Part 1

Chapter 13,758 wordsPublic domain

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EDUCATION AND LIFE

PAPERS AND ADDRESSES

JAMES H. BAKER, M.A., LL.D.

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, AND FORMERLY PRINCIPAL OF THE DENVER HIGH SCHOOL; AUTHOR OF “ELEMENTARY PSYCHOLOGY”

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON AND BOMBAY 1900

_All rights reserved_

Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York.

PREFACE.

The papers and addresses constituting this volume were prepared for various occasions. They naturally fall into two groups: papers on Education, and addresses that come under the broader title of Education and Life. The subjects of the first group are arranged in a somewhat logical order, namely: a general view of the field, especially as seen by Plato; secondary education and its relation to the elementary and higher; some principles and problems of the elementary and secondary periods; higher education; the practical bearing of all mental development.

Some of the leading views presented in this book may be expressed in the following propositions: While our educational purpose must remain ideal, all education must be brought in closer touch with the work and the problems of to-day. For the safety of democracy and the welfare of society, the social aim in the preparation for citizenship must be given more prominence. Although methods that make power are the great need of the schools, mental power without a content of knowledge means nothing; each field of knowledge has its own peculiar value, and, therefore, the choice of studies during the period of general training is not a matter of indifference. Studies belonging to a given period are also good preparation for higher grades of work—a view to be more fully considered by the colleges. In the readjustments of our educational system, the entire time between the first grade and college graduation must be shortened. Some common-sense concepts which have always dwelt in human consciousness, properly kept in view, would often prevent us from wandering in strange pedagogic bypaths. We have suffered from false interpretation of the doctrines of pleasure, pursuit of inclination, punishment by natural consequences, and following lines of least resistance. Evolution and modern psychology, in their latest interpretations, are reaching a safe philosophy for school and life. At the close of this century we have almost a new insight into the doctrine of happiness through work. The heroic, ethical, and æsthetic elements of character are of prime importance. We often find some of the best principles of teaching and rules of life in literature which does not rank as scientific, but contains half-conscious, incidental expression of deep insight into human nature, and in some of the writers referred to in the addresses we find, not only good pedagogics, but fresh hope for both romance and practical philosophy. For our view of life and for our theory of education, we are to interpret evolution and judge the purpose of creation, not by the first struggle of a protozoan for food, but by the last aspiration of man for Heaven.

CONTENTS.

EDUCATION.

PAGE

I. HERITAGE OF THE SCHOLAR 3

Greek and Teuton, 3. Our heritage, 5. Education, 9. Force of ideas, 14. The material and the spiritual, 18. The American student, 19. Literature of the nineteenth century, 21. Romance not dead, 23. Aspect of science, 25. Practical side, 26.

II. PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND LIFE 29

Historical, 29. Plato and the influence of Platonism, 32. Philosophy, 34. Religion, 38. Ethics, 39. Education, The state, 43-46. Comments, 46. “Plato, thou reasonest well,” 49.

III. SECONDARY EDUCATION: A REVIEW 50

Introductory, 50. Summary of recommendations, 52. Beginning certain studies earlier, 55. The high-school period, 57. Identity of instruction, Better teachers, Postponing final choice of a course, 60-61. Uniformity, 61. Connection between high schools and colleges, Standard of professional schools, Adequate work for each subject, Reducing number of subjects, 63-64. Rational choice of subjects, 64. Analysis of the nature and importance of each leading subject of study, 66.

IV. EDUCATIONAL VALUES 69

Criterion, 69. Values, 69. Theory of equivalence, 72. Deviation from ideal courses, Self-activity, Interest, Apperception, Correlation, Coördination, Culture-epochs, Concentration, Laws of association, 74-78. Pleasure, 78.

V. POWER AS RELATED TO KNOWLEDGE 80

Attempt to distinguish between power and knowledge, 80. Illustrations and inferences, 81. Review of article on methods that make power, 84. The recluse and the man of action, 86. Exaggeration of power, Specializing too early, Kind of knowledge important, Specific and general power, Argument for higher education, 86-89. Power to enjoy, Energy of character, 89-91.

VI. MORAL TRAINING 92

Introductory, 92. Habit, 92. Leadership, 95. Historic examples, Literature, 96-98. Precept, Objects for activity, 98-99. Duty, 99. What the schools are doing, 101.

VII. CAN VIRTUE BE TAUGHT? 103

Protagoras’ view, 103. Ethical problem of secondary schools, 103. Analysis of impulses to action, 105. Relation of whole school curriculum to moral development, 107. Some specific ways of teaching practical ethics, 108. Interest, 112. Romanticism, 113. Moral growth a growth in freedom, 115.

