The business which the South London Working Men's College has undertaken
is a great work; indeed, I might say, that Education, with which that
college proposes to grapple, is the greatest work of all those which lie
ready to a man's hand just at present.
And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recognised. You cannot go
anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less confused and contradictory
talk on this subject—nor can you fail to notice that, in one point
at any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like discussions in
former days. Nobody outside the agricultural interest now dares to say
that education is a bad thing. If any representative of the once large and
powerful party, which, in former days, proclaimed this opinion, still
exists in the semi-fossil state, he keeps his thoughts to himself. In
fact, there is a chorus of voices, almost distressing in their harmony,
raised in favour of the doctrine that education is the great panacea for
human troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly to go to the dogs,
everybody must be educated.
The politicians tell us, "You must educate the masses because they are
going to be masters." The clergy join in the cry for education, for they
affirm that the people are drifting away from church and chapel into the
broadest infidelity. The manufacturers and the capitalists swell the
chorus lustily. They declare that ignorance makes bad workmen; that
England will soon be unable to turn out cotton goods, or steam engines,
cheaper than other people; and then, Ichabod! Ichabod!50
the glory will be departed from us. And a few voices are lifted up in
favour of the doctrine that the masses should be educated because they are
men and women with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suffering,
and that it is as true now, as it ever was, that the people perish for
lack of knowledge.
These members of the minority, with whom I confess I have a good deal of
sympathy, are doubtful whether any of the other reasons urged in favour of
the education of the people are of much value—whether, indeed, some
of them are based upon either wise or noble grounds of action. They
question if it be wise to tell people that you will do for them, out of
fear of their power, what you have left undone, so long as your only
motive was compassion for their weakness and their sorrows. And, if
ignorance of everything which is needful a ruler should know is likely to
do so much harm in the governing classes of the future, why is it, they
ask reasonably enough, that such ignorance in the governing classes of the
past has not been viewed with equal horror?
Compare the average artisan and the average country squire, and it may be
doubted if you will find a pin to choose between the two in point of
ignorance, class feeling, or prejudice. It is true that the ignorance is
of a different sort—that the class feeling is in favour of a
different class and that the prejudice has a distinct savour of
wrong-headedness in each case—but it is questionable if the one is
either a bit better, or a bit worse, than the other. The old protectionist
theory is the doctrine of trades unions as applied by the squires, and the
modern trades unionism is the doctrine of the squires applied by the
artisans. Why should we be worse off under one regime than under the
other?
Again, this sceptical minority asks the clergy to think whether it is
really want of education which keeps the masses away from their
ministrations—whether the most completely educated men are not as
open to reproach on this score as the workmen; and whether, perchance,
this may not indicate that it is not education which lies at the bottom of
the matter?
Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing, venture to doubt
whether the glory which rests upon being able to undersell all the rest of
the world, is a very safe kind of glory—whether we may not purchase
it too dear; especially if we allow education, which ought to be directed
to the making of men, to be diverted into a process of manufacturing human
tools, wonderfully adroit in the exercise of some technical industry, but
good for nothing else.
And, finally, these people inquire whether it is the masses alone who need
a reformed and improved education. They ask whether the richest of our
public schools might not well be made to supply knowledge, as well as
gentlemanly habits, a strong class feeling, and eminent proficiency in
cricket. They seem to think that the noble foundations of our old
universities are hardly fulfilling their functions in their present
posture of half-clerical seminaries, half racecourses, where men are
trained to win a senior wranglership,51 or a
double-first,52 as horses are trained to win a
cup, with as little reference to the needs of after-life in the case of a
man as in that of the racer. And, while as zealous for education as the
rest, they affirm that, if the education of the richer classes were such
as to fit them to be the leaders and the governors of the poorer; and, if
the education of the poorer classes were such as to enable them to
appreciate really wise guidance and good governance, the politicians need
not fear mob-law, nor the clergy lament their want of flocks, nor the
capitalists prognosticate the annihilation of the prosperity of the
country.
Such is the diversity of opinion upon the why and the wherefore of
education. And my hearers will be prepared to expect that the practical
recommendations which are put forward are not less discordant. There is a
loud cry for compulsory education. We English, in spite of constant
experience to the contrary, preserve a touching faith in the efficacy of
acts of Parliament; and I believe we should have compulsory education in
the courses of next session, if there were the least probability that half
a dozen leading statesmen of different parties would agree what that
education should be.
Some hold that education without theology is worse than none. Others
maintain, quite as strongly, that education with theology is in the same
predicament. But this is certain, that those who hold the first opinion
can by no means agree what theology should be taught; and that those who
maintain the second are in a small minority.
At any rate "make people learn to read, write, and cipher," say a great
many; and the advice is undoubtedly sensible as far as it goes. But, as
has happened to me in former days, those who, in despair of getting
anything better, advocate this measure, are met with the objection that it
is very like making a child practise the use of a knife, fork, and spoon,
without giving it particle of meat. I really don't know what reply is to
be made to such an objection.
But it would be unprofitable to spend more time in disentangling, or
rather in showing up the knots in, the ravelled skeins of our neighbours.
Much more to the purpose is it to ask if we possess any clue of our own
which may guide us among these entanglements. And by way of a beginning,
let us ask ourselves—What is education? Above all things, what is
our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education?—of that education
which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves—of that
education which, if we could mould the fates to our own will, we would
give our children? Well, I know not what may be your conceptions upon this
matter, but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our views
are not very discrepant.
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one
of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game of
chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty
to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion
of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of
check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation
amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state
which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a
knight?
Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune,
and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are
connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a
game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game
which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one
of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the
world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game
are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is
hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient.
But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes
the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the
highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with
which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is
checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.
My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch
53
has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for
the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for
love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept
it as an image of human life.
Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game.
In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws
of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces,
but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the
will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws.
For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which
professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if
it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be
the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.
It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as
an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the
full vigour of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world, as
Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How long
would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach
him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain
and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that;
and by slow degrees the man would receive an education which, if narrow,
would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there
would be no extras and very few accomplishments.
And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam or, better still, an
Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, would be
revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seem but
faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow
would take the place of the coarser monitors, pleasure and pain; but
conduct would still be shaped by the observation of the natural
consequences of actions; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature of
man.
To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. And
then, long before we were susceptible of any other modes of instruction,
Nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its
educational influence, shaping our actions into rough accordance with
Nature's laws, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross
disobedience. Nor should I speak of this process of education as past for
any one, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is as fresh as it
was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the
eyes to see them. And Nature is still continuing her patient education of
us in that great university, the universe, of which we are all members—Nature
having no Test-Acts.54
Those who take honours in Nature's university, who learn the laws which
govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful
men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the "Poll,"55
who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who
won't learn at all are plucked;56 and then you can't come up
again. Nature's pluck means extermination.
Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as Nature is
concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But,
like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful in
its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience—incapacity
meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a
word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is
left to you to find out why your ears are boxed.
The object of what we commonly call education—that education in
which man intervenes and which I shall distinguish as artificial education—is
to make good these defects in Nature's methods; to prepare the child to
receive Nature's education, neither incapably nor ignorantly, nor with
wilful disobedience; and to understand the preliminary symptoms of her
pleasure, without waiting for the box on the ear. In short, all artificial
education ought to be an anticipation of natural education. And a liberal
education is an artificial education which has not only prepared a man to
escape the great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has trained
him to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards, which Nature scatters
with as free a hand as her penalties.
That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in
youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease
and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose
intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal
strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be
turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the
anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great
and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations; one
who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are
trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender
conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of
art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself.
Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; for he
is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. He will make
the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she as
his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her conscious self, her
minister and interpreter.
