will in later years have no opportunity of learning, and what they will not be compelled to learn. The doctor that is to be has far more need of a sound knowledge of mathematics and physics, of literature and philosophy, than of natural history ; he wants everything that will give him an upright and elevated mind ; he wants a little idealism before he becomes acquainted with the miseries of human life, and the mysteries of death. Utilitarian teachitig, which makes the special profession of far too much importance, defeats its own end, and far from making men more apt for their profession, it leaves them mentally imperfect and mutilated. From a liberal educa- tion we must exclude all over-particularizing and all over- specializing ; our first aim is to make men, and men endowed with great social virtues, not to turn out ready- made engineers, mechanics, doctors, or apothecaries. Speciality can only come after a sure and permanent acqui- sition of the general subjects of knowledge, the useful must not precede the true and the beautiful. At any rate we should be inspired by those principles in the choice of the sciences to be taught to a student taking up literatm-e. Astronomy, for example, is less practical, PIIILOSOPIIIOAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 75 less applicable to industry than chemistry, but it is also more adapted to excite admiration and to open out a wide perspective of the cosmos ; it should, therefore, have a place in the programme of a liberal and mainly literary education. But, as a matter of fact, the French, after having not long since introduced cosmography into the literary curriculum, are on the point of suppressing it. In the new programmes * all the sciences but cosmography appear in single file, and a student of literature might, strictly speaking, reach the end of his studies without knowing the difference between a planet and a star, or without knowing what a nebula is.f This sudden suppression of a science by a stroke of the pen is a proof of the problematic character of the supposed " necessity " of science in education ; yesterday you might hive a wxll-informed mind although you know no astronomy ; to-day you must know chemistry and geology instead. No doubt this is because it has been discovered that chemistry and geology are " more useful " for the purpose of forming " tellurians." As for me, I should prefer that they turned out " cosmo- politans ; " that the child's gaze should sometimes be directed to the star-strewn heavens ; that it should be shown Sirius, Arcturus, Aldebaran ; that its thoughts should be guided through the infinities by the rays of the stars, rays that bring the future closer before us, and unveil the coming years to man ; that it should catch a glimpse in the white mist of the Pleiades, or in the Milky Way, of a dust of worlds, and in the other nebulae — of worlds perhaps yet in process of formation. If, in addition to this, it is told how human science succeeded in penetrating the secret of these clouds of stars, if it is told about Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, of Scipio's dream, of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, and Xewton, condensing all the movements of * Vide " Proposals of Commission in 1890." t It is true that if he eventually marries a student from the girls' lyceuras, she will be able to teach him cosmography, to which her master will have devoted an hour a week. 76 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. the earth into one formula, which we might wilte in the hollow of our hand ; if we go beyond astronomical systems and introduce it to the philosophical systems of the cosmos ; if it is told that the skies have ever been the object of the meditation of the wise ; that all have found in what an abyss of final ignorance our science is lost, and how the compass of thought multiplies our " points of contact with the un- known," as the luminous sphere of our knowledge widens ; if we add that the laws of immbers which rule the world, and make all movement intelligible, are not self-explanatory ; that as most wise men have felt, these laws should have their explanation in something analogous to our intellect, in a something present within every being, or at least in a universal effort, a universal aspiration which no doubt is striving to expand within the depths of our hearts and to become self-conscious within our thought ; that in any case, brute, lifeless matter arranged in infinitely varied figures could account for all, because there are beings who live and feel and think ; if, in a word, the teacher of cosmography did not consider himself exclusively as a functionary of the State, who, for a fair salary, has to teach from eight in the morning to two in the afternoon, that the radius vector of the planets sweeps out areas proportional to the time ; if he looked upon himself as an educator of youth — yes, even he ; if he were persuaded that a certain idealism is necessary to education, and that we can at any time come into conflict with things of the earth, earthy ; if he went so far as to tell his pupils, with Kant, that two marvels will ever fill man with admkation, the sky above our heads with its laws, and the moral law in our hearts — and that, perhaps, at bottom, these laws are identical, forming a single law which is obscure in the bright light of heaven, and dazzling in the dark depths of our consciousness ; — this disinterested con- templation of visible and invisible infinities would seem to me of greater value than a practical acquaintance with slate, sandstone, or gypsum. He is no man who has never felt the " sacred horror " of Lucan beneath the vault of PHILOSOPHICAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 77 mighty oaks in druidical forests, a ** sacred horror" still more impressive in the forest of stars beneath the vault of heaven.* Even in chemistry, in my opinion, we must only teach — at any rate to literary students — what is necessary to all, what is beautiful and admirable what is a revelation of the elementary architecture of bodies, or the universal affinity, the existence of which throughout space is revealed by spectrum analysis. Here are two programmes in chemistry ; the one passes in review the whole series of elements and of their principal combinations, and describes the preparations of sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, etc. ; the other, after a rapid historical sketch of alchemy and chemistry, requires an examination of prin- ciples, of the connection between chemistry and physics and physiology, notions on chemical atoms and their structure, the relative or absolute simplicity of metals and metalloids, analysis and synthesis in chemistry, the Umits and possible progress of our present knowledge in this domain, the impassable boundaries of the mechanics of atoms ; added to this are the principal laws of the combinations of bodies, great discoveries such as that of spectrum analysis, their theoretical and practical and even social consequences, the revolutions effected in industry by these discoveries — in a word, openings and perspectives extending in every direction far beyond the descriptions of metals, acids, or salts. Of the two programmes, which would be the more interesting, and therefore the more easy for young students ? General views remain in the memory with less effort than multi- plicity of detail. At the same time, which will be the more fruitful and educative course ? To appreciate this point, a simple test is at hand, to which we should always have recourse when it is a matter of judging a syllabus. Suppose the pupil at * After these pages were published in the Hevue des Deux Mondes, the study of Cosmography was replaced in the programme for students between sixteen and seventeen. 78 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. the end of his course forgets all the substance of what he has learned (which in this case is nine times out of ten) ; what will be left to him of the former programmes ? Nothing, or next to nothing. "What will he remember of the latter ? The whole spirit of chemical study, ineffaceable impressions, general elevation of thought ; and finally a curiosity and a longing to satisfy it when opportunity arises, a respect for and a love of science. All formulas and nomenclature will be more or less gone, but a progress of thought will remain and persist, and finally a scientific aptitude quite ready to manifest itself if circumstances compel the youth to learn anew, and this time to retain the science of which he has forgotten the letter and kept the spirit. "We may therefore say that chemistry, interpreted in a certain way and taught by a certain method, becomes a moral and even social science instead of being purely material ; it becomes a Immane science instead of being the knowledge of brute objects ; and it is thus alone that it, with all other sciences treated in the same way, can take its legitimate rank in the " humanities." The highest aim of liberal education is to excite admiration ; nothing, except it be absolutely necessary, should be taught to humanists if it is not admirable : TroXvixadia voov ov SiSda-Kei. Now what are the necessary sciences ? Some sciences are capable of explanation, others are not at all, and others but imperfectly so. Thus mathematics and mechanics are perfectly explanatory ; their analysis and synthesis reach as far as possible and give the sentiment of the inevitable, for what cannot be, is not. Effect is connected with cause and everything is luminous, transparent to the mind. Physics also may in a great measure be explained ; there are complete theories — such as the theory of dew — which communicate the sense of necessity. With chemistry we begin to have no explanations. Why do oxygen and hydrogen in chemical combination make water, and how ? We do not know, nor can we from the properties of the ingredients deduce the properties of the compound. We state the phenomenon rHILOSOnilCAL HEFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 79 by saying so and so is the case, or we produce it and say so and so is going to ha^ipen, you will see the hydrogen and oxygen combine and form water. " In chemistry," says M. Berthelot, "our power goes further than our knowledge." The other branches of natural science again are much less susceptible of explanation ; life is still a mystery. To ascertain is not to explain. If we open a germinating grain of corn and totally destroy it, we are not grasping the great law of life, the secret of universal germination. The very functions of life can only be imperfectly explained. Why has the brain two hemispheres, and why is it constructed as it is ? Why has this flower five petals and not six ? Why has this soil one composition and not another ? Here there is more and more of statement, descri^otion, relation. The really scientific part of natural history is beyond the scope of secondary education ; the descriptive part is either too elementary or quite useless. Nature turns her kaleidoscope before us : we are content to note the figures as they succeed one to the other, an eglantine after a violet or a primrose, a lion after a tiger or an elephant. But what is the use of giving the young a description of *^ games of love and chance " ? We must say enough to awaken their imagination, to arouse admiration and curiosity ; the rest is superfluous, being at bottom neither scientific nor philosophical. Education, therefore, as a pro- found and methodic study, needs only two typical sciences, the methods of which are equally typical, the one deductive, the other inductive— mathematics and physics. These are almost the only sciences which give opportunity for problems as well as note-taking, and consequently afford a mental exercise in their solutions. If it is true that practice makes perfect, the scientific spirit will not be acquired in sciences which leave the pupil nothing to find out or do for himself. It is to be regretted that in physics, experiments are not carried out by the boys themselves ; but in spite of this, physics, the inductive science, jjar excellence, is the necessary complement of the deductive science — mathematics. 80 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Again, even in mathematics and physics, we must confine ourselves to the fundamental principles and have them thoroughly learned. In Latin, after the three hundredth piece of translation, the pupil will certainly have had his mind more exercised than after the ninth ; from Cornelius Nepos or Sallust, he will have gone on to Tacitus and Yirgil ; he will have solved a series of problems consisting in the discovery and expression of the thoughts of great writers ; and he will have a wider knowledge of both Latin and French. But will a boy be more intelligent after his three hundredth theorem in geometiy ? Will his mind undergo a metamorphosis because he has proceeded to the ellipse after he has studied the circle ? Will he be a different man because he has mastered simple equations and gone on to equations of the second degree ? No, for, strictly speaking, from one theorem to another it is always the same. And will there be any intellectual progress in passing in chemistry from sulphur to iodine ? or in botany, if we study the rubiace^ and afterwards learn the characteristics of the primulace^e ? or if, after examining pieces of quartz, we go on to pieces of chalk ? The fact is that science-teaching, with its list of facts and laws linked together by no philosophical connection, only apparently causes mental progress ; in reality the pupil is " marking time " on the same spot. It is just as if after having quoted a single instance of something, we were to proceed to give a thousand. This is not the case with moral science. If after having studied the laws of the sensibiUties and of the passions we go on to those of the will and of the intellect ; if we pass from logic to morals ; if we raise ourselves to considerations on the nature and worth of existence, it is clear that we are not only advancing but ascending. If in political economy we study the laws of production and then the laws of exchange, we obviously shall have a more complete idea of the sources of wealth ; if in politics after investigating the dangers and advantages of a monarchy, we turn to the dangers and advantages PHILOSOPHICAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 81 of democracy, we shall find our minds more accurately orientated than before. If in a3sthetics we turn from the strength and weakness of idealism to the strength and weakness of realism, from different styles of poetry to the plastic arts and to music, we shall certainly find our taste more enlightened and our ideas broader. The moral and social sciences are a perpetual ascent ; this is not so with mathematical and physical sciences unless they are studied on their philosophical, moral, and social side. The school of Comte has based its pedagogy on the division of science adopted by their master — general and special sciences, for instance. General physics as opposed to meteorology, comparative anatomy as opposed to descriptive natural history. The number of the general sciences is infinitely less than that of the special sciences ; and further, they also have that invaluable property for teaching pur- poses (as Comte tells) of condensation as far as is necessary, without a consequent losing sight of their double character of precision and generality. A few pages are enough for a clear and practical explanation of the acquired doctrines con- stituting " the higher expression and ultimate hmit of human knowledge. This principle is a true one, and that is why our scientific teaching, instead of being swamped in the descriptive sciences — mere fugitive exercises of the memory — should keep to the general theory of science, illustrated by a few well-chosen applications. II. Xot only should the study of science be simplified on the lines I have now laid do\vn, but it should be unified. The means is at hand, and forces itself upon our notice ; the connecting link of the various sciences can only be philosophy. Two things are necessary. First, we must introduce into the study of each science the philosophic spirit and method, general views, the search for the most general principles and conclusions ; we must then reduce the different sciences to unity by a sound training in philosophy which will be as obligatory to students in science as to students in literature. 82 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. The young only follow their master when they see the end in view and outlets issuing therefrom ; if we cannot and ought not to make them see the practical application of each truth, we must make them see, so to speak, its theoretical application, i.e. its place and importance in the system of human knowledge. Science can only be thoroughly taught to the young by men of philosophical temperament, who will always see the part in the whole, and who will never lose sight of the hierarchy of truths. First we must show the human side of science, the part played by the mind in its construction and in its discoveries ; i.e. the method of each science, which is an application of general logic, should be the object of individual and attentive study. Moreover, the logic would not be entirely abstract, for it may be accompanied by the great examples afforded by the history of science. Scientific truths, said Descartes, are battles won ; describe to the young the principal and most heroic of these battles ; you will thus interest them in the results of science, and you will develop in them a scientific spirit by means of the enthusiasm for the con- quest of truth ; you will make them see the power of the reasoning which has led to discoveries in the past, and which will do so again in the future. How interesting arithmetic and geometry might be if we gave a short history of their principal theorems, if the child were mentally present at the labours of a Pythagoras, a Plato, a Euclid, or in modern times of a Yiete, a Descartes, a Pascal, or a Leibnitz ! Great theories, instead of being lifeless and anonymous abstractions, would become human, living truths, each with its own history, like a statue by Michael Angelo, or like a painting by Eaphael. At the same time, each scientific truth would have its morality. " Believe me," says Tyndall, " a self-renunciation which has something noble in it, and of which the world never hears, is often enacted in the private experience of the true votary of science." " Science," says Huxley, in his turn, " prospers exactly in proportion as it is rehgious ; . . . PIIILOSOnilCAL REFORM OF SCIENTIB^IC STUDIES. 83 Truth has yielded herself rather to their patience, their love, their single-heartedness, and their self-denial, than to their logical acumen." Lastly, in Spencer's words, " Devotion to science is a tacit worship ; ... it is not a mere professed respect, but a respect proved by the sacrifice of time, thought, and labour." This could not be better expressed, but here the writer is dealing with active discovery, and not with passively transmitted truth. Yes, the development of science and the progress of method is an epic, and it is far more important for the education of the young to be interested in this epic than to make them enumerate and write out lists of facts or laws. Science has an intrinsic poetry of its own ; a Goethe, at once philosopher and poet, has no difficulty in finding this out, but our scientific instruction neglects to make understood and felt the poetry of science, which is blended with its very logic and with its history. Besides the human and logical side of science we should exhibit its general and cosmological features. For that purpose, we must systematize the great results of different sciences, and make their connection clear. The really scientific part of science is the inter-connection of causes, and at the same this is its beautiful, its interesting, and its educative side. The history of the objects, the causes of which we see linked together, becomes a fragment of the history of the world, and ipso facto of our own liistory, because we are a part of the great whole — the intelligent part, namely, that which understands the causes. The individual mind is only satisfied by the connection of things with the universal, that is what gives it its grandeur, and this ideal link we may hope to seize with the mental eyes. Who will be so indifferent as to be uninterested in the cosmic system ? That is where the real liberal value of scientific studies lies ; they should give us an idea of the universe and of its great laws, of what the ancients called the cosmos. The part played in the universe by numbei-s, by geometrical forms, by motion, is as interesting to the 84 EDUOATIOK FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. mind as the particular study of a theorem in arithmetic and geometry is dull. If you are not continually widening the mental horizon of your boys, wha;t interest can they take in the extraction of a square root or in a tangent to a circle ? We must " Pythagorize," in the best sense of the word, and " Platonize ; " we must reveal to them the elementary sssthetics in numbers and figures ; we must show them how numbers rule the world, and how figures in space unveil to us the universal plan. In a word, we must show them both the human mind and the universe ; apart from these two terms a scientific truth loses its interest and its scope ; it can only have a practical and industrial interest. III. In the first "cycle" of education, which is still almost primary, the descriptive natural sciences have their place. In the second cycle, which is expressly secondary, the typical sciences must be taught, and they are two. — mathematics and physics. They are the only essential sciences and the basis of all the others. Chemistry already is, in a great measure, superfluous. Botany is scarcely any use, and geology even less ; zoology should only reappear in the third cycle, which is semi-superior. At this stage general Uology must be taught, the general laws of life and its evolution must be learned. In a word, the education in the natural sciences is either primary or higher ; it is not properly secondary at all, or, at least, only its general theories and philosophical conclusions enter into secondary education. Every boy who has received a sound education in mathematics and physics possesses the instrument necessary for the study of science ; the rest is only a matter of time, memory, and practice. Correct it also by Latin and his native literature, by a sound training in philosophy, by general notions of history, and you will secm^e the selection and development of scientific minds, and that by precisely the same means employed in the selection of literary minds. To mathematicians with a hterary and philosophical training PHILOSOPHICAL KEFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 85 the rest of the sciences, with their technical apphcations, will offer no serious difficulty. In France we are too much enamoured of uniformity — a false conception of unity — and we cannot in secondary education distinguish the immovable foundations — true humanities — from that which varies with the individual aptitude. For my own part, I should prefer iinrelenting severity as far as the common foundations of classical educa- tion are concerned : the mother tongue, Latin, morals and philosophy, the history of civilization, the elements of mathe- matics and physics ; and tolerant and flexible regulations with regard to Greek, modern languages, details of history, and details of geology, chemistry, cosmography, zoology, geography, etc. Do not ask parents to devote their children to a special career before they are thirteen years of age. Simply ask them if they want their children to be at their studies to nineteen, or even, in higher education, to twenty- one. It has been said that this is " the only question within the reach of all, and the parents alone are able to solve it." Then we might organize a unique system of secondary education with ramifications, final but simple, and determined by the aptitudes and by the tastes which have already shown themselves in the course of studies, by the forecast, as it were, of the future career. We might leave, in the last years of school-life, a certain latitude in the choice of special courses, joined to inexorable rules with regard to common and essential courses. If a pupil has in view the higher technical schools, he will only have to improve his scientific training by the choice of an appropriate course. He will do less Greek, less history and geography ; he will not follow a course of literature, etc., but he will continue his work in Latin, his mother tongue, and philosophy. Although pre- pared for, say, an engineering school, he will, in fact, be none the less adapted for any liberal profession. With his Latin, the literature of his own country, philosophy, and the theory of science, he may become, with the proper com- plement of special study, a good magistrate or a good 86 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. engineer, a good teacher or a good officer. His mental horizon will not have been narrowed down by the servile fashion of learning science, which is the preliminary " cookery " for our State schools. Would these schools lose if they were filled with men whose minds are really cultivated, complete, conversant with all that is great and noble in the mind, able to write good English or French, and in touch with most Hterary, moral, social, and philosophical questions ? In a word, strengthen the position of science by restricting it to what is fundamental for all, strengthen in the same way and by the same means the study of English and Latin literature, of general history, and of philosophy ; give boys in their last years of school-life the choice between going on with their Greek or the study of a special branch of science ; this would be the shortest way of maintaining the funda- mental unity of secondary education ; the same sap would nourish the whole tree, and the highest branches alone would be treated differently. This would produce a real equivalence between a literary and a scientific matriculant, from the point of view of moral and intellectual culture. In France, teachers of science, whether elementary or a special branch, are perforce compelled to undertake the work of " coaches " when they should be educators. They do not teach science, they teach how to pass examinations, with the aid of all the petty traditions for that purpose. Thus pupils and professors alike are condemned to a vulgar utilitarianism. The different State schools have a false idea of really scientific education, for they take as their criterion quantity rather than quality. As Yauvenargues said, "we must not judge men by what they do not know, but by what they do know and how they know it." The justification given of these long programmes is not that all these subjects are necessary, but that the requirements must be multiplied so as to select the most capable men, and to eliminate the rest. Xow, these long programmes actually test nothing but the memory, and are no real test of capacity. Can there be anything more illogical, not to say more immoral, than to PHILOSOPHICAL REFOllM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 87 repliicc the appreciation of solid merit and good work by the machinery of a lottery ? If yoii want selection because of the numbers of your candidates, an easy way is within reach — examine them in letters and philosophy. You may get candidates knowing less chemistry and physics, but you will certainly get men who will in the long run do you far more credit than men whose culture is less complete. In great schools, as elsewhere, "heads well made are better than heads well filled." ly. It is not enough for the teaching of science to be animated by a philosophical spirit; it must have its com- plement, and, in a measure, its counterpoise, in a sound training in philosophy. Secondary instruction has two main aims ; it must, in the first place, furnish those who will not pursue their studies after school-life with a culture that is sufhcient for the functions of private life, the family, and the State ; in the second place, it must give to others the knowledge that is necessary for them to profit by higher instruction. Now, philosophy is essential for the introduction of unity among the different branches of science, among the different branches of literature, and finally, between science and literature, between natural laws and social and historical laws. From this unity alone springs a scientific conception of the world and a higher rule of conduct for those who do not pursue their studies further. Secondary education must make towards a philosophy of nature, and a moral and social philosophy. Without these it remains anarchic, divorced from its principles, from its consequences, from its aims ; it is analysis without synthesis, or, as Aristotle would say, a bad drama made up of episodes. Philosophy is therefore essential to all Avho have to be contented with secondary instruction ; they must carry away from their studies general conclusions as to nature, and the laws and ends of individual or collective existence. Moreover, moral and social science is the only science that is of itself educative, because it 88 EDUCATION FltOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. furnishes our highest faculties with both exercise and nourishment ; all other science should, therefore, tend towards it. By the simple word science the French, says Dubois-Eeymond, understand the sciences of nature {Natur- ivissenschaft\ and by the simple word Wissenschaft the G-ermans understand mental science {Geistesivissenschaft). Besides, philosophy is the only training in which the pupil is active as long as he is listening to his master, instead of becoming a " mechanical notebook." We cannot thoroughly learn psychology, logic, or ethics without under- standing them ; we cannot understand them without in a measure re-constructing or re-thinking them, without self- reflection and continual mastery in our consciousness of the words of the teacher ; instead of being passively present at a material experiment, as in a lecture on physics, or listening to a description of anatomical pictures, as in a course of natural history, the student of philosophy is continually compelled to refer to his inmost experience, to his personal recollections, to what he has seen, heard, or felt. The master, too, questions him in the maieutic method of Socrates. According to D'Alembert, two things are necessary to acquire sagacity, the best of mental qualities — " self -exercise by rigorous demonstrations, and not to confine one's self to it.'''' We must first accustom ourselves to the recognition of the truth in all its purity, to be able to afterwards distinguish it from what is more or less near it ; but it is to be feared that "the too vigorous and continuous habit of absolute and rigid truth dulls the sense of what is not truth." Ordinary eyes, habituated to brilliant light, no longer are able to distinguish the gradations of a weaker hght, and only see thick darkness where others catch a glimpse of faint brightness. Hence the contempt of certain savants for philosophers. However, " the mind which only recognizes the truth when it is directly affected by it, is far below that which not only recognizes it when close at hand, but can detect it at a distance by its fugitive characteristics." We must, therefore, accustom ourselves to passing without diffi- , rHILOSOPHICAL KEFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 89 culfcy from light to dusk. In moral and social life we are dealing with the uncertain; what is, in my opinion, im- portant, is, therefore, not so much the acquisition of know- ledge, as the art of divination, the sense of the beautiful, of the good, of the " becoming." Every education leaving this sense undeveloped may perhaps turn out artisans, but it certainly will never make men and citizens. On the other hand, philosophy is no less necessary to those who will eventually receive a higher training. In fact, higher education in itself is a specialization — law, medicine, science, history, literature, philology, theology. All students in the higher courses are not compelled to follow a course of pihilosophy ; and, besides, philosophy in higher education can no louger take the form of a regular and complete course ; it itself specializes ; and to be fruitfully pursued, the study of the particular question specialized needs a preliminary acquaintance with the whole field of philosophy. To count on higher education to initiate young minds into philosophy is, therefore, a mere chimera. And, further, young men who proceed to higher work without a pre- liminary philosophical training are unable to use to the best advantage the instruction given them. They have no criterion, no general views, no way of combining and co- ordinating their special studies into a conception of the world, of life, and of society. Their so-called higher work will really remain inferior work ; they will be workmen in f)hysics, chemistry, history, literature, etc. ; but they will not have that elevated, disinterested, liberal, and universal spirit which should be the spirit of the universities. Men of science more than any others should know the limits of science. They are led, in fact, either to step over the bounds of knowledge in their assertions, or to introduce into science itself metaphysical hypotheses. Science tends to become, as it were, a new divinity, whose prophets are the savants, and whose worship has its fanatics. Kant in- augurated the era of our modern philosophy by criticizing our means of knowledge, and by laying down the boundaries 90 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. beyond which knowledge cannot pass ; alte terminus hcerens. The principal German scientists are saturated with the critical spirit, and in their writings they are fond of showing- ns where our knowledge must stop. The magnificent addresses of Dnbois-Reymond on the limits of natural knowledge and on the seven enigmas of the world will occur to the reader, with those of Yirchow, Haeckel, and ISTaegeli on kindred topics. In England, Tyndall's address on the limits of science has become a classic. Do not leave the young to the exclusive study of science, and to the pride this study may develop, without showing them the points on which we must say with the modesty of Socrates of old, " What we do know is that we know nothing." One of two things befalls all men of science who have received no philosophical culture ; they either remain in an attitude of complete indifference and positivist scepticism, or they fashion a more or less novel philosophy for themselves. The lucubrations of more than one old pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique show us that the geometrical spirit is far from excluding the spirit of chimera.* The young man must therefore receive from philosophy an explanation of the facts of science already known to him, a rule for higher scientific research, and finally a view of the limits beyond which scientific knowledge cannot pass, and beyond which lies the realm of belief. Philosophy was not long since suppressed in France for the sake of those boys who were preparing for a scientific career, or for the great schools. Now these are precisely the lads who have most need of philosophy, for, as we have seen, moral and esthetic culture is especially necessary to our future savants. To sum up, — the teaching of science should be organized with a view to general culture, and so as to form by itself a real system of humanities. At the same time, it should secure the selection of scientific capacities, and thus prepare * Victor Considerant, to quote only one instance. PHILOSOPHICAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 91 for the nation the elite of scientific men it needs. To attain this twofold object, it is not the quantity of knowledge acquired that is to be considered — and that is the blunder committed by those who have drawn up the various pro- grammes for examinations. The important thing is the quaHty, the method, and the organization of knowledge. The quality of knowledge consists in its being rational instead of being mechanical and merely mnemotechnical ; the method must be active and philosophical ; the organiza- tion must tend towards a philosophy of nature and a philosophy of manners. Yogt tells a story of the clock- maker of Strasbourg. The town council, fearing lest the great constructor of this chef d'cauvre should make a still more wonderful clock for some other city, determined to put out his eyes. He asked as a last favour to be allowed to see and to touch his clock once more. He went up to it and took out a little " collar." Then the savage deed was done. But the clock would not go ; its wheels revolved all right, but they had been thrown out of gear. The study of science without philosophy produces a similar effect on the brain ; the cerebral wheels turn round each in its proper place, but they are out of gear, and the hand does not mark the hour. All unity has disappeared ; it is a machine the easier to put out of order the more complicated it is. The little collar which would keep everything in its proper direction is missing, and the so-called scientific education becomes intellectual infatuation. True education should form an organism, animated throughout by the same spirit, regulated by the same method, tending to the same end. The different sciences should be taught not for themselves, but for the whole of which they form a part, for science. They should therefore be linked together instead of following one another in the disorderly sequence of a modern syllabus, and their connection should be of such a character as to ensure the progressive development of a conception of nature and life. They should, in spite of the diversity of their objects, exhibit in process the only and identical evolution 92 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. of things and men. The same gymnastics are necessaiy for a man whether destined for a literary or for a scientific career ; the thought of a genius and the thought of nature with its universal attraction need, to be thoroughly under- stood, a similar development of the intellect, a similar faculty of divination. The philosophic spirit alone can animate mathematics or physics ; it will give them an object, a direction, and a value quite different from the "value of commercial application" which alone affects an Edison. The student poring over chemical or mechanical formulas will no longer be heard saying, "What does it matter to me ? I am not to be a chemist or an engineer." With that portion of universal and, in a measure, cosmical truth exhibited by the philosopher in the partial laws and in ,the particular theories of science, is disclosed that portion of eternal beauty contained in these laws and theorems : they are illumined by a ray from the infinite. The power of philosophic influence is the supreme criterion of the intellectual and scientific vitality of a race ; of this, Greece, France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Germany in the nineteenth, are the most effective proofs. The scientific hegemony has never been and never will be with an unlettered and unphilosophic nation ; the progress of science is in inverse ratio to that of a mechanical and utilitarian teaching of science, while it is in direct ratio to the progress of literary and philosophical culture. The same may be said of the political hegemony. Not only have we seen German generals triumph over French armies, but we have also seen the triumph of the speculative geniuses of Germany, of those who during the last century have given an impetus to German literature, philosophy, and science, and i2)so facto to " public spirit ; " we have been defeated by Kant and Fichte, by Goethe and Schiller, by Alexander and William de Humboldt, by Gauss and Helmholtz, as well as by Bismarck and Moltke. French savants in the last century were great theorists ; when the defence of the country called for it they became rHILOSOPHICAL REFORM OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. 