Education and the Good Life

The building up of character, which has been our theme hitherto, should be mainly a matter for the earlier years. If rightly conducted, it ought to be nearly complete by the age of six. I do not mean that a character cannot be spoilt after that age; there is no age at which untoward circumstances or environment will not do harm. What I mean is that, after the age of six, a boy or girl who has been given the right early training ought to have habits and desires which will lead in the right direction if a certain care is taken with the environment. A school composed of boys and girls rightly brought up during their first six years will constitute a good environment, given a modicum of good sense in the authorities; it ought not to be necessary to give much time or thought to moral questions, since such further virtues as are required ought to result naturally from purely intellectual training. I do not mean to assert this pedantically as an absolute rule, but as a principle guiding school authorities[240] as regards the matters upon which they ought to lay emphasis. I am convinced that, if children up to the age of six have been properly handled, it is best that the school authorities should lay stress upon purely intellectual progress, and should rely upon this to produce the further development of character which is still desirable. It is a bad thing for intelligence, and ultimately for character, to let instruction be influenced by moral considerations. It should not be thought that some knowledge is harmful and some ignorance is good. The knowledge which is imparted should be imparted for an intellectual purpose, not to prove some moral or political conclusion. The purpose of the teaching should be, from the pupil’s point of view, partly to satisfy his curiosity, partly to give him the skill required in order that he may be able to satisfy his curiosity for himself. From the teacher’s point of view, there must also be the stimulation of certain fruitful kinds of curiosity. But there must never be discouragement of curiosity, even if it takes directions which lie outside the school curriculum altogether. I do not mean that the curriculum should be interrupted, but that the curiosity should be regarded as laudable, and the boy or girl should be told how to satisfy it after school hours, by means of books in the library for example. [241]But at this point I shall be met by an argument which must be faced at the outset. What if a boy’s curiosity is morbid or perverted? What if he is interested in obscenity or in accounts of tortures? What if he is only interested in prying into other people’s doings? Are such forms of curiosity to be encouraged? In answering this question, we must make a distinction. Most emphatically, we are not to behave so that the boy’s curiosity shall continue to be limited to these directions. But it does not follow that we are to make him feel wicked for wishing to know about such things, or that we are to struggle to keep knowledge of them away from him. Almost always, the whole attraction of such knowledge consists in the fact that it is forbidden; in a certain number of cases, it is connected with some pathological mental condition which needs medical treatment. But in no case is prohibition and moral horror the right treatment. As the commonest and most important case, let us take an interest in obscenity. I do not believe that such a thing could exist in a boy or girl to whom sex knowledge was just like any other knowledge. A boy who obtains possession of indecent pictures is proud of his skill in having done so, and of knowing what his less enterprising companions have failed to find out. If he had been told openly and decently all about sex, he would[242] feel no interest in such pictures. If, nevertheless, a boy were found to have such an interest, I should have him treated by a doctor skilled in these matters. The treatment should begin by encouraging him to utter freely even his most shocking thoughts, and should continue with a flood of further information, growing gradually more technical and scientific, until the whole matter bored him to extinction. When he felt that there was nothing more to know, and that what he did know was uninteresting, he would be cured. The important point is that the knowledge in itself is not bad, but only the habit of brooding on one particular topic. An obsession is not cured, at first, by violent efforts to distract attention, but rather by a plethora of the subject. Through this, the interest can be made scientific instead of morbid; and when that has been achieved, it takes its legitimate place among other interests, and ceases to be an obsession. This, I am convinced, is the right way to deal with a narrow and morbid curiosity. Prohibition and moral horror can only make it worse. Although improvement of character should not be the aim of instruction, there are certain qualities which are very desirable, and which are essential to the successful pursuit of knowledge; they may be called the intellectual virtues. These should result from intellectual[243] education; but they should result as needed in learning, not as virtues pursued for their own sakes. Among such qualities the chief seem to me: curiosity, open-mindedness, belief that knowledge is possible though difficult, patience, industry, concentration and exactness. Of these, curiosity is fundamental; where it is strong and directed to the right objects, all the rest will follow. But perhaps curiosity is not quite so active as to be made the basis of the whole intellectual life. There should always also be a desire to do something difficult; the knowledge which is acquired should appear in the pupil’s mind as skill, just like skill in games or gymnastics. It