§ 1. when an english university established an examination for future teachers,[109] the “special subjects” first set were “locke and dr. arnold.” the selection seems to me a very happy one. arnold greatly affected the spirit and even the organization of our public schools at a time when the old schools were about to have new life infused into them, and when new schools were to be started on the model of the old. he is perhaps the greatest educator of the english type, i.e., the greatest educator who had accepted the system handed down to him and tried to make the best of it. locke on the other hand, whose reputation is more european than english, belongs rather to the continental type. like his disciple rousseau and like rousseau’s disciples the french revolutionists, locke refused the traditional system and appealed from tradition and authority to reason. we english revere arnold, but so long as the history of education continues to be written, as it has been written hitherto, on the continent, the only englishman celebrated in it will be as now not the great schoolmaster but the great philosopher.

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§ 2. in order to understand locke we must always bear in mind what i may call his two main characteristics; 1st, his craving to know and to speak the truth and the whole truth in everything, truth not for a purpose but for itself[110]; 2nd, his perfect trust in the reason as the guide, the only guide, to truth.[111]

§ 3. 1st. those who have not reflected much on the subject will naturally suppose that the desire to know the truth is common to all men, and the desire to speak the truth common to most. but this is very far from being the case. if we had any earnest desire for truth we should examine things carefully before we admitted them as truths; in other words our opinions would be the growth of long and energetic thought. but instead of this they are formed for the most part quite carelessly and at haphazard, and we value them not on account of their supposed agreement with fact but because though “poor things” they are “our own” or those of our sect or party. locke on the other[221] hand was always endeavouring to get at the truth for its own sake. this separated him from men in general. and he brought great powers of mind to bear on the investigation. this raised him above them.

§ 4. 2nd. locke’s second characteristic was his entire reliance on the guidance of reason. “the faculty of reasoning,” says he, “seldom or never deceives those who trust to it.” elsewhere, borrowing a metaphor from solomon (prov. xx, 27), he speaks of this faculty as “the candle of the lord set up by himself in men’s minds.” (f. b. ij., 129). in a fine passage in the conduct of the understanding he calls it “the touchstone of truth” (§ iij, fowler’s edition, p. 10). he even goes so far in his correspondence with molyneux as to maintain that intelligent honest men cannot possibly differ.[112]

but if we consider it from one point of view the treatise on the conduct of the understanding is itself a witness that human reason is a compass liable to incalculable variations and likely enough to shipwreck those who steer by it alone. in this book locke shows us that to come to a true result the understanding (1) must be perfectly trained, (2) must not be affected by any feeling in favour of or against any[222] particular result, and (3) must have before it all the data necessary for forming a judgment. in practice these conditions are seldom (if ever) fulfilled; and locke himself, when he wants an instance of a mind that can acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions, takes it from “angels and separate spirits who may be endowed with more comprehensive faculties” than we are (c. of u. § iij, 3).

§ 5. it seems to me then that locke much exaggerates the power of the individual reason for getting at the truth. and to exaggerate the importance of one function of the mind is to unduly diminish the importance of the rest. thus we find that in locke’s scheme of education little thought is taken for the play of the affections and feelings; and as for the imagination it is treated merely as a source of mischief.

§ 6. locke, as it has often been pointed out, differs from the schoolmaster in making small account of the knowledge to be acquired by those under education. but it has not been so often remarked that the fundamental difference is much deeper than this and lies in the conception of knowledge itself. with the ordinary schoolmaster the test of knowledge is the power of reproduction. whatever pupils can reproduce with difficulty they know imperfectly; whatever they can reproduce with ease they know thoroughly. but locke’s definition of knowledge confines it to a much smaller area. according to him knowledge is “the internal perception of the mind” (locke to stillingfleet v. f. b. ij, 432). “knowing is seeing; and if it be so, it is madness to persuade ourselves we do so by another man’s eyes, let him use never so many words to tell us that what he asserts is very visible. till we ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it by our own understandings, we are as much[223] in the dark and as void of knowledge as before, let us believe any learned authors as much as we will” (c. of u. § 24).[113]

