Education

Education, in the sense these books give it, covers the whole formation of a human being: the nursing and upbringing of infants, the instruction of boys and girls, the schooling of youth, the habits and manners that make a gentleman or a citizen, and the long self-culture of the mature. Montaigne called the rearing of children the greatest difficulty in all human knowledge¹. De Quincey went further and imagined a goddess of education who draws out a child’s powers through passion, strife and temptation, not through spelling-books². The idea is great for these volumes because nearly every author takes it up, whether as philosopher, parent, poet or reformer. Under it lie questions that recur in every age: what makes men differ, what life is for, and what a society owes its young.

The first conviction, widely shared, is that early habit is enormously powerful. Bacon defined education as “an early custom,” most perfect when begun in youth³. Locke judged that nine men in ten are good or evil, useful or not, by their education⁴, and he warned that early indulgence poisons the fountain⁵. Hume held that custom and education mould the mind from infancy into a fixed character⁶. Descartes saw that the same mind raised in France or among the Chinese would think differently⁷, and Confucius had already said that men begin alike and are parted by habit⁸.

From this follows a bold modern claim, that differences among men come from education rather than nature. Adam Smith thought the philosopher and the porter were much alike as children, and that occupation and training made them unlike⁹. Rousseau observed that education widens natural differences, as a giant gains on a dwarf¹⁰. James Mill, as his son reports, held that character is formed by circumstances, so that education might improve mankind without limit¹¹. The younger Mill kept the view, warning that to ascribe character to innate causes blocks social improvement¹².

Not everyone accepted so plastic a picture of human nature. Plutarch’s image is the wild colt, which makes the best horse when trained¹³; a good nature without discipline is rich soil left uncultivated¹⁴. Dante uses the same figure of untilled ground running wild¹⁵, and Hippocrates likens teaching to sowing seed, which requires native talent¹⁶. Shakespeare’s Prospero gives the darker case: Caliban is a born devil on whom nurture will not stick¹⁷. Sir Thomas Browne preferred natural virtue to the forced grafts of education¹⁸. Johnson weighed whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to native force or to schooling¹⁹. Later, Emerson and Thoreau turned the old preference for cultivation upside down. Emerson thought great creators come from untutored nature rather than from minds exhausted by systems²⁰. Thoreau held that precocious culture stunts growth and that the child needs a wild, tawny grammar²¹. In Goethe’s poem a mother says children cannot be fashioned to a parent’s fancy, and each must follow his own nature²².

The ends of education divide the authors still more sharply. Confucius contrasted men of old, who learned for themselves, with men of his day, who learned for show²³. Epictetus taught that goodness must be learned as a craft is learned²⁴, and Marcus Aurelius that teaching is worth only the end it aims at²⁵. Augustine complained that his parents valued fluent speech above his growth toward God²⁶. Milton set the end highest of all: to repair the ruin of our first parents by coming to know God²⁷. Montaigne wanted the pupil to learn how to live²⁸. Locke wanted virtuous, useful, able men²⁹ and called learning the least part of education³⁰. Against these stand worldlier aims. Harrison’s yeomen send their sons to school to make them gentlemen³¹, and Smith treats acquired talent as capital realized in the person³². Ruskin protests that parents seek education only to secure a station in life³³. Kant faults them for teaching skills for unknown ends while neglecting the child’s judgment of which ends are worth pursuing³⁴.

The moderns add a theme the ancients scarcely treat on its own, the education of feeling. Schiller argues that the road to the head passes through the heart³⁵, and that a sensuous man can be made reasonable only by first being made aesthetic³⁶. On his account beauty shapes the inclinations before reason must fight them³⁷, and it makes self-formation possible without itself forming character³⁸. Mill’s mental crisis bears this out from experience. He came to see that his father’s associationist training, built on praise and blame, produced artificial associations³⁹. He concluded that analysis must be joined with the cultivation of feeling⁴⁰, and that poetry is needed most by unpoetical natures⁴¹. Wordsworth likewise assigns the poet the task of humanizing and purifying readers⁴².