93 preafc practicians, and were able to provide almost at once, armies, soldiers' clothes and munitions of war. Cloueb invented a process for turning iron into cast steel ; Yander- monde manufactured powder ; BerthoUet coined money ; I)e la Rochelle made arms, Guyton-Morveau tempered the blades of sabres, and with Coutelle and Conte he constructed balloons and directed companies of aeronauts. Ohappe organized the telegraph. Monge, the inventor of descrip- tive geometry, made cannon and drilled their bores, and undertook the refining of steel, a new art which France owed to him. Powder was the greatest difficulty. Salt- petre was found in the ruins of Lyons, and sulphur in the burned forests of La Yendee. Chemistry improvised a nev/ method of refining and drying sulphur in a few days. To supply the mills, men rolled barrels containing carbon, saltpetre, sulphur, and copper balls, and powder was made in twelve hours. " Thus," says Biot, " was verified the audacious idea of a m.ember of the Committee of Public Safety ; we shall show them the saltpetre in the earth, and in five days we shall be loading our cannon." * Thus, I may add, speculativ^e enthusiasm was tranformed into active enthusiasm, and from the peaks of science, as from a new Olympus, the most abstract principles descended like the gods of Homer into the war of nations. * "Histoire des Sciences Pendant la Revolution," p. 54. 9i EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. BOOK III. THE CLASSICAL HUMANITIES FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Education is the development of the mind subject to the laws of all evolution, individual or collective. Hence the problem recently proposed in Germany and in England : Does the doctrine of evolution justify a study of the classics from the twofold standpoint of individual and of national development ? The answers are very varied, both in England, where Spencer and Bain attack the study of Greek and Latin, and in Germany, where Preyer, Haeckel, and Goering reject the classics and Yaihinger defends them.* In France, curiously enough, Latin and Greek are attacked from the rear by most of the pure litterateurs^ and by rhetoricians who have become journalists, like M. Frary ; they are advocated, on the other hand, by philosophers such as MM. Ravaisson, Renouvier, Renan, Lachelier, Guyau, Rabier, and many others, as well as by literary critics with philosophical views, such as M. Brunetiere. The same discussion has been going on in Italy, where a distinguished philosopher, M. Fornelli, has just published a very complete defence of classical education. f The question, apart from its specula- tive importance, is not only of scholastic, but of national * " Naturforschung und Schule." t " La Pedagogia e I'Insegnamento Classico." THE CLASSICAL HUMANITIES. 95 and international interest. It is not enough to discuss — as in most cases the disputants are content to do — the intrinsic value of this or that subject considered in itself ; we must estimate its relative value and place in the whole, its influence on the development of the national mind, and finally its greater or less utility in the maintenance of national in contact with foreign influences. A nation intent upon its future can neither abstract itself from its own past, nor from its present relations with other nations. After a preliminary Avord as to the very general applica- tions made of the theory of evolution in pedagogy, I shall endeavour to show that our choice must be determined by national evolution, and not, as Spencer assumes, by human evolution alone. 96 EDUCATION FR03I A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER I. OF THE PARALLEL BETWEEN HUMAN EVOLUTION AND INDIVID UAL E VOL UTION, The principles of evolutioaaiy pedagogy, so skilfully handled by Yaihinger and Preyer and Spencer, are the following : (1) Man, the final result of zoological evolution, comprises in himself the preceding forms of life, according to " ontogenetic and philogenetic laws," i.e. according to the conditions of the genesis of the individuals of the race ; (2) Man is subject to physiological and psychological heredity ; by the exercise of those faculties he develops his inherited energies in the social environment, and transforms them into equivalents of a higher order ; (3) Man has a life that is not merely individual, but collective ; individuals and the community are mutually blended. If social life may be considered as the result of the hves of individuals, it is equaUy true, on the other hand, that the development of each individual may be considered as the effect and average of the social organism. Consequently, pedagogy can only become a science in so far as it is based on " physio-psychology " on the one hand, and on sociology on the other. The following famous law was laid down as a basis for the science of education by Auguste Comte : " Individual evolution should be in conformity to collective evolution." In this somewhat vague form, the fundamental rule of evolution istic pedagogy may certainly be justified. The development of the individual in every scale of the animal kingdom, passes through the principal stages through which HUMAN AND INDIVIDUAL EVOLUTION 97 the species has passed ; we know that the successive stages of the human embiyo present us, in brief, with the history of hfe on the earth and succession of its principal forms. The laws of heredity show that a certain conformity of individual development to the development of the species is inevitable ; each individual is, so to speak, a particular specimen in which are to be found the essential features of the race. From the point of view of education, if the development of the individual and that of the race proceed along the same lines, the former will be accomplished with greater facility, bacause it will be more in conformity with the hereditary adaptation of the brain. Finally, the harmony of the individual and collective development is justified by the very end education should have in view, which is, strictly speaking, the subordination of the individual to the ends of the whole community. The individual must realize in him- self the social ideal ; he must be the community in miniature, not only as it is, but as it should be and as it tends to be. In a word, man must live the life of humanity as a whole, and must therefore be doubly a man. But, if the general principle of evolution is applied to the education of youth, it must be carefully interpreted as we pass on to particular consequences. According as we are seeking conformity, especially in individual education, to the past evolution of humanity, its present state, or its futm-e evolutions, we have three roads open to us ; there is, so to speak, a struggle between the past, the present, and the future. The problem of education is to conciliate these three points of view. In my opinion, the most important is conformity to the ideal of future humanity; harmony with existing humanity is the first means of attaining this end, and harmony with past humanity is a second butmore indirect means. On the latter, previously advocated by the pedagogic school of Herbart, Vaihmger has laid most emphasis. "The history of the gradual evolution of humanity is called in these days the history of civihzation. We may therefore deduce from the fundamental law of the 9 98 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. genesis of life, the law of mental genesis, formulated as follows : the intellectual development of each single indi- vidual should be a summary of the historical pages of the culture of humanity." * " Whoever wishes to attain to the level of our present civilization," wrote Ziller, a Herbartian, "must pass through the same stages of development as humanity in the progress of its culture." From this Yaihinger deduces the legitimacy of classical education, independently of any reform in it that may be considered desirable. This is going rather too fast. How can we pass imme- diately from a physiological law to a very general mental law ? Let us now see contradictory deductions drawn from the same general principles. Yaihinger concludes in favour of a classical education ; Spencer in favour of a scientific training — illogically, in my opinion. As for Ziller, he invented his famous system of concentration, i.e. he took each year an historical period as a centre, around which all other subjects were grouped — even natural history, drawing, and geography. For example, with third year of school-life, the history of the patriarchs; fourth, the judges of Israel ; fifth, the kings of Israel ; sixth, the life of Jesus ; seventh, the apostles ; eighth, the Eeformation. However, there is a profound truth in the law of parallelism between individual and collective development ; but we must first apply this law to the method and general spirit of education. Method should proceed from the simple to the complex,! from the easy to the difficult, from the concrete to the abstract ; it should also reproduce the characteristic of spontaneous activity presented by the de- velopment of humanity, so that the child can find out as much as possible by itself, and, by acting and thinking, experience the pleasure of acting and thinking. But we cannot allow that for this purpose it is necessary for the » Speucer, " Education," § 4, p. 75 (Tr.). t i^iion, I would modify Lagrange's advice a little and say, * Go on, but often return to strengthen your faith.' When you come on a hard or dreary passage, pass it over, and come back to it after you have seen its importance, or found the need for it further on " (^Tr.). t La Fontaine's Fables : " Le chat, la belette, et le jeune lapin." " Jean lapin allbgue la coutume et I'usage : ' Ce sont,' dit-il, ' leurs lois qui m'ont de ce logis Rendu maitre et seigneur,' " etc, (IV.)- THE CLASSICAL HUMANITIES. 135 for so doing. Again, the most peremptoiy reasons are often powerless to protect what exists against our craze for change. It is therefore essential that henceforth classical education should be conscious of its moral and national role, and it is equally essential that this consciousness should be communi- cated to our youth. For that purpose an organization is indispensable, which will place before all a definite end, and co-ordinate means with respect to that end. I shall en- deavour, after a criticism of the " modern humanities," to point out the ruling ideas which seem necessary to the reform of the ancient humanities. To sum up — the classics, which are supposed to be *' ancient," should be conceived as national, aiming at the maintenance of the national spirit, the national language, the national taste, and finally the national influence. Better organization is all that is needed to make them — with that philosophy which is their indispensable complement — a really moral and social training, more necessary in these days of democratic nations than heretofore. It was said in a full Reichstaclt, a propos of the decrease of the population of France, " France is going to the dogs." If France not only is ceasing to materially people the world, but also is ceasing to spread far and wide her works of art, her books, her language, her exquisite products and her good taste, then, and then especially, must it be confessed that *' France is going to the dogs." Not only is there in classical literature and philosophy an ideal fatherland which must not be lost from view, but there is also in them a real fatherland, a real France, which is ever present therein, to know and to love, to make known and to make loved. 136 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. BOOK IV. *' MODERN" EDUCATION" FROM THE NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Secon'daey education is nowadays affected by a kind of antinomy, which, at first sight, seems insohible. On the one hand, the more complex and varied the national life becomes, the more it needs a system of education which will maintain its intellectual and moral unity, and also develop pubUc spirit. From this point of view, secondary education should be unified. On the other hand, the diversity of subjects of knowledge and of their professional applications goes on increasing ; we must therefore give up trying to teach everybody everything. From the second point of view, then, a certain variety in accessory subjects seems indispensable. The reconciliation of this variety with unity is the problem of the day, a problem to which recent reforms at the expense of philosophical training afford no satisfactory solution. This arises from an inability to determine either the fundamental or the accessory part in secondary education because of the lack of a true criterion, which lies, in my opinion, in the distinction between the purely instructive and purely educative subjects which are necessary to the maintenance of the national spirit. In addition to this, there is a tendency not only to claim variety in education — a complete and really classical instruc- A *• MODERN" EDUCATION. 137 tion for some, and ])clo\v that, a more practifjal instruction for others — but thej go so far as to claim the final etiuality of these varieties, with the same weight attached to each at the end of the school course. There is, as it were, a coalition to clothe " special " instruction with the classical toga, and to make it the equal of a classical training under the name of enseignemmtfrangais or " modern humanities." * The attitude of the partisans of " modern humanities " to the " ancient humanities " is very ambiguous. Some wish to destroy the latter, others to preserve them ; and, strange to say, by the same means ! When M. Frary plays tlie advocate of French and modern languages, we are well aware of the thought that is passing through his mind — "the latter will kill the former." But there are others, on the contrary, who wish to sustain the study of the classics (as some one puts it — like the rope that sustains the man, and strangles him). They think that classics will become the peculiar privilege of "those who have a real taste for them." Even men like MM. Greard, Boissier, and * For a sketch of the steps by which the way was paved for M. Duruy's scheme of '■^ enseignement special" vide Journal of Education, March, 1891. M. Duruy, following the lines laid down by Cousin and others, and keeping in view the commercial, agricultural, and industrial pro- fessions, created a system which was not merely parallel to but presently a formidable rival of the old classical system. The new system was only partially successful, partly because it only solved one part of the problem, and partly because, owing to the instinctive tendency of the French administration to uniformit3'-, the organization of " special " instruction became more and more akin to that of the higher primary instruction ; losing its secondary character, and becoming merely that of, say, our higher grade schools. The students at the higher primary schools eventually were able to obtain the same diplomas as those in the special schools, and after some years the teaching staff of the latter schools was actually furnished from the normal school supplying the former (Kcole Normale de la rue d'Ulm), and, as a natural result, the "special" normal school at Cluny collapsed. The reformers who receive in this volume such rough handling from M. Fouille'e, propose a new scheme of purely French humanities, symmetrical with and on most points equivalent to the old classica] system (!>'.). 138 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. many others, would like to see the classical lyceums reduced to twelve or fifteen, so as to create an elite de delicats. In reality, the more or less conscious aim of the partisans of modern humanities is either the abolition of the ancient humanities or their gradual diminution and restriction to a smaller and smaller group of individuals, who will be consoled for their isolation by the flattering name of elite. This aim is the exact opposite of that pursued in Germany, England, and Italy, where all are anxious, as far as possible, to re-establish the unity of a truly liberal education, while an education of inferior rank and of shorter duration is left for those who have neither the time nor the means for receiving a complete education. Thus we are tending in France to level down in our education, whereas in other countries they are tending to an hierarchic co-ordination. Here is food both for reflection and for anxiety. Is France right in an increasing division, parcelling out, and dis- organization of her really liberal education, for the pui-pose of introducing into it a hitherto unknown utilitarianism ? The problem is of genuine national and international interest. I shall attempt to show that the solution is as follows : — 1. To maintain the unity of classical instruction, while introduciug into it a certain variety in the way of accessory subjects. 2. To boldly organize an intermediate degree of instruc- tion between the primary and classical, not, however, equalizing the new system with either of the others lest we should compromise both. 3. To boldly organize a system of professional and technical education such as is wanting in France at the present moment. CHAPTER I. UNITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. The bifurcation of literature and science under the Empire * his been severely criticised, but we are now preparing a further bifurcation, more premature, more radical, and more irremediable, into a classical and a modern education. Now, we cannot without the gravest inconvenience establish two different types of instruction, and, declaring them equivalent, giYQ them equivalent sanctions. One will obviously tend to stifle the other. Let us, however, examine the reasons advanced for this division of secondary instruction into two distinct and assumedly equal types. These reasons, when systematized, reduce to the four following : to adapt secondary instruction either to the moderate capacity or to slender purses, or to variety of aptitudes, or, finally, to variety of theoretical and pro- fessional subjects. But adaptation might be effected in two ways, either by a diversity of hierarchic degrees in instruction, or by a diversity of types assumed to be equal. Instead of the former solution, which would be logical, they propose the latter, which is self -contradictory. From the inequalities in the premisses they imagine that they can deduce an equality. In fact, if the first reason is selected, viz. the adaptation of instruction to the more moderate intellects, * The division of boys after a certain age into two groujis — those who were to receive a sound classical training, and those who required a ♦'special " instruction, mainly in science (2/*.). 140 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. do not profess to organize a modern training which you fancy will be eqnivalent to a training in classics, and which will be awarded the same diploma. If the "modern humanities " are really more within the grasp of a moderate intellect, by what miracle can the final results be " equiva- lent " ? And if the modern humanities are adapted to slender purses because the course is shorter, how, again, can the thesis of final equivalence be maintained ? The third reason for the division of secondary instruction into two equal types is diversity of aptitudes. But this reason, although more specious than the others, is of no practical or theoretical value as far as a complete and liberal education is concerned. It was urged in the old days for the bifurcation of literature and science; now, literary aptitude, so far from diminishing the necessity for a scientific training, theoretically increases it ; scientific aptitude, so far from diminishing the necessity of a literary training, makes it more urgent. This theory, therefore, is self -destructive. Take a child with more imagination than reasoning power. He must, you say, take up literature and not science. I say, on the contrary, that the aptitude he lacks must be developed in him, and to re-establish equilibrium, he should study the general principles of mathematics and physics, as well as of literature. We must not turn out men of letters without the scientific spirit, nor must we train savants without the literary sense, incapable of clearly and elegantly expressing their own thoughts. If a boy is unsuited for a really classical education, we must find him a place in the " special " schools or elsewhere, but we must not aim at placing him on a level with the others. The last and most important reason for the creation of two distinct types of secondary instruction is the increasing diversity of subjects and their applications. But no one seems to recognize that the exact opposite would be the logical inference. Unity — I do not mean uniformity . ^becomes the more necessary in the basis of education, as subjects become more numerous and varied. The true liberal education is general, disinterested, human, and civic ; there- UNITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. 141 fore, fcbe more specialities are multiplied, the more should classical instruction,/?/- those ivlio can afford it, be concen- trated on the common basis of the specialities themselves — • allowing, of course, for varieties in detail. Besides, it is a mere prejudice to suppose that the future doctor should receive at school an education so different from that which is necessary for the future magistrate or teacher. If we look closely at the subjects which are specially necessary after leaving school for this or that profession, we shall see that either there are no such subjects, or that they are quite of secondary importance, and merely require a few altera- tions in the science course of the curriculum, or finally, that they should only be acquired at a later period by direct and special preparation. Every division of classical education into really distinct sections is premature specialization ; now, all premature specialization is dangerous, and should not be admitted into a liberal system of education. The saying is true that " a given individual is never one, but several individuals.'" Some children first resemble the father, and then the mother, and thus successively represent " a series of types distinct both morally and physically." We cannot therefore flatter om'selves that we can lay hold of the man in his final aspect either in the child or even in the youth ; "we can never therefore foresee all the possibilities in a character, all the aptitudes it will develop. Hence the danger of all education which prejudges too hastily the tendencies of the child. The only object of instruction should be to awaken aptitudes, and never to respond to aptitudes supposed to exist. Without this, it is a mutilation "from which a whole life may suffer. Once again, it is not a fixed and crystallized individual that the educator has to deal with ; it is the shifting series of individuals, a fcnnihj in the moral sense of the word, as well as in the sense in which it is taken in natural history." * The division into "Latin classical" and "French classical" instruction will * Guyau, " Education and Heredity," pp. 248, 249. 142 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. oblige lads on entering school-life to make a choice with regard to which thej have not the necessary information, and which, if unfortunate, will work irreparable mischief. Such a boy will say, " I want to be a doctor," and later on will discover that he wants to be an engineer ; " I want to be a great merchant or a large farmer," and will eventually prefer the law. "What is more difficult for a young man than the choice of a profession ? * The results of an un- fortunate choice are betrayed either by discoura.s^ement or by sterile effort. Inferiority in every career lowers the quality and the market value ; and thus ensues a disastrous competition with the talents and aptitudes which have found their true bent ; society is therefore as interested as the individual in ensuring that each of its members should use his true faculties. If we think of the waste of productive force and of the frequently fatal coQsequences of a lack of discernment in the choice of a profession, it will be recog- ' nized that no question is more worthy of profound con- sideration, and that any solution would be immature when circumstances do not require immediate choice. But few children evince very early for a profession a preference which is afterwards justified ; in most cases they are guided by caprice, by momentary enthusiasm, or by a friend's example ; or they remain in uncertainty, and then give in to their parents' wishes, which are governed by considerations of opportunity, and very often the parents are as little en- lightened as their children. We have all known ca^es of men taking up a profession for which they have no aptitude. * I know very intimately a man whose studies were all arranged with a view to one pi'ofession, and who in his last year chose another — teaeh- in2;. Even as a teacher, he began with a class in rhetoric, and prepared pupils for examinations in literature. Then, when the examina- tions in philosophy were re-established, he changed again, and this time he thought he had really found his forte. Later on, his work in Greek, with the examinations in view, enabled him to "Platonize" and "Socra- tize" as he pleased. Why should we wish to confine young people to ^fcience, to classics, or to " French classical instruction " ? No one caa foresee the future. UNITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. 143 This is because, as far as the choice of a profession is con- cerned, humanity is as yet unable to avail itself of auy but the most cliildish proocsses of selection.* Secondary instruc- tion should therefore be organized so as to develop all the faculties which will be equally indispensable to the engineer, the doctor, the banker, the lawyer, or the farmer. After a sound fundamental training in literature, science, and philo- sophy, we can choose a profession, and our choice will be an enlightened choice. And if our general knowledge is sound, the more technical subjects can then be readily mastered. As a safeguard of national unity, our classical instruction must be luiified and animated by one spirit. In the two last years of school-life it only admits of a few "equivalents" — to which I shall come later on — in quite secondary points and in details ; and here again these equivalents must be real, rigorously laid down, and rigorously limited. They will have a value not so much qualitative as quantitative, i.e. they will bear upon the greater or smaller amount of particular instruction and particular subjects to be acquired, and not upon the studies which, from the standpoint of individual education and of national progress, are charac- teristic of secondary instruction. I^^ow, another question arises. What should be the extent of a classical and really liberal education with respect to the whole population of a country ? i.e. for how many individuals should it be provided 1 Generally speaking, they are those who by their rank or profession will be among the governing classes. Now, this class varies with the country and the form of government. It is evidently larger in democracies, where the direction of the national move- ment is no longer with the nobility, but with the rich and leisured middle classes. In France, therefore, secondary education should be provided for all those who have time and money to enjoy a classical training. Of course, a certain * Tide, on this point, M. H. Etienne, " Du Discernement dans le choiy des professions.'* 144 EDUCATION FKOai A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. average capacity will still persist, but absolute incapacity is extremely rare. Those who, contrary to this principle, wish to restrict a liberal education to a small minority, are pleading the interests either of the classical training itself, or of the industrial, agricultural, and commercial professions. With regard to the interests of classical education and the true literary or scientific " callings," it is in my opinion a complete misconception to restrict a classical training to a smaller and smaller minority, under the pretence of foster- ing their interests and that of a classical training, and leaving the majority to utilitarian pursuits. What "calling " could hold its ground in the face of a general lowering of standards, of State indifference, of the increasing rarity of classical lyceums, or of the increasing facilities in every lyceum for leaving off Latin, Greek, and philosophy ? Many would be called and few chosen. Under the pretence of artificially forming an elite, of making a selection, natural development would be checked. Ninety-nine hundredths of our boys (except in so far as ecclesiastical establishments might fill the gap) would be deprived of schools inciting to the really literary, philosophical, and even scientific pro- fessions, for the scientific "calling" almost always begins with being literary and classical.* Selection only comes into * In the communal schools half the boys are already receiving this *' ispecial " instruction; and the proportion in the lyceums is ten thousand out of forty-four thousand. M. Boissier is of opinion that even this proportion is too small, and would have it reversed. "Ten thousand boys would be enoueh to provide for the liberal pi'ofessions." But is the only object of a liberal education to be provision for the \\\>&\'3\ professions'? Does it not serve to develop a liberal spirit^ which is equally if not more neces- sarv in the professions of industry, agriculture, and commerce, than in functions more particularly called liberal ? Is it not, as I have just pointed out, our middle classes that, in their capacity as the governing class, should be raised above an exclusive utilitarianism and realism ? It is also proposed to establish the " special " or " French " system in all the communal schools. Now, "if we start," says M. Breal, " from the men who are a credit to their country in science, letters, politics, etc., we shall find out that at least one-half were educated in the communal schools.** UNITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. 145 operation when there is a wide field and vast numbers ; under the pretence of diminishing the so-called "dry husks'* of classical instruction, the ripe fruit will be checked in its growth ; in fact, it is just as if we wished to keep down the number of trees in a forest, because, forsooth, many flowers and fruits fall to the ground before they are ripe. Is it not by repeated and more or less fruitful attempts that Nature succeeds in her masterpieces ? This scientific law is misunderstood by all those who wish to restrict a liberal education, under the pretext of its beiug to the advantage of an elite. The true method consists in, not mutilating and lowering the status of certain subjects, but in pruning the lower branches of the tree, in lopping off all historical, geographical, pseudo-scientific, and pseudo-literary rubbish, — everything that is mere erudition, mere matter of memory, mere detail, and specializing. The organizers of the association promoting the reform of secondary education reproach a classical training " with turning young Frenchmen from industrial pursuits, and with attracting them in too large a proportion to the public service, or to professions already overstocked ; " with creating " too many beggars and too many of the discon- tented and unclassed." Nowadays it is fashionable to in- veigh against the unclassed, who, as a senator recently said, might have made good manufacturers or merchants. But is it from classical scholars that the " unclassed " are to be feared ? It is not from the " unclassed " middle classes that social dangers will arise, but rather from the "un- classed" artisans and labourers, whose numbers will be There is also a practical objection to the proposed reform : youths who have literary tendencies, or who wish to devote themselves to a liberal career, will no longer have schools at hand where they can receive a real classical training. Numbers of careers will be checked if boys have to go to Paris, Lyons, or Bordeaux for a classical training. I know numbers of eminent men who, under the proposed regime, would have been quite unable to reach the high rank they have attained in the teaching pro- fessions, in literature, or in modern philosophy. The only institutious likely to profit by the reform are the ecclesiastical schools. 146 EDUCATION FFwOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. increased as the system of " French instruction " is popu- larized. A few briefless barristers or schoolmasters out of work do not constitute a peril to the State. If six thousand young girls are annually candidates for forty-five places as mistresses, is that the fault of Latin ? is it the fault of a sound classical training ? Unclassing is due to the exaggerated importance attached to science in all stages of instruction. The predominance of science, of modern languages, and of the mother tongue means the predomi- nance of memoriter work and consequent over-pressure ; at the same time, it encourages all persons of moderate abili- ties, for they say, *'I shall soon know botany, anatomy, geography, history, French, and even English or German ; it is only a matter of time and patience ! " The more the quantity of knowledge to be acquired increases in the various programmes, under the pretence of eliminating a certain number of competitors, the more is the crowd of competitors encouraged whose only hope is to learn by heart by a fixed date, chemical nomenclature, dates of battles in French history, all the important towns in the United States, with their population, industries, and commerce, etc. Hence, the substitution of a passive storing up of knowledge for active methods and personal exertion, far from bringing about the selection in view, is bound to issue in an ever-increasing chaos of pretension and unjustified ambition.* The way to get rid of these numerous and notorious mediocrities is not to manufacture a syllabus suited to their capacities, but to require from them the impossible, i.e. really personal mental exertion, and to abolish scientific, historical, and geographical summarizing ; mere memory * The real reason so many young men have of recent years taken the baccalaure'at is that thereby they get off with voluntary service in the army for one year. Since this was possible, large numbers of com- munal schools have raised the general standard in order to be able to prepare for this examination, and large numbers of young men have gone through the course prescribed. With more intelligence on the part of the authorities, more advantage might be taken of this stimulus. TJXITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. 147 work, and the practical and mechanical exercises in modern lano'naii'es, which the most ordinary student), if driven hard enough by his master, can eventually do indifferently well. Place all students of moderate capacity under a regime of active method, of sound composition in Latin and their mother tongue, of accurate and literary translation, and they will very soon have had quite enough of it. It is only natural that the longing to do what one is not adapted for should not be of long duration ; with every effort much above the average the desire will grow weaker ; at most only regret will be felt, and even then we may safely say that the incapacity was not absolute. If during nine years' school- life, daily work and effort in thinking and writing are necessary for self-knowledge, and for seeing clearly for one's self instead of asking this one or that one for information — well ! no myopic or incapable student will persist so long ; and the rising tide of candidates for the final examinations will soon be on the ebb. In class, as long as it is only a question of listening to a master for three quarters of an hour, of taking a few notes in history and geography, of sitting out an experiment in physics, of repeating the usual nuu-iber of German or English words, all the pupils seem equally satisfied ; this is the regular routine of the passive method ; but w^hen the days of school-life are spent at French, Latin, and philosophy, all is different. The boys towards the top of the class are excited and animated ; this is the important side of school -life to them. As for the others, their faces are long, yawning and eniiui are their lot ; they would give a good deal to be well out of the lyceum. When we are trying to make these empty heads think for themselves, they are generally dreaming of the day they wiU leave school. Therefore it is to be desired that, whatever happens, the only work required from them should be the only profitable work — personal work, instead of practising, as we do, on a large scale, scientific, historical, geographical, and linguistic psittacism. This would be the surest way of making a whole nation intelligent from the 148 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. top to the bofctom of the ladder, and of seeing that each individual is placed in the category which is assigned him by his mental capacity. The association for the reform of secondary education puts in the front rank of its programme those professions which make the " material prosperity of a nation," but there is no mention of that intellectual and moral prosperity, or of that literary and scientific greatness, without which, indeed, no nation can be either powerful or influential, and without which even its industries cannot exist and prosper for long. They are evidently inspired in this programme by M. Frary's economic doctrine. He divides the professions into the productive and unproductive, and then classes among the latter magistrates, teachers, writers, doctors, and artists. These men "add nothing to the wealth of the country." So Hugo, Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Trousseau, and Nelaton are unproductive and " parasites " ! Those who build rail- ways are productive, but the inventors of railroads are unproductive. So the confessed aim of education is to be material and economic utility — ^in a word, the production of wealth. Well ! even from this false and narrow point of view the theory is untenable, for the very professions stamped as " sterile " are precisely those which contribute most to the scientific, industrial, and commercial supremacy of a nation. Germany, which they give us as a model, is a country of professors, of savants, of men of erudition, of writers, etc. To suppose that a nation can prosper without the movement of lofty scientific and literary speculation, is to forget the most elementary truths of history and political economy.* * In 1880 there was an attempt to introduoe three cycles into classical instruction — primary, intermediate, and higher secondary instruction — each stage to be complete in itself. So, to encourage parents to send their children to the lyceums, they gave them the option of withdrawing them at the end of every three years, always with a " complete instruction of its kind." Nowadays this association trumpets a similar system, further aggravated by bifurcation. First cycle : French instruction, called UNITY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION. 149 But does this imply that no attention should be paid to the manufacturing, agricultural, and commercial professions ? No ; but young men destined for these professions may be divided into two categories : First, those who are well off and able to look forward to the higher lines of manu- facturing or commercial life, in which, I repeat, the liberal spirit is every whit as necessary as in the acknowledged " liberal " professions. Young people in this category may and ought to receive a complete and classical training. In what way can it be injurious to them 1 Because it does not give a sufficiently prominent position to science ,? But we clearly understand that a good liberal education will require from every pupil a sound knowledge of mathematics and physics ; for all other sciences the choice is left between the various applied sciences. Is it not enough to approach technical subjects when the whole time is free ? The future head of a sugar-rehnery or of a great dyeing business will have plenty of time for his chemistry. The future head of a manufactory will have time to pursue the study of secondary, but really primary, with the addition of inodern languages, but no Latin or Greek. Second cycle : about the age of twelve or thirteen a solemn decision is taken like that of Hercules between the two ways. But three ways are offered : classics for those who have the courage to devote themselves to them and wish to pursue that study for some years ; modern humanities; and finally scientific humanities, into w^hich the mass of the students will throng. In other words, three distinct sections ; or, strictly S{)eaking, more than three, for they tell us that higher secondary education ''would be ramified according to requirements and resources" into "several branches preparatory for the faculties, into great literary or scientific schools, and into the higher schools of commerce and agricul- ture." This would be specialization with a vengeance, from fourteen years of age onwards, that is to say, M. Fortoul's bifurcation raised to I do not know what ])0wer, superadded to the cycles of 1880. And then they conclude as follows: "This community of education would be the safeguard of the unity of society ! " In fact, we are threatened with the progressiA'e parcelling out of classical instruction, and the progressive elevation of utilitarian to the rank of liberal instruction. It follows that, on the one hand, classics will be lowered, and, on the other hand, no really professional and practical system will be organized. 