Chapter 11

The forcing system has been by many given up, and precocity is discouraged. People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal. The once universal practice of learning by rote is daily falling into discredit. We are substituting principles for rules, as is exemplified in the abandonment of that intensely stupid custom, the teaching of grammar to children. But of all the changes taking place, the most significant is the growing desire to make the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than painful--a desire based on the more or less distinct perception that at each age the intellectual action which a child likes is a healthy one for it; and conversely. We are on the highway towards the doctrine long ago enunciated by Pestalozzi that alike in its order and its methods, education must conform to the natural process of mental evolution. Education should be a repetition of civilisation in little. Children should be told as little as possible and induced to discover as much as possible. The need for perpetual telling results from our stupidity, not from the child's. We drag it away from the facts in which it is interested, and which it is actively assimilating of itself. We put before it facts far too complex for it to understand, and therefore distasteful to it. By denying the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we produce a morbid state of its faculties; and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general. And having by our method induced helplessness, we make the helplessness a reason for our method.

Education of some kind should begin from the cradle. Whoever has watched with any discernment the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at surrounding objects, knows very well that education _does_ begin thus early, whether we intend it or not; and that these fingerings and suckings of everything it can lay hold of, these open-mouthed listenings to every sound, are first steps in the series which ends in the discovery of unseen planets, the invention of calculating engines, the production of great paintings, or the composition of symphonies and operas. This activity of the faculties from the very first, being spontaneous and inevitable, the question is whether we shall supply in due variety the materials on which they may exercise themselves; and to the question so put, none but an affirmative answer can be given. Here we must take the course which psychology dictates.

What can be more manifest than the desire of children for intellectual sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can--"Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming--"Mamma, see what a curious thing;" "Mamma, look at this;" "Mamma, look at that;" a habit which they would continue did not the silly mamma tell them not to tease her. Does not the induction lie on the surface? Is it not clear that we must conform our course to these intellectual instincts--that we must just systematise the natural process--that we must listen to all the child has to tell us about each object, and thence proceed? To tell a child this, and to show it the other, is not to teach it how to observe, but to make it a mere recipient of another's observations; a proceeding which weakens rather than strengthens its power of self-instruction.

Object lessons should be arranged to extend to things far wider and continue to a period far later than now; they should not be limited to the contents of the house, but should include those of the fields and hedges, the quarry and the seashore; they should not cease with early childhood, but should be so kept up during youth as insensibly to merge into the investigation of the naturalist and the man of science.

We are quite prepared to hear from many that all this is throwing away time and energy; and that children would be much better occupied in writing their copies and learning their pence tables, and so fitting themselves for the business of life. We regret that such crude ideas of what constitutes education, and such a narrow conception of utility, should still be prevalent. But this gross utilitarianism which is content to come into the world and quit it again without knowing what kind of a world it is, or what it contains, may be met on its own ground. It will by and by be found that a knowledge of the laws of life is more important than any other knowledge whatever--that the laws of life underlie not only all bodily and mental processes, but by implication all the transactions of the house and the street, all commerce, all politics, all morals--and that therefore without a comprehension of them, neither personal nor social conduct can be rightly regulated. It will eventually be seen, too, that the laws of life are essentially the same throughout the whole organic creation.

No one can compare the faces and manners of two boys--the one made happy by mastering interesting subjects, and the other made miserable by disgust with his studies, by consequent inability, by cold looks, by threats, by punishment--without seeing that the disposition of one is being benefited and that of the other injured. Whoever has marked the effects of success and failure upon the mind and the power of the mind over the body, will see that in the one case both temper and health are favourably affected, while in the other there is danger of permanent moroseness, of permanent timidity, and even of permanent constitutional depression.

As suggesting a final reason for making education a process of self-instruction, and by consequence a process of pleasurable instruction, we may advert to the fact that, in proportion as it is made so, there is a probability that it will not cease when schooldays end. As long as the acquisition of knowledge is rendered habitually repugnant, so long will there be a prevailing tendency to discontinue it when free from the coercion of parents and masters. And when the acquisition of knowledge has been rendered habitually gratifying, then there will be as prevailing a tendency to continue, without superintendence, that self-culture previously carried on under superintendence.