§ 7. here locke makes no distinction between different classes of truths. but surely very important differences exist.

about some physical facts our knowledge is at once most certain and most definite when we derive it through the evidence of our own senses. “seeing is believing,” says the proverb. it may be believing, but it is not knowing. that certainty which we call knowledge we often arrive at better by the testimony of others than by that of our own senses.

miss martineau in her autobiography tells us that as a child of ten she entirely and unaccountably failed to see a comet which was visible to all other people; but, although her own senses were at fault, the evidence for the comet was so conclusive that she may be said to have known there was a comet in the sky.

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on sufficient evidence we can know anything, just as we know there is a great water-fall at niagara though we may never have crossed the atlantic. but we cannot be so certain simply on the evidence of our senses. if we trusted entirely to them we might take the earth for a plane and “know” that the sun moved round it.

§ 8. but locke probably considers as the subject of knowledge not so much physical facts as the great body of truths which are ascertained by the intellect. it is the eye of the mind by which alone knowledge is to be gained. of these truths the purest specimens are the truths of geometry. it may be said that only those who have followed the proofs know that the area of the square on the side opposite the right angle in a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other sides. but even in pure reasoning like this, the tiro often seems to see what he does not really see; and where his own reason brings him to a conclusion different from the one established he knows only that he is mistaken.

§ 9. it must be admitted then that first-hand knowledge, knowledge derived from the vision of the eye or of the mind, is not the only knowledge the young require. every learner must take things on trust, as even lord bacon admits. discentem credere oportet. to use locke’s own words:—“i do not say, to be a good geographer that a man should visit every mountain, river, promontory, and creek upon the face of the earth, view the buildings and survey the land everywhere as if he were going to make a purchase” (c. of u., iij, ad f.). so that even according to locke’s own shewing we must use the eyes of others as well as our own, and this is true not in geography only, but in all other branches of knowledge.

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§ 10. but are we driven to the alternative of agreeing either with locke or with the schoolmaster? i do not see that we are. the thought which underlies locke’s system of education is this: true knowledge can be acquired only by the exercise of the reason: in childhood the reasoning power is not strong enough for the pursuit of knowledge: knowledge, therefore, is out of the question at that age, and the only thing to be thought of is the formation of habits. opposed to this we have the schoolmaster’s ideal which is governed by examinations. according to this ideal the object of the school course is to give certain “knowledge,” linguistic and other, and to fix it in the memory in such a manner that it can be displayed on the day of examination. “knowledge” of this kind often makes no demand whatever on the reasoning faculty, or indeed on any faculty but that of remembering and reproducing what the learner has been told; in extreme cases the memory of mere sounds or symbols suffices.

but after all we are not compelled to choose between these two theories. take, e.g., the subject which locke has mentioned, geography. the schoolmasters of the olden time began with the use of the globes, a plan which, by the way, locke himself seems to have winked at. his disciple molyneux tells him of the performances of the small molyneux. when he was but just turned five he could read perfectly well, and on the globe could have traced out and pointed at all the noted ports, countries, and cities of the world, both land and sea; by five and a half could perform many of the plainest problems on the globe, as the longitude and latitude, the antipodes, the time with them and other countries, &c. (molyneux to l., 24th august, 1695.) here we find a child brought up, without any[226] protest from locke, on mere examination knowledge, which according to locke himself is not knowledge at all. it is strange that locke did not at once point out to molyneux that the child was not really learning what the father supposed him to be learning. when the child turned over the plaster ball and found the word “paris,” the father no doubt attributed to the child much that was in his own mind only. to the child “the globe” (as rousseau afterwards said), was nothing but a plaster ball; “paris” was nothing but some letters marked on that ball. comenius had already got a notion how children may be given some knowledge of geography. “children begin geography,” said he, “when they get to understand what a hill, a valley, a field, a river, a village, a town is.” (supra, p. 145.) when this beginning has been made, geographical knowledge is at once possible to the child, and not before.