150 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDrOINT. meclianics * And how can we at the Ijceum enter into the subject of dyeing or weaving ? We can only give a sound general instruction, not merely scientific, but literary and philosophical. If means do not permit, a student will simply refuse this training. And even in the case of those young men whose means are limited, and who have to go out early into life, a sound general training is still necessary, although not so extended in scope, requiring fewer years for completion, and in fact inferior to the other. This want is filled by the German ReaJschuU to which the "special" instruction in France should correspond.f The programme of modern humanities is a tissue of con- tradictions. They say there are too many humanists, and yet they wish to create new humanities for the majority. There are too many applicants for posts in the public service, and yet they wish to increase the numbers of the throng by manufacturing humanities at " contract prices.'* There are too many " bachelors," and yet they are going to create a fresh haccalaureat of French classical instruction — simply to humour the vanity of parents and children — ■ easier than its predecessors, and giving, as is intended, the same privileges as the existing degree, opening the same careers, giving access to the public service and to State schools, and finally, arousing the ambition of every student. If there are too many "bachelors," why not make the examination more severe in those points connected with the foundations of the humanities ? why not establish severe * M. Maneuvrier, an old boy at the Ecole Normale, is, I believe, at the head of a great manufactory, which does not prevent him from writing remarkable books on education, M. Dezeimeiris, an excellent Greek scholar, and a correspon-ioiis and even of "natural religions," the dilferent forms assumed by faith in a higlicr principle in the universe have one common basis, whether good or bad,- and this basis is especially of a moral order. Now, it can scarcely be maintained that a youth should remain in ignorance of the reasons and sentiments which are the common basis of different religions in all civilized countries. The avoidance of dogma makes it essential to explain the reasons, tbe absolute or relative value of which the child in later years will learn to appreciate. Sach an instruction is all the more admissible because in all religions and in all philosophies, from Kant to our own day, the idea of God is represented as an object of pure belief or of "faith," principally of 7noral faith, and never as an object of science or demonstration. It would be even as contrary to religious orthodoxy as to con- temporary philosophy to attempt to "demonstrate" the existence and attributes of God as if it were a theorem in geometry or a law in physics. The idea of God cannot rest upon our " science," but, on the contrary, on our theoretical ignorance of the secret of existence, and on our conception of our practical ideal. The ignorance of what is beneath everything, with the thought of what ought to le, and of what we ourselves wish to find there, are the two philo- sophical principles of all belief in God. I do not say that these principles necessarily involve this belief as the premisses of a syllogism involve the conclusion, for it would not be then a really " voluntary belief," but these two reasons, sufficient or not from the point of view of pure logic, should be familiar to everybody, and that an education not dealing with the question would be incomplete. The philosophy of religions is, in fact, a part of philosophy, whatever conclusions are drawn for or against the " irreligion of the future." * * The author of " L'Jrreligion de I'avenir " has admirably said, "Anti- religious fanaticism is almost as dangerous as religious fanaticism. We all know how Erasmus compared humanity to a drunken man hoisted on a horse, and at every moment falling now to the right and now to the left. 212 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Let pliilosopher and priest each do what he believes to be best, but do not let their rivalry degenerate into hatred or mutual warfare. The philosopher should forget less than others that truth is always relative, especially as far as the ultimate basis of the being, the secret of existence, and the supreme end of life are concerned. If there are myths and symbols in religion, the philosopher and savant should recognize that there is also something symbolic, imaginative, and, if I may say so, something mythical in the most abstract conceptions of metaphysics or even of science. And materialistic conceptions are not free from this charge ; they are even more open to it than others. In fact, they hold everything to be formed of atoms, i.e. of grains of dust, as it were, having representable forms, and these atoms they believe are for ever whirling around in space. There is something essentially mythological about this conception, and rare ingenuity is required before we can believe that this dance of tiny cubes or spheres is the basis of being, life, sentiment, and thought. If religions are anthropomorphic, materialism is hylomorphic, and it is doubtful if it is there- fore any nearer the insoluble problem of being. SavanUj metaphysicians, and priests may all say with the poet — "Nous contemplons I'obscur, I'inconnu, Tin visible; Kous sondons le reel, I'ideal, le possible ; Nous regardons trembler I'ombre indetermince." Very often the enemies of religion have committed the blunder of despising their adversaries ; this is the worst of blunders. . . . Among well-educated people they sometimes produce a violent reaction against religious pre- judices, and this reaction often persists through life, but in a certain number this reaction is followed in time by a counter-reaction; and, as Spencer remarks, it is only when this counter-reaction has been sufficient that we can formulate less narrow and more comprehensive judgments on religious questions, with a full knowledge of the circumstances. Every- thing widens in us in time, as do the concentric circles traced out by the movement of the sap in the trunks of trees. Life calms us as well as death, and reconciles us to those who do not think or feel as we do. . . . Is there not something fraternal in the thoughts of men?" (Guyau, " L'lrreligion de I'avenir," p. xxvi.). MORAL AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 213 If, then, the human mmd is necessarily in the domain of the relative, absolutism is a still more intolerable and more illogical abuse in the philosopher who, while believing- he is nearer the truth, should nevertheless remember that he is always translating it into human language, or, strictly speaking, into imagery. Substance, cause, force, end, being, essence, soul, God, and even matter, are so many images, so many metaphors, so many symbolical translations of an impenetrably obscure text. Let us therefore be tolerant, and not object if, apart from any religious confessions, our children are given a vague notion of a God in whom the human race hopes, instead of a notion of primal matter (which is scarcely more intelligible), of substance, or of force. Even to the atheist the idea of God is still the loftiest symbol of the moral idea in process of realization in the world and in humanity. And more, the absolute negation of all moral power immanent in the world and guiding it, is but another dogma, at bottom as impossible to demonstrate as theism. Who can assert that there is no moral spring in the universe, that the world, although it has produced moral beings, is in its principle absolutely 7ion moral, and even immoral ? And, in default of demonstrable truth and certainty, does this doctrine offer so many public or private advantages that it should be taught to our youth ? It would be a fine discovery for children and a great encouragement to their teachers to tell them at the outset. The universe is the arena of a conflict of brute forces, unregulated and unrestrained by any moral spring ; our ideal of an infinite good is a chimera unknown to nature and never to be realized ; the absence of morality is fundamental in nature, and our so-called morality is only a social utility, purely relative to man's ideas ! It is clear that the educator can- not teach such a doctrine in the name of the State. The contrary idealistic and theistic belief is that of almost all, with the exception of a certain number of philosophers, or of men whose minds are imbued with philosophical ideas. The latter are not compelled to send their childi-en to the 214 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. State schools. And why should the personal ideas of the parent be exclusively respected in those schools, while the general ideas and sentiments of the nation would have no clairu to respect ? One of two things must happen — either the child will be educated alone, and then his " liberty of conscience " will not be affected in the least, or he cannot be educated alone, and then how can we be silent on the ideas which have been traditional from generation to generation in the fatherland ? If a parent entrusts his child to the care of the State, he should consent to allow it to be exposed to the common influence. As for those who can bring up their own children, let them teach them as their conscience permits, but let them recognize that they are really only substituting one influence for another. If the State were willing to abandon all control under the pretence of exclusively protecting the " opinion of i)arents," thus invested with the dignity of a dogma, we must then proscribe all moral teaching of any kind in our schools ; we must not blame suicide before children, for their father may percliance approve of self-destruction ; nor must we blame free love, for their father may approve thereof ; nor must we speak of public order, the law, and the constitution, for the parents may be anarchists. Suppress the name of the fatherland, and take away its flag, for some socialists look upon the flags of countries as so many differently coloured illusions, and upon the fatherland as a kind of rehgious idolatry, a metaphysical entity, opposed to humanitarian ideas ; some socialists recognize neither French nor Germans, but only proletariats and their enemies the capitahsts. " Our country," to the disabused sceptic is a phrase as suspected of ideology as the name of God, and it is certain that if crimes had been committed in the name of the one, they have also been committed in the name of the other. I think that the best method of acting on the morality of the young, and that apart from religious opinions, would be to present morality from the civic and patriotic points of view. According to the reports of the teachers and in- MORAL AND CIVIC INSTKUCTIOX. 215 spectors of schools on the results of moral insfcruction, the ideas aud sentiraents of patriotism have made the most remarkable progress in the hearts of our youth. Nowadays, it appears, we need rather to moderate than to restrain national enthusiasm in the children of our schools. In the secondary schools, internal discipline and moral education mio-ht be presented as essential forms of civic duty, and they would, in this new aspect, be accepted by all. Life in our secondary schools should afford an apprenticeship to national life ; respect for school rules should be an initiation into respect for national law, and a preparation for military dis- cipline ; children must be taught that their native country is in need of generations knowing not by blind but by voluntary submission how to obey a law of which their reason recog- nizes the necessity. And I think that the whole subject might well be included in our lessons to the boys on their duty to their country. The national role of school-life must be clearly exhibited, and idleness must be displayed in its true colours — ingratitude to the fatherland. If we are teaching French grammar, speak to them of their country, its language, its influence, and the duty incumbent on all to hand on its glorious traditions. If we are teaching Latin, speak again of their country and its relations with the Eoman world and Roman literature. If science, tell of the scientific reputation their country has to maintain, of its industry, and of the arts, and how they are threatened by foreign competition. Similarly, we must give a civic colour to moral ideas ; this will be the best way of bringing together religious and lay instruction. What minister of religion could object to the representatives of the State speaking in the name of the fatherland of duties to the fatherland ? Just as all duty in the eyes of the believer is duty toward God, so to one who loves his country, all duty becomes a duty to it.* * I take the official programme of morals, am^ with a f&\y slight alterations apjtend it here as a programme of moral and civic instruction a lapteJ for Euglish schools ; — 216 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. I. The country, the nation. — What is a nation ? A collection of individuals? The true and the false in the theories of the social contract and of the social organ. sm. The solidarity of generations. The national spirit ; what constitutes it ? Great Britaiu. II. The private individual. — What he should be in the interests of liis country. The good and bad qualities of the English, etc., and especially of the youths of this country. Private virtues necessary to the citizen — truthfulness, courage, work, temperance, etc. Social effects of private vices ; their consequences to the nation as a whole. III. The family. — Its necessity to the country; its essential function in the national organism. Its moral and civic constitution. The family spirit ; its good and bad effects in this country. Family duties — parents and children ; brothers and sisters ; servants. IV. S'.hool, etc. — Its place in the country. Duties of school-boy to masters and school-fellows. Apprenticeship in civic and moral virtues. Idleness dishonourable because ingratitude to one's country. The classics ; their national and patriotic character. Why we learn our native literature. Greek, Latin, science, history, philosophy. Literary and scientific greatness of this country ; its intellectual influence. V. Relations of citizens to each other. — Mutual rights and duties. Respect for the human person and for the fatherland in the person of others. Slavery ; serfdom ; the part played by this country in their abolition. Respect for our fellow-citizens, for their honour. Defamation, calumny. The excesses of the press. Respect for the creeds and opinions of our fellow-citizens. Religious and philosophic liberty ; religious, philosophical, and political toleration. Religious and anti-religious fanaticism ; political fanaticism and party rancour ; their danger from the patriotic point of view. Great Britain should be united Respect for the human person in its pi'operty. The principles of property. Its necessity from the social, national, and international stand- points. Property in this country. Justice and fraternity. Charity and its various forms. Devotion. VI. The state and the laws. — The foundations of public authority. The constitution of this country. The true and false meaning of national sovereignty. The government. Its different forms ; their advantages and danj-ers. Our good and bad points from the political point of view. Political instability and its perils. The revolutionary spirit. The army, the soldier. Conscription. Military discipline. Military courage in this country. Our merits and defects in victory or defeat. Duties of a citizen to the state. Obedience to the laws, payment of taxes, voting, etc Rights of the citizen. Individual liberty ; liberty of conscience, liberty of work, liberty of union. Duties and rights of the government. Dangers of authority and anarchy. True and false liberty. Tiue and false equality. Advantages and abuses of the spirit of equality MORAL AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 217 in this country. Increasing difficulty and gravity of social questions in these days. VII. International relations. — International rights and duties. Inter- national solidarity. All questions should be considered from the inter- national point of view. Humanity. The love of humanity and its reconciliation with the love of one's country. Patriotism true and false. Humanitarianism true and false. VIII. The universe. — The universal fatherland. Universal sympathy. Love of nature. Duties towards the inferior beings. Man, a citizen of the world. IX. Tlie ideal union of minds. — Creeds relative to a spiritual country and a heavenly city. Kant's "reign of ends." Importance of creeds from the point of view of public and private morality. The respect due from the state and the individual to those creeds in their different forms ; natural or moral religions (Kant), positive religions. The sanctions of morality. Sanctions of the conscience ; social sanctions; the basis of the penalty. Creeds relative to a supreme sanction. Limits of positive science — the unknowable. The modesty of the term savant. Metaphysical and moral basis of the belief in an invisible world, and in the final triumph of morality in the universe. To some programme of this kind, which might be developed for boys between thirteen and fourteen, add the programme of "civic instruction, common law, and political economy" already in use in the French primary schools. Would a course of moral and civic instruction thus present in a more or less elementary but scientific and interesting form, with examples borrowed from history, be useless to boys receiving a classical education, which is at present indifferent to their moralization as school-boys, as men, and as citizens? 218 EDUCATION FliOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER III. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL INSTRUCTION. I. If badly taus^ht, instruction in history is swamped by the details of dry and ijiso facto uninteresting facts.* Well taught, and connected with general ideas, historical instruction becomes an essential part of education. The person with no notion of history is as new to the world as a child, or as an orphan which has never seen its parents. He will lack the sense of human and national solidarity. He also lacks the sense of time — an essential factor in all that is permanent ; he will be the dupe of every abstract Utopia, improvised and * Take the class in history as we too often find it ; we see the same operation of cramming that we have already seen in the science classes; the ideal is the transt'orraation of the boys into phonographs. The follow- ing occurs in a note-book: "The new king of France, Eudes (887-898), wished to be recognized iu Aquitaine. While he was in the south, a posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer, Charles IV., called the Simple, was proclaimed king in a great assembly held at Rheims. Arnulf, king of Germany, who was also indirectly connected with the Carlovingians and who was still inspired by ambitious longings for imperial power in sj)ite of the ' great protestation ' of 887, received the claimant at a Diet of Worms, and declaring himself his protector, ordered the counts and bishops on the Meuse to support him. Eudes prevailed in the end, but consented to acknowledge Charles as his liege lord, giving up to him the district between the Meuse and the Seine. Eudes remained king, but Charles did not become emperor. Eudes died in 898, and Charles the Simple bec.ime sole king. Robert, the brother of Eudes, inherited his duchy of France. . . ." Boys will learn these shorthand (or next to shorthand) notes ; and will commit to memory the names and the dates. The same will be done for the other reigns. Thus taught, history is the worst of intellectual gymnastics. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL INSTRUCTION. 219 constructed with reference neither to time nor history. The first dreamer he meets will be able to convince him that in his own country and in the world everything can be changed in a day. He has no idea either of historical progress or of historical continuity. The partisans which make the history of France begin with the Revolution, for in.^tance, are either ignorant of history or are deliberately falsifying its teaching. Unfortunately, nothing can be falsified so easily as history. Further, there is much to be said on the question of the " morality of history," as it is taught nowadays, as well as on the question of the morality of nature. M. Lavisse himself confesses as much in his enthu- siastic report on the instruction in history (which, it seems, he would gladly substitute for instruction in philosophy). It is not true that the just are always rewarded, and the wicked always punished. M. Lavisse confesses that " false- hood and violence are often successful, and the practical value of their success is not diminished by the immorality of the means employed." It is no longer true that the destinies of a nation can be only explained by its virtues and its vices : " other elements enter into the fortunes and the power of a nation." Too often, in history, "faults are worse than crimes," and they are expiated neither by the men nor by the generations which have committed them. Hence, if there is any morality in history, it is there incognito, if I may parody a celebrated mot. In spite of these premisses, although history too forcibly resembles the struggle for exist- ence in nature, it is to the teacher of history that M. Lavisse would entrust civic and even moral training. As for the teacher of philosophy, M. Lavisse would willingly relegate him to the universities. If the historian is also a moralist, well and good, nothing is more desirable ; but how will he be able to impregnate his lessons in history with moraUty ? That is the question. " There are no panegyrists," answers M. Lavisse, " for confessed scoundrels." Are we quite sure of that, if the scoundrels have succeeded ? " The teaclier will dwell upon the history of honourable men, ivlien they 220 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. occur 171 the lesson.'''' This is a rather disquieting restriction. To tell the truth, the most beautiful and most moral side of history is its legendary side : the Chevalier d'Assas who becomes Sergent Dubois ; Cambronne's saying, " La garde meurt," etc. *' Literature and science make the honourable and cultured man," continues the eminent historian ; " it is history which must prepare the boy for life at a given date, and under definite conditions." And M. Lavisse himself has put into practice this method in the very remarkable books he has published for the primary schools. " Our disasters," he tells our children, " teach us not to love those ivho hate us, but to love our native land before all and above all, and humanity afterwards." We fear that this method of teaching the morality of history — almost inevitable in the mere historian, is only sowing the wind to reap the tempest. This is certainly not the way to introduce those moral ideas without which history is only a long and blood-stained story of internal and external hatred and strife — the record of the nightmare of humanity. I think that history should be used to establish the positive bases of true social science, and thus alone will it be moral, because it will throw into relief certain moral and political conditions without which a nation can be neither great nor strong. Comte was right Avhen he said that societies have demonstrable laws of " existence or equiUbrium " forming a body of social statics, and of "movement or development," forming "social dynamics." Mill gives as examples the following laws which express the minimum conditions of social stability : (1) A system of education including a restraining disci pHne which is opposed to the natural tendency of mankind to anarchy. (2) The existence of a feeling of allegiance to a common God or gods, the guardians of the State, or to certain persons representing the State, or to laws, ancient liberties and ordinances. " In all political societies which have had a durable existence, there has been some fixed point ; some- thing which people agreed to hold sacred." (3) The existence HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL INSTliUCTION. 221 of a strong and active principle of cohesion among the members of the same community or State, which makes them feel that they are one people. And Mill shows that without these conditions a nation is virtually in a state of ^ civil war and cannot, in fact, avoid civil war for long. * History has therefore its morahty, not in the sense that tyrants are punished and the good rewarded, but in the sense that there are certain social and poUtical rules which a nation cannot with impunity transgress. Only in social science is the significance and educative value of history to be found. If it be objected that social science is still in a somewhat embryonic stage, the answer is that the few traths already established in its domain are far superior to all apphcations made without reference to any regular method by professional historians, who, however, are quite content with their applications, and even change from one application to another when dealing with the same facts. Each historian arranges his picture of events as he pleases, and in whatever perspective or on whatever plane he pleases • a history of the same incidents may end in an apotheosis or an anathema. M. Lavisse hands over to the teacher of history not only moral education, but civic and political instruction. He requires the teacher of contemporary history " to reserve the necessary time at the end of the course to treat theoretically, hut iviih the aid of facts, the main questions of the day! What political party does not claim that facts are on its side, and cannot effectively quote a goodly number of facts in its favour ? Physical facts have a definite significance, but there are historical facts for everybody and "for every cause : p^o and con a monarchy, fro and con a republic ; everything depends on the disposition of the facts as of the pawns on a chess-board. There is nothing more unm.eaning than most historical facts, unless we make them mean some- thing more doubtful still when we want them to mean Mill 's "Logic," ii. pp. 520, 521 (TV.). 222 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. anything. M. Taine draws his " little facts " into line and orientates them as he pleases. Orators on each side of the House will draw their arguments from history. History, and especially contemporary history, proves everything and nothing. Even the events of our own age are as yet only documents, the final value of which is uncertain. The history of Napoleon I., for example, is not yet written. Kead Lanfrey after Thiers, and Taine after Lanfrey, and draw a conclusion if you can. At the foot of the mountain we cannot see the whole horizon, the relative size and position of objects around us ; we must go further up and cUmb higher. Instruction in contemporary history, being purely and simply a narrative of great events, becomes more and more adventurous ; of all forms of instruction it should be the freest from appreciations, and a fortiori from theories. It has on several occasions been debated whether it is right to allow the teaching of contemporary history to continue. M. Maneuvrier, among others, is afraid that teachers may awaken legitimate susceptibilities. How is it possible not to stir the heart of our youth when we are telling them of the events in which their friends, relations, and fathers have taken a part ? " You have before you the children of the conquerors and of the conquered." We must banish from secondary schools everything that by wounding the feelings of others may give life to the fatal germs of hatred ; " let the feeling of comradeship give us in a measure for a few years the illusion of fraternity, and make us an un- divided country." I do not think, however, that the course of contemporary history should be suppressed ; it is sufficient to restrict it to the exhibition of uncontested and uncon- testable facts, upon which it is not possible to have an individual opinion. II. If contemporary history, taking the form of political doctrine, of necessity gives pain to some, it is because it has necessarily to do with persons, and constitutes, in fact, a series of "personalities." On the other hand, pure theory, HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL INSTRUCTION. 223 expoundud by a philosopher, can give no pain to tliose wlio hold a contrary conviction, becanso ideas are essentially impersonal. If you are a monarchist, yon cannot deny the existence of a theory of republican government ; nor, if you are a republican, the existence of a theory of monarchical government. Between the two theories you have a free choice, but, if your choice is to be enlightened and effectively free, it is well for you to be familiar with both. How, then, can a young man or a father, whatever his opinions, object to a teacher's exhibiting in a purely philosophical manner the guiding principles of the various forms of government, the advantages claimed by each, the peculiar dangers besetting^ them, and the means we may have of gaining the advan- tages and avoiding the dangers ? These are the problems of pure science. Given a democratic government, it is clear it has certain duties to fulfil. Given a republican constitu- tion, it is clear that every man who is at all enlightened and devoted to his country ought to know the principles of its constitution ; the revision of that constitution is continually called for by those who do not even know its principles. If we have two Houses instead of one, no doubt there is some theoretical reason, good or bad, in favour of this system, and this system must have prevailed over others. If the President of the Republic is given a kind of veto by the constitution (and few Frenchmen know this), and can suspend the promulgation of a law which seems to him to be dangerous, and can compel the Parliament to discuss it again and pot it to a second vote, it is no doubt because the idea was to have at the head of the State some one quite different from a President without power and the very humble servant of the chambers. Let us even suppose that the teacher of philosophy lets his personal political opinions be seen, his pupils need take no offence ; it cannot hurt your feelings to know that I am a republican or a monarchist. But it is offensive to teach the " history " of the republic and to call all repnl)licans fools or brigands, or the " history " of the monarchy and treat all monarchists as tyrants and traitors 224 EDUCATION FKOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. to their country.* It follows that nothing is more fruitless than politico-historical discussions. Men cannot agree upon either men, or tilings, or the course of events, or the lessons to be learned therefrom. Has either learned anything from the other ? Not in the least ; each leaves off with the same convictions as he began, but often more embittered. That politico-philosophical discussions do not lead to harmony of opinion may also be true ; but the minds engaged therein do at least learn some ideas, some of the elements in the solution of the problem, from each other, and each of these ideas will eventually, whatever theory be preferred, have a relative valae in the ememlU. To discuss the events or the men of the French Revolution, Eobespierre, Danton, etc., is so much waste time ; to discuss the principles of '89, and the theories connected therewith, and you may try in vain to keep to your own personal con- victions in the long run, your opponent's system (even if you do not admit it) must have taught you something. I think therefore that the teacher of philosophy can alone give to elementary instruction in politics that degree, of elevation and serene impartiality which is more necessary here than elsewhere ; these lofty questions should be reserved for instruction in philosophy at sixteen or seventeen years of age. Our classical training must always rank below "special" instruction, until both have on their programmes "civic instruction, common law, and poUtical economy." As M. Levisse justly remarks, a boy at the lyceums may be an elector in three, two, or even one year after his school-life is over. Civic instruction is therefore more imperative in this case than in the primary schools. As for political economy, apart from its utility in industry, commerce, and finance, it alone can prevent the boy, when a man, from giving ear to * Vide the " Manuels civiques " of Paul Bert (a savant gone astray in politics), and read the outrageous and false description of the old regime, followed by the enthusiastic and equally false description of the Revolutionary epoch. HISTORICAL AND TOLITICAL IXSTEUCTION. 225 the dreams of any ntopisfc ; it exhibits the true relations between capital and labour, the reciprocal value of intellectual and manual labour ; what thrift, uuion, etc., can do. The study of economic and social questions is imposed on all, because, in modern and democratic states, the only way to preserve internal harmony is to decrease misery as wealth increases, and to augment the average comfort. First, in the primary schools, we must introduce and develop the true principles of social economy. It has been truly said that every artisan philosophizes in his own way ; we must take precautions that he does not philosophize wrongly. Without such precautions we may be sure that the moral, social, and religious doctrines of the working classes will be the height of the absurd ; such a spectacle we see at the present moment. Misdirected fanaticism, the revolutionary utopia, an utterly false conception of life, society, and the State, form the basis of the philosophy of the working classes. To bring economic science within the reach of the masses is therefore a vital problem for democracy. But this is not enough ; our middle classes should be familiar with true economic principles. Not by keeping the children of the middle classes in ignorance of economics and social ques- tions can we make them capable of resisting the ever- swelling wave of socialism. 17 226 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT CHAPTER ly. LITERATURE AND ESTHETICS. I. I:n"STRUCTIok in literature is as much in need of organiza- tion and unification as moral and liistorical instruction. Reform is necessary, but should it be in the same direction as the preceding ? I think not. We have seen that reforms in France during the last few years have had a realistic tendency with regard to methods, and a utilitarian tendency with regard to results ; first it was proposed to completely suppress Greek and Latin, and afterwards, when the utility of the classics was recognized, it was proposed to give them a practical end. The end which these reformers had in view may be stated as follows : More time for science and modern languages, dead languages to be learned with the minimum of grammar by means of running translations and oral explanations, instead of the written exercises and active methods of the past, — in fact, the idea was to get our boys to read classical authors in the shortest possible time. The object being to make us " know " the literature of antiquity, it was also intended that, in addition to reading the text of an author, the boys should read translations in order that in this way they might, more easily than by running com- mentary, appreciate in the ensemlle the full beauty of the masterpieces of antiquity. The leading principle of this new plan was roughly as follows : " We learn living languages to speak them, dead languages to read them." The final result, however, was that modern languages were not spoken so well as before, and the classics were read less. This was LITERATURE AND 7ESTIIETICS. 227 because tlic authors of the rcfonn started from a principle wliich I have shown to be false. The object of education IS not to make boys learn the modern languages for the purpose of speaking— which is, moreover, quite impossible in a school of from three to four hundred boys— nor is it to enable them to read the classics fluently at sight, which is equally impossible. I repeat that its object is the cultivation of intellectual power, with a view to the nation and the race ; languages are only the means ; modern languages as means are inferior, and lack unity ; the dead languages are good means, if they are studied as literature. It was supposed that the German m^ethods were shorter, but this is by no means the case ; on the contrary, they require much more time. When the time devoted to Latin is reduced in France to sis years and the time for Greek to four, it is forgotten that in Germany nine years are devoted to the former and seven to the latter. What has been imitated, as M. Breal says (although he was one of the chief promoters of the change), is not Germany, but Befgium, and " all other countries where a classical training is out of repute and powerless." The fault of the German methods, which, however, M. Breal considers a merit, is that they are too philological and too prone to consider Greek and Latin as being of value in themselves.* In all attempts at reform in France the leaders of the movement were philologists and historians, but little favour- able to philosophy, with their eyes turned towards Germany, where it^ seems at first sight that Latin and Greek are only studied for themselves, and are objects of knowledge analogous to those afforded by individual sciences. They criticised coldly and bitterly the literary exercises we held dear, particularly exercises, speeches, Latin verses. The French, it is true, practised the argute loqui when they were as yet but Gauls ; but this was lost sight of, and to Latin ♦ Vide an excellent article by M. Potel, in the Eevue des etudes gncqnc& 228 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. speeches were 'attributed the faults of the French race, instead of attributing to the faults of our race those of our Latin speeches. The old literary criticism was discovered to be out of date, and for it were substituted, thanks to M. Breal, philology and history. Children of twelve and thirteen were taught all about the transformation of the tonic accent in words of popular origin ; they were taught the history of words taken from the Latin by savants, or the history of " doublets." Who knows anything about " doublets " but philologists ? and who need know them ? Boys of fourteen and sixteen are taught the earliest periods of literature, and they have to learn in outline its origin and the faint outlines of its early history. Under the pretext of avoiding dogmatism in the literature classes, boys' heads are stuffed with names of authors and their works, as if they were to be living catalogues, from Pierre Leroy, Gillet, Chretien Pilhon, to Eaquin, Du Bellay, Baif, Jodelle, etc. Erudition, historical, literary, and philological, has invaded everything, and all is reduced to mere exercise of the memory. Progress is measm-ed by the number of facts read and learned by heart. This is a false intellectualism, or rather, the futile cultiva- tion of knowledge which is only knowledge. This pseudo- erudition is the ruin of Uterary instruction ; it is supposed that children ought to Imoiv everything, while the important thing for them is to be able to think and create. They are required to learn fact after fact and language after language, instead of being exercised in the production of something, however small it may be. II. I feel that the system of grammatical training and the study of the humanities is the true one, but only if both are properly conceived and taught. Let us begin with grammatical training. As far as what is in a measure the technical study of languages, it should surely be possible to simplify methods and at the same time to make them more attractive if masters only would take the trouble to try to simplify instead LITERATURE AND ESTHETICS. 