EVERYMAN, I will go with thee,
and be thy guide,
Inthy most need to go by thy side
HERBERT SPENCER Born at Derby in 1820, the son of a teacher, from whom he receivedmost of his education. Obtained employment on the London and BirminghamRailway. After the strike of 1846 he devoted himself to journalism, andin 1848 was sub-editor of The Economist. He died in 1903. |
NO. 504
The four essays on education which Herbert Spencer published in asingle volume in 1861 were all written and separately published between1854 and 1859. Their tone was aggressive and their proposalsrevolutionary; although all the doctrines—with one importantexception—had already been vigorously preached by earlier writerson education, as Spencer himself was at pains to point out. The doctrinewhich was comparatively new ran through all four essays; but was mostamply stated in the essay first published in 1859 under the title "WhatKnowledge is of Most Worth?" In this essay Spencer divided the leadingkinds of human activity into those which minister to self-preservation,those which secure the necessaries of life, those whose end is the careof offspring, those which make good citizens, and those which prepareadults to enjoy nature, literature, and the fine arts; and he thenmaintained that in each of these several classes, knowledge of sciencewas worth more than any other knowledge. He argued that everywherethroughout creation faculties are developed through the performance ofthe appropriate functions; so that it would be contrary to the wholeharmony of nature "if one kind of culture were needed for the gaining ofinformation, and another kind were needed as a mental gymnastic." Hethen maintained that the sciences are superior in all respects tolanguages as educational material; they train the memory better, and asuperior kind of memory; they cultivate the judgment, and they impart anadmirable moral and religious discipline. He concluded that "fordiscipline, as well as for guidance, science is of chiefest value. Inall its effects, learning the meaning of things is better than learningthe meaning of words." He answered the question "what knowledge is ofmost worth?" with the one word—science.
This doctrine was extremely repulsive to the established professionof education in England, where Latin, Greek, and mathematics had beenthe staples of education for many generations,and were believed to afford the only suitable preparation for thelearned professions, public life, and cultivated society. In proclaimingthis doctrine with ample illustration, ingenious argument, and forciblereiteration, Spencer was a true educational pioneer, although some ofhis scientific contemporaries were really preaching similar doctrines,each in his own field.
The profession of teaching has long been characterised by certainhabitual convictions, whi