perfect knowledge in geography, as in most other things, is out of every one’s reach. nobody knows, e.g., all that could be known about paris. the knowledge its inhabitants have of it is very various, but in all cases this knowledge is far greater than that of a visitor. the visitor’s knowledge again is far greater than that of strangers who have never seen paris. nobody, then, can know everything even about paris; but a child who knows what a large town is, and can fancy to himself a big town called paris, which is the biggest and most important town in france has some knowledge about it. this must be maintained against locke. against the schoolmaster it may be pointed out that making an eskimo say the words:—“paris is the capital of france,” would not be giving him any knowledge at all; and the same may be said of many “lessons” in[227] the school-room. if a common sailor were to teach an eskimo english, he would very likely suppose that when he had taught the sounds “paris is the capital of france,” he had conveyed to his pupil all the ideas which those sounds suggested to his own mind. a common schoolmaster may fall into a similar error.

§ 11. in the most celebrated work which has been affected by the thoughts of locke, rousseau’s emile, we find childhood treated in a manner altogether different from youth: the child’s education is mainly physical, and instruction is not given till the age of twelve. locke’s system on first sight seems very different to this, but there is a deeper connection between the two than is usually observed. we have seen that locke allowed nothing to be knowledge that was not acquired by the perception of the intellect. but in children the intellectual power is not yet developed; so according to locke knowledge properly so-called is not within their reach. what then can the educator do for them? he can prepare them for the age of reason in two ways, by caring first for their physical health, second for the formation of good habits.

§ 12. 1st. on the continent locke has always been considered one of the first advocates of physical education, and he does, it is true, give physical education the first place, a feature in his system, which we naturally connect with his study of medicine, and also with the trouble he had all his life with his own health. but care of the body, and especially bodily exercises, were always much thought of in this country, and the main writers on education before locke, e.g., sir thos. elyot, mulcaster, milton, were very emphatic about physical training.

in the autobiography of lord herbert of cherbury, we[228] may see what attention was paid in locke’s own century to this part of education.[114]

§ 13. 2nd. “that, and that only, is educative which moulds forms or modifies the soul or mind.” (mark pattison in new quarterly magazine, january, 1880.)

here we have a proposition which is perhaps seldom denied, but very commonly ignored by those who bring up the young. but locke seems to have been entirely possessed with this notion, and the greater part of the thoughts is nothing but a long application of it. the principle which lies at the root of most of his advice, he has himself expressed as follows: “that which i cannot too often inculcate is, that whatever the matter be about which it is conversant whether great or small, the main, i had almost said only thing, to be considered in every action of a child is what influence it will have upon his mind; what habit it tends to, and is likely to settle in him: how it will become him when he is bigger, and if it be encouraged, whither it will lead him when he is grown up.” (thoughts, § 107, p. 86.)

here we see that locke differed widely from the schoolmasters of his time, perhaps of all time. a man must be a philosopher indeed if he can spend his life in teaching boys, and yet always think more about what they will be and what they will do when their schooling is over than what they will know. and in these days if we stopped to think at all we should be trodden on by the examiner.[115]

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in this respect locke has not been surpassed. like his predecessor montaigne he took for his centre not the object, knowledge, but the subject, man.[116]