229 of giving way to the desire for complication. This would not bo complicating grammar, but simplifying it and making it of more living interest by connecting its laws with those of the human mind. If a master introduces the history of words when of peculiar interest, and thus makes their history serve as a memoria tecJinica, well and good ; but there should be an end to the profound treatment of philology in schools. Historical erudition and philology are the two great enemies of secondary instruction ; so far from making the ideas more orderly, they only add to the general confusion. From the philosophical point of view, grammar has a moral influence of its own, and if the master only succeeded in making this clear to his boys, they would listen to him with more attention than at present. It has been truly said that precision and propriety of terms are in the commerce of ideas what integrity is in the commerce of things ; that there is no complete freedom without a clear mind and exact language. Grammar has even a national and patriotic side ; in every detail of the structure of a word, and in the peculiarities of the orthography which is now being attacked,* grammar, instead of confining its efforts to simplification, shows us the vestiges of certain fashions our ancestors had of speaking, pronunciation, and writing ; and as it makes every word, as it were, a revelation from the venerable past, it makes these words sacred to us. " It teaches us to scrupulously respect the sense which is confirmed by use, and which is, as it were, the soul of the word ; it makes a language that is pure and faithfal to etymology and tradition appear as homage to the national genius ; and we see that it is perhaps an act of filial piety to accommodate our thoughts, although the substance may be new, to forms with which the vigorous and healthy thought of our ancestors was content." Thus writes a philosopher,! and a little of this philosophical elevation would do the teaching of grammar no harm. A literary language should be a perpetual sugges- ♦ M, Boissier. Vide Journal of Education^ July, 1891. t M. Bur Jean. 230 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. tion. Every word on the sense of which the child is com- pelled to reflect, every combination of words, every phrase of which he has to analyse the structure, should awaken in him ideas and sentiments. The positive mind prefers facts, and looks with comparative contempt on words ; but, even if some words are empty, the majority are the summary of innumerable facts — ^not only natural, but social facts ; a word is a product of human society added to nature. And, in particular, the study of the poets will be found to have an evocative virtue, and there is good reason for giving the first rank, as it should be given in the education of our youth, to the poets. Even grammar would be more interest- ing if it were made more literary and more poetical. The very examples may be borrowed from beautiful verses or phrases from the best writers ; they may thus represent real works of art, and the child will very soon acquire a sense of style, i.e. of beauty of form. He will read these verses again and again, and each will be associated in his mind with some rule of language. He will see why a certain phrase from *' Bossuet " or " Pascal " is considered fine, and that even the correctness of this phrase, its grammatical logic, and its conformity with the genius of the language, are the basis of this hterary beauty. The study of a language should not be considered as a barren study of words for the words them- selves ; it should even at this stage have an esthetic value. All words are, at bottom, metaphors, figures obliterated by long usage, and misunderstood from the habit of using them. And further, the associations of words are really myths in which personifications of ideas are brought into action and mutual relation ; a phrase is a symbolic history ; the most f amiUar expressions enshrine a mythology which is gradually disappearing, as would at once be seen if we put capital letters to even the most trivial words : " Terror strihes me ; the Sea leats on the rocks ; the Wind Uoius furiously ; the Storm threatens us ; the Sun hides himself behind the clouds." Language is " fossil poetry," petrified mythology.* * Emerson, "The Poet" (Tr.). LITERATUKE AND ESTHETICS. 231 Finally, grammar has its logic, as the teacher must show his pupils. The naturalist school in pedagogy— which dates from Rousseau and Pestalozzi, and with which Bain and Spencer have many points in common — has a peculiar dislike to logical abstractions. This school v/ill hear of little else but the intuitive method, teaching by sight ; to it everything reduces to seeing and inferring. Hence its profound con- tempt for the study of languages and grammar, especially for such grammar as is learned by " rules and principles," such as Latin and Greek grammar, instead of " by use," as tliey naively fancy they can teach the modern languages to the young— learned with the bandage of unconsciousness over the eyes. This pseudo-naturalism is based upon a false analogy : acquired knowledge is not spontaneous and is not the effect of a " necessity of existence ; " properly speaking it is not a " natural fact," but an artistic and logical fact. We have seen that an ancient or even a modern language cannot be learned as we learn the mother tongue. If too much reasoned-out grammar is harmful, a moderate use of it is far more adapted than even mathematics to develop the reasoning powers, reflection, and perception of the mutual relations of ideas. " To make out the meaning of a scientific proposition," says Mr. Bain, " to find the rule that fits a given case, we must try and try again ; we reject one supposition after another as not consistent with some of the conditions of the problem, and remain in patient thought until others come to mind." * Such is the intellectual gymnastics Mr. Bain offers us instead of the gymnastic of languages. How is it that Mr. Bain does not see that in describing exclusively the scientific method, he is at the same moment describing exercises in grammar and composition ? Do we not in the latter case find the rule or principle applying to a particular case, try and try again, " reject one supposition after another as not consistent with some of the conditions of the * Baia, "Education as a Science," p. 370 (Jr.). 232 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. problem, and remain in patient thought until others come to mind"? The child is even obliged to employ all these processes in the simplest exercises in grammar or in the logical analyses of phrases. As for more difficult exercises, they may all be reduced either to the understanding or the expression of thoughts ; now, to understand, and especially to express, we must reduce the ideas to their elements and then note the interconnection of the elements; and these are par excellence the two intellectual operations — analysis and synthesis. The whole of scientific and literary invention reduces to these operations, the one much more special, and the other much more general and therefore more adapted to the training of youth.* Let me therefore repeat that exercises in languages are a much more certain criterion of intel- lectual vigour than the solution of problems in algebra or geometry. Generally speaking, if we want to make a savant, we must begin by making an intelligent man, and for the development of the intelhgence there is nothing equal to the study of languages, especially of ancient languages. III. If we proceed from grammar to literature, we see it is necessary to reform the general spirit. To give to literary training a really sesthetic value, we should make a more deliberate and careful choice of our models, confining ourselves to the finest passages which, as M. Kavaisson says, teach us more in a short time than others would do in a longer time. Let us take the masterpieces in the most * The scientific operations described by Bain are either the methods of discovery (which is not usual among boys), or those of mathematical problems, which are only of use in mathematical and physical science; and in addition to this they form an individual habit which, as we have seen, tends to become mechanical in most boys. Those who solve a problem are not always the most remarkable pupils; chance plays an important part in the solution of problems, because you may attack the problems the right way at the first trial ; and we must also take account of the automatic mechanism of algebra, which is a kind of mill for grinding out equations. LITERATURE AND ESTHETICS. 233 important styles or carefully selected fragments which are in themselves masterpieces. Everything that is mediocre should be avoided ; nothing should be retained but what can excite admiration; as soon as the pupil ceases to admire, his masters lose their hold on him. The teacher, on the other hand, should always show by analysis and criticism the beauties of the passages selected for study. Instruction, in a word, must always be esthetic and never mechanical. Banish rigorously all mere effort of memory, and all the literary and historical erudition w^hich we have been un- fortunate enough to envy in the Germans. It is supposed that everything that can be done is done when many true and many useful things have been taught — that is the schoolmaster's ideal. But it is the beautiful that should be taught in preference to all else.* It follows that in classical education, as well as in poetry, all styles are good as long as they are not tedious ; not because we have to " amuse," but because we should " interest " the pupils, and saturate their minds with the sense of the beautiful. Whatever is really tedious in literature and in history is really far more so (and therefore out of place) in education, for it is only lifeless abstraction or erudition. It is far better to choose what should never be forgotten. In our days the " centre of gravity " of a literary training is generally placed in explanations of authors, and it is supposed that the master's remarks, with the spontaneous reflection of the boys, will be enough to develop in them the literary sense. But I think that translations and running commentaries, which are so strongly urged by the would-be imitators of Germany, are but auxiliary means. The boy's own translation of a passage from " Homer " or " Virgil," if it has been conscientiously, slowly, and carefully made, is of far more value in his intellectual development than a running translation by the master of a whole book of " Homer " or " Yirgil." It is of small value for a boy to * vide Book I. 234 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. be able to give a summary of the " Iliad " or the " ^neid " as he would of " Telemachus " or " Gil Bias." Whatever M. Breal may say (who supposes that we learn Latin to become Latinists), I prefer a good Latin or Greek exercise to a running translation — or still better even a few Latin verses of average ability, written by the boy himself, for they will have much more influence on his education than even the verses of Yirgil. According to M. Lachelier, the fundamental exercise should be the explanation of the Latin text, not a running translation, it is true, but a sound translation of it by the master, coupled with a running commentary. " It is a question," he says, " of learning grammar to be able to read Tacitus and Yirgil, of reading Yirgil to learn a love of the country, and Tacitus to understand the motives of Thraseas and Helvetius Prisons." If this lofty eloquence did not disarm objection, we might suggest that reading Yirgil is a rather roundabout way of getting to love the country, and that to grasp the motives of Thraseas it is not necessary to read the history of this great man in the Latin text of Tacitus. Besides, after thus maintaining that languages must be learned so as "to gain the enormous number of moral notions of infinite shades and variety expressed by these languages," we must confess that the knowledge of a multitude of words is not necessarily the possession of a multitude of thoughts. After saying that we cannot read the great writers of antiquity or of modern times without learning an enormous number of facts, "about aU that mankind has done, thought, or felt, in the principal periods of history," we are still compelled to recognize that in reality pupils read very little of the texts at which they work hard to acquire the key. The French authors themselves, as M. Eabier bears witness, are perhaps even less practical than Greek and Latin authors. " In fact, if we count up all the pages, Greek, Latin, and French, which have been read and explained in a whole course of study, we could hardly make up a volume as thick as one's finger." And LITERATUr.E AND ESTHETICS. 235 even when more is read, the notions acquired would always remain fragmentary, detached one from the other, and, so to speak, anecdotic, because in this labyrinth the guiding thread is missing. History is not enough to furnish this thread, for as it is taught at present it is a mere series of facts. Instruction in literature must therefore be, not an historical inventory, nor idle philological curiosities, but a literary and artistic doctrine ; it should be aesthetics at once felt, reasoned out, and applied. How can the yomig be interested in the works of the great writers, even when replaced in their historical environment, if they lack the guiding ideas — and, if I may say so, the principles — either aesthetic, moral, or social, which give life to every reading, and give it an end and a significance ? Now, everything tljat resembles any doctrine whatever, I do not say dogmatic, but free, open, and even conjectural, has been banished from om' system of instruction. But this doctrine would, I feel, be the real and only " centre of gravity ; " to have ideas, a literary opinion, a moral and social creed, a general view of Nature and her mighty laws, and then to co- ordinate by means of all the other ideas, the facts of science, history, and art ; to simultaneously introduce order into and give direction to the explanation of authors ; finally and chiefly to be exercised in the expression of ideas and sentim.ents, in the composition of small but tasteful or logical essays, in the putting of thoughts into action and form under the constant control of the classical models; that would be the daily round in secondary instruction where now not only languages are dead, but also ideas and sentiments. In my opinion we must also revert to the active methods which form an applied aesthetics, for passive methods are but mere storing up in the memory. You cannot learn to think, to compose, and to ^mte, by a mere scampering through literature. Put a pen in the hand of the youth as you place a brush in the hand of the future painter, and see what he will do for himself. He may write a bad 236 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. speech or poor verses ; what does it matter ? the speech or the verses have been more useful to him than even those of Cicero or Horace, because they have exercised his mind. You might read "in Oatilinam," or the "Ars Poetica" ton times over, and yet have made far less progress than if you had written Latin speeches full of barbarisms, or limping Latin verses. If you have occasionally thought of a passable argument, or, in verse, of a true image, a correct epithet, or a nearly harmonious hemistich, your couplet at which linguists and philologists may shrug their shoulders, will however mark in you distinct improvement and sesthetic progress. And, after all, as you are not to be a Latin orator or poet, there is no necessity to pay over-attention to solecisms, if you have done your utmost to avoid them. We are agreed that the mind is an instrument and not a *' museum of antiquities," therefore we must strengthen this instrument by exercise. The whole history of French literature up to the eighteenth century, upon which our boys have to dwell at length, is not equivalent to a single story told by the child, without concerning himself about the "Fabliaux" of the Middle Ages, or the "Satire Menippee " — a story in which he has set to work to give sequence and form to his ideas, however humble they may be. The lad who can write Latin and French correctly has no need to know in detail the origin of our literature ; if he himself creates part of the literature of his country, and becomes a living link in its classical tradition, he is doing far better than he would do if he simply learned its history, far better than if he is acquainted with Pierre Leroy, Gillet, Chretien, Baif, and Jodelle. I confess that I infinitely prefer literary results which are at the same time intellectual, to the philological results which M. Breal prefers in imitation of the Germans. Do not let us substitute erudition for literature and art. Latin and Greek must remain the instruments of the national mind, instead of being raised to the dignity of " ends in themselves," of objects to be known merely for the sake of LITERATURE AND ESTHETICS. 237 knowing tbcm. If classical instruction were only one subject more to be acquired, it would soon have to be sacrificed for the other subjects of knowledge, which are, moreover, constantly increasing in number ; but, as we have seen, the truth is that instruction in Latin should also be instruction in the mother tongue, i.e. a culture of the national spirit and literature by means of the mother tongue. In America, says Guyau, instead of showing children how a steam-engine works, a miniature model is given to the child; "he then has to take it to pieces, put it together again— in fact, he re-makes the machine. When this is done, he knows it well." Now work such as this has a parallel in the written translation of literary masterpieces, in the *' version " and the exercise, with the simple difference that in the former case we are dealing with material things, and in the latter with things of the moral order. Translation is better than teaching " at sight," because it teaches by action. We get very inferior translations, or Latin speeches, or Latin verses— those copies which are the despair of the masters, and which become an argument for the enemies of classical training. Well ; read them without the pedantic prejudices Avhich make barbarisms and solecism the capital sins par excellence ; condemn faults of language, pay exclu- sive attention to the pedagogic and 83sthetic side, and you will lind that even an exercise full of bhmders may never- theless contain some details which show evidence of intel- lectual effort or sometimes even of a certain taste. The simple fact that five minutes have been spent on a passage of Vii'gil in the endeavour to understand it and translate it, implies aesthetic progress. *'Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per urabram." These seven words bring before the student a picture which has to be copied. One writes, " They advanced alone in the dark night ; " another, " They went, in the dark, in the lonely night ; " another, " They went into the darkness 238 EDUCATION FROM A NATI05TAL STANDPOINT. in the lonely night ; " or — " They went, into the darkness and solitude of the night ; " " They went enwrapped with dark- ness into the lonely night ; " " They went enshrouded by the gloom into the lonely night ; " " They went, enfolded with gloom, through the shade into the lonely night ! " Good or bad, each is a work of art ; all have had to fix their attention on a nocturnal picture of simple beauty and easily grasped, on an outline, so to speak, which they have had to copy. Even if the rest of the passage were entirely wrong, these seven words, if understood and more or less badly rendered, will have awakened the sense of the beautiful. Now, the sense of the beautiful is what makes a man worthy of his name ; everything that may develop that sense is therefore more important than this or that definite know- ledge of literary, historical, or even of scientific facts. It is of more importance to humanity and even to the individual to have a craving for the beautiful than to know philosophy or the history of the Pharaohs, but the mind that feels a craving for the beautiful is on the way to become a beautiful mind. MM. Frary and Breal, writing of poetry and eloquence, call these studies " artificial exercises " in versification and rhetoric ; but are these studies entirely artificial if con- sidered in themselves ? Each of us has in him the germs of poetry and eloquence ; he is to be pitied who has not in his time been a poet, even if only swayed by the sense of the ideal ; so, too, must we pity the man who has not become eloquent under the influence of some ardent and generous emotion. Poetry makes us penetrate into the very soul of things, and eloquence enables us to act on other minds. No father, mother, or lover has ever been unable to find in his own heart accents that could reach the heart of the object of affection. To develop tliis sense of the ideal and this power of persuasion which are natural to man and tradition in France, is to understand education not only as the French but as all nations have always understood it, for from India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome to modern times, there is no LITERATURE AND iESTHETICS. 239 nation which has not made poetry and eloquence the base of literary education.* The only drawback poetry has ever suffered from is its difficulty. But, in my opinion, the young man who has never composed a verse, who has not attempted to give to thought and sentiment the higher form the ancients called divine, has not received a really liberal education ; he will never be able to thoroughly appreciate either the beauties of the great poets, or the poetic harmony of the great prose- wrifcers. Besides, prose, to be kept to its true level, must have before it the rivalry of poetry, which, exhibiting a loftier ideal, keeps it from descending and becoming flat. Sainte-Beuve, irritated by the attacks on Latin verses, wrote, " Nothing has done more not only to exercise my taste, but to mould my intellect." | * Vide M. Maneuvriei'. t Verses have been sacrificed on the pretext that the boys genei-ally made false quantities, I repeat, take the worst copies; you will find here and there a passable and sometimes a happy epithet, which will cover a multitude of sins ; for instance, the following heptameter is bad, but it shows a poetic conception. Speaking of an Alpine excursion, the boy writes, Aerid sat pace sedens immensum contemplatur. Now, although a bad line, it is of more value in general culture than having learned the preparation of hydrochloric acid, or the names and dates of the battles in the reign of Louis the Fat. Another pupil, in a piece full of solecisms, compares a glacier to the waves of a motionless sea : Immotum mare stat. Another writes of the mountain-peaks gradually emerging from the mist at daybreak : Monies e node resurgimt. Another : Ifeque deo propius credo, atque hominem obliviscor. Another recalls the immensa sileniia mantis ; another does it in two words : mons silet. Boys, good or bad, have here made an imaginary ascent; the idlest of them have tried for at least five minutes to express some idea or other in poetic form ; and in the dead languages a simple line may conjure up a whole picture. What do faults in versification matter? In the mother tongue they would be intolerable ; when we are speaking our own language we are not allowed to profane it, and accuracy is a supreme virtue; but the dead languages have the merit of allowing philological sacrilege. After giving up Latin verses, the reformers substitute " metre " in their place, and give learned lectures on the metre of Plautus ! — again a mere imitation of " German science." M. Breal regrets that in reading Virgil boys "mentally compose a 210 EDUCATION FEO]H A NATIONAL STANDPOINT., As for Latin speeches, from the philosophical point of view, they should be an attempt to express the sentiments and words appropriate to persons and situations ; they should be at once applied psychology and applied poetry. The boy is ridiculed for always making Caesar or Brutus his spokesman ; but everything depends on the manner in which he makes them speak. Did not Shakespeare, in making Brutus and Cassius address each other, compose a masterpiece, not only from the point of view of the pleasure his work gives us, but because of the light thrown by his subtle psychology upon the mind of nations and of mankind ? No doubt a school-boy will not do so much, but if he throws all his attention into doing something analogous to this, will he not thereby enlighten his own mind ? It is true that we must be more strict in our choice of subjects, and of the methods of treatment. It is especially in rhetoric that the philosophical spirit is absolutely necessary. Badly conceived and badly taught, speeches become the art of substituting words for reasons, of warmly pleading for a cause that leaves us cold, of maintaining a cause which one does not believe to be true ; of throwing off one's own characteristics and wearing a mask ; it is the paradox of the comedian realized by the orator as well as by the actor. We get accustomed to treat the pros and cons^ not with a desire to find the real reasons for and against, which would be legitimate enough, but with a desire to deceive others. Gods and men, ancients and moderns, kings and tribunes, captains and magistrates, are made to speak in an unreal and false manner, and boys are forced to write of subjects which have never been carefully studied ; it is the renaissance of Greek sophistry with all its subtlety, but without the analytic spirit and deductive vigour. The two types with poetical dictionary for personal use." I see no disadvantage in this; it ia even the only way of making pupils see the delicacies of Virgilian versification. On the other hand, a mere oral translation will never enable the pupil to grasp them. In fact, the Germans translate much moro Virgil, and understand it much less. LITEKATURE AND iESTUETICS. 241 which this education of the orator suppUes us, are its living personification : the vulgar orator and the vulgar journalist who talk on any subject and know none, and who solve any question by bursts of eloquence or by epigrams. To prevent this unduly formal teaching of rhetoric, we must give the mind soimd knowledge of the moral and social order. If, at fourteen or fifteen, boys receive a sound training in morals, at fifteen to sixteen in [esthetics, literature, and the history of art ; if critical and philosophical questions take their place in their lessons in history ; and if into their training in science general questions of the philosophical and historical orders are introduced, how can our boys lack ideas when they take up rhetoric ? Cannot their teacher then find for them really serious questions to write upon, instead of mere declamations and oratorical display ? I think that the exercise par excellence is composition in the mother tongue on some subject in literature, philosophy, or history. We should accustom our boys to attempting essays of this kind at their leisure, the subjects being, of course, chosen with the approbation of the master. Time should be given to write a sound and well-thought-out essay, the books best adapted for consultation should be indi- cated, and the principal points upon which the authors attempt to throw light. The idlest boy would be encouraged to work if, after his researches, he succeeded in reducing to order a few ideas, and in sending up a composition with some part or other of it well done. In this way he would really learn how to " study." And, as Stendhal says, study gives us a daily meed of happiness ; and if it is given an object, for example, " Give a clear idea of the Gunpowder Plot," the most insipid book becomes interesting ; and this interest increases in time and persists long after " the Gun- powder Plot " has been thrown aside.* * The Latin essay, sacrificed nowadays with all the rest, has its own advantages. When we write in the mother tongue, the work seems too natural and spontaneous; we do not sulliciently realize the dillicukies, nor du we readily grasp the processes which will solve them. When, on 18 242 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. If the teacher of philosophy, or, faiHng him, the teacher of literature — after having received a better philosophical training — were to speak to the boys of the different theories of the beautiful, the sublime, the graceful, the object of art, of idealism and realism, of the classicists, romanticists, and naturalists ; of poetry, sculpture, painting, architecture, music, etc., and that, too, with the aid of prints, photographs, or casts, which would be real lessons in things ; with the aid also of those other lessons in things afforded by a well- selected passage from Yirgil or Tacitus, Eacine or Hugo, would boys take no interest ? would they not draw from their lessons more pleasure and more profit than by the purely historical and philosophical method ? We do not want the master to teach his boys the mysteries of metonymy, prolepsis, syllepsis, hypotyposis, hypallage, hyperbaton, antonomasis, catachresis, synecdoche ; and we are right to let these flowers of rhetoric " wither in peace in botanical collections." But is a course of hterature, and even of very general aesthetics, a study of catachresis or antonomasis ? We must not confuse the philosophical with the didactic spirit ; philosophy establishes principles and formulates laws, either certain or conjectural ; the didactic method professes to furnish precepts and receipts ; and philosophical views are just as interesting as the precepts of rhetoric are dull. But it is unfair to banish all didactic method from instruction, because there are rules in writing as well as in painting and in sculpture. It is not — solely, the other hand, we have to express our thoughts in Latin, we have to stop, reflect, make a choice, turn and return every idea and phrase. "To learn how to reflect," says M. Boissier, "is the first and most difficult science presented to a child. Once it possesses it, it can apply it both to Latin and to the mother tongue, and so it finds it can write its own language without have learned to do so." That was the case with Descartes, Bossuet, La Bruyere, and all the writers of the seventeenth century. But as our bovs no longer write in Latin so that they may write better in their own tongue, they write their own language worse and worse. Teachers of philosophy at tlie secondary schools in Paris complain that they are com- pelled to teach everything to boys of sixteen and seventeen. LITERATURE AND .ESTHETICS. 243 at any rate — by reading the history of painting that painters arc made. I should also like to see boys not confined to literature, but introduced to the other arts. Here, again, the woman will some day be able to instruct her husband, for the syllabus in our girls' schools contains a history of art, "mainly practical and accompanied by visits to museums and monuments." But the syllabus is far too historical, and should be more properly aesthetic ; the girls are here, as else- where, swamped by a mass of erudition. What is understood by works of art ? Main divisions of the history of art. I. Antlqidty. Egyptian and Assyrian art. Greek art. Archaic Greek art. The age of Pericles. The age of Alexander. The great schools of art in the Greek world after Alexander. Etruscan art. Eoman art. How Rome learned Greek art. II. Middle Ages. Christian art at Eome. Byzantine art. Arabic art in Syria, Spain, and Egypt. Eoman art. Gothic art in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, England. Civil archi- tecture in the Middle Ages. ..." And why not military archi- tecture ? " As a matter of fact, it does figure in the syllabus. " Military architecture in the Middle Ages ! " III. The Roiais sauce. Its origin. The Eenaissance, principally in Italy and France. The different schools. Art in the seventeenth century (France, Flanders, Holland, Spain). Art in the eighteenth century (France, England). Art in the nineteenth century. Why should not the stronger sex share in this initiation into the arts ? Perhaps even future soldiers might be interested in the "military architecture of the Middle Ages." But the elementary study of the principles of the different arts and of the most celebrated masterpieces by means of prints, photographs, and casts, would be worth more than all this history. Finally, Avith ]\I. Maneuvrier, I should like to give to classes halls of study, and to places of union and recreation an agreeable and artistic appearance. In these days Ave can reproduce at but small expense the masterpieces of drawing and sculpture, either by photographs, or photogravures, or 214 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. by the aid of magic-lanterns. Art, as is commonly said, has been brought within the reach of all. Why not profit by this progress to decorate our schools, so that, as M. Maneuvrier says, " the very walls may speak and teach " ? In this respect primary instruction is ahead of secondary. Especially in our lower secondary schools would a good instruction by sight be profitable, if joined to the lessons of the master and to instruction by action. Did not Plato say that youth should be surrounded by only beautiful things and beautiful works. This, then, is a legitimate application of the laws of suggestion and sympathy. The memory of the child becomes pliant without an effort to the forms of language Avhich it hears around it, and which are, as it were, spoken logic ; so, when children are surrounded by everything which awakens the sense of beauty, their minds are spontaneously fashioned to sesthetic forms. " They become like the object of their contempla- tion." To sum up, — we only know of one way to organize and unify the study of literature, history, and science ; namely, to introduce the philosophical spirit therein from beginning to end. Philosophy is the study of both man and human society which are precisely the great object of literature and history. In an age abandoned to the conflict of interests, in a society in which the necessities of life are ever in- creasing, how can we expect children to follow us through Latin, Greek, ancient and modern history, literary history, etc., if we do not constantly keep before them the end in view, and a noble end, if there is not in a measure some morality visible in each lesson, a relation between the good of the country and of the individual, an gesthetic interest, an attraction for heart and mind alike, and therefore an excita- tion and a strengthening of the will ? This would make our work education and not merely instruction. If in our schools we are on the whole reduced to instructing instead of " ele- vating " our youths, it is because moral and social training, netdected for the first seven or eight years of school-life, LITERATURE AND iESTIIETICS. 245 arc suddenly introduced at the end when it is too late. If a better-conceived instruction combines literature and science with a moral, social, civic, and esthetic training, literary form will have a substantial basis ; there will be no need to ask for ideas, we shall have to reason them out and be enthusiastic over them. On the other hand, the study of the exact sciences and of natural science will take a lesti abstract and more social direction ; it will be humanizecL 246 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER V. INSTRUCTION IN PHILOSOPHY. T. In Germany, classical studies do not terminate witli the *' Maturitatspriifung " at the end of the course of the secondary schools ; this examination is simply a matricula- tion examination for the universities, at which it is tradi- tional to continue the work begun at school. Thus philosophy may be thoroughly studied, for the pupils have only learned the elements of this subject in the gymnasiums, although there is far more philosophy taught in the German than in the French schools. They have even retained the name of philosophy as covering science, and their doctors are called doctors of philosophy. But in spite of the comple- mentary course at the universities, it is much to be regretted that a complete course of philosophy is not given in the gymnasiums. The only extenuating circumstance is that, Germany being very religious, religion assumes the burden of metaphysical and moral education. If in France we were to defer the philosophical course till the pupil enters the Faculties, it would simply mean the suppression of the Faculties. We must take the French as they are, and not try to bind them to a pseudo-Germanism. Our classical training should therefore end for all boys in a complete and regular instruction in philosophy. At present it is freely admitted that our philosophy is undergoing a process of evolution ; and this to class- work in philosophy is both a drawback and an advantage. The drawback — which would be lessened if our system of instruc- INSTRUCTION IN PHIT.OSOrHY. 247 tion wore more simple and more clemenfcary-is a certain confusion, springing from the very wealth of ideas, and also ft-om the uncertainties which still exist on many points. The advantage is that it presents to the youn^ niind life progress, and the fruitful working of ideas. 'The master carries into practice iu the presence of his boys that search after truth m wh.ch Malebranche saw the most divine use of human reason; they observe the working of the masters mnid, and therefore exercise their own minds in thought. Lesides, says M. Lachelier, it is a great moral advan age for boys to feel that the master only tells them wha he believes to be true, and that they must only say what they themselves feel to be true. " Our classes in pnilosophy are, nowadays, above all else-a school of sincerity. ' M. Maneuvrier asks that two years should be devoted to philosophy M. Lachelier says, "I should like two years to be set apart for philosophy instead of one, and I should only ask for pure philosophy during those years, one-third of the tune at present allowed; there would then be time for a sound and wide scientific training." In Italy, according to the new programmes, boys are aught descriptive psychology " in the first year, consisting by preference m "the enumeration, classificltion, and analysis of fundamental psychical facts, and in the explana- lon of their experimental laws." The next year they go o„ to formal and traditional logic, confined as far as possible to points on which all schools of philosophy are agreed ^nd to this IS added the theory of induction and of ^h expS mental method of modern research, with appropriate Ixe - h oT.r ^PP.''<=^"°"«- The last year is devoted to the iSite ^T ,'" ^'^^r^^J' -^^-inly to questions of po itic.,, tie sturly ot representative constitutions and no ,il,ly that of Italy." To these are added elementary notion, of aesthetics, and the history of philosophy. ZZ physics are elimmated. ' 248 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Should metaphysics or general philosophy be excluded ? I reply in the words of M. AngiuUi, an Italian philosopher, " Whatever cannot be separated in the progressive unity of a science, should not be separated in the progressive unity of instruction." To say that secondary instruction should only include what is proven, by excluding what has simply a hypothetical value, is to deprive it of its greatest educative power. If hypotheses were excluded from instruction, we should, as Haeckel rightly remarks, be mutilating every science. The important thing is to present hypotheses as hypotheses, and not as demonstrated theories. Moreover, the highest and most disinterested parts of philosophy are also the finest. I do not attach as much importance to " psycho-physics " and its experiments, or to logic and its abstractions, as to the great theories of nature, man, and first principles. "We must guard ourselves against taking positive certainty as a measure of educative virtue. It is precisely because general philosophy is not a positive science that it has a greater moral and a3sthetic value. Certainty is not of the first importance in mental education ; we live and act, as a rule, in the midst of probabilities, and Leibnitz was right when he said that appreciation of probabilities ranks higher than appreciation of certainties.