Locke's Pisgah Vision. mind, not an enlargement of its possessions" (C. of U. § 19, ad f.). Thus strange to say the supposed leader of the Utilitarians has actually propounded in so many words the doctrine of their opponents. § 22. When Locke is more studied it will be found that the Thoughts are misleading if we neglect his other works, more particularly the Conduct of the Understanding. 23. Towards the end of his days, Locke was conscious of gleams of the "untravelled world" which lay before the generations to come. With great pathos he writes to a friend: "When I consider how much of my life has been trifled away in beaten tracks where I vamped on with others only to follow those who went before me, I cannot but think I have just as much reason to be proud as if I had travelled all England and, if you will, all France too, only to acquaint myself with the roads, and be able to tell how the highways lie wherein those of equipage, and even the common herd too, travel. Now, methinks-and these are often old men's dreams-I see openings to truth and direct paths leading to it, wherein a little application and industry would settle one's mind with satisfaction and leave no darkness or doubt. But this is the end of my day when my sun is setting and though the prospect it has given me be what I would not for anything be without-there is so much truth, beauty, and consistency in it—yet it is for one of your age, I think I ought to say for yourself, to set about" (L. to Bolde, quoted by Fowler, Locke, p. 120). But another 200 years have not sufficed to put us in possession of the Promised Land of which Locke had these Pisgah visions. We still " vamp on," following those who went before us and getting small help from expounders of " Edu : Science for education. Names of books. cation as a Science." But as it would seem the days of vamping on blindly in the beaten track are drawing to a close. We cannot doubt that if Locke had known the wonderful advance which various sciences have made since his day he would have seen in them "openings to truth and direct paths leading to it" for many purposes, certainly for education. It is for our age and ages to come to set about applying our scientific knowledge to the bringing up of children, and thinkers such as Froebel will shew us how. Locke's Thoughts concerning Education and his Conduct of the Understanding should be in the hands of all students of education who know the English language. I have therefore not attempted to epitomise what he has said, but have endeavoured to get at the main thoughts which are, so to speak, the taproot of his system. Of the Thoughts there is an edition published by the National Society and another by the Pitt Press, Cambridge. The Cambridge edition gives from FoxBourne's Life Locke's scheme of “Working Schools" and from Lord King's the essay “Of Study.” Of the Conduct there is an edition published by the Clarendon Press. "F.B." in the references above stands for Fox-Bourne's Life of Locke. In the above essay I have not treated of Locke as a methodizer; but he advocated teaching foreign languages without grammar, and he published "Æsop's Fables in English and Latin, interlineary. For the benefit of those, who not having a master would learn either of these Tongues." When I edited the Thoughts for Pitt Press I did not know of this book or I should have mentioned it. XIV. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU. (1712-1778). § 1. THE great men whom we meet with in the history of education may be divided into two classes, thinkers and doers. There would seem no good reason why the thinker should not be great as a doer or the doer as a thinker; and yet we hardly find any records of men who have been successful both in investigating theory and directing practice. History tells us of first-rate practical schoolmasters like Sturm and the Jesuits; but they did not think out their own theory of their task: they accepted the current theory of their time. On the other hand, men who like Montaigne and Locke rejected the current theory and sought to establish a better by an appeal to reason were not practical schoolmasters. Whenever the thinker tries to turn his thought into action he has cause to be disappointed with the result. We saw this in the disastrous failure of Ratke; and even the books in which Comenius tried to work out his principles, the Vestibulum, Janua and the rest, with the exception of the Orbis Pictus, were speedily forgotten. In the world of education as elsewhere it takes time to find for great thoughts the practice which gives effect to them. The course of great thoughts is in some ways like the course of great rivers. Most romantic and beautiful near their source, they are not most useful. They must leave the Middle Age system fell in 18th century. mountains in which they first appeared, and must flow not in cataracts but smoothly along the plain among the dwell. ings of common men before they can be turned to account in the every-day business of life. § 2. The eighteenth century was soon distinguished by boundless activity of thought; and this thought was directed mainly to a great work of destruction. Europe had outgrown the ideas of the Middle Age, and the framework of Society, which the Middle Age had bequeathed, had waxed old and was ready to vanish as soon as any strong force could be found to push it out of the way. As Matthew Arnold has described it "It's frame yet stood without a breach Here then there was need of some destructive power that should remove and burn up much that had become mere obstacle and incumbrance. This power was found in the writings which appeared in France about the middle of the century; and among the authors of them none spoke with more effect than one who differed from all the rest, a vagabond without family ties or social position of any kind, with no literary training, with little knowledge and in conduct at least, with no morals. The writings of Rousseau and the results produced by them are among the strangest things in history; and especially in matters of education it is more than doubtful if the wise man of the world Montaigne, the Christian philanthropist Comenius, or that "slave of truth and reason" the philosopher Locke, had half as much influence as this depraved serving man. § 3. The work by which Rousseau became famous was Do the opposite to the usual. a prize essay in which he maintained that civilization, the arts and all human institutions were from first to last pernicious in their effects, and that no happiness was possible for the human race without giving them all up and returning to what he called the state of Nature. He glorified the "noble savage." If man had brought himself to a state of misery bordering on despair by following his own many inventions, take away all these inventions and you will have man in his proper condition. The argument seems something of this kind: Man was once happy: Man is now miserable: undo everything that has been done and Man will be happy again. § 4. This principle of a so-called "natural" state existing before man's many inventions, Rousseau applied boldly to education, and he deduced this general rule: "Do precisely the opposite to what is usually done, and you will have hit on the right plan." Not reform but revolution was his advice. He took the ordinary school teaching and held it up to ridicule, and certainly he did prove its absurdity. And a most valuable service he thus rendered to teachers. Every employment while it makes us see some things clearly, also provides us with blinkers, so to speak, which prevent our seeing other things at all. The school teacher's blinkers often prevent his seeing much that is plain enoughto other people; and when a writer like Rousseau takes off our blinkers for us and makes us look about us, he does us a great deal of good. But we need more than this: if we have children entrusted to us we must do something with them, and Rousseau's rule of doing the opposite to what is usual will not be found universally applicable. So we consult Rousseau again, and what is his advice? § 5. Rousseau would bring everything back to the R |