WHAT TO TEACH, AND HOW TO TEACH IT: SO THAT THE CHILD MAY BECOME A WISE AND GOOD MAN. BY HENRY MAYHEW. PART THE CULTIVATION OF THE INTELLECT. "The great sources of wisdom are experience and observation. To open, and fix, the eyes upon what passes without, and "What we want is a race of teachers acquainted with the philosophy of the mind-gifted men and women who shall LONDON: WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET-STREET. 1842. ADVERTISEMENT. THE following treatise is an attempt to deduce the subject-means-and object of Education, from the laws of the Mind. The author has considered Education rather as a science than an art; believing the philosophy of it to bear the same relation to Mental Philosophy, as the science of Agricultural Chemistry bears to that of Chemistry in general: and as Sir Humphrey Davy was enabled, by his application of the known chemical laws to the cultivation of the Earth, to lay down particular rules for the development and correction of the different properties of the Soil by the Farmer, so has the author endeavoured, by adapting the known laws of the Mind to the cultivation of the Intellect, to deduce certain principles for the encouragement and controul of the several faculties of the Pupil by the Tutor. These laws-when they appeared to him to be correct and sufficient-the author has derived from the Lectures of Dr. Brown, on the "Philosophy of the Human Mind;" when they seemed to be incorrect, he has, with all due deference, attempted to show and amend the error; and, when insufficient, he has, by the most careful analysis, endeavoured to supply the deficiency. The author has entered upon his task, earnestly soliciting that spirit, which is said by Bacon, in the prefatory aphorisms to his " Novum Organum Scientiarum," to be essential to him "who would come duly prepared to the business of interpretation." He has striven "neither to be a follower of novelty, custom, nor antiquity-nor to indulge himself in a liberty of contradictingnor servilely to follow authority." He has sought "to be neither hasty in affirming, nor loose and sceptical in doubting; but to raise particulars to the plaçes assigned them by their degrees of evidence and proof." He has endeavoured "not to judge of things by their uncommon nature, their difficulty, or their high character, but by their just weight and use." Of the style, it may be as well to add, that the author has cultivated the diffuse, as being the more perspicuous-rather than the concise, though this certainly would have been the more elegant. Indeed, he has continually sought, by the repetition or translation of the same idea into different terms, to submit the phrase he has in the first instance used to express it, to those mental tests, which alone can give the reader a notion of the exact sense intended to be conveyed-a course, which will doubtlessly be more acceptable to such persons as know, and are anxious to avoid the fallacies-than to such as have a taste and inclination for the graces-of language ;-to the advocates for precision than to the admirers of prettiness-in a word, to the logician rather than to the "litterateur." DECEMBER 10, 1841. TO HIS BEST FRIEND MARK LEMON, THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED, FROM A MINUTE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MAN, WITH THE HEARTIEST AFFECTION AND ESTEEM, BY THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. CHAP. I.-The Fallacy of the supposed connexion between Reading and Writing, and Morality and Intelligence....... II. What is Reading and Writing, and what are the advantages likely to accrue from a knowledge thereof III.-The Relation between Reading and Writing, and Education IV. What is the meaning of the term Education V.-The Use of the Intellect VI. What constitutes the Intellectualisation of a being VII. The Objects of Intelligence...... IX.-The Necessity for teaching Natural Philosophy.. ............... as now, prefixed to Intellectual Education XV.-The Character, the Object, and the Knowledge requisite for the purpose, of XVI.-What is it that gives rise to the difference of Intelligence in different minds ... XX.-The Means of exciting the emotions necessary to produce Attention XXII.-Of Rewards and Punishments XXIII. Of the pursuit of Knowledge for the mere love of Knowledge itself XXIV. Of Curiosity, and its Cause XXV. Of the uses of the feelings of Surprise, and Wonder, and their importance as principles of Education XXVI. Of the mode of gratifying the Curiosity.................. XXVIII. Of the Pleasure derivable from the acquisition of Knowledge 33 34 39 ib. 40 XXXVII.-Of the Influence of perceptible objects in giving greater Liveliness to our 244 43 XXXIX.