* Tbe object that instruction should keep in view is not the solution of every difficulty, but the keeping of our youth, by a method which is neither dogmatic nor sceptical, in touch with controversies in which they will necessarily take a part when they enter into the life of the community. The problems of general philosophy are, moreover, intimately connected with moral and religious problems; the young man cannot leave school without a criterion, without ideas to guide him amid the opposing influences at work in modern society. Secondary instruction should, therefore, sketch in, on the background of science arid literature, a doctrine of science and of life, filling in afterwards the consideration of the ultimate problems of existence arid con- '^ " Xouveaux Essais," iv. ch. xiv. De la probabilite. INSTRUCTION IN rillLOSOniY. 249 duct. The philosophy of first principles alone brings the mind face to face with these great problems ; it alone gives, on more than one point, the sense of the insoluble, \^•hich is more important than many scientific solutions, because it is the sense of the sublime. Above what the English call *' cosmic emotion " is the philosophical emotion which is the basis of the moral and religious sentiment. The spirit of the philosophy of first principles in instruc- tion should be, and in fact is, in France, conformable to the enduring part of the Kantian criticism. Hence it must show the limits of knowledge. Upon this all philosophers will be agreed ; positivists will have no ground for objecting to a system of instruction which gives a legitimate place to some of their principles, proving them, however, by analyzing the conditions of knowledge — which they themselves do not do. The adherents of the various creeds will no longer object to our laying down the limits of human knowledge, because it is precisely beyond those limits where their faith begins. As Spencer says, the mysterious in the old concep- tion of the universe is added to the new interpretation. The nebular hypothesis throws no light on the origin of difi'used matter, and diffused matter must be accounted for as well as concrete matter. The genesis of an atom is as difficulfc to conceive as the genesis of a planet. To this critical side of philosophy we need not hesitate to add a positive and constructive side ; but what should it be ? The essential point, in my opinion, is that it should not be materialistic. In fact, we consider that the in- adequacy of materialism, as a sufficient and complete ex- planation of the universe, is fully demonstrated. None but the incompetent can accept the materialistic dogma, and believe that brute atoms put together in a certain way, like the parts of a machine, eventually form something that thinks. Materialism has succeeded in defining neither itself nor its first principle — matter. The greatest benefit a philo- sopher could confer on it is to put it in logical form ; and then we see it can be summed up in two lines : All is 250 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. matter, but we do not know what matter is ; being = matter ; matter = x. In G-ermany, England, and France there are no mate- riahsts among philosophers worthy of the name and au courant with the Kantian criticism ; only among savants are they to be found, and the reason is that the savanU do not know philosophy. The posifcivists and evolutionists, from Comte and Littre to Spencer, have always stoutly maintained that they were not spiritualists, and a fortiori that they were not materialists. No one can object to a critical examination of the materialistic dogma taking a place in philosophical instruction, as it has done in our own days. This granted, I go further, and ask for a place for idealism in the education of our youth. I cannot under- stand a real education apart from an ideal, without a certain influence attributed to that ideal in the progress of humanity Ideahsm will only be a " chimera " when materialism has been sufficiently demonstrated ; but all that has been at present demonstrated about materialism is its inadequacy. No one has, therefore, a right to assert that the ideal con- ceived by human thought is in essential and eternal opposi- tion to the very basis of reality ; for who knows this basis ? whose conceptions are as vast and noble as those supplied by " nature's ample bosom " .? The general criticism of science and its conditions, the detailed criticism of materialism, and hnally, the possibility and legitimacy of an idealism reconcilable with our very knowledge of nature, are the three fundamental points of a system of instruction in conformity with the requirements of modern philosophy. The teacher may either confine him- self to these three points, or add to them his own personal convictions. Whatever they are, if based on these three incontestable theses, they will have that degree of elevation and sincerity which are necessary in an instruction that is to be educative. The philosophy which I propose to establish on this basis is nob an " official " philosophy, bub rather a scientific philosophy, inasmuch as it summarizes INSTRUCTION IN PHILOSOPHY. 251 the work of all philosophers and savants of our time, what- ever their schools may be. If, peradventm-e, there be in existence an impenitent materialist, he cannot complain if he sees a system criticized when he holds in his possession its peremptory demonstration ; when his boys come home from school he can unfold his proofs and hand on to them the " good news." II. For philosophy some people wish to substitute the history of philosophy. In the education of youth this would be replacing the easiest by the most difficult, the clearest by the most obscure, and the useful by the super- fluous. There is nothing more arduous to the untrained mind that is not ait courant with pure philosophy than the history of systems of philosophy : either it does not under- stand them, or what it does understand is unfamiliar. The connection of systems and the deeper features of doctrines are only intehigible to ripened minds. The superficial liistory of philosophy is apt to run down philosophy itself. All that need be known — but it must be well known — are the great systems ; all else is only useful to the eradite. A single dogmatic question, thoroughly dissected, does more for education than a bird's-eye view of the whole history of philosophy. III. The course cf philosophy should be obligatory in all cases ; for those destined for scientific careers, medicine, the higher walks of industry and commerce, and especially for those intended for literature, law, and pedagogy. A French essay on some philosophical subject should be required from all boys when leaving school. At present, mathematical students go through a so-called course of philosophy — which is a meagre course in logic followed by such ethics as are taught in the primary schools. The whole would fill a dozen pages, which the boys learn by neart, without thoroughly understanding or caring for it, and with a view to a viva voce examination of a very 252 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. simple character. Philosophy is valueless in instruction if it is not paramount and complete. There is not one of the various questions in the full programme of philosophy for boys taking up literature, which is not indispensable to future savants : distinction between " psychological and physiological facts " (which they confuse later in life) ; *' method of psychology" (which they will look down on coDipared with mathematical and physical methods) ; " the sensibility, intellect, and will " (of the elementary laws of which they will be entirely ignorant) ; " man and the animal " (between which they will be unable to distinguish); *' dogmatism" (into which they will certainly fall in science); *' scepticism " (which they will profess with respect to philosophy, and perhaps even with respect to ethics); "con- ceptions of matter and life " (which are the very objects of their studies); "materialism and spuitualism" (between which they will presently have to choose). If we suppress all these questions, we leave our future savants and doctors almost inevitably exposed to materialism or to blind religious bigotry. Who are more prejudiced than savants who have had no philosophical culture ? They are prejudiced against psychology, against the science of ethics, and against philosophy as a whole. Accustomed to assertion of positive facts, they are negative to all that cannot be demonstrated with the certainty of mathematical or physical theory. As soon as they set foot in the moral and social world they experience the giddiness of w^hich Plato speaks ; their heads are turned, their eyes are dazzled, and they talk the more nonsense because they have been accustomed to the rectilinear reasoning of the positive sciences, the infinite shades of the moral would escape them, and, as Plato says, they can only "embrace the trees and stones they find on the road." Objection is rightly raised to literature apart from philosophy; but savants without philosophy are still more dangerous, for literature is at any rate not dissevered from moral and social life, and even is an introduction to it, while the exclusive study of science and its applications warps and INSTRUCTION IN PIlILOSOniY, 253 materializes the mind. With philosophy, on the contrary, science is grandeur of thought, and if the charm of literature be added, the mind is fortified and embellished. Apart from these tln-ee terms of the problem — science, literature, and philosophy — education is a mere sketch, or an instruc- tion often more dangerous than useful. I therefore refuse, in the face of all present or future official programmes, to give the name of " classical instruction " to any system of study from which these three terms are missing. Witliout literary and philosophical culture "you will never make, with all your science, anything but Mtes utiles,^'' as Saint- Marc Girardin somewhat coarsely put it. Happy are we if we do not turn out brutes that will do us mischief ! An examination has recently been arranged for our future doctors, without any serious study of philosophy and without the French essay. Now, those who are going to be doctors particularly need complete philosophical culture. The pro- fessors of various medical subjects are exclusively wrapped up in their special subjects or in preparation for definite examinations. But medicine is not a pure science, it is still an art, or rather, it is an art that is mainly moral and psychological. Psychology is more useful to the doctor than botany; he will not have to gather flowers for his medicines (and their botanical properties have nothing to do with their medical properties). The doctor should act as much upon the mind as upon the organs of his patients, his moral action is often the cause of three-quarters, if, indeed, it is not of all of his success. Apart from mental or nervous diseases, we see the role of suggestion, the sovereign influence of confidence and hope, of calm and mental power, being more and more recognized. In the family the doctor sometimes even now, as in the good old days, is the coun- sellor and friend. Does any one suppose that the true doctor's main duty is feeling the pulse, looking at the tongue, scrawling a prescription that he has leai'ned by heart irom the pharniacopfjeia, taking up his hat, and returning to his carriage (the whole visit lasting a cpiarter of an hour) to 25 i EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. note in his memorandum-book — visit to Mr. X , £1? A good philosophical training is necessary to protect the doctor against the theoretic materialism to which the dissecting-room and lecture-room give him a tendency, and against the practical materialism to which the daily exercise of his profession exposes him ; the taste for higher things will prevent him from regarding as a trade one of the arts in which morality plays the greatest part. A doctor is not a mere veterinary surgeon for men and women ; he must not be a mere vendor of prescriptions. In no profession is it easier to abuse either the credulity or the pious feeling which compels a family to make any sacrifice for the sake of one of its members who is in pain or in danger. The rapacity of the doctor is one of the vilest abuses that can be made of science, and yet we see daily examples of it around us ; who has not, among the majority of devoted doctors, come across a jackal qiiaerens quern devoret ? Charlatanism invades the pharmacy and puffs itself by shameless advertise- ments ; do not let it invade and dishonour medicine itself. The diploma of the doctor is a privilege conferred, a moral and social guarantee ; and the body that grants the diploma may lay down its own conditions. The most essential of all conditions is that the applicants should have received the complete literary and philosophical education which forms the liberal and disinterested mind. We may eliminate from the philosophical course for our future doctors questions relative to the history of philosophy and philosophers, aesthetics, the philosophy of languages, historical criticism, the philosophy of history, and applied logic. But — the reader may object — even to the futm-e doctor these are of more value than a course of botany (which is useless to him) or of physiology, which he must learn over again, scalpel \vl hand. No doubt; then make the specialists, in the instruction that is called higher instruction, understand this, for in spite of noble exceptions that instruction becomes more and more a preparation for INSTRUCTION IN PHILOSOPHY. 255 technical cxciini nations ; make the specialists understand the meaning of digmis, digmis cs intrar^l An ill-conceived utilitarianism is rampant ; classical instruction must forsooth make some concession to the famous "needs of modern societies," especially when the new " French instruction '* pompously announces that all these needs are satisfied : the need for all of botany, zoology, mineralogy, geology, etc. All these are to be learned for the final examination, in order, as Guyau says, that the examinee may be at liberty to forget. 256 EDUCATION FKOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER YL THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY TO THE TEACHER, " Like master like boy." I do not dream, with Plato, that philosophers should be kings, but am content with the more modest wish that they should be educators ; over the entrance to the professions should be written : " No admittance without philosophy." Pascal's father wished his son to be always more than equal to the work set him ; and a fortiori the teacher should be in advance of his professional duties. If it were said that grammar, for instance, to be well taught should be in the hands of a philosopher, it would sound like a paradox, and it would be true, for to make others understand grammar and to make it interesting to them, to make them seize its logic even when it seems illogical, one should be a thorough master of it. And if it were said that the special sciences— chemistry, for example — should bo taught by philosophical minds ; and if even it were asserted that the mere entrusting of classes to teachers fortified with a stronger philosophical culture by the side of their special subject would be enough to reform instruction — the paradox would be equally apparent. After a boy has been suffering at school from " indiges- tion " of mathematics, johysics, etc., he then^ has a further three years at the same subjects at the Ecole Normale. How can it be certain that he can make mathematics, etc., educative ; that he will rise up above details ; that he will be so far disinterested as to be able to look beyond his own special subjects to the philosophical horizon of tbe different THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY. 257 sciences ? AVill the teacher of history, after his studies in p-.iloography, epig'raphy, and philology, be above dry facts and dates ? will he modestly lay aside his dearly acquired erudition ? will he care to take general views, and to make of history a subject for accurate, philosophical, moral, and civic training ? Will the young grammarian, transferred from his essays, verses, translations, etc., to take charge of a class of children, know at once how to interest them in the beauties of declensions and conjugations, Latin and Greek exercises, etc. ? will he be able to manage them ? will he without previous study be acquainted with the best intel- lectual methods ? will he be able to introduce into his subject that philosophical, liistorical, and even poetical spirit which is necessary to animate it and make it delightful ? Gram- marians too often forget that once grammarians were the commentators of the poets, that they used to instil this spirit into instruction, and hence they had an educative mission. In fact, a training for three years in the higher foruis of literature, rhetoric, criticism, and history may make good speakers and elegant writers, but will not necessarily turn out good teachers of the " humanities " or good educators. What ideas will they have in their own heads .^ What ideas will they give their pupils ? Will they always be warm, enthusiastic, and sympathetic in their literary criticisms ? Will they follow the example of all the great writers they have to make their pupils love, under- stand, and imitate, — and be thinkers ? It is to be feared that they may sometimes be devoted exclusively to the worship of form, that they may be willingly sceptical with regard to ideas, that they may from time to time affect a fine indifference to philosophy, i.e. to what is the basis of all great literature, whether the psychological study of manners and character, or morality and politics, or religion and metaphysics, or lastly, artistic and aesthetic criticism. The mere man of letters can rarely select what is adapted for the education of youth, and what will excite in the young, not a spirit of disparagement or conceited 19 258 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. criticism, too frequent among us, but a genuine passion for the beautiful and the good, ^^o doubt some men are born teachers, but we must not count on the exceptions.: The rest should learn how to teach and how to elevate the young ; and for that purpose the first and most essential condition is the inspiring our teachers with the philosophical spirit, and thereby interesting them in psychology, ethics, and social science. If psychology, logic, and ethics do not throw light upon matters of education, what will? Given a man to whom the human mind is not a closed book, who is familiar with inductive and deductive methods, and with the philosophy of science, who, in fact, has studied the springs and rules of conduct, will he not be a better educator or even a better teacher than the man who has from the first been confined to research in his special subject, who has no interests beyond it, and whose whole horizon is affected by the narrowness of his field of vision ? The mere amount of one's knowledge is no guarantee of teaching power ; excessive erudition may even have a bad effect on it. What is the great art in teaching as well as in writing ? " To know where to stop." Now, enthusiasm leads the man whose knowledge is wide to tell all he knows ; a noble but an unprofitable enthusiasm. If wt are to teach science, literature, and history t^ the young, we must place ourselves at a point so high that we can feel a kind of detachment from details ; a philosopher would certainly be more capable, as a rule, of doing this than a mere specialist. In Germany, each teacher is required to be proficient in two of the three great divisions of instruction. We should at least expect our masters to have a sound knowledge of psychology, ethics, aesthetics, logic, and cosmology, so that they can teach either philosophy or their special subject. Having the philosophical spirit, they will, ipso facto, have the best part of the pedagogic spirit. They will look at questions from a higher point of view, and will see them in their real place in the sum of human knowledge. They will no longer attach the same importance to details of scientific, THE NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY. 259 literary, historical, and geograpliical erudition. As psyclio- logists, they will be better acquainted with the faculties tliey have to cultivate ; as moralists, they will see the end at which they must aim, and will give to their teaching the moral and patriotic warmth which is its very essence. As cosmologists, they will add the philosophy of nature to the knowledge of nature ; the properties of fluorine or bromine, the laws of the dilatation of bodies, or of electro-magnetism will not hide from their view the great cosmic laws of which physical and chemical laws are only a transformation. Our future teachers must receive a good classical, and especially a good philosophical education. We have seen how philosophy, besides being the basis of pedagogy in general, is necessary to teachers of science to prevent them from specializing and from narrowing down their mental field, and thus narrowing down an instruction which should be an opening out upon the cosmos. It is to be desired that science should be taught to the young by men reproducing in themselves a little of that universal spirit displayed by the greater savant-^hilo&o^herB — Aristotle, Descartes, Pascal, and Leibnitz. The tests at entrance to the normal schools are very difficult because of the need of selection ; nothing could be better, but a preliminary selection should eliminate all candidates who have had no literary training and have not been through a sound course of instruction in philosophy. We must put an end to the invasion of the profession by men who know no Latin and no philosophy. Men whose special subjects are history, literature, mathematics, etc., should be compelled to study these psychological and meta- physical principles which are paramount in their subjects, and they should also study the moral and social inferences to be drawn from these subjects. This would be a means of preventing that excessive specialization which, as I have shown, is an intellectual injustice, a mental demoralization. To be able to write an essay on a subject in psychology, ethics, logic, or the philosophy of science is the least we can expect from a future teacher ; it is, so to speak, the minimum 260 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. in a pedagogic diploma. If the essay in philosopliy is the true centre of gravity of the boy's work, it is so a fortiori for the masters. In our normal schools, the science students should take an additional course in philosophy, social, economic, and political science. If philosophy, in our days, must be scientific, science, in its turn, had never greater need of being philosophical. CHAPTER VII. EXAMINATIONS AT THE END OF SCHOOL-LIFE. ABITURIENTENEXAMEN. In former days the baccalaureat, or leaving-examinatioii, was reached in the ordinary course of events after a regular course of study. In those days the baccalaureat did not absorb the whole attention of the student as it does at present. Why.? Because the examination was less en- cyclopgedic, more distinctly literary, and less pseudo-scientific. To this type we must revert and so diminish the play of chance and the unexpected. Chance only comes into play when the programme is too wide, and then mainly in the viva voce. By reducing the programmes to what is absolutely necessary in science and history, the authorities would have the right to increase the severity of the test in all that is an active mental exercise. It is therefore essential that the written examination should be as severe in these subjects as possible — of course taking into account the age of the candidates. One criterion may be employed to distinguish between the fundamental and the accessory in examinations. Every- thing that can be learned from a manual is accessory ; everything that cannot is fundamental. History, geography, science, biographies of illustrious writers, summaries of literary history, can all be learned from little handbooks ad usum asinorum. But you cannot learn from a manual how to write your own tongue or Latin, or to translate, etc. ; you cannot learn the really important parts of philosophy from a 2G2 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. manual ; the student would soon betray his ignorance. In examinations, then, we must make short work of all questions to which the answers are already given, packed in a little m-18 at Is. 6d. On the other hand, we may be as severe as we please on the personal work of the student, on all that tests a good or bad intellectual, literary, or philosophical instruction. Suppose we wished to test a man's bodily strength. Instead of trying him with a dynamometer or with lifting heavy weights, he is questioned at length on works on gymnastics and made to give a list of processes and to write out courses of exercises ; he is asked about the contests of the Greeks and Romans, and a hundred other equally relevant matters. Is that how a man will become strong and give proof of his strength ? But that is never- theless how we proceed to develop and test his intellectual power ; we make our students learn by heart and quote, and we question and question for ever ; and to the student who retails or writes out most answers we give the diploma he seeks. This is not the way. Translation, essays, composi- tion in Latin and the mother tongue, are the real intellectual dynamometer. We must not expect from the student an infinite number of scientific details. By so doing we are requiring our youth to learn — but superficially — the very subject they must learn over again — and this time thoroughly — as soon as they enter the " special " or technical school, or the university. What is the use of this hastily acquired and ill-digested knowledge which, not requiring real mental power, is of no use in later studies ? In the interest of " specializing " would it not be better, as in Germany, to require a good culture of the faculties and a thorough knowledge of the elements ? Besides, is it not more logical to expect from the young, not what will be required from them again and what it is definitely proposed to teach them, but what will not be again required from them ? The final examination should preserve the unity of a general classical training by requiring from all pupils a EXAMINATIONS AT THE END OF SCHOOL-LIFE. 2G3 fundamental knowlcdgo of Latin, Greek, science, and philosophy, in addition to the mother tongue. At the same time, it should comprise a further test in either —literature and science (for doctors), literature and philosophy, literature and mathematics, or economical and industrial science. 264 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER YIII. PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PLACE IN HIGHER EDUCATION. I. Theoretically, higher instruction has a twofold object : to sum up the noblest achievements of science and civiliza- tion, and to discuss the latest scientific, philosophical, historical, and literary problems. Higher instruction must not therefore merely consist in the exhibition of known truths ; it must comprise discussion, criticism, and research. The young man must take his part in the work of science and must " co-operate in the progress of civilization." Unfortunately, improvement meets with an obstacle in the ever-increasing " speciahzing " to which our higher instruc- tion is tending. A young man, for example, devotes himself to history or law, and takes no further interest in the progress of natural science, anthropology, or philosophy, although it is upon them that history and law are based. Similarly, the medical student neglects the moral and social sciences, although these are intimately connected in many ways with medicine. The great antinomy of the universities is that, while they ought to be the centres of pure specu- lation, they betray a fatal tendency to becoming merely technical schools. The wonderful and partly mythical accounts we read of the German universities exercise a kind of fascination on a certain order of mind. The number of masters and courses, the number of students, and the activity everywhere manifest, excite astonishment when compared with the state of things in France. But, in the first place, the phenomenon is not so extraordinary as it seems ; it is simply due to the absence in Germany of schools like our great normal and polytechnic PHILOSOPHY, ITS PLACE IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 2C5 schools, to the blending of the faculties of law and medicine with the faculties of literature and science, and finally to the fact that the universities supply the country with Protestant pastors, and that importance is attached to the theological faculty by the German clergy. If we were to realize the dreams that are haunting some of our reformers, and were to suppress with a dash of the pen all our great schools, and to combine all the faculties — theology included — into universities ; if we were to allow every doctor in letters, science, law, medicine, etc., to give courses of lectures, to close those lectures to all not lond fide students, and to charge a fee for the course each student takes — all our students would be gathered into the great towns, i.e. our future engineers, lawyers, doctors, etc., our future teachers, who would get no professional training without a preliminary university career, and our future priests who, if France were Protestant, would only be able to take holy orders after a university course. This would be a struggle for life and for profession, a universal sauve qid pent. The number of students would be tripled or quadrupled as in Germany ; and to this must be added the amateurs, the rich young fellows, who, at present, go to Paris to " read for the bar," or to amuse themselves, or to read science, literature, philosophy, or history. As each teacher would have the power to gather around him a school or " seminary " for his own special subject, we should have schools of this kmd scattered broadcast everywhere ; students would flock to the most successful teacher, and change their master at will. The faculties of science would certainly display activity, because they would be turning out engineers, doctors, officers for the army, etc. So would the faculty of letters, because it would be training our future teachers ; and the faculty of theology, because (by hypothesis) it would be training priests for the whole of France. The professors at the universities would compete in order to attract them to their chairs, and also, as a matter of fact, to increase their emoluments. The students would organize, fight duels, and 266 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. keep the streets of Caen, Toulouse, and Nancy alive day and night. In fact, it would be very much like Germany transported into France. The only question that remains is — Would this activity be as beneficial to science as is sup- posed by those who base their hopes on the restoration of the universities, and even on the suppression of the special schools ? We should see our professors become " coaches " for examinations, and students would spend their four years, some doing nothing — as is the case with most students in law and medicine — and the rest working for their diplomas at special and " paying " subjects. This cannot fail to happen in Germany, and is what is actually happening in that country. According to Deputy Lasker and an anonymous writer (who is known to be an eminent professor), the old obligatory courses, and in par- ticular those on philosophy, having been suppressed, " students are attached to the directly practical courses they need." To all else they are profoundly indifferent. The universities are so only in name ; they are merely collections of "special schools for all tastes and all interests." Dis- interested work has given place to realism and utilitarianism. This anarchy is making its effects felt in Germany — witness the complaints of even the Eector of Berlin University, M. Dubois-Reymond — as it has done in Belgium for some time. If we dethrone the humanities, our professors in the faculties, who, after all, are now free to devote themselves to pure science if they have the capacity for so doing, will become the servants of the different professions. Certainly each university should adapt itself to the practical ends of the liberal professions, but its most important task is the completion of a high scientific culture. Besides, we must not forget that even practical work depends upon the study of theories ; general culture should therefore be the basis of special studies. II. The best solution of the difficulties raised by the organization of higher instruction lies in the sound organiza- tion of philosophy and social science. These studies should PHILOSOPHY, ITS PLACE IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 2G7 have the same function in the universities as in the secondary schools ; they should synthesize and point out the ulti- mate direction of all other studies ; they should ensure the harmony of the different sciences and of the different faculties, and thus endue the whole organism with life. The opposition between the three faculties of philosophy, science, and literature, which originally sprang from the purely formal character of the last and the scholastic character of the first, must cease. Nowadays, as M. AngiuUi* remarks, all the subjects of the literary section — hngaistics, philology, gesthetics, history — have taken a scientific direction, and have as basis the data of natural and of mental science. Not only therefore is opposition fatal, but separation is equally so. The higher science which exhibits the unity, homogeneity, and continuity of the laws and methods of all other sciences, the " first " science, which lays down the principles, rules, and objects of all special subjects, is philosophy. " If philosophy is the basis of the sciences," says Zeller, "the faculty of philosophy should be the basis of the other faculties. Further, in a better organization, the course of philosophy should be obligatory to the students in every faculty, and there they would find the reason for and the complement of the special subjects they are taking up. When division of subjects had not reached the extreme which is now so full of danger to the progress of culture, it was customary for all to take the course in philosophy. Now it is shown that philosophy is no longer possible without the special sciences, and that they, on the other hand, find their real significance and harmony in the unity of philosophy, we feel the need of a reversion, in a more explicit form, to the primitive harmony." The university, in Zeller's opinion, is more than a mere union of different faculties ; its importance lies in the philosophical co-operation of their methods and forces.f * " La Filosofia e la Scuola." t " Vortrage und Abhaadlungen," ii,, 455, 465. Cf. Angiulli, ibid., l». 406. 268 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION, A HUMOURIST, drawing a picture of society as it will be, introduces us to a school of the future. Deep silence ; boys motionless on their seats ; what clever boys ! I should think so ! they are asleep. A master enters, hypnotizes them, and says " Sleep ! " and straightway proceeds with his lecture, as learned as you please, and overloaded with minute details. *' Eemember all this when you wake ; awake ! " The whole class rushes off to its recreation, and, without any effort, each brain has registered word for word all that was said by the master. This is the ideal of modern teachers — the making of the memory a storehouse. Un- fortunately, nineteenth-century brains have not as yet acquired this marvellous faculty of registering facts under hypnotic suggestion. Our system of instruction, principally with regard to history, geography, and, lastly, foreign languages, is based upon a series of psychological blunders, especially with reference to the nature of the memory. It is of great importance that these blunders should be corrected by a knowledge of the most recent psychological investigations, so that the existing system of pseudo-instruction may be reformed from its very foundations. The fundamental error I have shown to consist in a misconception of the true means of improving the memory and the judgment, or, in a word, of acquiring permanent and subsequently useful knowledge. It is now recognized by psychologists and physiologists that the memory is c^^'i* CONCLUSION. 2(;9 ditioiial on the occurrence of paths in the brain between certain celhiles ; the vibration of celkile a is communicated to cellule Z', and by this means of communication one idea awakens another and thus association is estabhshed. When the nervous path is excited, but not actually formed by a nervous current, we have a simple retention of ideas, or rather a possibility of recollection ; if the brain-path is formed by a current, we have an effective recollection of ideas. This being so, what are the conditions of a good memory ? Since the memory is altogether conditioned on brain-paths, its excellence in a given individual will depend partly on the number and partly on the persistence of these paths. The persistence of the paths, which is the cause of the tenacity of the memory, is a physiological property of the cerebral tissue, whilst the number of the paths, which constitutes the wealth stored up in the memory, is entirely due to the facts within the mental experience of the indi- vidual. Xow, as far as the tenacity of the memory is concerned, it is a native quality, varying with the age (a maximum in childhood and a minimum in youth) and with the state of the health, but upon which exercise has either very little effect, or immediately exhausts its possible effect. If you want your memory to be tenacious, you only have to take care of your health and avoid fatiguing the brain ; these are the sole means at your disposal. The contrary opinion is widespread, especially among parents and teachers. A¥e are constantly hearing that we must " develop the memory," by, for instance, making the child learn many lessons by heart. Mr. W. James has shown by reasoning and by experiment how false this prejudice is. We can trace many or few lines more or less deeply in the sand, but that in no degree changes the degree of natural tenacity of the sand ; similarly we cannot notably increase the degree of tenacity of the cerebral tissue. The following is one of Mr. James's experiments.* During eight successive days * '* Psychology," vol. i. p. 6G7, et seq. 270 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. he learned 158 lines of Yictor lingo's " Satyre." The total nnmber of minutes required for this was 131-f. He then, working for twenty odd minutes daily, learned the entire first book of "Paradise Lost," occupying 38 days in the process. After this training he went back to Victor Hugo's poem, and found that 158 additional lines took him 151^ minutes, z.e. 20 minutes longer than the previous 158. This, then, is the effect of many lessons learned by heart to " exercise the memory " I The experiment was continued by Dr. W. H. Burnham, Mr. E. S. Drown, Mr. C. H. Baldwin, Mr. E. A. Pease, etc. The result was that they learned by heart no more rapidly after eight days' training than before. On learning a series of nonsense-syllables, the average time of the second series was considerably shorter than the first. This seems to show the effects of rapid habituation to the nonsense-verses. There are even curious oscillations from series to series, which seems to prove that the attention itself oscillates.