§ 14. in some other respects he does not seem so happy. he makes little attempt to reach a scientific standpoint and to establish general truths about our common human nature. he thinks not so much of the man as the gentleman, not so much of the common laws of the mind as of the peculiarities of the individual child. he even hints that differences of disposition in children render treatises on education defective if not useless. “there are a thousand other things that may need consideration” he writes “especially if one should take in the various tempers, different inclinations, and particular defaults that are to be found in children and prescribe proper remedies. the variety is so great that it would require a volume, nor would that reach it. each man’s mind has some peculiarity as well as his face, that distinguishes him from all others; and there are possibly scarce two children who can be conducted by exactly the same method: besides that i think a prince, a nobleman, or an ordinary gentleman’s son should have different ways of breeding. but having had here only some general views in reference to the main end and aims in education, and those designed for a gentleman’s son, whom being then very little i considered only as white paper or wax to be moulded and[230] fashioned as one pleases, i have touched little more than those heads which i judged necessary for the breeding of a young gentleman of his condition in general.” (thoughts, § 217, p. 187.)

no language could bring out more clearly the inferiority of locke’s standpoint to that of later thinkers. he makes little account of our common nature and wishes education to be based upon an estimate of the peculiarities of the individual pupil and of his social needs. and no one with an adequate notion of education could ever compare the young child to “white paper or wax.” perhaps the development of an organism was a conception that could not have been formed without a great advance in physical science. froebel who makes most of it learnt it from the scientific study of trees and from mineralogy. we need not then be surprised that locke does not say, as pestalozzi said a hundred years later, “education instead of merely considering what is to be imparted to children ought to consider first what they already possess.” but if he had read comenius he would have been saved from comparing the child to wax or white paper in the hands of the educator. comenius had said: “nature has implanted within us the seeds of learning, of virtue, and of piety. the object of education is to bring these seeds to perfection.” (supra, p. 135.) this seems to me a higher conception than any that i meet with in locke.

§ 15. but if our philosopher did not learn from comenius he certainly learnt from montaigne.[117] indeed dr. arnst?dt[231] (v. supra, p. 69) has put him into a series of thinkers who have much in common. this succession is as follows: rabelais, montaigne, locke, rousseau; and, according to mr. browning’s division, they form a school by themselves. “thinkers on education,” says mr. browning,[118] “are 1st those who wish to educate through the study of the classics, or 2nd those who wish to educate through the study of the works of nature, or 3rd those who aim at an education independent of study and knowledge, and think rather of the training of character and the attaining to the greek ideal, the man beautiful and good.” to the three schools mr. browning gives the names humanist, realist, and naturalist, (“nos autres naturalistes,” montaigne says). locke he considers one of the principal writers of the “naturalistic” school, and says, locke “has given a powerful bias to naturalistic education both in england and on the continent for the last 200 years.” (ed. theories, p. 85.)

this use of the word “naturalistic” seems to me somewhat misleading, or at best vague, and it is a word overworked already: so i should prefer to speak of the “developing” or “training” school. the classification itself certainly has its uses but it must be employed with caution. if caught up by those who have only an elementary acquaintance with the subject a class of persons apt to delight in such arrangements as an aid to memory, these divisions may easily prove a hindrance to light.

§ 16. this subject of classification is so important to[232] students that it may be worth while to make a few remarks upon it. the only thoroughly consistent people are the people of fiction. we can know all about them. directly we understand their central thought or peculiarity we may be sure that everything they say and do will be strictly in accordance with it, will indeed be explainable by it. to take a bald and simple instance, directly we know that mrs. jellaby in bleak house is absorbed by her interest in an african mission, we know all that is to be known about her; and everything she does or omits to do has some reference to borrioboola ghar. but in real life not only are people much less easily understood, but when we actually have seized their main idea or peculiarity or interest we must not expect to find them always consistent: and they will say and do much which if not inconsistent with the main idea or peculiarity or interest has at least no connection with it. suppose, e.g., you can make out with some certainty that locke belonged to the developing school, you must not expect him to pay little heed to instruction as such. again, suppose you find that his philosophy was utilitarian; you must not suppose that in everything he says he will be thinking of utility.

now the historian is tempted to treat real men and women as the writer of fiction treats his puppets. having fastened, quite correctly let us suppose, on their main peculiarity he considers it necessary to square everything with his theory of them, and whatever will not fall in with it he, if he is unscrupulous, misrepresents, or if he is scrupulous, suppresses.

