Before considering how to educate let us clear what we wish to achieve. HUMBLENESS OF MIND - A quality not possessed by Aristotle's 'Magnanimous man'. one man will emphasis courage, another learning, another kindliness, and another rectitude. One man, like the elder Brutus, will put duty to the state above the family affection; another like confucious will put family affection first. All these divergences will produce difference to as to education. We must have some
concept of the kind of person we wish to produce, before we can have any definite opinion as to the education which we consider best. It may be were worth while to spend a few moments on the different systems, before attempting to decide what we should ourselves regard as the aim which education should have in view. Traditional chinese education was in many respects very similar to that of Athens in its best days. Athenian boys were met to learn Homar by heart from beginning to end; chinese boys were made to learn the confucian classics with similar thoroughness. Athenians where taught a kind of reference for the good which consisted of outward observance, and placed no barrier in the ways of free intellectual speculation. Similarly, the chinese where tought certain rites connected with ancestor worship but where by no means oblised to have the beliefs which the rites would seem to imply. The Athenians and the chinese alike wished to enjoy life and had a conception of enjoyment which was refined by and exquisite sense of beauty. There was however great differences between the two civilizations, owning to the fact that broadly speaking, the greeks were energetic and chinese were lazy. The greeks devoted their energies to Art and Science and mutual extermination, in all of which they achieved unprecedented success. Politics and patriotism afforded practical outlets for Greek energy: when a politician was ousted, he led a band of exiled to a attack his native city. When a politician was ousted, he led a band of exiled to a attack his native city. When a chinese official was disgraced, he retired to the hills and wrote poems on the pleasure of the country life. Accordingly Greek civilization destroyed its self, but the chinese civilization could only destroyed from without. Modern japan affords the clearest illustration of a tendency to make national greatness the supreme purpose of education. The aim of japanese education is to produce citizens who shall be devoted to the state through the training of their passions and useful to it through the knowledge they have acquired. Dr. Arnold's System, which has remained in force in English Public School to the present days had some defects, namely that it was Aristocratic. The aim was to train man for positions of authority, and power whether at home or at distant part of the empire. An Aristocracy, if it is to survive needs certain virtues: these were imparted at school.
The product was to be energetic, stoical, physically fit, possessed of certain unalterable beliefs with high standard of rectitude and convinced that it had and important mission in the world. To a surprising extend these results were archieved.Intellect was sacrificed to them. Because intellect might produce doubt. Sympathy was sacrificed because it might interfere with governing 'inferior' races or classes . Kindliness was sacrificed for the sake of toughness ; Imagination, for the sake of firmness. In an unchanging world, the result might have been a permanent Aristocracy, possessing the merits and defects of the Spartans. But Aristcracy is out of date and subject population will no longer obey even the Most wise an virtuous rulers. The rulers are driven into brutality and brutality further encourages revolt. The complexities of modern world increasingly requires intelligence and Dr. Arnold sacrificed intelligence to virtues. The battle of waterloo may have been won on the playing fills of Eton, but the British empire is lost their. The modern world needs a different type, with more imaginative sympathy, more intellectual suppleness, less belief in bulldog courage an more belief in technical knowledge. Administrator of the future must be the servent of free citizen, not the benevolent ruler of admiring subjects.
The American public schools achieve successfully a task never before attempted on a large scale: the task of transforming a heterogenous selection of mankind in to a homogenous nation. Neither character nor intelligence will develop as well or as freely were the teacher is deficient in love and love of this kind consists essentially in feeling the child as and end. Parents want their children grow, to be strong and healthy, to do well at school, and so on, in just the same way in which they want thinks were themselves. The parental instinct is not always strictly confined to one's own children. in its diffused from, it must exist in every one is to be good teacher of little boys and girls. But it is not enough that educator should love the young; it is necessary also that he should have a right conception of human excellence. Cats teach their kitten to catch mise and play with them , militarists do like wise with the human young. The cats loves the kittens but not the mouse, the militarist may love his own son but not the son of his country`s enemies . Even those who love all mankind err through a wrong conception of good life . Hence when we come to consider the details of perceived good education , we must know the direction in which we wish to move . We must first may a distinction , some qualities are desirable in certain proportion of mankind , others are desirable universally. We want artists, but we also want men of science. We want great administrators but we also want ploughmen and millers and bakers. The qualities which produces a man of great eminence in some one direction are often such as might be undesirable if they were universal. Shelly describes the day`s work of a poet as follows :
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Before considering how to educate let us clear what we wish to achieve. HUMBLENESS OF MIND - A quality not possessed by....Read More