Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects | Page 9

more nutritive than potatoes!
The question which we contend is of such transcendent moment, is, not
whether such or such knowledge is of worth but what is its relative
worth? When they have named certain advantages which a given
course of study has secured them, persons are apt to assume that they
have justified themselves; quite forgetting that the adequateness of the
advantages is the point to be judged. There is, perhaps, not a subject to
which men devote attention that has not some value. A year diligently
spent in getting up heraldry, would very possibly give a little further
insight into ancient manners and morals. Any one who should learn the
distances between all the towns in England, might, in the course of his
life, find one or two of the thousand facts he had acquired of some
slight service when arranging a journey. Gathering together all the
small gossip of a county, profitless occupation as it would be, might yet
occasionally help to establish some useful fact--say, a good example of
hereditary transmission. But in these cases, every one would admit that
there was no proportion between the required labour and the probable
benefit. No one would tolerate the proposal to devote some years of a
boy's time to getting such information, at the cost of much more
valuable information which he might else have got. And if here the test
of relative value is appealed to and held conclusive, then should it be
appealed to and held conclusive throughout. Had we time to master all
subjects we need not be particular. To quote the old song:--
Could a man be secure That his day would endure As of old, for a
thousand long years, What things might he know! What deeds might he
do! And all without hurry or care.

"But we that have but span-long lives" must ever bear in mind our
limited time for acquisition. And remembering how narrowly this time
is limited, not only by the shortness of life, but also still more by the
business of life, we ought to be especially solicitous to employ what
time we have to the greatest advantage. Before devoting years to some
subject which fashion or fancy suggests, it is surely wise to weigh with
great care the worth of the results, as compared with the worth of
various alternative results which the same years might bring if
otherwise applied.
In education, then, this is the question of questions, which it is high
time we discussed in some methodic way. The first in importance,
though the last to be considered, is the problem--how to decide among
the conflicting claims of various subjects on our attention. Before there
can be a rational curriculum, we must settle which things it most
concerns us to know; or, to use a word of Bacon's, now unfortunately
obsolete--we must determine the relative values of knowledges.
* * * * *
To this end, a measure of value is the first requisite. And happily,
respecting the true measure of value, as expressed in general terms,
there can be no dispute. Every one in contending for the worth of any
particular order of information, does so by showing its bearing upon
some part of life. In reply to the question--"Of what use is it?" the
mathematician, linguist, naturalist, or philosopher, explains the way in
which his learning beneficially influences action--saves from evil or
secures good--conduces to happiness. When the teacher of writing has
pointed out how great an aid writing is to success in business--that is, to
the obtainment of sustenance--that is, to satisfactory living; he is held
to have proved his case. And when the collector of dead facts (say a
numismatist) fails to make clear any appreciable effects which these
facts can produce on human welfare, he is obliged to admit that they
are comparatively valueless. All then, either directly or by implication,
appeal to this as the ultimate test.
How to live?--that is the essential question for us. Not how to live in
the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general

problem which comprehends every special problem is--the right ruling
of conduct in all directions under all circumstances. In what way to
treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to manage
our affairs; in what way to bring up a family; in what way to behave as
a citizen; in what way to utilise those sources of happiness which
nature supplies--how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of
ourselves and others--how to live completely? And this being the great
thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which
education has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is the function
which education has to discharge;