§ 2. We ordinary people see truths indeed, but we see them indistinctly, and are not completely guided by them.[71] It is reserved for men of genius to see truths, some truths that is, often a very few, with intense clearness. Some of these men have no great talent for speech or writing, and they try to express the truths they see, not so much by books as by action. Such men in education were Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel. But sometimes the man of genius has a great power over language, and then he finds for the truths he has seen, fitting expression, which becomes almost as lasting4 as the truths themselves. Such men were Montaigne and Rousseau. If the historian of education is asked “What did Montaigne do?” he will answer “Nothing.” “What did Froebel say?” “He said a great deal, but very few people can read him and still fewer understand him.” Both, however, are and must remain forces in education. Montaigne has given to some truths imperishable form in his Essays, and Froebel’s ideas come home to all the world in the Kindergarten.
§ 3. The ideal set up by the Renascence attached the highest importance to learning. Montaigne maintained that the resulting training even at its best was not suited to a gentleman or man of action. Virtue5, wisdom, and intellectual activity should be thought of before learning. Education should be first and foremost the development and exercise of faculties6. And even if the acquirement of knowledge is thought of, Montaigne maintains that the pedants7 do not understand the first conditions of knowledge and give a semblance8 not the true thing.—“Il ne faut pas attacher le savoir à l’ame, il faut l’incorporer.—Knowledge cannot be fastened on to the mind; it must become part and parcel of the mind itself.”[40]
[72]
Here then we have two separate counts against the Renascence education:
1st.—Knowledge is not the main thing.
2nd.—True knowledge is something very different from knowing by heart.
§ 4. It is a pity Montaigne’s utterances9 about education are to be found in English only in the complete translation of his essays. Seeing that a good many millions of people read English, and are most of them concerned in education, one may hope that some day the sayings of the shrewd old Frenchman may be offered them in a convenient form.
§ 5. Here are some of them: “The evil comes of the foolish way in which our [instructors] set to work; and on the plan on which we are taught no wonder if neither scholars nor masters become more able, whatever they may do in becoming more learned. In truth the trouble and expense of our fathers are directed only to furnish our heads with knowledge: not a word of judgment10 or virtue. Cry out to our people about a passer-by, ‘There’s a learned man!’ and about another ‘There’s a good man!’ they will be all agog11 after the learned man, and will not look at the good man. One might fairly raise a third cry: ‘There’s a set of numskulls!’ We are ready enough to ask ‘Does he know Greek or know Latin? Does he write verse or write prose?’ But whether he has become wiser or better should be the first question, and that is always the last. We ought to find out, not who knows most but who knows best.” (I, chap. 24, Du Pédantisme, page or two beyond Odi homines.)
§ 6. The true educators, according to Montaigne, were the Spartans12, who despised literature, and cared only for character and action. At Athens they thought about words,[73] at Sparta about things. At Athens boys learnt to speak well, at Sparta to do well: at Athens to escape from sophistical arguments, and to face all attempts to deceive them; at Sparta to escape from the allurements13 of pleasure, and to face the slings14 and arrows of outrageous15 fortune, even death itself. In the one system there was constant exercise of the tongue, in the other of the soul. “So it is not strange that when Antipater demanded of the Spartans fifty children as hostages they replied they would sooner give twice as many grown men, such store did they set by their country’s training.” (Du Pédantisme, ad f.)
§ 7. It is odd to find a man of the fifteen hundreds who quotes from the old authors at every turn, and yet maintains that “we lean so much on the arm of other people that we lose our own strength.” The thing a boy should learn is not what the old authors say, but “what he himself ought to do when he becomes a man.” Wisdom, not knowledge! “We may become learned from the learning of others; wise we can never be except by our own wisdom.” (Bk. j, chap. 24).
§ 8. So entirely16 was Montaigne detached from the thought of the Renascence that he scoffs17 at his own learning, and declares that true learning has for its subject, not the past or the future, but the present. “We are truly learned from knowing the present, not from knowing the past any more than the future.” And yet “we toil18 only to stuff the memory and leave the conscience and the understanding void. And like birds who fly abroad to forage19 for grain bring it home in their beak20, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their tongue’s end, only to spit it out and distribute it amongst[74] their pupils.” (Du Pédantisme.) “We are all richer than we think, but they drill us in borrowing and begging, and lead us to make more use of other people’s goods than of our own.”[41] (Bk. iij, chap. 12, De la Physionomie, beg. of 3rd paragraph).
§ 9. So far Montaigne. What do we schoolmasters say to all this? If we would be quite candid21 I think we must allow that, after reading Montaigne’s essay, we put it down with the conviction that in the main he was right, and that he had proved the error and absurdity22 of a vast deal that goes on in the schoolroom. But from this first view we have had on reflection to make several drawbacks.
§ 10. Montaigne, like Locke and Rousseau, who followed in his steps, arranges for every boy to have a tutor entirely devoted23 to him. We may question whether this method of bringing up children is desirable, and we may assert, without question, that in most cases it is impossible. It seems ordained24 that at every stage of life we should require the companionship of those of our own age. If we[75] take two beings as little alike as a man and a child and force them to be each other’s companions, so great is the difference in their thoughts and interests that they will fall into inevitable25 boredom26 and restraint. So we see that this plan, even in the few cases in which it would be possible, would not be desirable; and for the great majority of boys it would be out of the question. We must then arrange for the young to be taught, not as individuals, but in classes, and this greatly changes the conditions of the problem. One of the first conditions is this, that we have to employ each class regularly and uniformly for some hours every day. Schoolmasters know what their non-scholastic mentors27 forget: we can make a class learn, but, broadly speaking, we cannot make a class think, still less can we make it judge. As a great deal of occupation has to be provided, we are therefore forced to make our pupils learn. Whatever may be the value of the learning in itself it is absolutely necessary as employment.