Lessing carries the idea from the individual to the race. On his view Revelation is to mankind what education is to a man: it gives earlier and more easily what reason might reach unaided⁴³. God taught the childlike Jews as a patient schoolmaster would⁴⁴. The Old Testament was a primer that might leave knowledge out but must not block the way to it⁴⁵. Christ came as the better instructor when the primer had been outgrown⁴⁶, and the goal of the whole course is that men do right for its own sake⁴⁷. Others hoped education would reform nations more directly. Confucius said that once a people is numerous and wealthy, it must be taught⁴⁸. Locke rested a nation’s virtue on the principling of its youth⁴⁹. Franklin saw his subscription library make colonists better instructed than people of like rank elsewhere⁵⁰, and Washington called institutions for diffusing knowledge of primary importance⁵¹. Mill valued local self-government and jury trial as political education for citizens⁵². Ruskin thought public education the only cure for public distress⁵³. Lowell answered soberly that educated intelligence enlarges desires, which must then be legitimately satisfied⁵⁴.

Some warn that instruction without moral formation does harm. Confucius showed each virtue turning into a fault without love of learning⁵⁵. Dana held that intellectual cultivation without religion only makes an ignorant sinner an intelligent one⁵⁶. Emerson doubted that culture of the intellect increases probity⁵⁷. Burke scorned a “Civic Education” built on enlightened self-interest in place of religion⁵⁸. Wordsworth judged that to be mistaught is worse than to be untaught⁵⁹.

Parents bear the first duty. Plato’s Crito holds that a father who begets children must see them nurtured and educated⁶⁰. Penn tells parents to mend themselves and teach children what they should be, not what we are⁶¹. Locke charges parents with teaching their children violence and revenge⁶². Religious upbringing runs through Bunyan’s catechising of Christiana’s boys⁶³ and the Sunday questioning in Burns⁶⁴. Pascal laments that once baptism preceded instruction, instruction came to be neglected⁶⁵. Hardening the young is a further charge. Locke would inure children to hardship without breaking their spirits⁶⁶ and cure their fears by gradual exposure⁶⁷. Penn praises the ancients’ hard breeding⁶⁸. Whether parents may choose a child’s calling is disputed. Bacon advises choosing early, while children are flexible⁶⁹. Dante deplores men forced against their bent⁷⁰; Cellini’s father finds nature resisting his plans⁷¹; and Manzoni’s Gertrude is bound to the cloister by deliberate design⁷².

On the rod, the weight of these books falls against it. Augustine remembered his schooling as misery and beatings⁷³ and judged that free curiosity taught him better than fear⁷⁴. Montaigne called schools full of rods wicked⁷⁵ and wanted learning won by allurement⁷⁶. Locke noticed that children learn dancing and French without whipping⁷⁷ and that fear disorders the mind⁷⁸. In place of blows he made love of credit and fear of shame the great secret of education⁷⁹. Mill dissents in part. He thought rigid discipline indispensable and making all learning easy a sacrifice of education’s object⁸⁰. Fear cannot be dispensed with, he held, though it must not crowd out love⁸¹.

The pupil matters as much as the method. Confucius taught only the eager, and gave up on a pupil who could not turn the whole from one corner⁸². He held back the bold and urged on the bashful⁸³. The Buddha suited exercises to each disciple’s character⁸⁴, and Paul fed carnal babes milk rather than meat⁸⁵. Cicero’s son and nephew needed the rein and the spur respectively⁸⁶. Epictetus says pupils carry home only what they bring⁸⁷. Locke tells teachers to improve native genius rather than force another on the child⁸⁸. He would teach letters through dice⁸⁹ and answer children’s questions as one would answer newcomers to a strange country⁹⁰. Learning need not end with youth: Cicero’s Cato took up Greek in old age, as Solon learned daily⁹¹. Browning’s grammarian, by contrast, would know everything before beginning to live⁹².

Who can teach, and how? Socrates argued that improving the young is the work of a few experts, as with horses⁹³. He disclaimed the fees the sophists took⁹⁴ and said he taught no one privately, rich or poor⁹⁵. The Buddha distinguished those who teach from compassion from those who teach to win admiration⁹⁶. Montaigne wanted a tutor with judgment rather than book learning⁹⁷, and Locke one who is well-bred and knows the world⁹⁸. Channing made the teacher’s vocation the community’s first concern⁹⁹. Smith, by contrast, explained why teachers’ pay fell from the splendor of Athens¹⁰⁰. Example teaches more than precept: Aesop’s young crab tells his mother so¹⁰¹, Burke says we learn everything more by imitation¹⁰², and Locke agrees¹⁰³. Newman held the living teacher superior to books¹⁰⁴. Marcus Aurelius would correct the erring by teaching rather than anger¹⁰⁵.