is, I suppose, unavoidable that the skill should be in part merely that required for artificial school tasks; but wherever it can be made to appear necessary for some non-scholastic purpose which appeals to the pupil, something very important has been accomplished. The divorce of knowledge from life is regrettable, although, during school years, it is not wholly avoidable. Where it is hardest to avoid, there should be occasional talks about the utility of the knowledge in question—taking “utility” in a very broad sense. Nevertheless, I should allow a large place to pure curiosity, without which much of the most valuable knowledge (for instance, pure mathematics) would never have been discovered. There is[244] much knowledge which seems to me valuable on its own account, quite apart from any use to which it is capable of being put. And I should not wish to encourage the young to look too closely for an ulterior purpose in all knowledge; disinterested curiosity is natural to the young, and is a very valuable quality. It is only where it fails that I should appeal to the desire for skill such as can be exhibited in practice. Each motive has its place, but neither should be allowed to push the other aside. I am aware that I have been assuming that some knowledge is desirable on its own account, not merely on account of its utility. This view is often challenged. I find it said by Professor O’Shea[20] that in European and Oriental schools “a person is not regarded as educated, or at least not cultured, unless he has amassed a considerable body of knowledge of ancient flavour. But in our country we are rapidly coming to the view that culture does not depend upon the mere possession of facts, whether ancient or modern. The cultured individual is one who has acquired knowledge and skill which make him of service to society, and habits of conduct which make him agreeable in association with his fellows.[21] Knowledge which does not function in the life of the individual in his relations[245] with others, to-day is not regarded by American teachers as of value for culture any more than for disciplinary purposes.” Of course this account of how the Old World regards culture is a caricature. No one would maintain that mere knowledge of facts confers culture. But it would be argued that culture implies a certain freedom from parochialism, both in space and time, and that this involves a respect for excellence even if it is found in another country or another age. We are apt to exaggerate our superiority not only to foreigners, but to the men of former times, and this makes us contemptuous of everything in which they were better than we are, which includes the whole æsthetic side of life. And I should say that culture involves a certain power of contemplation, for thinking or feeling without rushing headlong into energetic action. This leads me to a certain hesitation in adopting the theory of what is called “dynamic” education, which “requires pupils actually to do what they are learning” (ib. p. 401). Undoubtedly this method is right with young children, but education is not complete until more abstract and intellectual methods have become possible. To “do” the nebular hypothesis or the French Revolution would take a long time, not to mention danger from the guillotine. A person who has been adequately educated has learned to[246] extract the meaning from abstractions when necessary, and to manipulate them as abstractions so long as that will serve his purpose. A mathematician who had to stop to realize the meaning of each step in his transformations would never get through his work; the essential merit of his instrument is that it can be used without this labour. In higher education, therefore, the dynamic method seems inadequate. I cannot help thinking that its popularity in America is partly due to the notion that all excellence consists in doing, rather than in thinking and feeling. This notion is implicit in the definition of culture which I quoted just now, and is natural in a mechanical age, since a machine can only do, and is not expected to think or feel. But the assimilation of men to machines, whatever may be thought of it metaphysically, is hardly likely to give us a just standard of values. Open-mindedness is a quality which will always exist where desire for knowledge is genuine. It only fails where other desires have become entangled with the belief that we already know the truth. That is why it is so much commoner in youth than in later life. A man’s activities are almost necessarily bound up with some decision on an intellectually doubtful matter. A clergyman cannot be disinterested about theology, nor a soldier about war. A[247] lawyer is bound to hold that criminals ought to be punished—unless they can afford a leading lawyer’s fee. A schoolmaster will favour the particular system of education for which he is fitted by his training and experience. A politician can hardly help believing in the principles of the party which is most likely to give him office. When once a man has chosen his career, he cannot be expected to be perpetually considering whether some other choice might not have been better. In later life, therefore, open-mindedness has its limitations, though they ought to be as few as possible. But in youth there are far fewer of what William James called “forced options”, and therefore there is less occasion for the “will to believe”. Young people ought to be encouraged to regard every question as open, and to be able to throw over any opinion as the result of an argument. It is implied in this freedom of thought that there should not be complete freedom of action. A boy must not be free to run off to sea under the influence of some story of adventure in the Spanish Main. But so long as his