* As for forgetting again, it was almost immediate. Mr. James consulted several experienced actors on this point, and all denied that " the practice of learning parts has made any such difference as is alleged. What it has done for them is to improve their power of studying a part systematically. Their mind is now full of precedents in the way of intonation, emphasis, gesticulation; the new words awaken distinct suggestions and decisions ; * the new ideas ' are caught up, in fact, into a pre-existing network, and thereby are recollected easier, although the mere native tenacity is not a wliit improved, and is usually, in fact, impaired by age. It is a case of better remembering by better thinking." Mr. James also consulted a clergyman who had mar- vellously improved his power by learning sermons by heart. This gentleman replied, " Memory seems to me the most physical of intellectual powers. Bodily ease and freshness have much to do with it. Then there is a great difference * Vide Ebbinghaus, " Ueber das Gedachtniss, experimentelle Unter- suchungen " (1885). CONCLUSION. 271 of facility in method. I used to commit sentence by sen- tence. Now I take the idea of the whole, then its leading divisions, then its subdivisions, then its sentences." It is clear, moreover, that numerous connecting links are estab- lished by habit between each sermon and its predecessors ; at bottom, the same ideas, the same processes of division, development, and style, are to be found in each. It is not surprising that, after a training extending over several years, a sermon should be more rapidly learned, that the intellect should acquire dexterity in finding its way amid the usual arguments and texts; but it always remains doubtful if the cerebral capacity of retention, as such, has suffered any profound modification. Training can perfect meiliods of study, association of ideas, attention, and judgment, but it cannot modify the organic memory with which the young are naturally gifted. Hence, if the educator pays attention only to the memory, he is losing time ; the only possible method of action is by attending to the association of ideas. He may interest, exercise, and perfect the attention, he may increase the number of cerebral paths, and finally, he may increase the number of functional connections between the different cerebral paths, and systematize the ideas in the intellect ; thus only can he facilitate and make more certain the recollection of one idea by means of another. The condemnation of "cramming" for examinations is a consequence of the best-established laws of memory and forgetfulness. What is learned in a short time for a single occasion and for a single purpose, cannot have formed in the mind many associations with other ideas ; the number of cerebral paths which terminate in this hasty and recently acquired knowledge is very small ; they remain isolated from the mass, and are ready to disappear into an inevitable oblivion. A month after the examination, almost nothing is left. The memory, properly so called, has even less vigour than before ; the brain will be fatigued, the intellect will have developed but little, because the ideas 272 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. are confused and disordered. " Cramming " is therefore as futile as the sieve of the Danaids.* On the contrary, says Mr. James, "the same materials taken in gradually, day after day, recurring in different contexts, considered in various relations, associated with other external incidents, and repeatedly reflected on, grow into such a system, form such connections with the rest of the mind's fabric, lie open to so many paths of approach, that they remain permanent possessions. This is the intellectual reason why habits of continuous application should be enforced in educational establishments. The great memory for facts which a Darwin and a Spencer reveal in their books is not incom- patible with the possession on their part of a brain with only a middling degree of physiological retentiveness. Let a man set himself early in life to the task of verifying such a theory as that of evohition, and facts will soon cluster and cling to him like grapes to their stem. Their relations to the theory will hold them fast ; and the more of these the mind is able to discern, the greater the erudition will become. Meanwhile the theorist may have httle, if any, desultory memory. Unutilizable facts may be unnoted by him, and forgotten as soon as heard. An ignorance almost as encyclopasdic as his erudition may coexist with the latter, and hide, as it were; in the meshes of its web. ... In a system, every fact is connected with every other by some thought-relation. The consequence is that every fact is retained by the combined suggestive power of all the other facts in the system, and f orgetfulness is well-nigh impossible." Hence, from whatever point of view we set out, we arrive at the conclusion that instruction is not an affair of memory, but of intellectual systematization ; it is not the quantity read, heard, or written, 'that can either perfect the memory or increase our knowledge ; this can only be done by (1) the order established between our ideas; (2) our - interest in those ideas. The more numerous and the better arranged * Vide Guyau, " EJucation and Heredity," p. 136. CONCLUSION. 273 are the facts associated in your mind with this or that idea, the more rii,^ht you have to say that you know that fact, and that you will be able to make use of it afterwards. There are numerous avenues openins^ on the fact which you nriy foUoAV in case of need ; it will become as it were the centre of a number of lines of railway, a capital or important town on the map of your brain. We see, then, that our system of instruction is opposing its own ends ; it goes on multiplying the number of subjects, and so makes them cease to serve their purpose. And as cerebral capacity is limited, one part of the brain is only filled at the expense of the rest. Each teacher retails all he knows, and the more he retails the less his pupils will know about it. He must always, on the contrary, say to himself at the beginning of a lesson : I am going to teach a number of things which for the most part will be utterly forgotten in a week, or a month, or a year ; what must I throw into relief, and save from the general wreck ? And further, assuming that the letter of my teaching is entirely forgotten, what is the spirit that should survive, what is the moral and intellectual perfection that will result from what I have said, even when the memory no longer retains a single word of my lesson ? The worst feature in the modern mind, which, more- over, the system of instruction by the passive storing up of facts accentuates, is dispersion of thought. The objects of knowledge have become so numerous that they must, as far as ordinary intellects are concerned, remain in a state of chaos. Either there is a desire to learn everything, and only superficial, inaccurate, and disconnected knowledge is acquired, or there is a wish to take up thoroughly a par- ticular science and we are at once in the depths of a " speciality " whence no horizon is visible. Strengthened on one point, the mind is weakened on othere, as is the case with disequilibrated organisms in which one part, developed at the expense of the rest, becomes entirely abnormal. Are we to be superficial or are we to be narrow ? that is the 20 274 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. dilemma from which training in science, in history, or even in literature if taken alone, cannot escape. M. de Laprade has devoted a volume to " L'Education Homicide." From a still broader point of view we might write a volume on the education that is destructive to the race, on Vedmation ethnidde. As Guyau says, in overloading the memory our main concern nowadays is to obtain the " maximum crop " from each individual — almost as if a farmer were to take the most luxurious harvest he could get from a field for several consecutive years, without restoring to it what it has lost ; the field would be exhausted for a long time to come. This is what happens, Guyau adds, to races that are overworked, but with this difference, that rest and lying fallow will restore to land its original fertility, whereas an overworked race must degenerate and eventually dis- appear.* It is clear that, in the instruction of our youth, we are far too much concerned with visible and imme- diate fruits, with all that is attractive or of immediate utility ; we do not attempt to husband and store up our forces, nor do we concern ourselves with the future fertility of the soil with which we have to deal. " The real qualities of a race are not wasted because they are not immediately brought to the light of day ; on the contrary, they accu- mulate, and the treasure of genius is rarely found but in the coffers in which the poor have amassed their wealth from day to day, instead of spending it in follies." The acquisition of knowledge is therefore a far less important matter than its organization^ which alone ensures persistence and brings it into play. "We know the physio- logical law which was observed by Isidore Saint-Hilaire, and on which Spencer rightly lays great stress— the inverse variation of increase of volume or height with the develop- ment of the internal structure. In the chrysalis the volume is not increased, and the weight even diminishes, while the internal structure is actively developing, the metamorphosis * " Education and Heredity," p. x. CONCLUSION. 275 is rapidly taking place, and the wings emerge, ready to open. So with the development of knowledge ; acquired knowledge, to be of real use, must be organized. An exces- sive increase of scientific or literary knowledge will in pro- portion diminish the organization — which, however, is far tlie most important ; the chrysalis will be unable to unfold its wings or even to form them. II. The pretext for this intellectual overwork is the imperative necessity of considering what is useful ; but even from the utilitarian standpoint, what are the essential qualities for success in the higher walks of industry or commerce, for example ? Is it enough to have acquired a certain amount of knowledge ? In the first place, we must have, with respect to the intellect, the inventive, imagina- tive, and initiative spirit ; with respect to the will, we must have energy and the love of work. Now, the spirit of in- vention, from which industrial genius and talent, as well as scientific genius, must spring, is not acquired by a simple process of storage. If a man's memory is loaded with results, and if he is incapable of going back to first prin- ciples and of methodically reconstructing the whole, he is not a savant, and may very well be unintelligent. What makes the savant and the business man is reasoning com- bined with imagination ; the way to learn a science or an industry is to partially reconstruct it one's self, to reinvent it by passing over the paths marked out by others so as to follow the connection of first principles and final conclusions. The man who has mentally constructed a part of the edifice of physics, for instance, and who perfectly understands that part vrith the interconnection of its laws, is a better physicist than the man who know^s by heart all the results of physics. It is therefore not so much the mass of acquired knowledge that has to be considered, as the mental power developed. Literary exercises, as we have seen, are emi- nently adapted to the development of imagination, ingenuity, and invention. At the same time, they develop the taste — 276 EDUCATION JFROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. another important element in industrial success. Then comes the development of the will, and here again is a law misunderstood by our system of forcing, for success in the practical application of science, as in all other employment of the activity, depends less on the sum total of knowledge acquired than upon the energy of the will. In a great measure this energy depends upon cerebral vigour ; genera- tions overworked by their scientific training and physically enfeebled, eventually lose their will-power. The hasty and excessive culture of the intellect and memory must therefore defeat its own end — utility eliminates the strongest cha- racters by selection to the advantage of the weak. So that not only does the storing up of scientific facts in the memory make neither the true savant nor the great manufacturer, but it further tends to rob them of the fund of energy, initiative, and enterprise without which success is impossible. The more the programmes are overcrowded " with a vieiv to industry and commerce," and that at the expense of classics and the true humanities, the more the spirit of routine, of passivity, and of mechanical imitation is developed, the more are the will and intellect enfeebled. Further, the true interests of the higher paths of industry and science are but ill conceived without a highly intellectual, sesthetic, and moral culture. III. We have just seen that moral culture tends, by the indefinite increase of the number of subjects in the curri- culum, to become more and more extensive and less and less intensive; this is an evil which must be remedied. The greater the variety of the objects of thought, the more in- tensive must be the education of the thinking student to avoid its becoming superficial and sterilizing. On the other hand, if we are limited to one kind of intensive culture, having as its aim a special class of determined subjects, we shall eventually have a narrow and "specialist" education but ill adapted to a social environment which is becoming ever wider. How can the antinomy be avoided ? By the CONCLUSION. 277 method which Giiyau proposed, the idea of whieh lie borrowed from modern culture of the soil — i.e. the method of rotation of crops, which enables our culture to be at ouce intensive and varied. After a rigorous elimination of what is not essential, we must take the three or four fundamental subjects in all systems of secondary education, carry them to a higher degree of intensity, and make them succ^-cd each other so that in the case of both the mind and the soil variety may give the needed rest in an age in which the mind can no more He fallow than the soil. This is the only way of keeping the race fit for its work without sterilizing it by over-pressure. I have shown in this volume that the subjects essential to an intensive training are — literature, the general theory of the sciences, and philosophy. The ideal end of humanity is clearly moral and social life carried to its highest degree ; the subjects connected with man and society are those of which the development and triumph will be seen in the future ; in this direction, therefore, must education be orientated. Thus, in a measure, we have marked the object of all instruction ; moral and social ideas with their accompanying sentiments seem to me to be the end of educa- tion ; the literary, historical, and philosophical humanities on the one hand, and the scientific humanities on the other, are the means of attaining this end. But literature, general history, and philosophy have a breadth that scientific studies do not possess ; they do not bring into play the intellect alone ; they affect the sensibility and the will, the heart and the character ; they are already penetrated by social and moral ideas ; they are therefore much nearer the ulti- mate goal than mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences. For this reason I have given them a more important position than science in a liberal education. I have thus come to an entirely different conclusion from that which Spencer and Bain have adopted, and which has been based upon an inaccurate interpretation of the principles of evolution. 278 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. By tlie side of a really intensive culture on these essential points, we must place an extensive instruction on secondary points. This extensive part of instruction varies with the individual, for each individual cannot learn everything at once. If a thousand subjects are necessary to a civilized nation in these days, that is no reason why the same persons should learn them all. Only, once we admit the principle of a diversity of complementary instruction, we must determine the age at which these various special subjects — each of which is useful to a civilized nation — should be acquired. Now, I have shown that it is not at school that boys should learn the thousand subjects necessary to modern nations ; they are at school to receive a general instruction which can only admit of parts that are interchangeable in the case of studies of really secondary importance. Here, then, we must apply the criterion I have suggested, i.e. the distinction between objects of mere instruction., which, being variable, admit of equivalents, and the general means of lileral education which admit of no equivalents. Thus stated, the problem of modern education is no longer as insoluble as at first sight it appeared. What is the cause of intellectual over-pressure ? whence does overwork arise ? In science ; almost only in science and in its growing multi- plicity of detail. Now, I have shown that the sciences, with their subdivisions and details, are just what are least essential to secondary education. They may well introduce what is new into human knowledge, but they introduce nothing new into education ; I repeat that the third book of Euclid is by no means — from the pedagogic point of view — the revelation of a new world ; the end of chemistry is of the same value as the beginning ; a little more or a little less is of small importance from the educational point of view. It is only therefore with respect to a boy's profession that such know- ledge of scientific details is preferable. Now, even from the professional standpoint, it is of pre-eminent importance to have a well-traiiied mind and a general scientific aptitude. Introduce, therefore, a sound study of the leading branches CONCLUSION. 279 of science, and let each boy afterwards make his choice among the o'ber branches. Here the division of labour may come into play, for, on the whole, all scientific work is of much the same value. On the other hand, in the moral, social, and philosophical order, there are subjects which I feel are absolutely neces- sary to every member of the ruling classes; our schools must not send out into the different professions men whose minds are without philosophical, moral, and civic culture. In this case no equivalents can be admitted. In the first place, nothing can replace a stady so original and unique of its kind as philosophy. Besides, intellectual over-work does not come from this quarter; philosophical science, on the contrary, from its co-ordination of knowledge, pre- sents us with this wonderful advantage — that it simplifies knowledge while it appears to add to it, makes it more easily understood, and retains it by systematizing it. In the second place, do the classical humanities admit of a " real equivalent " ? Should a secondary instruction, based upon the study of modern languages, on that of the mother tongue, on a wider and more practical study of science — should it be called the equal of classical instruction, equal in value, and equal in its sanctions ? My answer was in the negative. 1 think, in fact, that it has been placed beyond a doubt that the problems of education can be judged neither in the abstract nor in individual cases, but that they must be looked at from the point of view of general means, great national and international interests. I have shown the most striking instance of this in the question of " Latin," which is at the present moment the subject of such debate. From the abstract point of view, Latin and Greek do not seem to be absolutely necessary to education ; nor do they seem any the more necessary for given individuals, if tliose individuals are well-endoAved, and have educators skilful enough to replace the dead languages by a good modern instruction. But, when it is a question of knowing the 280 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. best method of elevating and instructing the youth of the ruling classes in a given country for several generations, it is very clear that the question is altered. We have no longer to consider the objects of study in themselves, either abstractly or in their action on given individuals ; we must consider all the " ins and outs," the general system with which each particular subject is connected, all the national and international reactions of the method of instruction selected, the spirit it tends at first to develop in the young, and then in the social class to which they belong ; the tenden- cies to which a given type of instruction will respond, and the particular or general interests it brings into play. In short, it is a problem of such complexity that only a hght head and a " light heart " would upset the instruction of a nation with a dash of a pen. Every part of public instruc- tion holds together; the present basis cannot be changed without an infinite series of consequences and effects, some fortunate and others the contrary. One of the partisans of " classical French training " has said, " The State must run no risks in the matter of instruc- tion, because its initiative affects the whole community, and because it is far more difficult to repair the effects of ill- conceived or badly carried out attempts when they affect the whole of the social body." Individuals and private institu- tions may be as daring as they please, and miay undertake to do anything in the matter of education, for their attempts never cover more than a partial field of application, and have only a limited range of influence.* The most zealous of the promoters of the new " French classical instruction" have expressed their fears on seeing the authorities ready to institute this system throughout the country, and thus to provoke a kind of pedagogic revolution. " All we ask for," they say, " is a few experiments ; let us have a few lyceums, and test our system progressively, instead of starting with a talnla rasa^ Wise words, but ♦ Feineuil, "Les rrincipes de 1789," p. 269. CONCLUSION. 281 a little ingenuous, perhaps. It is an excellent plan to make a few experiments instead of upsetting everything ; but individual experiments, after all, will prove nothing, or at most very little. Here are some of the most distinguished university men, who have themselves received the most complete classical culture, whose successes at the university have been due to the very classical training against which they are now protesting ; they have a new and enthusiastic faith in the virtues of this modern system — as they conceive it; we are to hand over to such men as these a whole lyceum, which they will pit against the classical lyceums. In other words, it is proposed to make a trial of the so-called French and modern instruction, by means of teachers who are nurtured in antiquity and the classical humanities, and who also are animated by the sincerest patriotism. Under such conditions, such a lyceum must be singularly unlucky if it does not compare favourably with its rivals. In reality, all boys would be trained in the same spirit, and would have been subjected to the influences of ancient literature, some directly, and others indirectly, but under the same class of teachers, prepared for their vocation by the same training. No definite conclusion could be drawn from such a plan. But generalize the system, subject all the secondary schools to the new regime; let the teachers gradually grasp its spirit; let families and children be accustomed to see in instruction an immediate advantage, an apprenticeship to the profession of to-morrov/; and we must ask ourselves — will the literary and artistic, the philosophical, the dis- interested, and really humane spirit be able to resist this growing invasion of instruction by utilitarian prejudices and scientific exigencies — and that at a time when the religious spirit is becoming weaker ? That is the problem. It cannot be solved by discussions on the intrinsic value of Latin, Greek, or German, or by isolated experiments in the lyceums. Even if the experiment were made on the largest scale, the effects would not be felt until later. The same teachers, teaching other subjects, will still be saturated with 282 EDUCATION FKOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. tlie same spirit, and will make bojs members as it were of the same family ; but wait a few generations I Are our reformers so sure of the effects of their proposals as to venture on such an experiment on a vast scale — and that, too, without other nations domg the same ? If they are so certain, if they imagine that by merely teaching the mother tongue and the usual languages they can face the invasion of purely scientific and materially useful studies, the barbarism of the scientific and of the industrial world which threatens our democracies, they cannot be too much admired. Once the sources of literature and art are dried up, or reduced to an almost imperceptible pool containing barely enough to slake the thirst of a few insects, we shall gradually see this utili- tarian and scientific drought affecting the ruling classes, we shall see a middle class eager to gain, "ever hurrying onward," wholly abandoned to the struggle for existence, for wealth, and for power, with no criterion of education but the eternal " What use is it ? " This will be the reign of universal platitude. The French are reproached with their formal art, their formal literature, their dilettantism, and their lack of sober steadiness. I am far from refusing to acknowledge that there is something plausible in this reproach ; but we must go to the true causes of the evil to find the true remedy. Our classical training is blamed ; but in other countries it does not produce the same results. It is not therefore the fault of Latin or Greek, but, no doubt, it is the fault of the French and their ancestors, the Gauls. Again, the methods in use in a classical training are blamed. There is more truth in this. Our methods certainly are mainly directed to the turning out of men of letters, writers and readers of delicate taste. But must we renounce these qualities under the pretence of correcting our faults ? Every quality has its opposite defect. It is dangerous to attempt to stamp out entirely the defects of a race, with which in a measure its vital force is bound up. Suppress the active methods of composition in the mother tongue and in Latm, adopt CONCLUSION. 283 the methods of German erudition, reading texts at sight, running commentaries, etc., and we shall not even make our bojs " erudite " in the German fashion ; we shall only succeed in making them heavy and dull. Similarly, replace Latin and Greek by science and modern languages, and we lose our men of letters, and our real savants. We do not thereby prevent our young French lads from being fickle, often superficial, dogmatic, and simplistes. Not only do we not obliterate their defects, but by the less refined education we exaggerate them, and they lose their corre- sponding good qualities. I have already pointed out that, from the moral and civic point of view, the types of education given to the masses, to women, and to the middle classes, are all of the same value, have the same social importance, and should be on the same level. But from the point of view of litera- ture, science, art, and philosophy, the three types of educa- tion cannot be identified. Primary instruction or even the secondary education of ivomen is one thing, the training of merely receptive minds, but secondary instruction for males is quite another, for it should train and form productive minds, minds with initiative. For this purpose a second- hand instruction is no longer sufficient. Instead of lowering the level of the classical training, and that under the pretence of our being a democracy, it should be maintained at a high level in the very interests of the democracy. What are the reproaches aimed at a democratic regime? The artisan, it is said, recognizes no labour but manual labour, and takes bodily effort as a measure of the service rendered and the reward earned. It is with difficulty that an artisan can be brought to recognize the utility of capitalists, of the great industrial " contractors," of merchants, " those useless middlemen and parasites." How will things be when it is a question of men wlio are thinlcers by profession ? — philosophers, artists, men of letters, etc., whom M. Frary himself, as we have seen, treats as unproductive. Leave the direction of instruction 284 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. to the democracy and its far too direct representatives, its politicians, and realism and utilitariansm must inevitably invade it. In one of the best of the American reviews,* Mr. Weinschell, speaking of the influence of democracy on instruction, tells us that, under the influence of popular control, nations that for many years were celebrated for the advantages they afforded in the way of instruction, have sunk to an amazing degree of inferiority. In one of the states of New England the population is increasing, and the school attendance is decreasing. Even in the most in- telligent parts of the country the towns are incessantly try- ing to reduce the cost of the better class of schools by the elimination from the curriculum of science and languages, so that in a few districts it has actually been proposed to suppress all public instruction but that given in the primary schools. " We cannot help being struck," says M. Scherer, in 1883, " by the coincidence of these facts with the repugnance of the municipal council of Paris to favour the development of secondary education." f Another reproach levelled at democracies is the increasing mediocrity of their rulers. " It is in vain to deny," says M. Scherer, " that the masses are ignorant and incapable. They have no time for education." In fact, besides the tendency to mediocrity and the envy of superiority, one of the greatest dangers of a democracy is its passion for simple ideas and absolute principles. Having no time to reflect or to examine things in the complexity of their real details, a democracy is con- tent with elementary and general ideas, upon which it bases its opinion on all subjects. Now, if the mediocre and simple minds are to decide matters of instruction, if, more- over, they fashion after their own image and for their own use a mediocre and commonplace system of useful languages and useful sciences, what will become of the higher culture ? The liberal spirit must be maintained in a democracy, and we must therefore struggle against political or religious * North American Review^ February, 1883. + "La Democratie et la Frauce," p. 110. CONCLUSION. 285 party spirit. If education, as in France, is almost entirely popular and primary in its character, the liberal spirit will be gradually enfeebled ; reactionary and clerical influences on the one hanci, and demagogic and socialistic influences on the other, will divide the masses, and each side will be as tyrannical in its tendency as the other. But our classical schools, on the contrary, are the focus of liberal ideas, and are therefore the safety of the democracy, which, without them, is handed over to the demagogy or despotic reaction ■which every demagogy provokes. This principle being laid down, if we suppress in our secondary schools what is in a measure the sensible criterion of a liberal secondary system, and which in the instincts of the masses visibly differentiates it from primary higher instruction — I mean Latin, etc. — we shall see the municipalities abandon the secondary schools (which cost money to support) in favour of higher primary instruction (which is supported by the State). It will be in vain to speak of classical and literary instruction, for neither parents nor their representatives on the local councils will see the necessity of purely national literature. They will put in their main claim for useful and " professional " science ; and if enough science is not given them, they will be content with free primary instruction and its transforma- tions. The ■ sectarian schools, taking the place of the classical schools, will alone profess to keep alight the sacred fire. Unfortunately, this will be to the advantage of a narrow faith and of a political party. Consequently, the so-called democratic instruction will ruin the democracy. I think I have shown from reasons not merely pedagogic, but national and international, the necessity of maintaining the classics as the basis of secondary instruction, especially among neo-Latin races. I have been unable to admit the force of any of the reasons put forward for destroying the unity of secondary instruction, either by bifurcations into so-called equivalent types, or by separations, or by succes- sive " cycles," permitting students to prematurely abandon a complete course of studies. Secondary instruction must 286 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. not use the finances at its disposal for the purpose of cutting itself into sections of an invariably inferior quality. This would be gradual disorganization substituted for organiza- tion. We must not by a specious paralogism proceed from the premiss of the necessary diversity of hierarchic degrees of instruction to the necessary diversity of the same degree of instr action — secondary and liberal education. A " French " education, with the addition of science and modern languages, may be useful to a large number ; but if we rank an incomplete classical training as equal to a complete classical training, the former will favour the utilitarian tendency of the middle and lower classes. It will attract those who, supposing it easier and shorter, will consider it also equal to the latter in dignity and results. The end will be the movement of secondary instruction as a whole, not towards higher but towards primary instruction. ly. The last conclusion to which I have arrived in this volume is that if we do not wish secondary instruction to become disorganized, if we understand that the continual increase of theoretical subjects of knowledge and practical necessities threaten us with a genuine intellectual and even moral chaos, and that in order to strengthen that instruction, we must simplify, and at the same time unify it, it follows that its organization must be philosophical, for it can no longer be religious. An education which does not combine synthesis and analysis has really but one name — dissolution. Life makes no progress without a close organization of materials borrowed from without, by their reduction to a unity of type, aim, and function. Without introducing a course of philosophy into every class in literature and science, we should, and we can, infect each class with the philosophical spirit. The elementary teaching of physics and the natural sciences should comprise an elementary conception of cosmology, which is the simplest form of philosophy. The idea of nature and its great laws should spring into being in the CONCLUSION, 287 child's mind ; wo should feel that admiration of the cosmos which English philosophers call cosmic emotion. Besides, the teaching of history, literature, and m-orals should lead, in a very elementary form, to what the Germans call a philosophy of the mind ; we must make the child grasp the connection of the laws of moral and social progress with those of life and nature. He will thus acquire the senti- ment of the ends of individual and collective existence, the sentiment which is the higher rule of life. In a word, to get a rule of condact from science, we must weld an indis- soluble link between principles of the moral order and the laws of existence. Every lesson should therefore commence by showing the theoretical and practical grandeur^ the beauty, and the philosophical interest of the question under discussion, and its moral or social importance. And similarly, every lesson should end with general, elevated, and philosophical con- clusions. If the development of the different faculties, and principally of the imagination and reason, varies with age, it must always be as simultaneous and convergent in education as in life itself. Condillac has clearly shown that the faculty of reasoning "begins when our senses begin to develop." Locke, in his turn, advises reasoning with children, "Idg- cause they can understand reason as early as they do language."* All subjects should therefore be reasoned, reduced to first principles, and orientated to an end of which the young can see the importance. Thus will they be inspired with a love and respect for the science they are studying. In mathematics, for instance, it is well to make the lessons more, attractive, to throw more light upon the subject, to clearly mark the connection and relative impor- tance of theorems, and not to treat everything on the same plane. Teachers in our days still continue to exhibit in the abstract a rectilinear series of theorems without dis- * "Some Thoughts concerning Education," § 81, p. 125, fifth edition (Tr.). 288 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. tinguishing essentials from accessories ; geometry thus becomes a monotonous chain, all its links being of equal value. The master, on the contrary, should call the atten- tion of the student to the leauti/ of the theorems, and even make him admire them, especially those theorems which are to geometry what the dominating organs are in physiology. And it is well to name the inventors of these beautiful theorems if opportunity offers. For instance, that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles, that the homologous sides of equiangular triangles are pro- portional, that angles in a semicircle are right angles, are certainly beautiful theorems, of infinite fertility, possessing, moreover, an aesthetic value from the laws of symmetry, constancy, and proportion they reveal, and from the role they play in the art of design ; why, then, should they be expounded with the same impassible coldness as all the rest, as dead abstractions, as uninteresting truths, as like one another, as unilinear and monotonous as 8 -f- 3 = 11, 12 + 4 = 16, 13 + 4 = 17, etc. ? Why not name the discoverer of these three theorems, when it is also the name of a philosopher whom the boys should know — Thales, the Greek ? Is it lost time to interest them historically and a3sthetically in these theorems ? Quite the contrary ; time would be gained by this apparent digression, for, thanks to this intelligent and interesting in&moria technica^ the boys would not forget the theorems, and if they did, they still would have retained, so to speak, their spirit and educative substance. Similarly, apropos of such an apparently thankless subject as numeration, is time lost by showing the lads the steps by which humanity reached the present system ? — if we speak of the tribes whose numeration did (or does) not extend beyond three, and who, powerless to express higher numbers, put their hands to their hair as a sign of infinity ; if we show them, in the Sanscrit and Greek forms of the singular and plural, the remains of an age in which they counted only " one," " two," and " many ; " if we tell them that, CONCLUSION. 289 starfcing from one and two, the word " three " originally meant " more than two ; " four, three and one ; five, the hand ; ten, twice five, two hands ; if you remember in Homer Proteus counting his flocks of walruses by fives (the quinary system) ; if you show how numeration advanced but a little further among the Greeks, who did not go beyond the myriad ; if you add that Archimedes iuvented his arenarium to assist himself in speculating on large numbers — for instance to compute the number of grains of sand in the earth ; that languages and especially modem budgets have alone brought into use and made familiar such terms as "miUions," etc., that the words "billion," "trillion," etc., were invented in the sixteenth century ; that a septillion is far beyond human conception, and that if, as Mr. Crookes calculates, the figures of which it is composed were defiling past us at the rate of one hundred millions a second, the passage of this amazing multitude would take 408,501,731 years, i.e. possibly longer than the solar system has existed ; finally, that if a man were to devote his whole life to writing out a list of all the numbers, he would barely be able to write a million millions ? The teaching of science would be really educative, if, as we have shown, it thus appealed to the imagination, to the sentiment, and to the reason, instead of merely to the memory >and to automatic reasoning.