CHAP.11.] INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 191 CHAPTER XI. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. "IT is no less true than lamentable, that hitherto the education proper for civil and active life has been neglected; that nothing has been done to enable those who are actually to conduct the affairs of the world, to carry them on in a manner worthy of the age and country in which they live, by communicating to them the knowledge and the spirit of their age and country."*"Knowledge does not consist in being able to read books, but in understanding one's business and duty in life."-Most writers have considered the subject of education as relative to that portion of it only which applies to learning; but the first object of all, in every nation, is to make a man a good member of society."- "Education consists in learning what makes a man useful, respectable, and happy, in the line for which he is destined."+ If these propositions are true it is evident that the systems of education which obtain need great and almost total reformation. What does a boy, in the middle class of society, learn at school of the knowledge and the spirit of his age and country? When he has left school, how much does he understand of the business and duty of life? Education is one of those things which Lord Bacon would describe as having lain almost unaltered "upon the dregs of time." We still fancy that we educate our children when we give them, as its principal constituent, that same instruction which was given before England had a literature of its own, and when Greek and Latin contained almost the sum of human knowledge. Then the knowledge of Greek and Latin was called, and not unjustly called, learning. It was the learning which procured distinction and celebrity. A sort of dignity and charm was thrown around the attainments and the word which designated them. That charm has continued to operate to the present hour, and we still call him a learned man who is skilful in Latin and Greek. Yet Latin and Greek contain an extremely small portion of that knowledge which the world now possesses; an extremely small portion of that which it is of most consequence to acquire. It would be well for society if this word learning could be forgotten, or if we could make it the representative of other and very different ideas. But the delusion is continually propagated. The higher ranks of society give the tone to the notions of the rest; and the higher classes are educated at Westminster and Eton, and Cambridge and Oxford. At all these the languages which have ceased to be the languages of a living people, the authors which communicate, relatively, little knowledge that is adapted to the present affairs of man, are made the first and foremost articles of education. To be familiar with these is still to be a "learned" man. Inferior institutions imitate the example; and the parent who knows his son will Art. 4; Education. Wesmt. Rev. No. 1. † Playfair Causes of Decline of Nations, p. 97, 98, 227. 192 ANCIENT CLASSICS. [ESSAY II. be, like himself, a merchant or manufacturer, thinks it almost indispensable that he should "learn Latin." It may reasonably be doubted whether to even the higher ranks of society, this preference of ancient learning is wise. It may reasonably be doubted whether even at Oxford a literary revolution would not be a useful revolution. Indeed, the very circumstance that the system of education there is not essentially different from what it was centuries ago is almost a sufficient evidence that an alteration is needed. If the cir cumstances and the contexture of human society is altered,—if the boundaries of knowledge are very greatly extended, and if that knowledge which is now applicable to the affairs of life is extremely different from that which was applicable long ages ago,--it surely is plain that a system which has not, or has only slightly, accommodated itself to the new condition and new exigences of human affairs, cannot be a good system, cannot be a reasonable and judicious system. How stands the fact? When young men leave college to take part in the concerns of active life, how much assistance do they derive from classical literature? Look at the House of Commons. How much does this literature contribute to a member's legislating wisely upon questions of political economy, of jurisprudence, of taxation, of reform? Or how much does it contribute to the capability of any other class of men to serve their families, their country, or mankind? I speak not of those professions to which a dead language may be necessary. A physician learns Latin as he attends the dissecting room: it is a part of his system of preparation for his pur suits in life. Even with the professions, indeed, the need of a dead language is factitious. It is necessary only because usage has made it so. But I speak of that portion of mankind who, being exempt from the necessity for toil, fill the various gradations of society from that of the prince to the private gentleman. Select what rank or what class you please, and ask how much its members are indebted to ancient learning for their capability to discharge their duties as parents, as men, or as citizens of the state, the answer is literally, "Almost nothing." Now this is a serious answer, and involves serious consequences. A young man, when he enters upon the concerns of active life, has to set about acquiring new kinds of knowledge,-knowledge totally dissimilar to the greater part of that which his "education" gave him; and the knowledge which educa tion did give him he is obliged practically to forget,-to lay it aside: it is something that is not adapted to the condition and the wants of soci ety. But for what purpose are people educated, unless it be to prepare them for this condition and these wants? Or how can that be a judicious system which does not effect