On method, the persistent enemy is rote. Montaigne wants borrowed opinions made the pupil’s own, as bees make honey¹⁰⁶. Locke condemns grammar-school memorizing as mere custom¹⁰⁷. Descartes thought truths given without labor would have left him unable to discover more¹⁰⁸, and Burke wanted teaching to approach the method of investigation¹⁰⁹. James Mill made understanding precede teaching and forced his son to find things out himself¹¹⁰. Others prefer things to words. Penn would have children build and make tools¹¹¹. Emerson complains that schools give words, not things¹¹². Carlyle commends Goethe’s mute, practical education¹¹³, and Smith thinks a journeyman’s work teaches better than long apprenticeship¹¹⁴. Sidney defends teaching through pleasing tales¹¹⁵, and Aristophanes calls poets the teachers of grown men¹¹⁶. Conversation is a school too: for Franklin his club was the best school of philosophy¹¹⁷, and for Mill a reading group made him an independent thinker¹¹⁸. Mill also warned that students seldom hear both sides of a question¹¹⁹.

The curriculum quarrels are old. Augustine scorned the lewd fables of grammar school¹²⁰. Montaigne learned Latin by immersion¹²¹, and Locke would teach it by conversation¹²², deploring the neglect of the mother tongue¹²³. Franklin would begin with modern languages¹²⁴, while Mill began Greek at three¹²⁵. Luther wanted universities to teach languages, mathematics and history¹²⁶, and Descartes weighed each school study in turn¹²⁷. The nineteenth century hardened these differences into open controversy. Huxley credits the humanists with reforming education but faults their heirs for treating classics as the sole avenue to culture¹²⁸. Exclusively literary or exclusively scientific training, he says, yields lop-sided men¹²⁹. Mill defended both as allies in liberal education¹³⁰. On reading, Pliny advised much but not many books¹³¹. Bacon held that different books call for different reading¹³², Emerson that books are for inspiration only¹³³, and Ruskin that precision in a few pages matters most¹³⁴. Montaigne put moral philosophy before every other science¹³⁵. The full plans, Milton’s academy^136,137, Locke’s union of things with words¹³⁸ and Franklin’s proposals¹³⁹, all join learning to conduct.

Schools themselves draw heavy criticism. Milton says they waste years on words¹⁴⁰. Descartes found only doubts after excellent schooling¹⁴¹. Goethe’s Mephistopheles mocks college logic¹⁴², and Emerson says colleges breed bookworms¹⁴³. Yet Newman’s university, modeled on Athens, is a place of concourse where personal presence teaches beyond any lecture^144,145,146. Carlyle traces universities to gatherings around teachers like Abelard¹⁴⁷. Harrison describes Oxford and Cambridge with pride¹⁴⁸ but laments that rich men’s sons crowd out the poor¹⁴⁹. Emerson found Oxford a finishing school for gentlemen¹⁵⁰ that nonetheless truly imparts what it prizes¹⁵¹, while Carlyle doubted that endowments produce scholars¹⁵². Marcus Aurelius was thankful for good teachers at home rather than public schools¹⁵³, and Locke prefers the home tutor¹⁵⁴. Mill notes that his own sheltered upbringing gave him no substitute for the practical training of school life¹⁵⁵. Travel divides opinion as well. Montaigne¹⁵⁶ and Bacon¹⁵⁷ praise it, Darwin finds it teaches patience and self-reliance¹⁵⁸, Locke doubts the usual age for it¹⁵⁹, and Harrison thinks Italy corrupts young Englishmen¹⁶⁰.

Last come the questions of who is to be educated and who controls it. Socrates owed his nurture to the laws¹⁶¹, and Utopia teaches every child¹⁶². Smith would have instruction paid for by those who receive it or by voluntary contribution¹⁶³. Mill would compel education but not let the State direct it, lest it mould minds alike¹⁶⁴, and he proposes public examinations instead¹⁶⁵. Defoe calls the denial of learning to women barbarous¹⁶⁶. Franklin would teach young women accounts¹⁶⁷, and Ruskin would give girls the same subjects as boys, differently directed, under teachers given equal honor^168,169. Gray mourned talents that knowledge never reached¹⁷⁰. Woolman urged teaching slaves to read Scripture¹⁷¹, and Channing asked that laborers be liberally educated¹⁷². Franklin’s self-teaching¹⁷³ is answered by Dryden’s proverb that he who teaches himself has a fool for his master¹⁷⁴, and by Augustine’s confession that mastering the liberal arts unaided profited him nothing without piety¹⁷⁵.

Several questions remain open across these books. How far nature yields to nurture is still disputed. So is whether fear has any proper place in teaching, and whether learning should serve virtue, piety, a livelihood or freedom of mind. Who should hold the power to form the young, parents, church or state, is unsettled too.