* Show how numeration hastens the march of thought, first by addition, and then by multiplication, an abbreviation of a series of additions, and then by raising to powers, which abridges a series of multiplications. " Numeration," it has been said, " advances step by step, addition by leaps, multi- plication by bounds, and powers, as it were by a kind of flight." t Perhaps a child learning multipHcation will have less desire to yawn if he feels his mind is gaining power, and that his thought is finding wings. The history of figures is also very interesting ; every figure is like an ♦ Cf. Book II. t M. BourJeau, " Theorie des Sciences." 21 290 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. individual with its biography, and not the dead sign which children alone see in it. The zero for instance, has its "Odyssey ; " the introduction of the negative sign was nothing short of a revolution. Why not tell its history to children ? No doubt they will forget the details, and of course we must not overload their memories ; but an impression will remain behind — an impression of interest, even of pleasure ; the abstract ideas thus introduced into their minds by concrete paths will be engraven upon them and will never disappear. In a word, and we cannot repeat this too often to science as taught in schools, " Humanize thyself." On the other hand, literature and history are mainly valuable because of the modicum of social science and of the yet ambiguous morality and vague philosophy therein contained : why not throw these educative elements into relief ? The only way of replacing ideas in literary and sesthetic form is, I repeat, to borrow them from mental science. The basis of literature is, in fact, eminently social, moral, metaphysical, and religious ; the natural sciences only contribute their most general results, their great laws, the part of their content which is philosophical and for that reason at once universal and human. Empty phrases and futile declamation will not be avoided because we happen to know the laws of combination of acids and bases. Moral and social science must constitute the basis of education, and it is a dangerous error to take as a basis either mathe- matics (being formal) or physics and the natural sciences, which are lost in the material of things. The remedy for the present evils is not the further deo-radation but the elevation of our instruction; literature and science touch at their summits, and their point of contact is philosophy, the common crown of the humanities with man as their object, and of the sciences which have as their object the external world. "We have seen among studies of the present day that the only subject that is prospering, in spite of what has been called the " general bankruptcy of education," is philosophy. " Our boys," writes M. Lachelicr, CONCLUSION. 29 1 in his report to the Higher Council, "follow philosophical instruction with interest and assimilate it with a facility which has heen noted in the general inspection of this year," It is not only because, in recent years, instead of decreasing, they have increased the work in philosophy (at least in the case of students taking up literature), and because philosophy is more in harmony with the youthful mind than the mere study of words and phrases ; but also and especially because the teachers of philosophy have from their very training a little more of that passion for the progress of ideas and for mental culture or, in a word, of that lay and civic apostleship which is essential in every educator of youths. There is in French philosophy a forward movement, and in the pro- fession our young teachers of philosophy are among the most beloved and respected. Let us take advantage of this healthy enthusiasm, and if something is living and bearing fruit amid the stagnation of classical instruction, let us look towards that side on which are to be found enthusiasm, fruitfulness, and guiding influence. Successive reforms have been attempted in secondary education in France ; first a reform in the direction of the sciences — on which nothing was poured but contempt ; then reform — historical and philological — and more contempt ; and finally industrial and professional reform, a greater blunder still. One resource alone remains — philosophical reform ; i.e. the common co-ordination of literature and science with reference to psychology, and moral and social science, the foundations of the true humanities. This orientation to philosophy is an imperative necessity of the day ; savants, men of letters, historians, and geographers should all aid us in our efforts ; for there are none of them able by their own particular subjects to furnish a basis for modern education. If the religious basis is wavering, there is but one possible way of supplying its place, viz. the culture of the moral and social sciences, the culture of philosophy — especially of a philosophy at once positive and idealistic. To suppose that pure science or hterature ia 292 EDUCATION FEOM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. sufficient to replace the old creeds is idle. Even philosophy and sociology will have all they can do to bring the struggle against the ever-growing realism and utilitarianism of the age to a successful issue. The day is coming, say the prophets, when France will contain little else but priests, poets (if they understand their mission), and philosophers ; what bulwark will there be for our national greatness, but the sentiment of the beautiful, developed by poetry and art, and the sentiment of the good, developed by the knowledge of moral and social laws ? "Whatever may be the value of these prophecies, one thing is at present certain — the evident decrease of religious belief must be met by the increasing culture of the aesthetic, and of the moral and social sense. Education, becoming less and less theological, must be philosophical, or it will cease to exist. APPENDIX L now TO COMBINE A CLASSICAL TRAINING WITH THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. I SHALL attempt to show the possibility of reconciling uith the study of Latin and Greek a system of instruction less formal, more scientific and practical, and at the same time more philosophical, moral, and civic, than that which at present obtains — responding better to the '' needs of modern societies." I shall endeavour to effect a better distribution of work in the existing time-tal)les, and so to introduce therein all that our reformers dream of under the na^e of " classical French instruc- tion." I shall also try to combine with the study of literature and philosophy a sound training in either mathematical or in physical and natural science. In a word, my object is to orientate the whole course towards moral and social science, without any very radical change in the present system. I. Up to twelve yearrf of age I propose no alteration, keeping Latin, which should be begun early, in its present position. 'J'he reformers propose to make children begin Latin at eleven, and they appeal in supi^ort of this proposal to the example of those individuals who have learned Latin in a few years. Thus they want to treat Latin as a living language, which the student learns to know and to use ; they simply want to add one more to the many subjects that have to be crammed during the last years of school-life. This is a new instance of pedagogic aberration ; Latin loses all its virtue — its gradual development of the intellect and taste — if it is reduced to a linguistic indiges- tion of two or three years, as a mass of words and phrases to bo lodged in the storehouse of the memory. Thus understood and 294 APPENDIX I. falsely assimilated to the study of a modern language, the study of Latin would be more harmful than useful. Starting from children of twelve to thirteen, I propose the following modifications : — Latin, Greek, the mother tongue, six classes of 2 hours and one class of 1 hour = 13 hours per \Yeek. Modern languages, one class of 1| hour and a lecture, without exercises, etc. Arithmetic, geometry, two classes of 1 J hour = 3 hours. Roman history ; general geography, one class of 1^ hour. Special subject in geography — America. Drawing, one class of 1 hour. Thus we give an extra half-hour to drawing, and combine history and geography in a single lesson of an hour and a half. The course in geography is a repetition of what has been learned in the previous year, and it is therefore unnecessary to devote to America more than a whole hour per week for an entire year. In the higher divisions, for students intended for industrial and commercial life, we return to America, a pro- found study of the geography of which is really only useful to such students. From 13 to 14 Years of Age. Hours. Latin, Greek, the mother tongue ... ... ... 6 lessons of 2 Modern languages 1 „ „ 1^ (ancl a lecture without preparation on part of student) 1 Algebra and geometry 1 „ „ 1^ Physics 1 »> 55 1^ and 1 „ „ 1 History of Middle Ages ; geography of Africa, Asia, and Oceania ... ... ... ••• ••. ... ... 1 » >• 1^ Drawing 1 >j »> 1 Optional lessons in science for students who have a scientific career in view. Here, as before, the history of the Middle Ages (of but moderate interest) and the geography learned at an earlier period are combined in one lesson, and will be studied in detail later on by students on the commercial and industrial side. The time allotted to x)hysics is ample enough to give a funda- mental instruction in science to all pupils. APPENDIX 1. 295 FiioM 14 TO 15 Years op Age. Hour ■■. asses of 2 1 Latin, Greek, and the mother tongue |- Modern languages (with a lecture of 1 hour) ... ... 1 „ „ 1^ Physiology (with 12 lectures on hygiene) 1 „ „ ]^ Morals 1 History of Middle Ages and of modern times. Geography of Europe 1 „ „ 1^ Drawing (optional) 1 „ „ 2 Lectures in science to be arranged for science students, and these students may also take science in one of 2 hour lessons devoted to Greek per week. Now, by this scheme, at fourteen or fifteen years of age, a general instruction has been given to all boys, and those who are intended for a scientific career may devote to science the rest of their school-life. Pupils destined for literary pursuits have already learned a good deal of science, and fair preponder- ance has been given to mathematics and physics. On the other hand, students in science have already given four years to Greek. This will certainly answer its puri)ose, and will be superior to what the science students of former days had had on leaving school. From sixteen to seventeen a lecture in Greek per week will be quite enough to keep them from forgetting what they have learned. Finally, all students will have received fundamental instruction in modern languages. As soon as the age of sixteen is reached, the student will, as a rule, have made up his mind as to his future career. We can therefore introduce during the last two years of school-lifo sundry accessory subjects without prejudice to the unity of the fundamental subjects. From fifteen to sixteen, Greek becomes a special subject, not required from all students, and the time allotted to Greek may be devoted to other subjects. Instruction to Pupils from 15 to 16 Years of Age. Classes in Fundamental Subjects, common to all Students. Hours. Hours. The mother tongue ... ... 4 Modern history and the Latin ... 4 geography of the mother Modern languages ... ... H country ... ... ... IJ Hours. Mathematics ... 2 Physics 2 Chemistry ::: k Natural history ... 2 296 APPENDIX I. Special Course for Students in Literature. Hours. Hours. Greek 4 Cosmography and chemistry 1^ ^Esthetics and the history of Extra history and geography l| art 1 Special Course for Students in Science and MathemaHcs. Honrs. Mathematical and physical science 7| Extra class in German (or French) 1 Revision of Greek (lectures) 15 Spiecial Course in Physics and Natural Science. Hours, Extra lecture in modern languages... ... ... 1 Extra lecture in Greek, 15 lectures. Practical chemistry. Special Course in Economics and Industrial Science. Hours. Extra lessons in modern languages 3 Commercial and industrial geography of Europe and of the mother country ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 Mathematics — algebra, descriptive geometry, mechanics 2 Physics and applied chemistry 1| Book-keeping, etc ,. 1 Revision of Greek 15 lectures. Practical chemistry. Instruction to Students from 16 to 17 Years of Age, Fundamental Suhjects taken hy all Students. Hours. Philosophy (psychology, the main conclusions of logic, first principles and final conclusions of ethics, natural and mental philosojjhy) ... 5 Contemporary history 1 Course for Students in Literature. Hours. Hours. Extra classes in philosophy. Common law 1 History of philosophy. Revision of mathematics ... 1| Greek, Latin, and French Revision of physics ... ]| (or English, etc.) philo- Drawing (optional) IJ sophers ... ... ... 3 Modern languages (lectures, Political economy IJ optional) 1 Civic and political instruction 1^ APPENDIX I. 297 Course for Students in Mathematics, Honrg. Mathematics and physical science 12 Modern hinguages 1^ Special Course for Students in Physics and Natural Science. Hours. Mathematics ... ... ... .., ... ... ... ... 2 Physics and organic chemistry ... ... ... ... ... 2 Botany 2 Modern languages ... ... ... ... ... ... ... IJ Political economy and social science (in common with students of literature) ... , 1 Civic and political instruction (in common with students of literature) 1 Common law ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 Drav/ing (optional) ... 1 Here I add to physical and natural science a modicum of moral and social science, as I cannot admit that the require- ments of the faculty of medicine (for instance) are so exacting as to necessitate the sacrifice of moral and social science to botany and chemistry, which already are taking up more time than is needed. A doctor exercises a social influence which renders imperative a knowledge of social economy, politics, and common law. Our future doctors should have a really liberal and civic education.* Special Course for Students in Economic and Industrial Science. Hours. Modern languages 3 Mathematics, book-keeping, etc. ... ... ... ... ... 2 Physics and organic chemistry ... l^ Political economy (in common with the students in literature) .,. l| Civic and political instruction ... ... ... ... ... i Legislation 1 Industrial, commercial, and rural economy (for the first half-year) ] J Geography (industrial and commercial) of America, Asia, Africa, Oceania (for the second half-year). Optional lessons in drawing, modern languages, book-keeping, etc. Practical chemistry. On considering the subjects suggested for students intended for commercial and industrial life, we see that they are ample * Here I keep in their true place moral and social science, which in the higher walks of industry and commerce are absolutely necessary, because of the social influence of great manufacturers and merchants. 298 APPENDIX I. for tlie purpose; they only require completion by tecliiiical instruction to become a liberal and utilitarian preparation for industry and commerce. The part assigned to living languages is wide enough to allow of a sound study of one fundamental language (French or German) and of the acquisition of primary notions of a complementary language. More cannot be expected at school ; and those who will take the more responsible positions in the world of industry and commerce cannot dispense with residence abroad for the purpose of learning languages. Enough industrial and commercial geography is taught to familiarize the student with the great producing towns and the great markets. Political economy, civic instruction, consti- tutional law, and legislation have their due share of time. I have merely given to economic and industrial science its legitimate role without prejudicing classical culture. IT. The spirit and the letter of the programmes must be reformed, details too technical for our purpose must be suppressed, and we must add general, philosophical, and historical ideas, adapted to throw light on each study and to make the student understand the end in view. General Observations on the Teaching of Science. The teacher, as J. B. Dumas recommends, must make the teaching of science play its part " in mental culture, and must make it educative." His object will therefore be not to make the student learn much, but to make him learn what is necessary and what is beautiful. Instruction in science will teach (1) a few accurate and characteristic facts selected from the most familiar; (2) the most general and most beautiful laws of science; (3) the principles and conclusions of science, and the most general ideas to which we are led by particular facts. All should bo both interesting and systematized. The teacher must also give as interesting a sketch as possible of the great discoveries. He will avoid abstract explanations, but not the general and even philosophical views which arouse the interest and widen the mental horizon of the young. The teacher will never dictate his lesson ; at most he will dictate a summary as accurate and as brief as possible. He will also avoid mechanical repetitions of his statements. APPENDIX I. 299 As exercises he should require short essays on soine determined subjects ; or an account of an experiment with all its more important consequences ; or a series of written answers to interesting questions ; or, finally, one or more easy problems for solation. The active method must always be preferred to the passive. "The more complicated details," says Dumas, "should be left for the higher instruction given to our future savants, and the teacher should limit himself to the exposition of those simple ideas ivliich everybody ivill need." Dumas also rightly insists upon a change in our method of teaching natural science by processes and school apparatus. Instead of studying the great book of nature, we limit ourselves to experiments with expensive apparatus, the mechanism of which — as complicated as it is unnecessary — masks the thoughts of the inventor and discourages imitation. " The teaching of physics is too often controlled by the apparatus-makers. . . . What could be more simple than the means employed by Volta, Dalton, Gay-Lussac, Biot, Arago, Mains, Fresnel, etc., when they were laying tho foundations of modern physics? . . . Physics must not lower its ideal, nor should it forget to teach an admiration of cosmic phenomena and laws; as taught at present, it simply con- centrates the whole of the attention of the student upon the apparatus employed for exact measurement or for the ascertain- ing of those laws." A very short summary of each science should be placed in the hands of pupils as a text-book. An appendix should contain interesting chapters on scientific subjects, and a history of the great inventions and inventors. It would be advantageous if such text-books were compiled in collaboration by a teacher of science and a teacher of philo- sophy. The special knowledge of the former is indispensable ; the latter — besides his literary and philosophic training in the art of composition, writing, and teaching — would bring to tho subject general and synthetic views, careful simplifications, and finally the desire to make the whole tend to the promotion of intellectual and moral education. The following suggestions are made as to tho reforms which are needed in the programmes at this stage. 300 APPENDIX I. Introduction to the Programme of Physics. 1. Elementary notions of extension, motion, force. Matter and its qualities. Our ignorance of the essence of matter. A few notes on the atoms of Democritus and of Epicurus ; on the importance attached by Dsscartes to the idea of extension, and by Leibnitz to active force. The modesty of the true savant. % The different states of matter. 3. Direction of gravity. Centre of gravity. Weight. The balance. Galileo. The rules of observation in physics. 4. Universal gravity. Descartes, Newton, Laplace. The rules and the importance of hypothesis in physics. Beauty of the Newtonian hypothesis. 5. Hydrostatics. Archimedes, Pascal. Free surface of liquids in equilibrium. Equality of pressure in all directions. Pressure on the sides of vessels. Vessels connected with each other. 6. The law of Archimedes. Specific weight. The Areo- meter. 7. Atmospheric pressure. The barometer. History of its invention. 8. Mariotte's law. His experiments. Piules of experiment in physics. Methods of experiment. Induction. Examples taken from the previous sections. 9. Pneumatic machines. Pumps. Pascal's hydraulic press. 10. Syphon. iErostats. Their history. Role of deduction in physics, etc. The programme to be continued in this manner. Introduction to the Programme in Chemidry. Chemistry ; its importance, beauty, utility, and various appli- cations. A succinct and interesting sketch of its origin and progress. The sacred art of the Egyptians. Arabian alchemy. Eaymond Lulli. Paracelsus. Van Hel- mont. The eighteenth century. Chemistry in England. Priestley and the English chemists. Introduction to the Course in Zoology. What is nature ? Its grandeur and beauty. What are the natural sciences ? Define the principal natural sciences: Zoology, botany, geology. The importance, interest, and utility of the natural sciences. APPENDIX I. 301 Ohstrvation in the natural sciences. Qualities of the observer. Analogy in the animal kingdom. Utility and variety of animal types. Fecundity of type. A few remarks on the most celebrated naturalists : Aristotle, LinnaBus, Bufifon, Jussieu, Cuvier, Lamarck, Gecffroy Saint- Hilaire, etc. England and her great naturalists. Introduction to the Course in Geology. Object of geology ; its importance, interest, and application to industry. The earth, its history, etc. A few great English geologists. Notions on the successive appearance of different groups of animals and vegetables. Yery general and simple reflections on adaptation to the environment, or the struggle for existence among animals, on the progress of living species from vegetables and zoophytes to man. Introduction to the Course in Botany. Object of botany; its beauty, importance, utility, and practical applications. Great botanists. The part played by England in the progress of botany. The meaning of classification in natural sciences. Beauty of natural classification. How it reproduces the actual order of nature, the true resemblances and differences of beings, etc. Introduction to the Course in Arithmetic. The science of numbers ; its beauty, importance, necessity, and application in science, industry, and commerce. Numbers govern the world. The wonderful laws and combinations of numbers. The sages of antiquity and their interest in the laws of numbers : Pythagoras and Plato. Great English mathematicians. England and the progress of mathematics. Explanations of numeration and the decimal system should be accompanied by interesting historical details — the origin of the ordinary scale of notation, the invention of figures, their form, the decimal and metric systems, etc. In general, add to the absolutely necessary abstractions as many concrete instances as possible, and insist on the interest of practical aiDplications. 302 APPENDIX I. Introduction to the Course in Geometry, What is mathematical science? Numbers and extension. Arithmetic and geometry. The beauty of geometry ; its importance and practical neces- sity. Eapid sketch of its origin and progress. Egypt and Greece. Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Euclid. English geometers. French geometers: Descartes, Pascal, Monge. German geo- meters : Leibnitz. Methods in geometry. Definitions, axioms, constructions, demonstrations. What is reasoning by deduction ? Imagination in geometry. The geometrical spirit; its advantages and drawbacks. Pascal on the geometrical spirit and subtlety of thought. Can every- thing be reasoned geometrically ? N.B. — To mention Pythagoras and the Indians in connection with Euc. i. 47. Euclid and the successive efforts of geometers ajjropos of the postulate of parallels. " To teach geometry apart from its history, and making a tabula rasa of the past, is not without its disadvantages" (J. B. Damas). Do not neglect its practical applications — in mensuration and industry. Make problems as interesting as possible ; as, for instance " Find the height of a mountain," ... or, "Find the distance of the earth from the moon. . . ," Introduction to the Course in Algebra. Algebra ; its importance, beauty, utility, and practical appli- cations. The power it gives to the human mind. Sketch of its origin and progress. The school of Alexandria ; the Arabs. English algebraists. French algebraists. Note : Maria Agnesi in the eighteenth, and Sophie Germain in the nineteenth century among women who were able algebraists. Introduction to the Course in Cosmography. Astronomy; its importance, beauty, and utility. Sketch of its history. The Chaldeans and Egyptians. The Greeks: Thales, Pythagoras. The school of Alexandria, etc. N.B.— Tliis course should be rather given to a physicist than to a mathematician, for the latter has a tendency to reduco astronomy to abstract theorems. APPENDIX I. 303 Introduction to the Course in Latin, Why we learu Latin and Greek. Eelation of Latin to Eng- lish. Beauty of the Latin language. Beauty of the Greek language. Influence of Latin and Greek literature upon English. Latin the language of Christianity. Utility of Latin ; (1) to develop mind and taste ; (2) to lenrn to write English. National and patriotic character of the study of Latin. Latin and Greek, and their place in education iu Germany and France. Eeasons why neo-Latin races should not be behind Anglo-Saxon and German races in the study of the classics. The principal linguistic exercises : (1) grammar ; (2) trans- lation ; (3) exercises ; (4) commentary on texts ; (5) composi- tion. Their use. How interesting they are when the student gees their importance and utility. N.B.— Only choose fine passages for translation. Always comment on the texts translated from the point of view of literature, history, and morals. Introduction to the Course in Modern Languages. Parents should choose the languages taken by the student, and give a definite reason for their choice. A circular should be sent round, laying before the parents the advantages of the different languages and their practical application ; the parents should then choose the languages best adapted for the future career of their children. Introduction to the Course of History. 1. Definition of history; its place in moral and social science; its importance and utility. Educative value of history: (1) it contributes to intellectual education by cultivating the imagina- tion, to which it presents "real but varied and picturesque objects," by accustoming the mind to discernment, apprecia- tion, and judgment of facts, persons, ideas, epochs, countries, etc.; (2) it contributes to moral and political education, by laying down the experimental bases of social science. 2. Method of establishing facts by evidence, documents, monuments, etc. Criticism of human evidence: (1) judicial facts ; (2) historical facts ; (3) in matters cf belief (criticism of fables, legends, mythology). 304 APPENDIX I. 3. Methods of history : (1) in explaining facts by means of their general and particular causes; (2) judgments of facts according to the principles of moral, social, and political science. Meaning of " the philosophy of history." Danger of abstract historical systems. 4. Summary of the development of historical studies from antiquity onwards. The great historians. Qualities necessary to the historian ; faults he must avoid. Introduction to the Course in Otography. Giography; its importance and utility. How it develops: (1) the imagination, by the pictures it presents to it; (2) the reasoning powers, by the explanations it affords of the political, commercial, and industrial history of different nations ; (3) the moral sense, by exhibiting the struggle of man with nature ; (4) the civic sense, by exhibiting the resources and the field of action of England, with the competition of her neighbours. Course in Esthetics, Ltteratues, History op Literature AND OF Art. Define cesthetics. Beauty and interest of aesthetics. The beautiful. Eelation between the beautiful and the true. The beautiful and the agreeable. The beautiful and the good. The sublime. Grace. Laughter and the ridiculous. The comic. What is art ? Expression in art. Idealism and realism in art. The various arts. Architecture. Short abstract of the history of architecture. Greek and modern architecture. Sculpture. Short abstract of the history of sculpture. Sculpture in modern times. Painting. Short abstract of the history of painting. Music. Short abstract of the history of music. Poetry. English poetry. Epic poetry. Lyric poetry. Dramatic poetry: tragedy, comedy, the drama. Eloquence. Ehetoric : its dangers. Invention. Demonstration and its general rules. Sojohisms of the mind and heart. General rules of composition. APPENDIX I. 305 Style. The ditTcrcut literary styles. Progress and decadence in the arts. The transformations of art. Classical and romantic periods. Conclusions : moral and social role of art. Vide p. 215. Course of Ethics. Course in Political Economy. I )it rod act ion. Political economy; its object, importance, and beauty. The growing need for polilical economy in modern and democratic societies. Its relations with other sciences— notably with law. ^ Divisions of political economy : production, distribution, circulation, and consumption of wealth. 1. Production of Wealth.— TAe elements of production ;— i. Law and natural agents. ii. Work and industry : organization and freedom of work ; historical summary ; corporations. Classification of the various industries. Commerce. The middleman. iii. Capital legitimate and necessary. Different kinds of capital. How thrift accumulates and makes capital. 2. Distribution OF Wealth.— i. Proper^^. Private property; account and reputation of the principal systems condemning it; the origin of intestate succession and the law of testament. ^ ii. Conventions. (1) Farming. Rent of the soil. Different systems of culture; hirge and small culture; disadvantages of too minute a division,and of too great a concentration of property. (2) Capital, and its part iti the division of wealth ; interest • legitimacy of interest. ' (3) The 2-)art of the middleman. Profits. (4) The part of the luorhing man. Application to labour of the law of supply and demand. Wages. Sharing in profits. Trades unions. Co-operative associations. (5) Socialism ; its various forms. Criticism of socialism. Population and the distribution of wealth. Poverty and I^auperism. The struggle against pauperism. 3. Circulation of Wealth.—]. Exchange: its different forms. 33 806 APPENDIX I. Value. Price. Laws regulating the fixing, variation, and equilibrium of prices. Competition. Monopolies. ii. Money. iii. Crvdit. How it takes the place of money, and is a source of wealth. Credit and thrift. (1) Private credit: banks; (2) Public credit ; its bases ; state loans. iv. External and internal commerce. Commercial crises ; their causes and remedies. Imports and exports. Markets. Balance of commerce; regulated by cash or by international funds. Free trade; protection and prohibition. Commercial treaties. Customs. Bonded warehouses. Auctions. 4. Consumption of Wealth.— i. Thrift : its resources, fore- sight. Insurance of life, against fire, and against accident. Savings banks. Friendly societies. ii. Luxuries. 5. Application of Political Economy to Financial Legis- lation. — i. Tl/cces: Different kinds of taxes. Proportional taxes. Sliding scale of taxes. ii. The Budget : How constructed. The budget vote. The teacher must avoid giving his lessons an abstract character; he will confine himself to teaching his pupils— in proportion to their age — elementary economic facts, and how from these facts we get certain general laws, and the value of these laws in commercial, social, and industrial crises. Course of Civic and Political Instruction. Social and political science in its old sense. Its increasing importance ; its beauty, necessity, and difficulty. Its founders : Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Montesquieu, Eousseau, Comte. Its future. Its method — exjDerimental and rational. 1. Ideal Politics, — Ideal politics, or the determination of tlie end society should keep in view. The good of the individual or the State? Should the individual and the State pursue the good, the virtuous, liberty, and justice? Ancient and modern politics. Relation of ideal politics to psychology, ethics, and natural law. Distinction between politics and ethics. The necessity (1) of an ideal conforming to the true moral aims of humanity ; (2) of an adaptation of that ideal to reality. 2. Eeal Politics. — Real and experimental politics, or sociology properly so called. The different organs and func- APPENDIX I. 307 tions of the social body, and tho laws of their evolution. Tho extreme difficulty of social science; the spirit of reserve which must ensue in social and ])olitical questions. The most important laws of equilibrium and conservation in societies — social statics. The most important laws of the development of societies — social dynamics. 3. The State.— Distinction between the State and the govern- ment. Origin and attributes of government. Individual liberty and national sovereignty. The true and false sense in wliich tho nation'd sovereignty may be interpreted. Danger of abstract and absolute systems. Different powers of the State: legislative, executive, judicial. Organization of the legislative power; ideal principle of unanimity; the necessary substitution in practice of the principle of majorities for that of unanimity. The rational basis and rational limits of the power of the majorities. Respect due to the rights of minorities. System of the two houses; its rational and historical basis. Organization of the executive. Different /or?ris of government. Their advantages and disadvantages. Eational and philo- sophical character of a limited monarchy; its advantages, difficulties, and the peculiar qualities it requires in the citizens and governing bodies. Organization ot the judicial power of the State. Penality and its social basis. Organization of the military power of the State. Defensive and offensive armies. Advantages and disadvantages of democratic armies ; increasing necessity for military disciplina in free countries; the duties of the soldier. The evolution of governments ; rtvolidions, their causes, in- conveniences ; how to avoid them. Applied politics. — The difficulty. How they should reconcile the ideal, the real, and the possible. Comparison of applied politics with medicine or applied physiology. Course of Legislation— Publto and Civil Eights. 1. Public Eights.— Law. Natural law. Positive law. Eo- lation of ethics to law. Divisions of law: (1) Public law (constitutional law, ad- 308 APPENDIX I. ministrative law, criminal law, law of nations) ; (2) private law (civil law, commercial law). Codes. i. Biyhts guaranteed to the citizen. Civil equality. Private liberty. Liberty of conscience. Liberty of labour. Liberty of union and association. Liberty of the press. The taxes. Military service. ii. Public poiuers. Constitutional laws. Powers of the legis- lative and executive; how and why they are separated. The legislative and executive: king, lords, and commons. The executive : the prime minister and the cabinet. iii. Administrative organization. County Councils. Local government. iv. Judicial organization. Justice: public and free. Civil jurisdiction : (1) supreme court of appeal ; (2) the law courts ; (8) the county courts ; (4) the magistrates and justices of the peace. Barristers and solicitors. V. General idea of criminal law. Eesponsibility as recognized by the criminal law. Distinction between crimes, mis- demeanours, and minor offences. The police courts. The police. 2. Civil Rights. — i. Persons and the family. (1) Nationality. Status of foreigners. (2) Constitution of the family ; how it is formed. Eights and duties in the family. Parental and marital, authority. (3) Protection of the weak; guardianship. (4) The principal facts in civic life: birth, marriage, death. ii. Property. (1) How acquired ; inviolable (save in case of public utility). How it is lost (2) Dehts ; diiferent kinds of obligations. How the rights of the creditor arise; how guaranteed (privilege, hypothec, pledge). iii. Sticcession. Different classes of heirs; descendants, as- cendants, and collaterals. Division among children. How succession is acquired. Obligations of an heir; inventory; right of refusing succession. Wills; different kinds of wills; different kinds of legacies. iv. Defence of rights. A summary of general notions on legal claims, procedure, proof, judgment; how a judgment is carried out ; court of appeal. We now come to the course of philosophy. Two hypotheses are possible as to the place of philosophy in a classical training. Philosophy may be left until the last year or so of school-life - crowning the school- course, and in that case the course of APPENDIX I. 309 ethics at fonrfeen or fifteen, and of eesthetics at sixteen or seven- teen, inip:ht be replaced by courses in science. In this case we should divide the classes as follows : — From 14 io 15. Honra, English (3), Lfitin (5), Greek (4) 12 Modern languages || Mathematics ... ... ... .•• ••• ••• ••• ^| Animal and vegetable physiology I2 History of the^Middle Ages and of modern times; geography of Europe n From 15 to 16. Classes for all students. Hours. 4 English ... ... , ... ••• ••• ••• ••• Latin 4- Modern history ; geograj^hy of United Kingdom 2 Modern languages ... ... ... ... ••• ••• ••• ^2 From 16 to 17. Classes for all students. Hours. Philosophy (psychology, ethics, theory of knowledge and general philosophy; essays) 7| Contemporary history 1 The following is the present course in philosophy, slightly modified : — Philosophy (16 to 17). Couese for all Students. Introduction.— Science ; the sciences, philosophy. Object and divisions of philosophy. Its speculative, moral, and social importance. Progress of philosophy from antiquity to the present day. 1. Psychology.— Object of psychology ; character of the facts with which it deals; psychological and physiological facts. Impossible for physiology to include psychology. Moral and pedagogic value of psychology. Method of psychology : subjective, reflection ; objective, lan- guage, history, etc. Experiment in psychology. Constant progress of psychology. Classification of psychological facts: sensibility, intellect, will. Stnsibilitrj. Pleasure, pain, sensation, sentiment. The in- clinations. The passions. Moral and pedagogic deductions. Intellect. Acquisition, conservation, and development of knowledge. Data of mental activity. 310 APPENDIX I. The senses. Consciousness. The problem of the nnconscions. Memory. Association. Application to intellectual education. The imagination. How cultivated. Abstraction and generali- zation. The judgment ; pedagogic application. Eeasoning. Deduction, induction, analogy. The will. Instinct, liberty, habit. Heredity. Limits of heredity ; power of education, of ideas, of sentiments. Applica- tions to pedagogy. The expression of psychological facts : signs and langnage. The relations of the physical and the moral. Sleep, dreams, somnambulism, hallucinations, hypnotism, madness. Brief abstract of comparative psychology ; man and animals. 2. Ethics. — Principles of ethics. The conscience, the good, duty. Examination of utilitarian doctrines. What every science of manners can learn from them. Examination of evolutionist doctrines. What every science of manners can learn from them. The conditions of the most intensive and expansive life for the individual and for society. Duties, — Duties towards ourselves : wisdom, courage, temj)er- ance. Duties towards others : right, justice, charity (vide p. 215). Duties towards the family. Duties towards our country : obedience to the laws, instruc- tion, taxes, voting, military service, patriotism. 