Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects | Page 2

in
most civilised countries, and they will prevail more and more. Through
him, the thoughts on education of Comenius, Montaigne, Locke,
Milton, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and other noted writers on this neglected
subject are at last winning their way into practice, with the
modifications or adaptations which the immense gains of the human
race in knowledge and power since the nineteenth century opened have
shown to be wise.
For teachers and educational administrators it is interesting to observe
the steps by which Spencer's doctrines--and especially his doctrine of
the supreme value of science--have advanced towards acceptance in
practice. In general, the advance has been brought about through the
indirect effects of the enormous industrial, social, and political changes
of the last fifty years. The first practical step was the introduction of
laboratory teaching of one or more of the sciences into the secondary
schools and colleges. Chemistry and physics were the commonest
subjects selected. These two subjects had been taught from books even
earlier; but memorising science out of books is far less useful as
training than memorising grammars and vocabularies. The
characteristic discipline of science can be imparted only through the
laboratory method. The schoolmasters and college faculties who took
this step by no means admitted Spencer's contention that science should
be the universal staple at all stages of child development. On the
contrary, they believed, as most people do to-day, that the mind of the
young child cannot grasp the processes and generalisations of science,
and that science is no more universally fitted to develop mental power

than the classics or mathematics. Indeed, experience during the past
fifty years seems to have proved that fewer minds are naturally inclined
to scientific study than to linguistic or historical study; so that if some
science is to be learnt by everybody, the amount of such study should
be limited to acquiring in one or two sciences knowledge of the
scientific method in general. So much scientific training is indeed
universally desirable; because good training of the senses to observe
accurately is universally desirable, and the collecting, comparing, and
grouping of many facts teach orderliness in thinking, and lead up to
something which Spencer valued highly in education--"a rational
explanation of phenomena."
Science having obtained a foothold in secondary schools and colleges,
an adequate development of science-teaching resulted from the
introduction of options or elections for the pupils among numerous
different courses, in place of a curriculum prescribed for all. The
elaborate teaching of many sciences was thus introduced. The pupil or
student saw and recorded for himself; used books only as helps and
guides in seeing, recording, and generalising; proceeded from the
known to the unknown; and in short, made numerous applications of
the doctrines which pervade all Spencer's writings on education. In the
United States these methods were introduced earlier and have been
carried farther than in England; but within the last few years the
changes made in education have been more extensive and rapid in
England than in any other country;--witness the announcements of the
new high schools and the re-organised grammar schools, of such
colleges as South Kensington, Armstrong, King's, the University
College (London), and Goldsmiths', and of the new municipal
universities such as Victoria, Bristol, Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool,
and Leeds. The new technical schools also illustrate the advent of
instruction in applied science as an important element in advanced
education. Such institutions as the Seafield Park Engineering College,
the City Guilds of London Institute, the City of London College, and
the Battersea Polytechnic are instances of the same development. Some
endowed institutions for girls illustrate the same tendencies, as, for
example, the Bedford College for Women and the Royal Holloway
College. All these institutions teach sciences in considerable variety,

and in the way that Spencer advocated,--not so much because they have
distinctly accepted his views, as because modern industrial and social
conditions compel the preparation in science of young people destined
for various occupations and services indispensable to modern society.
The method of the preparation is essentially that which he advocated.
Spencer's propositions to the effect that the study of science was
desirable for artisans, artists, and, in general, for people who were to
get their livings through various skills of hand and eye, were received
with great incredulity, not to say derision--particularly when he
maintained that some knowledge of the theory which underlies an art
was desirable for manual practitioners of the art; but the changes of the
last fifty years in the practice of the arts and trades may be said to have
demonstrated that his views were thoroughly sound. The applications
of science in the arts and trades have been so numerous and productive,
that widespread training in science has become indispensable to any
nation which means to excel in the manufacturing industries, whether
of large