again, we are too apt to read into words meanings derived from controversies unknown at the time when the words were uttered. this is a well-known fact in the history of religious thought. we must always consider not merely the words used but the time when they were used.[233] what a man might say quite naturally and orthodoxly at one period would be sufficient to convict him of sympathizing with some terrible heresy if uttered half a century later. we find something like this in the history of education. if anyone nowadays speaks of the pleasure with which as a young man he read tacitus, he is understood to mean that he is opposed to the introduction of “modern studies” into the school-room. if on the other hand he extols botany, or regrets that he never learned chemistry, this is taken for an assault on classical instruction. but, of course, no such inference could be drawn if we went back to a time when the antithesis between classics and natural science had not been accentuated. in many other instances we have to be on our guard against forcing into language meaning which belongs rather to a later date.

§ 17. with these cautions in mind let us see how far locke may be said (1) to be a trainer, and (2) how far a utilitarian.

§ 18. i. mr. browning attributes to rabelais, montaigne, and locke the desire to bring up a well-developed man rather than a good scholar. but rabelais certainly craved for the knowledge of things; and if he is to be classed at all i should put him rather with the realists, albeit he lived before the realistic spirit became powerful. montaigne went more on the lines of developing rather than teaching, and, shrewd man of the world as he was, he thought a great deal about the art of living. but his ideal was not so much the man as the gentleman. this was true also of locke; and here we see some explanation why both montaigne and locke do not value classical learning.[119][234] on the continent classical learning has never been associated with the character of an accomplished gentleman; and, as far as i know, the conception that the highest type of excellence is found in the union of “the scholar and the gentleman” is peculiar to this country. in the society of locke’s day this union does not seem to have been recognized, and locke observes: “a great part of the learning now in fashion in the schools of europe, and that goes ordinarily into the round of education, a gentleman may in a good measure be unfurnished with, without any great disparagement to himself or prejudice to his affairs.” (thoughts, § 94, p. 74.) so locke sought as the true essential for the young gentleman “prudence and good breeding.” he puts his requisites in the following order of importance:—1, virtue; 2, wisdom; 3, manners; 4, learning; and so “places learning last and least.” here he shews himself far ahead of those who still held to the learned ideal; but his notions of development were cramped by his thinking only of the gentleman and what was requisite for him.

§ 19. ii. was locke a utilitarian in education? it is the fashion (and in history as in other things fashion is a powerful force), it is the fashion to treat of locke as a great champion of utilitarianism. we might expect this in the ordinary historians, for “when they do agree their unanimity is” not perhaps very wonderful. but there is one great english authority quite uninfluenced by them who has said[235] the same thing, viz.—cardinal newman. the cardinal, as the champion of authority, is perhaps prejudiced against locke, who holds that “the faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceived those who trusted to it.” be this as it may, newman asserts that “the tone of locke’s remarks is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the general cultivation of the mind.” (idea of a university. discourse vij., § 4; see also § 6.) a very interesting point for us to consider is then, is this reputation of locke’s for utilitarianism well deserved?

§ 20. first let us be quite certain of our definition.

in learning anything there are two points to be considered; 1st, the advantage we shall find from knowing that subject or having that skill, and 2nd, the effect which the study of that subject or practising for that skill will have on the mind or the body.

these two points are in themselves distinct, though it is open to anyone to maintain that they need not be considered separately. nature has provided that the bodies of most animals should get the exercise best for them in procuring food. so mr. herbert spencer has come to the conclusion that it would be contrary to “the economy of nature” if one set of occupations were needed as gymnastics and another for utility. in other words he considers that it is in learning the most useful things we get the best training.

the utilitarian view of instruction is that we should teach things useful in themselves and either neglect the result on the mind and body of the learner or assume mr. spencer’s law of “the economy of nature.”

again, when the subjects are settled the utilitarian thinks how the knowledge or skill may be most speedily acquired,[236] and not how this method or that method of acquisition will affect the faculties.