§ 11. No doubt it will make a vast difference whether we consider the learning mainly as employment, as a means of taking up time and preventing “sauntering,” as Locke boldly calls it, or whether we are chiefly anxious to secure some special results. The knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and the Latin and Greek authors was a result so highly prized by the Renascence scholars that they insisted on a prodigious28 quantity of learning, not as employment, but simply as the means of acquiring this knowledge. As the knowledge got to be less esteemed29 the pressure was by degrees relaxed. In our public schools fifty or sixty years ago the learning was to some extent retained as employment, but there certainly was no pressure, and the majority of the boys never learnt the ancient languages.[76] So the masters of that time had given up the Renascence enthusiasm for the classics, and on the negative side of his teaching had come to an agreement with Montaigne. Any one inclined to sarcasm30 might say that on the positive side they were still totally opposed to him, for he thought virtue and judgment were the main things to be cared for, and they did not care for these things at all. But this is not a fair statement. The one thing gained, or supposed to be gained, in the public schools was the art of living, and this art, though it does not demand heroic virtue, requires at least prudence31 and self-control. Montaigne’s system was a revolt against the bookishness of the Renascence. “In our studies,” says he, “whatever presents itself before us is book enough; a roguish trick of a page, a blunder of a servant, a jest at table, are so many new subjects.” So the education out of school was in his eyes of more value than the education in school. And this was acknowledged also in our public schools: “It is not the Latin and Greek they learn or don’t learn that we consider so important,” the masters used to say, “but it is the tone of the school and the discipline of the games.” But of late years this virtual agreement with Montaigne has been broken up. School work is no longer mere32 employment, but it is done under pressure, and with penalties if the tale of brick turned out does not pass the inspector33.
§ 12. What has produced this great change? It is due mainly to two causes:
1. The pressure put on the young to attain34 classical knowledge was relaxed when it was thought that they could get through life very well without this knowledge. But in these days new knowledge has awakened35 a new enthusiasm. The knowledge of science promises such great advantages[77] that the latest reformers, headed by Mr. Herbert Spencer, seem to make the well-being36 of the grown person depend mainly on the amount of scientific knowledge he stored up in his youth. This is the first cause of educational pressure.
§ 13. 2. The second and more urgent cause is the rapid development of our system of examinations. Everybody’s educational status is now settled by the examiner, a potentate37 whose influence has brought back in a very malignant38 form all the evils of which Montaigne complains. Do what we will, the faculty39 chiefly exercised in preparing for ordinary examinations is the “carrying memory.” So the acquisition of knowledge—mere memory or examination knowledge—has again come to be regarded as the one thing needful in education, and there is great danger of everything else being neglected for it. Of the fourfold results of education—virtue, wisdom, good manners, learning—the last alone can be fairly tested in examinations; and as the schoolmaster’s very bread depends nowadays first on his getting through examinations himself and then on getting his pupils through, he would be more than human, if with Locke he thought of learning “last and least.” A great change has come over our public schools. The amount of work required from the boys is far greater than it used to be and masters again measure their success by the amount of knowledge the average boy takes away with him. It seems to me high time that another Montaigne arose to protest that a man’s intellectual life does not consist in the number of things he remembers, and that his true life is not his intellectual life only, but embraces his power of will and action and his love of what is noble and right. “Wisdom cried of old, I am the mother of fair Love and Fear and Knowledge and holy Hope” (Ecclesiasticus). In these[78] days of science and examinations does there not seem some danger lest knowledge should prove the sole survivor40? May not Knowledge, like another Cain, raise its hand against its brethren “fair Love and Fear and holy Hope?” This is perhaps the great danger of our time, a danger especially felt in education. Every school parades its scholarships at the public schools or at the universities, or its passes in the Oxford41 and Cambridge Locals, or its percentage at the last Inspection42, and asks to be judged by these. And yet these are not the one thing or indeed the chief thing needful: and it will be the ruin of true education if, as Mark Pattison said, the master’s attention is concentrated on the least important part of his duty.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
monk
|
|
| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
vein
|
|
| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
alleges
|
|
| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
lasting
|
|
| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
faculties
|
|
| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
pedants
|
|
| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
semblance
|
|
| n.外貌，外表 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
utterances
|
|
| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
agog
|
|
| adj.兴奋的，有强烈兴趣的； adv.渴望地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
spartans
|
|
| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
allurements
|
|
| n.诱惑( allurement的名词复数 )；吸引；诱惑物；有诱惑力的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
slings
|
|
| 抛( sling的第三人称单数 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
outrageous
|
|
| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
scoffs
|
|
| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
forage
|
|
| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
beak
|
|
| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
candid
|
|
| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
absurdity
|
|
| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
ordained
|
|
| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
boredom
|
|
| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
mentors
|
|
| n.（无经验之人的）有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的名词复数 )v.（无经验之人的）有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
prodigious
|
|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
esteemed
|
|
| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
sarcasm
|
|
| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
prudence
|
|
| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
inspector
|
|
| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
awakened
|
|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
well-being
|
|
| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
potentate
|
|
| n.统治者；君主 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
malignant
|
|
| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
faculty
|
|
| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
survivor
|
|
| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
Oxford
|
|
| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
inspection
|
|
| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |