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Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library By: Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) |
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HERBERT SPENCER
Born at Derby in 1820, the son of a teacher,
from whom he received most of his education.
Obtained employment on the London and
Birmingham Railway. After the strike of 1846
he devoted himself to journalism, and in
1848 was sub editor of The Economist . He died in 1903.
HERBERT SPENCER Essays on Education
AND KINDRED SUBJECTS INTRODUCTION BY
CHARLES W. ELIOT DENT: LONDON
EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
DUTTON: NEW YORK
Made in Great Britain
at the
Aldine Press · Letchworth · Herts
for
J.M. DENT & SONS LTD
Aldine House · Bedford Street · London
First published in Everyman's Library 1911
Last reprinted 1963 NO. 504
INTRODUCTION
The four essays on education which Herbert Spencer published in a single
volume in 1861 were all written and separately published between 1854
and 1859. Their tone was aggressive and their proposals revolutionary;
although all the doctrines with one important exception had already
been vigorously preached by earlier writers on education, as Spencer
himself was at pains to point out. The doctrine which was comparatively
new ran through all four essays; but was most amply stated in the essay
first published in 1859 under the title "What Knowledge is of Most
Worth?" In this essay Spencer divided the leading kinds of human
activity into those which minister to self preservation, those which
secure the necessaries of life, those whose end is the care of
offspring, those which make good citizens, and those which prepare
adults to enjoy nature, literature, and the fine arts; and he then
maintained that in each of these several classes, knowledge of science
was worth more than any other knowledge. He argued that everywhere
throughout creation faculties are developed through the performance of
the appropriate functions; so that it would be contrary to the whole
harmony of nature "if one kind of culture were needed for the gaining of
information, and another kind were needed as a mental gymnastic." He
then maintained that the sciences are superior in all respects to
languages as educational material; they train the memory better, and a
superior kind of memory; they cultivate the judgment, and they impart an
admirable moral and religious discipline. He concluded that "for
discipline, as well as for guidance, science is of chiefest value. In
all its effects, learning the meaning of things is better than learning
the meaning of words." He answered the question "what knowledge is of
most worth?" with the one word science. This doctrine was extremely repulsive to the established profession of
education in England, where Latin, Greek, and mathematics had been the
staples of education for many generations, and were believed to afford
the only suitable preparation for the learned professions, public life,
and cultivated society. In proclaiming this doctrine with ample
illustration, ingenious argument, and forcible reiteration, Spencer was
a true educational pioneer, although some of his scientific
contemporaries were really preaching similar doctrines, each in his own
field. The profession of teaching has long been characterised by certain
habitual convictions, which Spencer undertook to shake rudely, and even
to deride. The first of these convictions is that all education,
physical, intellectual, and moral, must be authoritative, and need take
no account of the natural wishes, tendencies, and motives of the
ignorant and undeveloped child. The second dominating conviction is that
to teach means to tell, or show, children what they ought to see,
believe, and utter. Expositions by the teacher and books are therefore
the true means of education. The third and supreme conviction is that
the method of education which produced the teacher himself and the
contemporary or earlier scholars, authors, and publicists, must be the
righteous and sufficient method. Its fruits demonstrate its soundness,
and make it sacred... Continue reading book >>
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