VIII. COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY 116

Summary of answers to inquiries, 116. The college and preparation, 117. Liberal education, 121. The college and active life, 124. Ethical ideals, 125. University standards, 127.

IX. UNIVERSITY IDEALS 130

Historical, 130. The State University, 132. Some university problems, 139.

X. GENERAL EDUCATION PRACTICAL 145

Practical bearing of all education, 145. World still demands liberal education, Æsthetic and ideal elements, 148-151.

ELEMENTS OF AN IDEAL LIFE.

I. THE MODERN GOSPEL OF WORK 155

Philosophy of work, 155. Some exemplars, 161. Modern romance, 163. Work for others, 165. The complete man, 167. Epic and idyl, 169.

II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAITH 172

Question stated, 172. Some latest views of evolution, 175. Some grounds of faith, 176. Poetic insight, 183. The practical life, 184.

III. EVOLUTION OF A PERSONAL IDEAL 187

Illustration and law of growth, 187. Stationary ideals, Advance, 188-193. Means of development, 193. Be of to-day, 195. A creed, 196.

IV. THE GREEK VIRTUES IN MODERN APPLICATION 199

Essential conditions for a satisfactory life, 199. A sound body, 200. Courage, 201. Wisdom, 203. Justice, 205. Reverence, 207. The practical world, 209.

V. THE STUDENT AS CITIZEN 211

Hebrew and Greek standards of citizenship, 211. Each a part of the whole, 213. Responsibility of the scholar, 214. The student’s obligation to the state, 216. Political standards, 218.

VI. OPTIMISM AND INTEREST 221

Ground and nature of interest, 221. Many interests, 222. Validity of instinct, 223. Moral grades, 225. Cultivation of interest, 227. Happiness, 230. Occupation, 232.

VII. THE ETHICAL AND ÆSTHETIC ELEMENTS IN EDUCATION 234

Baccalaureate Day, 234. Courage and opportunity, 234. “Laughter of the soul at itself,” 237. Attitude toward religion, 238. Love of art, 241.

VIII. PROGRESS AS REALIZATION 243

Theme illustrated, 243. Individual history, 244. Ideals and development, 245. Significance of higher emotional life, 250. Future of history and philosophy, 252. Realization, 253.

EDUCATION.

HERITAGE OF THE SCHOLAR.

For a thousand years before the Teuton appeared on the scene of civilization, the sages had been teaching in the agora of Athens and in the groves and gardens of its environs. There profound subjective philosophies were imparted to eager seekers for truth, and in the schools geometry, rhetoric, music, and gymnastics gave to the Attic youth a culture more refined than was ever possessed by any other people. The Athenians were familiar with a literature which, for purity and elegance of style, was never surpassed. The Greeks believed with Plato, that “rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly educated.” There temples rose with stately column and sculptured frieze, and art fashioned marble in the images of the gods with a transcendent skill that gave an enduring name to many of its devotees.

Meantime our ancestors were wandering westward through the forests of Europe, or were dwelling for a time in thatched huts on some fertile plain, or in some inviting glade or grove. But these children of the forest, almost savages, possessed the genius of progress, a power that turned to its own uses the civilization of the past, and almost wholly determined the character of modern history. They highly esteemed independence and honor. In their estimate of woman they stood above the people of antiquity, and the home was held sacred. They possessed a practical and earnest spirit, an inborn dislike for mere formalism, and a regard for essentials that later developed in scientific discovery and independence of thought. The Teuton had a nature in which ideas took a firm root, and he had a profoundly religious spirit, impressible by great religious truths. He listened to the rustle of the oak leaves in his sacred groves, as did the Greeks at Dodona, and they whispered to him of mysterious powers that manifested themselves through nature. The scalds, the old Teutonic poets, sang in weird runic rhymes of the valorous deeds of their ancestors.

How the Teutons hurled themselves against the barriers of the Roman Empire, how they overran the fields of Italy, how they absorbed and assimilated to their own nature what was best in the civilization of the ancients, how they formed the nuclei of the modern nations, how the renaissance of the ancient literature and art in Italy spread over Western Europe and reached England, and later an offshoot was transplanted to American soil—these and similar themes constitute some of the most interesting portions of history. Not least important is the fact that the Roman world gave the Teutons the religion of Christ, that highest development of faith in things not seen, which, to the mind of many a searcher in rational theology, is a necessary part of a complete plan, to a belief in which we are led by a profoundly contemplative view of nature and human life. We study the past to know the present. Man finds himself only by a broad view of the world and of history, together with a deep insight into his own being. Our present institutions are understood better when viewed historically; in the light of history our present opportunities and obligations assume fuller significance.