these purposes? That no advantages result from the study of ancient classics it would be idle to maintain. But this is not the question. The question is, Whether so many advantages result from this study as from others that might be substituted; and I am persuaded that we shall become more and more willing to answer, No. With respect to the sum of knowledge which the works of antiquity convey, as compared with that which is conveyed by modern literature, the disproportion is great in the extreme. To say that the modern is a hundred times greater than the ancient is to keep far from the language of exaggeration. And to say the truth, the majority of those who are educated at college leave it with but an imperfect acquaintance with those languages which they have spent years in professing to acquire. There are some men skilled in the languages: CHAP. 11.] CLASSICS IN BOARDING-SCHOOLS. 193 there are some "learned" men; but the very circumstance that great skill procures celebrity is an evidence that great skill is rare. Among educated laymen the number is very small of those whose knowledge of Latin bears any respectable proportion to their knowledge of their own language, of that language which they have hardly professed to learn at all. If the London University should be successfully established, it is probable that at least one collateral benefit will result from it. The wide range of subjects which it proposes to embrace in its system of education will possess an influence upon other institutions; and the time may arrive when the impulse of public opinion shall reduce the mathematics of one of our universities and the classics of both, to such a relative station among the objects of human study as shall be better adapted to the purposes of human life. If considerations like these apply to the preference of classical learning by those classes of society who can devote many years to the general purposes of education, much more do they apply to those who fill the middle ranks. Yet among these ranks the charm of the fiction has immense power. It has descended from universities to boarding-schools of thirty pounds a year; and the parent complacently pays the extra "three guineas" in order that his boy may "learn Latin." We affirm that the knowledge of Latin and Greek is all but useless to these boys, and that if the knowledge were useful, they do not acquire it. What are the stations which they are about to fill? One is to be a manufacturer, and one a merchant, and one a ship-owner, and one will underwrite at Lloyd's, and one will be a consul at Toulon. Nay, we might go lower, and say, one will be a tanner, and one a draper, and one a corn-factor. Yet these boys must learn Latin, and perhaps Greek too. And they do actually spend day after day, and perhaps year after year, upon "Hic hæc hoc,”"Propria quæ maribus,"" As in præsenti,"-"Et, and; cum, when ;" and the like. What conceivable relationship do these things bear to making steam-engines, or discounting bills, or shipping cargoes, or making leather, or selling cloth? None. But it will be said, What relationship does any merely literary pursuit bear? Or why should a merchant's son read Paradise Lost? Such questions conduct us to the just view of the case; and accordingly we answer, Let these young persons attend to literature, but let it be literature of the most expedient kind. Let them read Paradise Lost. Why? Because it is delightful, and because they can do it without learning a language in order to acquire the power: if Paradise Lost existed only in Arabic, I should think it preposterous to teach young persons Arabic in order that they might read it. To those who are to fill the active stations of life, literature must always be a subordinate concern; and it would be vain to deny that our own language possesses a sufficient store for them without learning others to increase it. But indeed the children of the middle classes do not learn the languages. They do not learn them so as to be able to appreciate the merits and the beauties of ancient literature. Ask the boys themselves. Ask them whether they could hold an hour's conversation with Cicero if he should stand before them. The very supposition is absurd. Or can they read and enjoy Cicero as they read and enjoy Addison? No. They do not learn the ancient languages. They pore over rules and exercises, and syntax and quantities, but as to learning the language, in the same sense as that in which it may be said they learn English, there is not one in a hundred, nor probably in ten thousand, who does it. Yet N 194 LATIN AND GREEK. [ESSAY II. unless a person does learn a language so as to read it, at least, with perfect facility, what becomes of the use of the study as a means of elevating the taste? This is one of the advantages which are attributed to the study of the classics. But without inquiring whether the taste might not be as well cultivated by other means, one short consideration is sufficient: that the taste is not cultivated by studying the classics but by mastering them, by acquiring such a familiarity with these works as enables us to appreciate their excellences. This familiarity, or any thing that approaches to this familiarity, schoolboys do not acquire. Playfair makes a computation, from which he concludes that in ordinary boardingschools, "not above one in a hundred learns to read even Latin decently well; that is, one good reader for every ten thousand pounds expended. As to speaking Latin," he adds, "perhaps one out of a thousand may learn that so that there is a speaker for each sum of one hundred thousand pounds spent on the language."