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Milton an educator of mankind.

§ 38. Milton was then a reformer "for his own hand;' and notwithstanding his moral and intellectual elevation and his superb power of rhetoric, he seems to me a less useful writer on education than the humble Puritans whom he probably would not deign to read. In his haughty selfreliance, he, like Carlyle with whom Seeley has well compared him (Lectures and Addresses: Milton), addressed his contemporaries de haut en bas, and though ready to teach could learn only among the old renowned authors with whom he associated himself and we associate him.

$39. Judged from our present standpoint the Tractate is found with many weaknesses to be strong in this, that it coordinates physical, moral, mental and æsthetic training.

§ 40. But nothing of Milton's can be judged by our ordinary canons. He soars far above them and raises us with him "to mysterious altitudes above the earth” (supra, p. 153, note). Whatever we little people may say about the suggestions of the Tractate, Milton will remain one of the great educators of mankind.*

*Of Education.

To Master Samuel Hartlib ("the Tractate" as it is usually called), was published by Milton first in 1644, and again in 1673. See Oscar Browning's edition, Cambridge Univ. Press.

XIII.

LOCKE.

(1632-1704).

1. WHEN an English University established an exainination for future teachers,* the "special subjects" first set were "Locke and Dr. Arnold." The selection seems to ine

a very happy one. Arnold greatly affected the spirit and even the organization of our public schools at a time when the old schools were about to have new life infused into them, and when new schools were to be started on the model of the old. He is perhaps the greatest educator of the English type, i.e., the greatest educator who had accepted the system handed down to him and tried to make the best of it. Locke on the other hand, whose reputation is more European than English, belongs rather to the continental type. Like his disciple Rousseau and like Rousseau's disciples the French Revolutionists, Locke refused the traditional system and appealed from tradition and authority to reason. We English revere Arnold, but so long as the history of education continues to be written, as it has been written hitherto, on the Continent, the only Englishman celebrated in it will be as now not the great schoolmaster but the great philosopher.

The University of Cambridge. The first examination was in June, 1880.

Locke's two main characteristics.

§ 2. In order to understand Locke we must always bear in mind what I may call his two main characteristics; Ist, his craving to know and to speak the truth and the whole truth in everything, truth not for a purpose but for itself*; 2nd, his perfect trust in the reason as the guide, the only guide, to truth.†

§ 3. 1st. Those who have not reflected much on the subject will naturally suppose that the desire to know the truth is common to all men, and the desire to speak the truth common to most. But this is very far from being the case. If we had any earnest desire for truth we should examine things carefully before we admitted them as truths; in other words our opinions would be the growth of long and energetic thought. But instead of this they are formed for the most part quite carelessly and at haphazard, and we value them not on account of their supposed agreement with fact but because though "poor things" they are our Own or those of our sect or party. Locke on the other

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* "Believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world and the seed-plot of all other virtues." L. to Bolde, quoted by Fowler, Locke, p. 120. This shows us that according to Locke "the principal part of human perfection " is to be found in the intellect.

+ Lady Masham seems to consider these two characteristics identical. She wrote to Leclerc of Locke after his death: "He was always, in the greatest and in the smallest affairs of human life, as well as in speculative opinions, disposed to follow reason, whosoever it were that suggested it; he being ever a faithful servant, I had almost said a slave, to truth; never abandoning her for anything else, and following her for her own sake purely" (quoted by Fox-Bourne). But it is one thing to desire truth, and another to think one's own reasoning power the sole means of obtaining it.

Ist Truth for itself. 2nd Reason for Truth.

hand was always endeavouring to get at the truth for its own sake. This separated him from men in general. And he brought great powers of mind to bear on the investigation. This raised him above them.

§ 4. 2nd. Locke's second characteristic was his entire reliance on the guidance of reason. "The faculty of reasoning," says he, "seldom or never deceives those who trust to it." Elsewhere, borrowing a metaphor from Solomon (Prov. xx, 27), he speaks of this faculty as "the candle of the Lord set up by Himself in men's minds." (F. B. ij. 129). In a fine passage in the Conduct of the Understanding he calls it "the touchstone of truth” (§ iij, Fowler's edition, p. 10). He even goes so far in his correspondence with Molyneux as to maintain that intelligent honest men cannot possibly differ.*

But if we consider it from one point of view the treatise on the Conduct of the Understanding is itself a witness that human reason is a compass liable to incalculable variations and likely enough to shipwreck those who steer by it alone. In this book Locke shows us that to come to a true result the understanding (1) must be perfectly trained, (2) must not be affected by any feeling in favour of or against any

"I am far from imagining myself infallible; but yet I should be loth to differ from any thinking man; being fully persuaded there are very few things of pure speculation wherein two thinking men who impartially seek truth can differ if they give themselves the leisure to examine their hypotheses and understand one another" (L. to W. M., 26 Dec., 1692). Again he writes: "I am persuaded that upon debate you and I cannot be of two opinions, nor I think any two men used to think with freedom, who really prefer truth to opiniatrety and a little foolish vain-glory of not having made a mistake" (L. to W. M., 3 Sept., 1694).

Locke's definition of knowledge.

particular result, and (3) must have before it all the data necessary for forming a judgment. In practice these conditions are seldom (if ever) fulfilled; and Locke himself, when he wants an instance of a mind that can acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions, takes it from "angels and separate spirits who may be endowed with more comprehensive faculties" than we are (C. of U. § iij, 3).

§ 5. It seems to me then that Locke much exaggerates the power of the individual reason for getting at the truth. And to exaggerate the importance of one function of the mind is to unduly diminish the importance of the rest. Thus we find that in Locke's scheme of education little thought is taken for the play of the affections and feelings; and as for the imagination it is treated merely as a source of mischief.

§ 6. Locke, as it has often been pointed out, differs from the schoolmaster in making small account of the knowledge to be acquired by those under education. But it has not been so often remarked that the fundamental difference is much deeper than this and lies in the conception of knowledge itself. With the ordinary schoolmaster the test of knowledge is the power of reproduction. Whatever pupils can reproduce with difficulty they know imperfectly; whatever they can reproduce with ease they know thoroughly. But Locke's definition of knowledge confines it to a much smaller area. According to him knowledge is "the internal perception of the mind" (Locke to Stillingfleet v. F. B. ij, 432). "Knowing is seeing; and if it be so, it is madness to persuade ourselves we do so by another man's eyes, let him use never so many words to tell us that what he asserts

is very visible. Till we ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it by our own understandings, we are as much

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