* * * * *

By the mingling of two streams, one flowing from the sacred founts of Greece and Rome, the other springing from among the rocks and pines of the German forests, a current of civilization was formed which swept onward and broadened into a placid and powerful river. Let us view the character of the present period, and learn to value what has come down to us from the past—our heritage of institutions and ideas, a heritage derived from the two sources, Greco-Roman and Teutonic.

The independent, practical, investigating energy of the Teutonic character has made this an age of scientific discovery and material progress. The forces of nature are turned to man’s uses. Science discovers and proclaims the laws of nature’s processes, and evolution admits that, in view of every phenomenon, we are in the presence of an inscrutable energy that orders and sustains all nature’s manifestations. The ideas of the Christian religion, universally received by the new peoples, in the course of centuries have forced themselves in their full meaning upon the minds of men, and they determine more than all else the altruistic spirit of the age. Altruism is the soul of Christianity; it has become a forceful and practical idea, and it promises greater changes in political and social conditions than the world has ever seen. The religious revolt of the sixteenth century is a Teutonic inheritance—a revolt which transmitted some evils, but which abjured formalism and based merit upon the essential, conscious attitude of man. If the impulse that grew into the revolution of the eighteenth century and led to political emancipation was not of Teutonic origin, it was received and cherished everywhere by Teutonic peoples, and was carried by them to permanent conclusions. The modern Teuton is found in his highest development in the intelligent American of to-day. The ancient Teuton caught up the torch of civilization, and in the fourteen centuries since has carried it far. It is, perhaps, a return kindly made by fate that the light of that torch was for many years a beacon to benighted Italy. The modern Teuton extends to her the hand of enlightened sympathy, and remembers in gratitude the great gift received from her in the early centuries.

And we inherit from the ancients, those master minds that were the authors of great conceptions when the world was young. Greece was the Shakespeare of the ancient world. It transmuted all that it had received from the nations of the Orient into forms of surpassing genius, even as the great master of the Elizabethan period of our era turned all that he touched into precious metal. When the world was crude, and there were no great originals to imitate, it meant much to create, and create so perfectly that many of the results have ever since been ideals for all peoples. Phidias and Apelles, Pericles and Demosthenes, Homer and Euripides, Herodotus and Xenophon, Aristides, Socrates and Plato and Aristotle—artists, statesmen, orators, poets, historians, men great and just, philosophers! Can we wonder that the glory of their names increases with time? They were men whom no truly independent worker ever surpassed. No wonder the soil of Greece is sacred, and that men of to-day go back in imagination across the chasm of ages and visit it with reverential spirit. No wonder we still go to the original sources for culture and inspiration. No wonder the great and noble men of Greece are still among the best examples for the instruction of youth. The pass at Thermopylæ, where perished the three hundred, the Parthenon, are hallowed by sacred memories. The Greeks had a marvellous love for nature. They saw it instinct with life, and in fancy beheld some personal power moving in the zephyr, or flowing with the river, or dwelling in the growing tree. Their mythology has become the handmaid of literature. Parnassus, Apollo and the Sacred Nine command almost a belief with our reverence. If the seats on the sacred mount are already filled with the great men of the past, at least we can sit at their feet. The study of the humanities has a peculiar value, because it develops distinctively human possibilities. Thought and language are mysteriously connected. One of the most noted philologists of the age claims that thought without language is impossible. The use of language helps to develop concepts. Fine literature, with its thoughts, its beauty of expression, constructs, as it were, the best channels for original expression. Art strives for perfection, cultivates ideals, refines and ennobles. It creates an understanding of all the ideals that may be included in the categories of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good; hence the interpretation of the aphorism of Goethe, “The beautiful is greater than the good, for it includes the good and adds something to it.” Art gives strength to the aspirations, and lends wings to the spirit. The study of the humanities is a grand means of real development.

The present offers the student two sides of education—the modern and the classic, the sciences and the humanities. Ever since the Baconian method was given to the world the interest in science has steadily increased, until now there is danger of neglecting the classic side. Each side of education has its value; either alone makes a one-sided man; let neither be neglected.

In this country to-day the student moves in the vanguard of progress; he is heir to all that is best in the past, and his heritage makes for him opportunities full of promise.