* Then it is said that the act of studying the ancient languages exercise the memory, cultivates the habit of attention, and teaches, too, the art of reasoning. Grant all this. Cannot then the memory be exercised as well by acquiring valuable knowledge as by acquiring a mere knowledge of words? Would the memory lose any thing by affixing ideas to the words it learned? The same questions apply to those who urge the habit of attention, and to all those advocates of the study who insist upon the exercise which it gives to the mind. We do not question the utility of this exercise; we only say that while the mind is exercised it should also be fed. That such topics of advocacy are resorted to is itself an indication of the questionable utility of the study. No one thinks it necessary to adduce such topics as reasons for learning addition and subtraction. The intelligent reader will perceive that the ground upon which these objections to classical studies are urged is that they occupy time which might be more beneficially employed. If the period of education were long enough to learn the ancient languages in addition to the more beneficial branches of knowledge, our inquiry would be of another kind. But the period is not long enough: a selection must be made; and that which it has been our endeavour to show is, that in selecting the classics we make an unwise selection. The remarks which follow will be understood as applying to the middle ranks of society; that is, to the ranks in which the greatest sum of talent and virtue resides, and by which the business of the world is principally carried on.-If we take up a card of terms of an ordinary boarding-school, we probably meet with an enumeration something like this: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, English Grammar, Composition, History, Geography, Use of the Globes, &c. ;" besides the "accomplishments," and French, Greek, and Latin. "Education consists in learning what makes a man useful, respectable, and happy in the line for which he is destined." Useful, respectable, and happy, not merely in his counting-house, but in his parlour; not merely in his own house, but among his neighbours, and as a member of civilized society. Now surely the list of subjects which are set down above is, to say the least, very imperfect. Besides reading, writing, and arithmetic, what is the amount of knowledge which it conveys? English Grammar:-This is * Ing. Causes of Decline of Nations, p. 224. CHAP. 11.] FORMAL STUDY OF GRAMMAR. 195 in fact not learned by committing to memory lessons in the " "grammarbook." Composition :-This is of consequence; although, as school economy is now managed, it makes a better appearance on the master's card than on the boy's paper. History, Geography, and the Globe Problems are of great interest and value; and the great unhappiness is that such studies are postponed to others of comparatively little worth. Since human knowledge is so much more extensive than the opportunity of individuals for acquiring it, it becomes of the greatest importance so to economize the opportunity as to make it subservient to the acquisition of as large and as valuable a portion as we can. It is not enough to show that a given branch of education is useful: you must show that it is the most useful that can be selected. Remembering this, I think it would be expedient to dispense with the formal study of English Grammar,-a proposition which I doubt not many a teacher will hear with wonder and disapprobation. We learn the grammar in order that we may learn English; and we learn English whether we study grammars or not. Especially we shall acquire a competent knowledge of our own language if other departments of our education were improved. A boy learns more English Grammar by joining in an hour's conversation with educated people than in poring for an hour over Murray or Horne Tooke. If he is accustomed to such society and to the perusal of well written books, he will learn English Grammar though he never sees a word about syntax; and if he is not accustomed to such society and such reading, the "grammar books" at a boarding-school will not teach it. Men learn their own language by habit, and not by rules and this is just what we might expect; for the grammar of a language is itself formed from the prevalent habits of speech and writing. A compiler of grammar first observes these habits, and then makes his rules but if a person is himself familiar with the habits, why study the rules? I say nothing of grammar as a general science; because, although the philosophy of language be a valuable branch of human knowledge, it were idle to expect that schoolboys should understand it. The objection is, to the system of attempting to teach children formally that which they will learn practically without teaching. A grammar of Murray's lies before me, of which the leaves are worn into rags by being "learned." I find the child is to learn that "words are articulate sounds, used by common consent as signs of our ideas." Now I am persuaded that to nine out of every ten who "get this lesson by heart," it conveys little more information than if the sentence were in Esquimaux. They do not know, with any distinctness, what "articulate sounds" means,nor what the phrase "common consent" means,-nor what "signs of ideas" means; and yet they know, without learning, all that this formidable sentence proposes to teach. They know perfectly well that they speak to their brothers and sisters in order to convey their ideas.Again: "An improper diphthong has but one of the vowels sounded; as ea in eagle, oa in boat." Does not every child who can spell the words eagle and boat know this without hearing a word about improper diphthongs? This species of instruction is like that of a man who, seeing a boy running after a hoop, should stop him to make him learn by heart that in order to run he must use, in a certain order, flexors and extensors and the tendon Achillis. A little girl runs to her mother and says, "Mary has given me Cowper's Task: this is what I wanted." But still the little girl must learn, from her " grammar book," how to use the |