The Elements of General Method | Page 2

for a moment to the great systems of education which have held
their own for centuries and examine their aims. The Jesuits, the
Humanists, and the Natural Scientists all claimed to be liberal,
culture-giving, and preparatory to great things; yet we only need to
quote from the histories of education to show their narrowness and
incompleteness. The training of the Jesuits was linguistic and rhetorical,
and almost entirely apart from our present notion of human
development. The Humanists or Classicists who for so many centuries
constituted the educational elite, belonged to the past with its glories
rather than to the age in which they really lived. Though standing in a
modern age, they were almost blind to the great problems and
opportunities it offered. They stood in bold contrast to the growth of
the modern spirit in history, literature, and natural science. But in spite
of their predominating influence over education for centuries, there has
never been the shadow of a chance for making the classics of antiquity
the basis of common, popular education. The modern school of Natural
Scientists is just as one-sided as the Humanists in supposing that
human nature is narrow enough to be compressed within the bounds of
natural science studies, however broad their field may be.
But the systems of education in vogue have always lagged behind the
clear views of educational reformers. Two hundred fifty years ago
Comenius projected a plan of education for every boy and girl of the
common people. His aim was to teach all men all things from the
highest truths of religion to the commonest things of daily experience.
Being a man of simple and profound religious faith, religion and
morality were at the foundation of his system. But even the principles
of intellectual training so clearly advocated by Comenius have not yet
found a ready hearing among teachers, to say nothing of his great
moral-religious purpose. Among later writers, Locke, Rousseau, and
Pestalozzi have set up ideals of education that have had much influence.

But Locke's "gentleman" can never be the ideal of all because it is
intrinsically aristocratic and education has become with us broadly
democratic. After all, Locke's "gentleman" is a noble ideal and should
powerfully impress teachers. The perfect human animal that Rousseau
dreamed of in the Emile, is best illustrated in the noble savage, but we
are not in danger in America of adopting this ideal. In spite of his
merits the noblest savage falls short in several ways. Yet it is important
in education to perfect the physical powers and the animal development
in every child. Pestalozzi touched the hearts of even the weakest and
morally frailest children, and tried to make improved physical
conditions and intellectual culture contribute to heart culture, or rather
to combine the two in strong moral character. He came close upon the
highest aim of education and was able to illustrate his doctrine in
practice. The educational reformers have gone far ahead of the
schoolmasters in setting up a high aim in education.
Let us examine a few well-known definitions of education by great
thinkers, and try to discover a central idea.
"The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the
beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable."--Plato.
"Education includes whatever we do for ourselves and whatever is done
for us by others for the express purpose of bringing us nearer to the
perfection of our nature."--John Stuart Mill.
"Education is the preparation for complete living."--Herbert Spencer.
"Education is the harmonious and equable evolution of the human
faculties by a method based upon the nature of the mind for developing
all the faculties of the soul, for stirring up and nourishing all the
principles of life, while shunning all one-sided culture and taking
account of the sentiments upon which the strength and worth of men
depend."--Stein.
"Education is the sum of the reflective efforts by which we aid nature
in the development of the physical, intellectual, and moral faculties of
man in view of his perfection, his happiness, and his social

destination."--Compayre.
These attempts to bring the task of education into a comprehensive,
scientific formula are interesting and yet disappointing. They agree in
giving great breadth to education. But in the attempt to be
comprehensive, to omit nothing, they fail to specify that wherein the
true worth of man consists; they fail to bring out into relief the highest
aim as an organizing idea in the complicated work of education and its
relation to secondary aims.
We desire therefore to approach nearer to this problem: What is the
highest aim of education?
We will do so by an inquiry into the aims and tendencies of our public
schools. To an outward observer the schools of today confine their
attention almost