-Return to the consideration of the Relation of Reading and Writing to Education 44 WHAT TO TEACH, AND HOW TO TEACH IT: SO THAT THE CHILD MAY BECOME A WISE AND GOOD MAN. PART I. THE CULTIVATION OF THE INTELLECT. CHAPTER I. Nor has a knowledge of reading and writing, it is THE FALLACY OF THE SUPPOSED CONNEXION BETWEEN READING commonly supposed, a less potent influence upon AND WRITING, AND MORALITY AND INTELLIGENCE. the head than on the heart. To be ignorant of it is, according to the general opinion, to be not only a knave, but a fool; whereas to know it is to become at once a savan and a saint. A man who can neither read nor write must-at least so run the notions of the world-have a strong prejudice in favour of silver spoons, and against syllogisms—a greater love of larceny than logic. "Disseminate Dilworth," say the Educationalists, "and every jail will shortly be converted into a gallery of prac THE returns furnished by the governors of the different jails, respecting the number and characters of the several persons confined therein, afford an apt illustration of the grand benefits that are generally supposed to accrue from a knowledge of the arts of orthopy and orthography. The prisoners are commonly divided into those who can, and those who cannot, read and write; and it certainly must be conceded to the advocates for the moral advantages arising from an acquaintance with the works of Dil-tical science, and Botany Bay be changed to another worth and Carstairs, that among the residents at Athens. Let but the blessings of the primer," Horsemonger-lane, Bridewell, the Compter, or the they exclaim, "be known to every thief, and philoTreadmill, the literati are in a highly complimentary sophy must instantly supersede the picking of minority. But (notwithstanding this assumed proof pockets, and all budding Jack Sheppards ultimately of the beneficial effects of reading and writing) still expand into so many full-blown Socrates'." And am I simple enough to believe that a man may be yet, in the teeth of all this, I must confess it is my utterly ignorant even of the A B C, and yet be not honest belief, that a man may be perfectly rational, given to cutting throats; and wholly unskilled in the and yet utterly illiterate; that he may have a good art of penmanship, and still have no bias in favour sound knowledge of the universe within and without of burglary. Nay, it is my deliberate opinion-mad him, and still have no knowledge even of the alphaas it may appear in these days of societies for the That the majority of criminals are unable to read and write diffusion of horn books and propagation of primers is a fact which cannot be disputed; but it is also a fact equally that Mavor is no preventive to murder, nor Vyse poorer class of society: in which case it follows that the tempindisputable, that the majority of criminals belong to the any corrective of vice. And I cannot, by any course tation, and consequently the tendency among the individuals of that class to commit crime would be greater, while their of reasoning, bring myself to perceive, that an inability to obtain instruction in, and consequently their inability to read and write must be generally acknowledge of, reading and writing, would be less than among those of the more wealthy, and therefore the less crimicompanied with a like inability to distinguish be-nal class. Hence, if we assume any other circumstance tween right and wrong; as if the question meum and tuum had more to do with Lindley Murray than Morals.* of *This, it may be said, is only a "reductio ad absurdum," not a disproof. It points out the ridiculousness, but does not show the falsity of the deduction; and new truths, it may be as correctly added, generally appear ridiculous because new, and contrary to our experience or prejudices. The logical error, however, lies in considering that as a cause which is merely a concomitant effect of a particular circumstance. which, like that of an acquaintance with the arts of orthopy and orthography, is an evidence of the pecuniary means of the culprits-as, for instance, an indulgence in any of the more expensive articles of dress-and take that for our measure of the morals of the prisoners, we shall find quite as large an amount of crime to be connected with the wart of the one, as with an ignorance of the other. Indeed, we might just as rationally assert, because all the persons who counterfeit signatures are acquainted with the art of penmanship, that therefore a knowledge of writing engenders forgery, as that, because the majority of thieves and housebreakers are unacquainted with that art, therefore an ignorance of it begets burglary. B |