3. General Philosophy. — i. Criticism of Knowledge. Origin of knowledge. Guiding principles of knowledge. Can they be explained entirely by experience, association, or heredity ? Value of knowledge. Dogmatism, scepticism; criticism of Kant. Limits of hiowledge. Different theories on this subject. Kant's critical philosophy. Comte and positivism. Spencer and the unknowable. ii. Philosophy of Nature and Cosmology, Of nature in general. Different conceptions of matter and life. The great hypotheses to which the sciences of nature lead us. APPENDIX I. 811 Inarlequacy of these hypotheses for tlio solution of the enigma of life. iii. Mental Philosophy, Materialism, spiritualism, idealism. Religious beliefs. Their speculative raison d'etre ; their moral and social importance. Speculative and moral reasons on which beliefs in God of every form are based. The problem of evil. Optimism and pessimism. The moral reasons upon which every belief in the final triumph of good , or in a Providence is based. Speculative and moral reasons upon which belief in the immortality of the soul is based. Conclusion. Progress of philosophy from antiquity to tho present day. The " perennial " character of philosophy. N.B. — The teacher must bear in mind the calibre of his class. In psychology he will not touch on the very difficult or subtle points on which there is divergence of opinion, but will confine himself to throwing into relief the main results of psychology. He will give psychology a practical bearing by showing its application to education. In logic he will keep to the essential theories which are admitted by all philosophers. Similarly in ethics he will keep to such points as are main- tained by the partisans of both the evolutionist and the ct priori schools, and will give to his course an eminently social and civic bearing. In general philosophy and metaphysics he will exhibit the common points of beliefs rather than their diver- gence ; he will avoid the euristic method, the abuse of thesis and antithesis, and the extremes of controversy. He must take a broad view of the whole subject, and confine himself to *' prin- ciples." His end, in a word, must be educative and adapted to the young. Without depriving philosophy of its lofty specula- tive character, he will give to his course of lessons a practical bearing. He will consider himself not as a mere savant, but as the principal lay representative of great moral and social interests in the education of the young, and as having, ipso facto, in the well-known phrase, " a cure of souls." Contrary to a widespread prejudice, I have sacrificed logic in the case of students destined to a scientific or industrial career. In the first place, I have already added all tho essential part of 312 APPENDIX I. logic to the different programmes for science classes; and, secondly, the study of science does not absolutely need com- pletion by formal logic, while it ought to be supplemented by psychology, ethics, and general natural and mental philosophy. SUPPLEMENTAEY PEOGEAMME FOE STUDENTS TAKING UP LITEEATUEE AND PHILOSOPHY. I. PeINCIPLES of iESTHETICS. The beautiful. The sublime. The graceful. The ridicu- lous. Art. Expression, imitation, fiction, the ideal. Eealism and idealism. The truth contained in each. The different arts. II. Logic. Formal logic. — Terms; propositions; different forms of reason- ing ; notions admitted by all philosophers. Applied logic. — Its progress from the earliest times. Method of the exact sciences — axioms, definitions, demonstration. Method of natural and physical sciences— observation, ex- periment, hypothesis, induction. Classification, analogy, empirical definitions. Method in moral science — evidence ; the historic method. Errors and sophism. III. Absteact of the Geeat Philosophical Docteines. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle ; the Epicureans and Stoics ; Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant. N.B. — The teacher must not go into details, and instead of laying stress upon the contradictions of the various systems, he must confine himself to showing the progress of ideas from one doctrine to another, even on points when a final solution is still w^anting. IV. Philosophees. — English, Oreek authors. Xenophon. Short extracts from the " Memorabilia." Plato. Short extracts from the " Eepublic and Phiedo." Aristotle. Extracts from the "Nicomachean Ethics," bk. x. Epictetus. Extracts from the " Manual." APPENDIX L 313 Latin. Lucretius. Extracts from " De Natura Eerum." Cicero. Extracts from " De Officiis." Seneca. Extracts from " Letters to Lucilius." If the course in philosophy is spread over two years, the student may take in the first year-(l) psychology; (2) c-esthetics; (3) logic. The next year-(l) ethics ; (2) criticism of knowledge ; (3) general, natural, and mental philosophy; (4) history of philosophy and of philosophical authors. If the course is divided over three years (as in Italy), the student will take the course of ethics at fourteen or fifteen, of aesthetics and logic at fifteen or sixteen. The study of sesthetics, logic, and psychology is valuable in rhetoric, because it gives depth to the mind and gives boys ideas for their essays, etc. True eloquence is an application of psychology, aesthetics, and logic. III. For the Final Examination (on leaving ScnooL) in LiTERATUEE AND PHILOSOPHY (THE B. JjS L. ET Ph.). First Examination (15 to 16). Relative Values. 2 Latin translation (2 hours) .•• ••• • English essay on a subject in literature or history (o hours) ... ^ An easy piece of German or French prose (1 J hour) 1 An easy piece of Greek translation (1^ hour) Viva Voce. Relative Relative Values. Explanation of Greek author 1 History Explanation of Latin author 1 Geography... Explanation of English Modern languages author 1 General ideas of classical literature 1 Second Examination (IG to 17). Values. 1 1 1 Relative Values. 2 Essay in philosophy (4 hours) ... ... _ ... /••.,,.•• Essay on a subject in economic and political science or legislation (2''hours) ••• \ Paper on mathematics and physics (2 hours) 1 314 APPENDIX I. Viva Voce. Philosophy... ,,. History of philosophy Greek, Latin, and English philosophers Political economy ... Relative Values. Relative Values. Politics and legislation ... 1 Mathematics ... ... 1 Physics and natural sciences 1 Contemporary history ... 1 For Students taking up Literature and Mathematics (B. ks L. ET Math.). First Examination (15 to 16). Latin translation (2 hours) ... ... ••• ... .., English essay on a subject in literature or ethics (4 hours) Exercises in modern languages (IJ hour) ... ,., Relative Values. . 2 . 2 . 1 Viva Voce. Mathematics I'hysics Latin authors Greek Relative Values. 2 . 2 . 1 . 1 English A modern language History and geography Relative Values. 1 . 1 . 1 Second Examination (16 to 17). Essays : Philosophy (4 hours) Mathematics (2 hours) Physics (2 hours) ... Relative Values. , 1 1 . 1 Viva Voce. Philosophy... Mathematics Relative Values. 1 . 2 Physics ... Contemporary history Relative Values. o For Students taking up Literature and Natural Science (B. i:s L. ET Sc). First Examination (15 to 16). Latin translations (2 hours) ,t. English essay on a subject in literature or ethics Exercises in modern languages (1^ hour) ... Relative Values, . 2 . 2 . 1 APrENDIX I. 315 Viva Voce, Mathematics Physics Natural science Latin authors Relative Values. 1 . 1 2 '. 1 Greek English Modern lant^uages ... History and geography i^'econd Examination (16 to 17). Essays: Philosophy (4 hours) ... ... Physics and natural science (4 hours) Viva Voce. Philosophy Econonnc and political sciences, legislation Relative Vahies. 1 1 1 . 1 Relative Values. 1 1 Relative Relative Values. Values. 1 Mathematics 1 Physics and natural science 2 Contemporary history ... 1 For Students taking up Literature and Economic and Industrial Science (B. i;s L. et Econ. et In dust.). First Examination (15 to 16). Latin translation English essay on a subject in literature or ethics Exercises in modern languages Paper on mathematics Vim Voce. Mathematics Physics and natural sciences Latin authors Greek authors Relative Values. 1 1 1 1 English authors Modern languagi History Geography ... Second Examination (16 to 17). Essay on some subject in ])hilosophy Paper on natural sciences and physics Viva Voce. Relative Values. Philosophy ... 1 I'olitical economy and politics 1 Legislation ... ... ... 1 IMatheuiatics and bookkeeping 1 Relative Values. . 1 . 1 1 . 1 Relative Values. . 1 1 1 Relative Values. ; 1 2 Relative Values. Physics and natural sciences 2 Contemporary history ... 1 Industrial and commercial geography 1 APPENDIX IT. THE SENSE OF BROTHERHOOD, AND ITS ROLE IN THE SCHOOL* Gentlemen, By inviting me to represent him and to take the chair at this ceremony, the Minister of Public Instruction has done me an honour which I was far from expecting. No doubt he felt that the mere fact that my life has been spent in teaching would in itself secure for me a warm welcome from your society and from the masters of our primary schools. My only claim upon your kindness is that I have made a careful study, from the standpoint of pure or applied philosophy, of the problems relating the moral instruction of our youth. Do you not, gentlemen, believe with Plato and with all philosophers that the future of a republic depends upon the education received by its children ? In 1815, when Carnot, one of your founders, was discussing your statutes and devising plans for the spread of education, a courier brought the news of Waterloo. Carnofc felt that the work begun should not be interrupted. No doubt he understood what Fichte understood when he was organizing primary instruction in Prussia after Jena : the fortune of war changes, material triumphs last but for a time and pass away; intellectual and moral instruction does not pass away; truth has no Waterloo. How many governments have passed away since that solemn hour! How many reforms have you initiated in the name of individual liberty — reforms whose success has been due to the skill and esprif; de corps of your members — • mutual instruction, choral societies, gymnastics in schools, regimental schools, popularizing of political economy, prizes ♦ Delivered in 1886 at the annual prize distribution of the Soci^td pour rinstruction Elementaire. APPENDIX II. 317 for the best reading-books for schools, etc.! How many illustrious men have been in your midst ! how many have pre- sided over your meetings, from Jean-Baptiste Say, Maine de Birau, Cuvier, and Ampere, to Victor Hugo, who addressed the children gathered round this chair in the following words : " You are in the right road ; the evil is behind you ; the good is before you. Courage ! Keep your eyes ever fixed upon the brightness of the dawn." The influence of this society is, I think, due to two factors without Y>^hich no permanent union is possible : liberty for each, fraternity for all. You are thus bringing into play the two main divisions of the motto on our monuments and on the very walls of our schools; you have done in miniature what the country is wishing to do on a large scale. In these days, gentlemen, France may look back with pride at the liberty and equality she has already realized ; but do we make the most of the principle of fraternity? We may be inclined to doubt it when we see around us political, economical, and religious Bchism. Fraternity is, however, an essential condition of life in a democratic community, and this I propose to show to the youth of your schools assembled here to-day. I want to show them, within the limits of a short address, that liberty and equality alone, unaccompanied by the spirit of fraternity, are not in themselves enough to make a strong and permanent democracy; liberty and equality make citizens, but fraternity alone can make a fatherland. What is our country? l''ou are taught that it is a great family, of w^hich all the members are brothers ; but social science, the natural history of society, goes further still — it establishes a closer bond between the children of the same country. Now, social science teaches us that our country is nothing less than a great living body, like a plant or an animal, and that all its members are as necessary one to the other, and as dependent one upon the other, as are the members of our own bodies. This mutual dependence and necessity is called solidarity. In the living being, head, heart, lungs, all the organs live one by the other, and therefore should live one for the other; here, then, is, as it were, a preliminary sketch or out- line of fraternity. Only, in the animal and plant, the solidarity of the organs is as yet material and forced; in this case imperious nature, as in the old apologue, says to the limbs, the stomach, the heart, the lungs, and all the organs, "Live in 318 APPENDIX II. concord, in harmony, and fraternize, or you die!" In onr country, on the other hand, the solidarity of all the members depends on their consent, and therefore deserves the more beautiful and more human name of fraternity. True fraternity is Yolimtary solidarity , it is the solidarity of hearts. Without fraternity, liberty would become anarchy and the tyranny of the strong; without fraternity, equality would become a universal levelling down and degradation. We, as citizens of modern states, wish to be free, and we wish to be equal — a noble ideal ! Liberty aTid equality are social advan- tages we exact from others, fraternity is the social virtue we exact from ourselves; liberty and equality are our rights, fraternity is our duty. Be careful, therefore, not to understand by fraternity — as is too often the case — a kind of vague and quite platonic senti- mentality ; you must, on the contrary, recognize in it a scientific law which regulates the very constitution of a state, and especially of republican states. To the republican state fraternity is no mere luxury, it is a necessity. In some forms of government, union is made and maintained by force; in others unioa alone is able to create and to maintain power. The honour of the latter, and their peril, too, as Montesquieu pointed out, is to live by the civic virtues and to perish by the vices of their members. A monarchy may, strictly speaking, be content with a forced cohesion among its members; a monarchy may find a kind of material unity, an artificial and external support, in the immutability or heredity of certain institutions, in dread of the " powers that be," in subjection to tradition and privilege; to a monarchy fraternity is not indis- pensable. A republic, on the contrary, is compelled to main- tain within itself a complete internal and moral unity, a vital centre towards wliich the wills of all may freely converge and in which they may be blended. Our country is therefore like a living fortress, every stone of which is kept in its place as it were by a single hand and a single will. Once hands are un- clasped, hearts divided, and wills at variance, the wliole build- ing collapses from its walls and towers to its foundations. Ah! gentlemen, and you, children, who will be our country in the future, never forget that each of us keeps in its place some part of that great national building ; our fraternal grasp must not be loosened, our wills must not be at variance, our hearts must remain united if France is to be great and free. To this end^ APPENDIX II. 319 let us translate fraternity from the realm of wordy to the realm of facts; let us give it its place everywhere, first iu tlie moral and intellectual and then in the econoniic and politic order. However high we may flatter ourselves we have attained in the intellectual order, we can escape neither solidarity, which is the natural law of minds, nor the duty of fraternity, which is its natural consequencCo Have we a single idea which is absolutely our own, and of which the germ is not to be found in tho generations that have preceded us ? No ; we can no more think alone than live alone ; we find solidarity in all human intellects ; through time and si3ace they lend a mutual helping hand. In the past they have contributed to make your intellect what it is; in the present their acquiescence and very contradiction aro necessary to it, A great reformer like Descartes in vain endeavoured to forget " all that others held bef jre him ; " he could not; he would have to forget the very words of his language in which we hear in lengthened cadence the echo of the centuries. It was idle for a great poet like Lamartine to say — • "II faut se retirer, pour penser, de la fuule, Et s'y confondre pour agir." No, we cannot withdraw entirely from the influence of tho human race — even to think; our country and our race think in us and with us, and our loftiest ideas are precisely those in which the whole of humanity recognizes its own accents. The man who is deaf to this voice and who rejects this fraternity of minds is self-exiled from an intellectual father- land. Single in his opinions, alone in the pride of his own thoughts, he is intolerant of the thoughts of others, for he believes them entirely unconnected with his own. Intolerance is the egoism of thought. In the domain of moral and religious belief the forgetfulness of intellectual fraternity is called fanaticism. It is a matter of indifference whetlier fanaticism is religious or anti-religious. It is always an aflirmation or a negation elevated to the dignity of the absolute and only truth, in forgetfulness of the fact that it is only a part of, and not all, the truth, and that, as Herbert Spencer finely puts^it, in every creed is a " soul of truth." It is tliis universal soul which should be presented to all children of the same country and which should animate them with the same spirit. In India, there once lived a sago, whose ideas 320 APPENDIX II. were so broad and whose actions so noble, that after his death, the disciples of Mahomet and the worshippers of Brahma, disputing with each other the honour of having inspired his conduct, wished to divide his remains; the legend proceeds that on opening his tomb they found nothing but fruits and flowers ; and these they shared. Let us be like this sage, children, and let us leave nothing behind us but fertile seed, flowers, and sweet scents ; the best is what all can share, the purest ideas are those with which all can agree. Diderot, a philosopher of the eighteenth century, to whom a statue has recently been erected, seems, in spite of his pro- fessions of materialistic faith, to have had a suspicion that even the most sceptical may find common ground with the faithful upon certain peaks of thought, and there unite with them in common invocation. Addressing God Himself, he says, as did Pascal and Kant, " Some affirm Thee, others deny Thee, but the idea of God should nevertheless inspire my conduct ; God ! my actions shall be as if Thou wert looking into my soul ; I shall live as though in Thy presence." And it is especially in dealing with the instruction of the young that we should endeavour to bring minds on to the common ground of the loftiest and most universal ideas. This you. have clearly seen, gentlemen, and when your society introduced into the instruction given by the State that ** religious neutrality " prescribed by the law, you understood the spirit of that law. The law equally excludes disguised hostility to the religious sentiment, contemptuous indifference, and that affectation of absolute silence which, as one of your most eminent members, M. Buisson, has put it, would be "the Puritanism of neutrality." Under the various symbols of the infinite is a common basis of noble thoughts and generous aspirations from which the mind of a nation cannot be abruptly wrenched without injury to the principle of moral and intellectual solidarity. Even in morality is implied an idealism which is, moreover, necessary to education, especially in democracies and especially in France; foi France is idealistic by instinct nnd tradition. It is the honour of France to have placed her ideal of justice and fraternity on a pedestal so lofty that every nation may see and recognize it — such an ideal as we gave to America ; a statue of Liberty enlightening the world, will be reared aloft and receive the homage of all the navies of the earth. APPENDIX II. 321 If we pass from the moral to the economic and political order, we recognize once more the law of solidarity and fraternity. How easy it wonld be to seek and find a remedy for the industrial crises which cause so much suffering, if labour and capital, instead of fancying themselves enemies, were convinced of the necessity of their union! Similarly in the political order, party -warfare tends to the dissolution of all government. What do parties degenerate into when they lose the sentiment of that patriotic agreement which should always underlie their very antagonism? They become factions. On the other hand, parties worthy of the name of constitutional parties, be they conservative or progressive, never forget that they need each other and that their country needs them all. There is no con- servation possible without progress, for a nation which does not advance falls back, and falls back all the further because other nations are pressing on. On the other hand, no progress is possible without conservation; if the progressive spirit accelerates the motion of the whole, the conservative spirit is like the fly-wlieel of a m.ass of machinery, regulating the motion of the whole by its inertia and resistance. Those who are impatient want to break abruptly with the past, forgetting that not abrupt change but continuity is nature's law — evolution, not revolution. Animals, like the batrachians, begin modestly, breathing under w^ater through their gills; later they have lungs and breathe in air. Would you deprive them of their gills under the pretext that lungs are a superior organ ? As with organic progress, so social progress is made patiently and not impatiently. There is solidarity between the future and the past ; the future can only issue from the past through the jDresent. To long to outstrip the whole of humanity, to long to spread our wings and soar ahead, taking no count of those who drag wearily behind, is an illusion! Progressives, there is solidarity between you and tradition ; free-thinkers, there is solidarity between you and believers ; between you, savants, and the ignorant ! It is idle to cry, " We are the forward party, we rise and soar towards the future, our pinions are spread in free space ! " Ah ! your pinions ? Well, you cannot even start without the fulcrum of the rest of the body ; the heavier mass that you scorn nourishes and sustains you. Without your fulcrum, poor wings, you will become lifeless matter, the sport of the winds, and your leap into space can only end in a speedy return to earth. 23 322 APPENDIX II. A nation is like a regiment on the march moving as one man. That is not a true fraternity which is ever launching itself further and higher, regardless of its fellows. True fraternity regulates its progress by the powers of the weaker, stretching out to them a helping hand, bringing them on and supporting them, nor does it hesitate to humble itself with those who are called the humble. All of us, gentlemen, who wish for progress and no retreat, must endeavour to appease quarrels and dissension; internal discord would be the suicide of liberty. Let every child on leaving school take with him, not a spirit of false independence, but a professed sentiment of the bond which unites all natives of the same country ; let him feel that, in civic as well as mili- tary life, discipline is a form of solidarity, and respect for the law a form of national fraternity. The nation itself is an army in which all of us, side by side, the same heart beating beneath each breast, march together towards the distant horizon and the unknown future. The greater the difficulties before us, the more necessary is union. When our soldiers landed on those distant shores from which we have recently welcomed their return, did they dispute over the different colours in our national standard ? No ; they looked at it and said, " That is the symbol of the country thai is wherever we are, of the law made for all, of the fraternity which should unite us; wherever this flag waves I shall go; if I must die in its defence, I shall die. Forward ! " APPENDIX III. ADDITIONAL NOTE UPON PROJECTS OF REFORM IN GERMANY AND IN FRANCE, I SAID on p. 56 that no dictionary is allowed in the German maturitat certificate; I should have added, save a Latin-German dictionary for Latin prose. At the same examination I should have said, no questions are asked in physics or natural history, except in the case of candi- dates educated at private schools or hi/ private tuition. In the gymnasiums there are not always special teachers for science, but this specialization has been the rule for some time. The recent speech of the young Emperor of Germany on pedagogic reform confirms, on the whole, my criticisms on the gymnasiums — abuse of philosophy, cultivation of erudition for its own sake, linguistic over-pressure, inadequacy of the course in moral, social, and economic science — and philosophy. But to find the evil is one thing, and to find the remedy is another. To imagine that we need only shout, " Down with Latin prose ! " to deliver the new empire from the three curses mentioned in the emperor's speech — the "socialists" who threaten, the " unclassed" who complain, and the "journalists " who criticize, would be a great illusion. We have seen that as long as it is easier than ever to win diplomas without Latin and Greek, and that too after a course of study more attenuated and of shorter duration than before, the number of the " unclassed " will increase. As for the "journalists," their numbers will not decrease because their instruction has been less complete ; the only change will be in the quality of their prose. Germany owes part of her power to the sound and permanent organization of her gymnasiums; if she now tries to "Americanize" them, that is her own affair ; our business is to maintain in our democracy a true and complete literary, moral, and philosophical culture 324 APPENDIX III. at as high a level as possible, while paying due regard to the lawful claims of science and its applications. The proposals of the German commission are confined to in- creasing the role of German in the school course, without sup- pressing Latin and Greek, which are still to remain obligatory in the entrance examinations to the uniyersities. I owe the following communication to the kindness of a very distinguished teacher in one of the great Prussian gymnasiums : — " Be careful to note that the commission is confined to ascer- taining the opinion of our best pedagogues on various points. Its ' resolutions ' are but the basis upon which a further com- mission of seven members will draw up a programme of reform. The more essential of the resolutions adopted by the commission are as follows :^ " A. Two classes of schools or institutions will be retained for the pur})ose of secondary instruction. (1) Gymnasiums, teach- ing Latin and Greek; (2) schools teaching no Latin (Latein lose Schulen; Ober-Eealschulen and hohere Burgerschulen)." We know that there were a few higher Eealschulen in which Latin was taught and not Greek. These bastard schools are to be suppressed, to the advantage of a real and complete classical training. " The number of lessons in the gymnasiums is to be is decreased, especially those in Latin and Greek. Latin prose to be suppressed; Greek exercises to be cut down; classical instruction in future is to be coniined to an introduction to literature and the reading of various authors. Great stress is to be laid on the German languages and on German and modern history. " B. Energetic reform of examinations, especially the maturi- tdtsprilfungen. More Latin prose, more Greek translation. Latin no longer spoken in the maturitatsprufungen. The masters of the highest classes are to judge from the reports on their pupils during the last years of school-life of their fitness for the university. The masters will be empowered to dispense with the examination in history and religious knowledge in the case of the best students. " C. The maturitdtsprilfungen certificate will give admission to all the faculties at the university. The certificate from the higher EealscTiulen will only give admission to the technical schools (techniscJie ffochschulen). This secondary diploma may be later completed by a supplementary examination in Latin APPENDIX III. 325 and Greek. Every stnclcnt from the higher Bealschuhn may bo admitted to examinations for the state services by a special examination durwg his university career, and mainly in Latin and Greek. " As for the wider importance attached to German, we need only refer to a decree issued long since, but not put into universal practice. Instruction must be entirely directed to serve as a basis for the knowledge of German. We know that every lesson, Latin or Greek, may be directed to this end. This only depends on the method and the master. None of the serious charges levelled by the emperor at gymnasiums in general can affect the gymnasium to which I am at present attached. Our gymnasium at X has never lost sight of national or practical interests. This is well known. . . . Fortunately, this is not an isolated case; but on the other hand, many gymnasiums are behind ns, and no longer supply the requirements of the present day. The emperor himself has called the schools that have already been reformed to the attention of those teachers entrusted with the duty of drawing up the new programmes. They are to visit and carefully inspect these schools and their methods. " In addition, it is proposed to be more exacting and more severe with respect to the masters, and to require from them a more ample and more genercd training than hitherto. For this purpose the salaries are to be increased, it being admitted that the i:)resent salaries are hardly large enough." Tlaese, then, are the reforms which have caused such com- motion, and which our French reformers compare with their own projects. Latin, and Greek are retained in the lyceums, and are obligatory for entry to the universities, medicine, law, pedagogy, holy orders, etc. It is true that students from the real schools are permitted to complete their diploma by Latin and Greek, in order to qualify for following a university course. This is the gist of the whole reform, and although it is certain that a loophole will be left for the admission of interlopers to the universities, they will be expected to pass in Latin and even Greek. All students will have to satisfy in — a German essay ; Latin exercise ; French exercise ; mathematics ; translation from Latin and Greek authors, etc. In a word, it is merely a question of quantity — less classics and more German. With this reform — startling enough in the letter, but relatively cautious when put into practice— let us compare the 826 APPENDIX III. ruin of classics which is being planned in France by the institution of a system of French instruction, shorter and easier, and sanctioned by diplomas of equal value to the classical diplomas. We learn at the last moment that at present the authorities intend to found a system of "French classical instruction" covering five years of study and followed by an examination. Students who go on for a sixth year will go through a course of French rhetoric. Those who wish to pursue their studies still further, may take up philosophy or elementary mathematics. This but justifies all our fears. It is simply our present "special" instruction unjustly giving admittance to the classes of rhetoric and philosophy, and finally to the State schools. The inevitable result will be the desertion of the classics. Boys will say, " In five years I shall arrive at the same goal as my school-fellows — and that after superficial and easy work, without the patient efi"ort required by Latin and Greek." Parents will say the same, and, in addition, they will have the very convenient option of withdrawing their children from school after five, or six, or seven years, as they please, and in each case after a complete course of instruction. If the children stay on to the seventh year, they will have the same titles and diplomas as those who have undergone a full classical training. It would therefore be a miracle if the long and laborious classical system found any partisans except a few bigoted admirers of our great national traditions. When the " special" system was really " special," it was intended for special classes and answered special needs, whence arose its raison d'etre as a distinct and short system of instruction, constructed with a view to the average commercial and industrial requirements; but to turn it into a pseudo-classical system, equivalent to the real classical training in the mental culture given, will be a fatal argument against the study of the dead languages. If a system of "French" instruction, easy, simple, and short, is enough, what is the good of any other? And if it is not really an equivalent, who will be any the wiser ? The " really classical elite" will speedily be reduced, as I have shown, to an insig- nificant and impotent minority, or confined to the clerical schools, which are already delighted at our blunder. As for the class in philosophy, it will be idle to open it to all comers — even to those who are unfit for it from want of previous classical training — for very few will be heroic enough to attend it, and APPENDIX III. 327 the rest will take up mathematics or physics as more " nsefiil " subjects, and straightway our State schools will be crowded with students who will be destitute of any sound culture. Science will establish its supremacy at the expense of literature and philosophy. The teachers, and perhaps the lawyers, of the future will alone remain faithful to Latin and philosophy under the new regime. Then it will be discovered that after all Latin and Eomau law are not necessary to lawyers, and that one can become a teacher after a purely French training. The ruin of our classical instruction will at last be complete. France will become a great Belgium. When we have a living organism which gives ample proof of its vitality— as did our system of secondary education before it was tampered with— is it not pure madness to destroy it or to endanger its vitality, under the pretence of seeing if another organism, as yet unborn, would not do work better ? We know what we shall lose, and we cannot see what we shall gain. There is no doubt whatever that it is not necessary for every one to have a classical training, but those who have received a classical training should not be placed on an equality with those who have not. Germany sees this clearly enough ; we must not make this mistake in France. INDEX. Abitubientenexamen, 5G, 2G1, et seq. -^Esthetics, 226, et seq., 304 Algebra 62, 302 Ampere, 166 AngiuUi, 248, 267 Arcliimedes, 47 Arithmetic, 301 Army, remission of service in, 146 Arnold, Matthew, vii. Astronomy, 74 Auto-suggestion, 12 Average, law of regression to, 18 Bain, Professor, xi., 63, 91, 109, 231 Bernard, Claude, 148, 166, 200 Bert, Paul, 167, 189, 224 Berthelot, 79, 167 Bigot, viii. Biot, 73, 93, 166 Bismark, 50 Blauchard, 65 Boisser, 137, 144, 229 Bossert, 155 Botany, 39, 301 Bre .1, 144, 227, 236 Browning, 160 Bruneticro, 94, 123, 168 Buissou, 182, 320 Burdeau, 229 Butler, Bishop, vi. Cesca, 127 Chemistry, 63, 300 Clievreul, 11 Clirvs'al, Professor, 134 Civic instruction, 204, et seq., 306 Classics, a pledge of disiuterested- nes:;, 8 , their influence on French literature, ch. ii., 105-135 , value and necessity of, 133,303 , reforms in favour of, 188 , modern, 138 Colajanni, 22 Collins, Churton, 112 Comte, 6S, 81, 96, 105 Condillac, 287 Conduct, 16 Cosmography, 77, 302 "Cramming," 271 Crime, 22, et seq. Crookes, 289 " Cycles," instruction in, 1 48 D'Alembert, 88 Darwin, 3, 31, 272 Daryll, 31 Delboeuf, 13 Democracy, 9 Descartes, 37, 47, 71, 75, 82, 98, 103, 200 Dietz, ix. Doctors, philosojiliy useful to, 254, et seq. Dubos-Ecymoud, 69, 88, 167, 177 Dumas, 29S, 302 Duruy, 137, 164 Education, power of, 10, et seq. and evolution, 33 , a moderu, 136, et seg. 330 INDEX. Eloquence, 238 Environment, adaptation to, 8 Ethics in education, 193, et seq. Euclid, 47. Vide Geometry Evolution and education, 33 • in pedagogy, 94, et seq. , mental, 102 Examinations, 261, et seq. Fanaticism, 319 Fascination, 11 Ferneuil, 176, 280 Fichte, 49, 92, Flaubert, 119 Forces, idea-, power of, 10, et seq. Formal, culture, 57 Formulas, 16 Fornelli, 94, 121, 123 Fouillee, ix., xi. Frary, ix., 94, 125, 157, 218, 283 Fraternity, 317, et seq. Frederick III., 51 Fiencli art, 8, 243 language, imd Latin, 114,ef seq. schools, lyceums, viii. ecoles speclales, viii. Galileo, 63, 75 Galton, 18 Geography, 304 Geometry, 302 German Emperor, 51 universities, 266 schools. Vide Gymnasium, Realschule Glazebrook, vi. Goering, 104 Grad, 50 Greard, 137 Greek. Vide Classics Guyau, ix., 1, 13, et seq., 30, 35, 70, 94, 114, 211, 237, 273 Gymnasium, viii.,56,chs. iii. and iv., 174-192, Appendix III. Heraclitus, 2 Herbart, 97 Hereditary nobility, 42 Heredity, 18 History, 110, 218, et seq., 303. Vide Natural Hoenig, 49 Humanities, 5, 105, et seq., classical, bk, iii., passim , modern, 138, scientific, bk. ii., passim Huxley, 37, 63, 82 Hypnotism, 12, el seq., 268 Ideas, force of, 10, et seq. Iilealism, necessary to science, 37 Idleness, unpatriotic, 215 Instruction, results of, 29 , objects of, 44 , cycles of, 148 , aims of secondary, 87 , primary, 55 , civic, 204 , historical and political, 218 ,sesthetic and literary , 226, eiseg'. , " special," 174 Intellectual education, objects of, 33, et seq. James, "W., 268, et seq. Jesu ts, the, 57 Joly, 23 Kant, 76, 92, 102, 211 Kepler, 36 Knowledge, its unification, 195 Lachelier, 55, 94, 116, 234, 246, 290 Lafitte, 42 Language, a social force, 15, et seq., 99 . modern, 154, et seq., 303 Laplace, 166, 198 Latin. Vide Classics Lavisse, 219 Lebon, 157 Legislation, 307 Leibnitz, 47, 62, 98, 200 Lie'bault, 13 Liegeois, 13 Literature, 99 , sestlietics and, 226, et seq. , debt of modem to classical, 112, et seq. Locke, vii. 287 Lockroy, 160 Logic, 312 INDEX. 331 Maxeuvrier, 107, 150, 182, 2^9, 246 Marion, 193, 204 IVIatliematics, 01, et seq., 302 ]Maximation, 17, 208 Memory, overloaded, 72 , process of, 271 Mental philosophy, 311 Methods, 93, 235 , passivity in, 200 Mill, J. S., 68, 219 Modern languages, 153 sy&tems of education, bk. iv., 137, et seq. Moltke, Von, 51 Monodeism, 12, et seq. Montjiolfier, 47 Morals, 34, 195,209 Natural history, 65, 300 Naturalist school in pedagogy, 231 Nature acts for the race, 32 Newton, 37, 47, 75, 98 Nobility, an hereditary, 42 Organization of subjects, 5 Over-prtssure, 29, et seq., 201, 275 Pascal, 37 Passivity, 200, 235 Patriotism, 214 Pestalozzi, 231 Philosopliy and secondary instruc- tion, 87, 247, et seq. higiiCr education, 264, et seq. nt-cessary for the teacher, 256, et seq. in education, 193, et seq. Physical edur-ation, 28, et seq. Physics, 62, 299 Physiology, 65, 300 Poetry, 238 Political instruction, 218, et seq., 306 economy, 305 Population, dtcruaso of, 52 Precocity, 101 Primary instruction. Vide Instruc- tion Pioudhon, 49 Psittacism, 62 Psychology, 110, 268, et seq. Pythagorizing, 84 Rabier, 94, 108, 175, 234 Eiice, education of the, ix., et seq., 2 Ptavaisson, 94, 232 Real-gymnasium, 174-192 Realism and the realschule, 179 Realschule, viii., 131, 150, 167, 174- 192 Regression to the average, 18 Religious V. moral instruction, 212, et seq. Renaissance, physical, 1 Renan, 34, 42, 94 Renouvier, 94 Ribot, 26, 42 Rotation of crops, xi. Rousseau, 49, 231 Sanscrit, 117 Savants, 93, 252 Schaarnhorst, 50 Scherer, 285 Schools. Vide Gymnasium, Real- schule, etc. Schopenhauer, 32 Science scholars, after-career of, vi. ,link between literature and, 4 , faults in teaching of, 60 , educative power of, 36 , social. Vide Social , the humanities in, ch. iii., 71-93 , objective character of, 34 , religious, 82 , limits of, 89 , organization of, 91 , teachers of, 298 Secondary instruction. Vide In- struction Selection, 3 of genius and superiority of, 7, 41, et seq. , psychological, ch. i., 10-27 , social, ch. ii., 28-32 , sexual, 31 Sentiments, the, 15, 34 Socialism, 51 Social science, 195, et seq. 332 INDEX. Sociology and education, 1 Solidarity, sentiment of, 321 Soranambulism, 12, et seq. Sfiecializiug, 5, 67 Stature, average, 18 Stendhal, 241 Stephen, Leslie, 22 Suggestion, 12, et seq. Sully, 28, oiote Table-turning, 11 Taine, 232 Tarde, 23, 110, note Teachers, itifluence of, 128 , philosophy and, 257, et Tennyson, ItJO Thamin, xi. Thiers, 222 Thought-reading, 11 Traditions, 110 Translations, value of, 118, 168, 237 Tyndall, xi., 82, 90 Unity in secondary education, 139 Utilitarianism, 9, 47, et seq. Vaihinger, 97 Vauvenargues, 86 Verses, 118 Vico, 34, 101 Virchow, 90 Vogt, 72, 91 V(nsin, 13 Volkerpsychologic, 110 "Woman, education of, 171 and natural selection, 31 Zeller, 267 Ziller. 98 D. 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