trust without further examination." All knowledge, claims the Essay, comes rather from experience, and the mind is like "white paper, or wax, to be molded and fashioned as one pleases." 1 On it ideas are painted by 'sensation' and 'reflection.' Locke further finds it necessary to determine, when the ideas are once in mind, what they tell us in the way of truth. He holds that "knowledge is real only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas and the realities of things," and that, as we cannot always be sure of this correspondence, much of our knowledge is probable and not certain. We must, therefore, in each case carefully consider the grounds of probability, "the conformity of anything with our own knowledge, observation, and the testimony of others." To train the mind to make the proper discriminations in these matters, Locke claims that a formal discipline must be furnished by education. This attitude is made clear in his posthumous educational work, Conduct of the Understanding. As regards the aim of intellectual education, he holds in his work : "As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is, and most even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Few men are from their youth 1 This is his famous doctrine of the tabula rasa. and that the best gymnastics for reasoning is found in mathematics. He also advises a range dispose the mind so as to ence. accustomed to strict reasoning, and to trace the dependence of any truth in a long train of consequences to its remote principles and to observe its connection; and he that by frequent practice has not been used to this employment of his understanding, it is no more wonder that he should not, when he is grown into years, be able to bring his mind to it, than that he should not be able on a sudden to grave and design, dance on the ropes, or write a good hand, who has never practiced either of them." Concerning the best studies for producing this mental gymnastic, Locke says: "Would you have a man reason well, you must use him to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connection of ideas and following them in train. Nothing does this better than mathematics, which therefore I think should be taught all those who have the time and opportunity, not so much to make them mathematicians as to make them reasonable creatures . . ., that having got the way of reasoning, which that study necessarily brings the mind to, they might be able to transfer it to other parts of knowledge as they shall have occasion." So Locke advises a wide range of sciences, not for the of sciences to sake of the realistic knowledge obtained, but for intellectual discipline, "to accustom our minds to all sorts of ideas and the proper ways of examining their habitudes and relations; . . . not to make them perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it." Similarly, he implies that reading may become a means of discrimination. "Those who have got this faculty, one may say, have got the true key of books, and the clue to lead them through the mizemaze of variety of opinions and authors to truth and certainty." The same disciplinary conception of the aim of education underlies most of Locke's recommendations on moral and physical training in the Thoughts. When in this work he comes to treat moral education, he declares at the start: "As the strength of the Body lies chiefly in being able to endure Hardships, so also does that of the Mind. And the great Principle and Foundation of all Virtue and Worth is plac'd in this: That a Man is able to deny himself his own Desires, cross his own Inclinations, and purely follow what Reason directs as Best, tho' the Appetite lean the other Way. . . . This Power is to be got and improv'd by Custom, made easy and familiar by an early Practice. If, therefore, I might be heard, I would advise that, contrary to the ordinary Way, Children should be us'd to submit their Desires, and go without their Longings, even from their very Cradles. The first Thing they should learn to know, should be that they were not to have any Thing because it pleased them, but because it was thought fit for them." Hence, in Locke's opinion, morality comes about through submitting the natural desires to the control of reason, and thereby forming virtuous habits. In this light he discusses various virtues and vices as they occur to him, and insists that, in order that the proper habits may be ingrained in them, children should and physical training by recognize the absolute authority of their fathers and tutors.1 The ideal upon which Locke bases his physical trainthe 'harden- ing is even more fully that of formal discipline, and has ing process.' since been generally known as the 'hardening process.' Hence Locke's real educational His advice concerning this part of a pupil's training might be abridged as follows: "Most Children's Constitutions are either spoil'd or at least harm'd by Cockering and Tenderness. The first Thing to be taken Care of is that Children be not too warmly clad or cover'd, Winter or Summer. The Face when we are born, is no less tender than any other Part of the Body. 'Tis Use alone hardens it, and makes it more able to endure the Cold. I will also advise his (i. e. the child's) Feet to be wash'd every Day in cold Water, and to have his Shoes so thin that they might leak and let in Water, whenever he comes near it. I should advise him to play in the Wind and Sun without a Hat. His Diet ought to be very plain and simple, if he must needs have Flesh, let it be but once a Day, and of one Sort at a Meal without other Sauce than Hunger. His Meals should not be kept constantly to an Hour. Let his Bed be hard, and rather Quilts than feathers, - hard Lodging strengthens the Parts." Thus the intellectual education suggested by Locke in the Conduct is evidently very different in content and 1 Strangely enough, Locke, despite his doctrine of a tabula rasa, here recognizes native tendencies in the child, but they seem to be all hostile to moral development, and must be 'suppressed,' 'weeded out,' and 'cured.' Whereas the good elements have in general to be 'imprinted,' 'implanted,' and 'instilled' from the outside. of 'formal method from that in his Thoughts, by which he is usually theory is that measured. And his real educational theory is clearly discipline.' exhibited in the mental training advocated by the former work and in the positions taken on physical and moral training in the latter. The idea he gives here of training the mind by means of mathematics and other subjects so as to cultivate 'general power,' together with his 'denial of desires' in moral education and the ‘hardening process' in physical training, would seem to make Locke the first writer to advocate the doctrine of 'formal discipline.' The Influence of Formal Discipline' upon Education Adherents of this theory hold that the study of certain subjects yields results out of all proportion to the effort expended, and gives a power that may be applied in any direction. It has been argued by formal disciplinarians, accordingly, that every one should take these allimportant studies, regardless of his interest, ability, or purpose in life, and that all who are unfitted for these particular subjects are not qualified for the higher duties and responsibilities, and are unworthy of educational consideration. These subjects are usually held to be the classic languages to improve the 'faculty of memory,' and mathematics to sharpen the 'faculty of reason,' 1 With possibly the exception of such allusions as appear in Bacon's famous essay, Of Studies. Position of disciplinari the formal ans. |