An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education: A Liberal Education for All

An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education: A Liberal Education for All

These are anxious days for all who are engaged in education. We rejoiced in the fortitude, valour and devotion shown by our men in the War and recognize that these things are due to the Schools as well as to the fact that England still breeds very valiant creatures. It is good to know that the whole army was illustrious. The heroism of our officers derives an added impulse from that tincture of letters that every Public schoolboy gets, and those playing fields where boys acquire habits of obedience and command. But what about the abysmal ignorance shown in the wrong thinking of many of the men who stayed at home? Are we to blame? I suppose most of us feel that we are: for these men are educated as we choose to understand education, that is, they can read and write, think perversely, and follow an argument, though they are unable to detect a fallacy. If we ask in perplexity, why do so many men and women seem incapable of generous impulse, of reasoned patriotism, of seeing beyond the circle of their own interests, is not the answer, that men are enabled for such things by education? These are the marks of educated persons; and when millions of men who should be the backbone of the country seem to be dead to public claims, we have to ask,Why then are[2] not these persons educated, and what have we given them in lieu of education? Our errors in education, so far as we have erred, turn upon the conception we form of mind, and the theory which has filtered through to most teachers implies the out-of-date notion of the development of faculties, a notion which itself rests on the axiom that thought is no more than a function of the brain. Here we find the sole justification of the scanty curricula provided in most of our schools, for the tortuous processes of our teaching, for the mischievous assertion that it does not matter what a child learns but only how he learns it. If we teach much and children learn little we comfort ourselves with the idea that we are developing this or the other faculty. A great future lies before the nation which shall perceive that knowledge is the sole concern of education proper, as distinguished from training, and that knowledge is the necessary daily food of the mind. Teachers are looking out for the support of a sound theory, and such a theory must recognize with conviction the part mind plays in education and the conditions under which this prime agent acts. We want a philosophy of education which, admitting that thought alone appeals to mind, that thought begets thought, shall relegate to their proper subsidiary places all those sensory and muscular activities which are supposed to afford intellectual as well as physical training. The latter is so important in and for itself that it needs not to be bolstered up by the notion that it includes the whole, or the practically important part, of education. The same remark holds good of vocational training. Our journals ask with scorn,Is there no education but what is got out of books at school? Is not the lad who works in the fields getting education? and the public lacks the courage to say definitely, No, he is[3] not, because there is no clear notion current as to what education means, and how it is to be distinguished from vocational training. But the people themselves begin to understand and to clamour for an education which shall qualify their children for life rather than for earning a living. As a matter of fact, it is the man who has read and thought on many subjects who is, with the necessary training, the most capable whether in handling tools, drawing plans, or keeping books. The more of a person we succeed in making a child, the better will he both fulfil his own life and serve society. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 66369
Author: Mason, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Maria)
Release Date: Sep 23, 2021
Format: eBook
Language: English