_III.--Moral Education_

The greatest defect in our programmes of education is entirely overlooked. Though some care is taken to fit youths of both sexes for society and citizenship, no care whatever is taken to fit them for the position of parents. While it is seen that for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, an elaborate preparation is needed, it appears to be thought that for the bringing up of children no preparation whatever is needed. While many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge of which the chief value is that it constitutes the "education of a gentleman," and while many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which fit her for evening parties, not an hour is spent by either in preparation for a family. Is it that this responsibility is but a remote contingency? On the contrary, it is sure to devolve on nine out of ten. Is it that the discharge of it is easy? Certainly not: of all functions which the adult has to fulfil, this is the most difficult. Is it that each may be trusted by self-instruction to fit himself, or herself, for the office of parent? No: not only is the need for such self-instruction unrecognised, but the complexity of the subject renders it the one of all others in which self-instruction is least likely to succeed. No rational plea can be put forward for leaving the art of education out of our curriculum. Whether as bearing on the happiness of parents themselves, or whether as affecting the characters and lives of their children and remote descendants, we must admit that a knowledge of the right method of juvenile culture, physical, intellectual and moral, is a knowledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the final one in the course of instruction passed through by each man and woman. As physical maturity is marked by the ability to produce offspring, so mental maturity is marked by the ability to train those offspring. _The subject which involves all other subjects, and therefore the subject in which education should culminate, is the THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION._

Our system of moral control must again be based upon nature, who illustrates to us in the simplest way the true theory and practice of moral discipline. The natural reactions which follow the child's wrong-doings are constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped. No threats; but a silent rigorous performance. If a child runs a pin into its finger, pain follows; if it does it again, there is again the same result; and so on perpetually. In all its dealings with inorganic nature it finds this unswerving persistence, which listens to no excuse, and from which there is no appeal; and very soon recognising this stern though beneficent discipline, it soon becomes extremely careful not to transgress. These general truths hold throughout adult life as well as throughout infantile life. If further proof be needed that the natural reaction is not only the most efficient penalty, but that no humanly devised penalty can replace it, we have such further proof in the notorious ill-success of our various penal systems. Out of the many methods of criminal discipline that have been proposed and legally enforced, none have answered the expectations of their advocates. Artificial punishments have failed to produce reformation; and have in many cases increased the criminality. The only successful reformatories are those privately established ones which approximate their _régime_ to the method of nature--which do little more than administer the natural consequences of criminal conduct: diminishing the criminal's liberty of action as much as is needful for the safety of society, and requiring him to maintain himself while living under this restraint. Thus we see, both that the discipline by which the young child is taught to regulate its movements is the discipline by which the great mass of adults are kept in order, and more or less improved; and that the discipline humanly devised for the worst adults fails when it diverges from this divinely-ordained discipline, and begins to succeed on approximating to it. Not only is it unwise to set up a high standard of good conduct for children, but it is even unwise to use very urgent incitements to good conduct. Already most people recognise the detrimental results of intellectual precocity; but there remains to be recognised the fact that moral precocity also has detrimental results. Be sparing of commands, but whenever you do command, command with decision and constancy. Remember that the aid of your discipline should be to produce a self-governing being; not to produce a being to be governed by others.

Lastly, always remember that to educate rightly is not a simple and easy thing, but a complex and extremely difficult thing; the hardest task which devolves on adult life. You will have to carry on your own moral education at the same time that you are educating your children. The last stage in the mental development of each man and woman is to be reached only through a proper discharge of the parental duties; and when this truth is recognised it will be seen how admirable is the arrangement through which human beings are led by their strongest affections to subject themselves to a discipline that they would else elude; and we shall see that while in its injurious effects on both parents and child a bad system is twice cursed, a good system is twice blessed--it blesses him that trains and him that is trained.