All the soul growth of our ancestors modifies the mechanism of our intellectual processes, and gives us minds that fall into rhythm with the march of ideas. We profit by all the past has done; the active factors in this age of freedom—intellectual, spiritual, and political—are multiplied by millions, and each profits by the efforts of all. Intellectual acquirement is a duty; to be ignorant is to be behind the spirit of the time. There are problems yet to be solved; there are duties to ourselves and the age. Every individual tendency, fitness, and inclination can be met by the diversity of occupations, of knowledge, and of fields of investigation. Men of moral stamina are still needed to stand for all that is best. New ideals are to be created that shall typify an age which yet lacks poetic expression. When we consider the evolution of man and of institutions, we see that we are very far from perfection, and that each period of history is a period of development. We read of the brutal traits of our ancestors, their ignorance, and their superstition, and we can still discover the same tendencies, only more refined and better controlled. Along the avenue of progress we march toward the high destiny of the race. Evolution is the law both of Spencer and of Hegel. Every struggle of an earnest soul gives impetus to the movement.

* * * * *

A Shakespeare, reared on the steppes of Central Asia, among the Tartar hordes of Genghis Khan, would have been a savage—a poetic savage, perhaps, but still a savage—bloodthirsty, restless, and wild. Born of a primitive race, in some sunny clime, he would have looked dreamily upon the world and life, somewhat as an animal of the forest; he would have fed on the spontaneous products of nature, and have reposed under the shadow of his palm tree. Shakespeare of England, by a long process of education, gained the ideas of his age and the culture of the great civilizations of the past. His education and the forceful ideas of a period of thought and reformation and investigation stimulated the distinctively human intelligence, and awakened subjective analysis and poetic fancy, and he made true pictures of human character, world types, in history, tragedy, and comedy. Education enables man to begin real life where the previous age left off. It is an inherited capital. Ideas, fancies, principles, laws, discoveries, experience from failures, which were the work of centuries, are furnished ready at hand as tools for the intellectual workman. The present is understood in the light of history; the methods of investigating nature are transmitted. The growth of the race is epitomized in the individual.

Let us look at the sphere of education. Here is the world of infinite variety, form, and color. The savage looks upon it with superstitious wonder, and, perhaps, with a kind of sensuous enjoyment. He knows not how to wield nature to practical ends. But the book of science is opened to him through education. He learns the secrets of nature’s laboratory and, as with magic wand, he marshals the atoms and causes new forms of matter to appear for his uses. He learns the manifestations and transmutations of nature’s forces, and he trains them to obey his will and do his work. He observes how, under the influence of a distinct order of forces, organic forms rise on the face of nature and develop into higher and higher classes, and, incidentally, he learns the uses of vegetable products. He knows the laws of number; commodities, structures, and forces are quantitatively estimated, and material progress becomes possible. He traces the history of nations and understands the problems of the present. He catches the inspiration of the geniuses of literature, and he rises to a level with the great minds of the earth; he becomes a creature of ideas, sentiments, aspirations, and ideals, instead of remaining a mere animal. He learns the languages of cultured peoples, and gets at their inner life; learns their concepts, the polish of their expression, and becomes more enlightened and refined. He studies the subjective side of man, that which is a mirror of all that is objective, and he understands his own powers and possibilities, and the laws of human growth. He studies philosophy, and he stands face to face with the ultimate conceptions of creation and gains a basis for his thought and conduct. This is a practical view, and pertains to the making of a useful and strong man—master over the forces of nature, able to use ideas for practical ends, and capable of continuous growth.

But knowledge as such, and its use for manhood and happiness, are often underestimated. To know the processes and history of inorganic nature, to trace the growth of worlds and know their movements, and number the starry hosts, to study the structure and development of all organic life, to know the infallible laws of mathematics, to live amid the deeds of men of all ages, to imbibe their richest thoughts, to stand in presence of the problems of the infinite, make a mere animal man almost a god, direct him toward the realization of the great possibilities of his being. Imagine a man born in a desert land, and shut in by the walls of a tent from the glories of nature. Imagine him to have matured in body with no thought or language other than pertaining to the needs of physical existence. Imagine him, since we may imagine the impossible, to have a fully developed power for intellectual grasp and emotional life. Then open up to him the beauty of the forest, the poetry of the sea, the grandeur of the mountains, and the sublimity of the starry heavens; let him read the secrets of nature; present to him the writings of men whose lives have been enriched by their own labor, and whose faces radiate an almost divine expression born of good thoughts; reveal to him the glowing concepts that find expression through the chisel or brush of the artist, and give him a view from the summit of philosophy. Would he not look upon nature as a marvellous temple of infinite proportions, adorned with priceless gems and frescoed with master hand? Would he not regard art and thought as divinely inspired? And this picture is hardly overdrawn; such a contrast, only less in degree, lies between the vicious, ignorant boor, given to animal pleasures, and the scholar. Learning draws aside the tent folds and reveals the wonders of the temple. Man must have enjoyment; if not intellectual, then it will be sensuous and degrading. Here is an enjoyment that does not pall, a stimulus that does not react, a gratification that ennobles.