§ 21. this being utilitarianism in education the question is how far was locke the utilitarian he is generally considered?

if we take by itself what he says under the head of “learning” in the thoughts concerning education no doubt we should pronounce him a utilitarian. he considers each subject of instruction and pronounces for or against it according as it seems likely or unlikely to be useful to a gentleman. and in the methods he suggests he simply points out the quickest route, as if the knowledge were the only thing to be thought of. hence his utilitarian reputation.

but two very important considerations have been lost sight of.

1st. learning is with him “the last and least part” in education.

2nd. intellectual education was not for childhood but for the age when we can teach ourselves. “when a man has got an entrance into any of the sciences,” says he, “it will be time then to depend on himself and rely upon his own understanding and exercise his own faculties, which is the only way to improvement and mastery.” (l. to peterborough, quoted in camb. edition of thoughts, p. 229.) “so,” he says, “the business of education is not, as i think, to make the young perfect in any one of the sciences but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them capable of any when they shall apply themselves to it.” the studies he proposes in the conduct of the understanding (which is his treatise on intellectual education) have for their object “an increase of the powers and activity of the[237] mind, not an enlargement of its possessions” (c. of u. § 19, ad f.).

thus strange to say the supposed leader of the utilitarians has actually propounded in so many words the doctrine of their opponents.

§ 22. when locke is more studied it will be found that the thoughts are misleading if we neglect his other works, more particularly the conduct of the understanding.

§ 23. towards the end of his days, locke was conscious of gleams of the “untravelled world” which lay before the generations to come. with great pathos he writes to a friend: “when i consider how much of my life has been trifled away in beaten tracks where i vamped on with others only to follow those who went before me, i cannot but think i have just as much reason to be proud as if i had travelled all england and, if you will, all france too, only to acquaint myself with the roads, and be able to tell how the highways lie wherein those of equipage, and even the common herd too, travel. now, methinks—and these are often old men’s dreams—i see openings to truth and direct paths leading to it, wherein a little application and industry would settle one’s mind with satisfaction and leave no darkness or doubt. but this is the end of my day when my sun is setting: and though the prospect it has given me be what i would not for anything be without—there is so much truth, beauty, and consistency in it—yet it is for one of your age, i think i ought to say for yourself, to set about” (l. to bolde, quoted by fowler, locke, p. 120). but another 200 years have not sufficed to put us in possession of the promised land of which locke had these pisgah visions. we still “vamp on,” following those who went before us and getting small help from expounders of “education[238] as a science.” but as it would seem the days of vamping on blindly in the beaten track are drawing to a close. we cannot doubt that if locke had known the wonderful advance which various sciences have made since his day he would have seen in them “openings to truth and direct paths leading to it” for many purposes, certainly for education. it is for our age and ages to come to set about applying our scientific knowledge to the bringing up of children; and thinkers such as froebel will shew us how.

locke’s thoughts concerning education and his conduct of the understanding should be in the hands of all students of education who know the english language. i have therefore not attempted to epitomise what he has said, but have endeavoured to get at the main thoughts which are, so to speak, the taproot of his system. of the thoughts there is an edition published by the national society and another by the pitt press, cambridge. the cambridge edition gives from fox-bourne’s life locke’s scheme of “working schools” and from lord king’s the essay “of study.” of the conduct there is an edition published by the clarendon press. “f.b.” in the references above stands for fox-bourne’s life of locke.

in the above essay i have not treated of locke as a methodizer; but he advocated teaching foreign languages without grammar, and he published “?sop’s fables in english and latin, interlineary. for the benefit of those, who not having a master would learn either of these tongues.” when i edited the thoughts for pitt press i did not know of this book or i should have mentioned it.