_IV.--Physical Education_

The system of restriction in regard to food which many parents think so necessary is based upon inadequate observation, and erroneous reasoning. There is an over-legislation in the nursery as well as over-legislation in the state; and one of the most injurious forms of it is this limitation in the quantity of food. We contend that, as appetite is a good guide to all the lower creation--as it is a good guide to the infant--as it is a good guide to the invalid--as it is a good guide to the differently-placed races of man--and as it is a good guide for every adult who leads a healthful life, it may safely be inferred that it is a good guide to childhood. It would be strange indeed were it here alone untrustworthy.

With clothing, as with food, the usual tendency is towards an improper scantiness. Here, too, asceticism creeps out. Yet it is not obedience to the sensations, but disobedience to them which is the habitual cause of bodily evils. It is not the eating when hungry, but the eating in the absence of hunger, which is bad; it is not drinking when thirsty, but continuing to drink when thirst has ceased, that is the vice.

Again, harm does not result from taking that active exercise which, as every child shows us, nature strongly prompts, but from a persistent disregard of nature's promptings; but the natural spontaneous exercise having been forbidden, and the bad consequences of no exercise having become conspicuous, there has been adopted a system of factitious exercise--gymnastics. That this is better than nothing we admit; but that it is an adequate substitute for play we deny. The truth is that happiness is the most powerful of tonics. By accelerating the circulation of the blood, it facilitates the performance of every function; and so tends alike to increase health where it exists, and to restore it when it has been lost. Hence the intrinsic superiority of play to gymnastics. The extreme interest felt by children in their games, and the riotous glee with which they carry on their rougher frolics, are of as much importance as the accompanying exertion; and as not supplying these mental stimuli gymnastics must be radically defective, and can never serve in place of the exercises prompted by nature. For girls as well as boys the sportive activities to which the instincts impel are essential to bodily welfare. Whoever forbids them, forbids the divinely-appointed means to physical development.

We suffer at present from a very potent detrimental influence, which is excess of mental application, forgetting that nature is a strict accountant, and if you demand of her in one direction more than she is prepared to lay out, she balances the account by making a reduction elsewhere. We forget that it is not knowledge which is stored up as intellectual fat that is of value, but that which is turned into intellectual muscle. Worse still, our system is fatal to that vigour of physique needful to make intellectual training available in the struggle of life. Yet a good digestion, a bounding pulse, and high spirits are elements of happiness which no external advantages can outbalance.

Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality. Men's habitual words and acts imply the idea that they are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Disorders entailed by disobedience to nature's dictates, they regard simply as grievances; not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their dependents, and on future generations, are often as great as those caused by time, yet they do not think themselves in any degree criminal. It is true that, in the case of drunkenness, the viciousness of a bodily transgression is recognised; but none appear to infer that, if this bodily transgression is vicious, so, too, is every bodily transgression. The fact is, that all breaches of the laws of health are _physical sins._ When this is generally seen, then, and perhaps not till then, will the physical training of the young receive the attention which it deserves.

Principles of Biology

In 1860 Spencer commenced a connected series of philosophical works, designed to unfold in their natural order the principles of biology, psychology, sociology and morality. "Principles of Biology" was published in 1864, and aims to set forth, the general truths of biology as illustrative of, and as interpreted by the laws of evolution. It was revised in 1899.

_Proximate Definition of Life_

To those who accept the general doctrine of evolution, it needs scarcely to be pointed out that classifications are subjective conceptions which have no absolute demarcations in nature corresponding to them. Consequently in attempting to define anything complex we can scarcely ever avoid including more than was intended, or leaving out something that should be taken in. Thus it happens that on seeking a definition of life there is great difficulty in finding one that is neither more nor less than sufficient. As the best mode of determining the general characteristics of vitality, let us compare its two most unlike kinds and see in what they agree.

Choosing _assimilation_, then, for our example of bodily life, and _reasoning_ for our example of the life known as intelligence, it is first to be observed that they are both processes of change. Without change food cannot be taken into the blood nor transformed into tissue: neither can conclusions be obtained from premises. This conspicuous manifestation of change forms the substratum of our idea of life in general. Comparison shows this change to differ from non-vital changes in being made up of _successive_ changes. The food must undergo mastication, digestion, etc., while an argument necessitates a long chain of states of consciousness, each implying a change of the preceding state. Vital change is further made up of many _simultaneous_ changes. Assimilation and argument both include many actions going on together. Vital changes, both visceral and cerebral, also differ from other changes in their _heterogeneity_; neither the simultaneous nor the serial acts of digestion or of ratiocination are at all alike. They are again distinguished by the combination subsisting among their constituent changes. The acts that make up digestion are mutually dependent; as are those which compose a train of reasoning. Once more, they differ in being characterised by definiteness. Assimilation, respiration, and circulation, are definitely interdependent. These characterisations not only mark off the vital from the non-vital, but also creatures of high vitality from those of low vitality. Hence our formula reads thus:--_Life is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive._ Not _a_ definite combination, allowing that there may be others, but _the_ definite combination. This, however, omits its most distinctive peculiarity.

_Correspondence Between Life and Its Circumstances_

We habitually distinguish between a live object and a dead one by observing whether a change in the surrounding conditions is or is not followed by some perceptible and appropriate change in the object. Adding this all-important characteristic, our conception of life becomes--the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, _in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences_. Some illustrations may serve to show the significance of this addition.

Every act of locomotion implies the expenditure of certain internal mechanical forces, adapted in amounts and directions to balance or outbalance certain external ones. The recognition of an object is impossible without a harmony between the changes constituting perception and particular properties coexisting in the environment. Escape from enemies supposes motions within the organism related in kind and rapidity to motions without it. Destruction of prey requires a particular combination of subjective actions, fitted in degree and succession to overcome a group of objective ones.

The difference of this correspondence in inanimate and animate bodies may be expressed by symbols. Let A be a change in the environment; and B some resulting change in an inorganic mass. Then A having produced B, the action ceases. But take a sufficiently organised living body, and let the change A impress on it some change C; then, while the environment A is occasioning _a_, in the living body, C will be occasioning _c_: of which _a_ and _c_ will show a certain concord in time, place, or intensity. And while it is in the continuous production of such concords or correspondences that life consists, it is _by_ the continuous production of them that life is maintained.

As, in all cases, we may consider the external phenomena as simply in relation, and the internal phenomena also as simply in relation, the broadest and most complete definition of life will be:--_the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations_. It will be best, however, commonly to employ its more concrete equivalent--to consider the internal relations as "definite combinations of simultaneous and successive changes"; the external relations as "coexistences and sequences," and the connection between them as a "correspondence."

_The Degree of Life Varies as the Degree of Correspondence_

It is now to be remarked that the life is high in proportion as this correspondence between internal and external relations is well-fulfilled.

Each step upward must consist in adding to the previously adjusted relations which the organism exhibits some further relation, parallel to a further relation in the environment. And the greater correspondence thus established must, other things being equal, show itself both in greater complexity of life and greater length of life--a truth which will be duly realised on remembering the enormous mortality which prevails among lowly-organized creatures, and the gradual increase of longevity and diminution of fertility which is met with in ascending to creatures of higher and higher development. Those relations in the environment to which relations in the organism must correspond increase in number and intensity as the life assumes a higher form. Perfect correspondence would be perfect life.

_Growth, or Increase of Bulk_

Perhaps the widest and most familiar induction of biology is that organisms grow. Under appropriate conditions increase of size takes place in inorganic aggregates as well as in organic aggregates. Crystals grow. Growth is indeed a concomitant of evolution. The several conditions by which the phenomena of organic growth are governed, conspiring and conflicting in endless ways and degrees, qualify more or less differently each others' effects. Hence the following generalisations must be taken as true on the average, or other things equal:--