Means and Ends of EducationSpalding, John Lancaster
Philosophy
Means and Ends of Education
Spalding, John Lancaster
Culture; Education
to this subject, we shall gain insight into the meaning and purpose of
education, which is nothing else than the urging of intellect and
conscience to the conquest of the world, and to the clear perception
and practical acknowledgment of the primal and fundamental truth that
man is man in virtue of his thought and love.
Instruction, which is but part of education, has for its object the
development of the intellect and the transmission of knowledge. This,
whether we consider the individual or society, is indispensable. It is
good to know. Knowledge is not only the source of many of our highest
and purest joys, but without it we can attain neither moral nor
material good in the nobler forms. Virtue when it is enlightened gains
a higher quality. And if we hold that action and not thought is the
end of life, we cannot deny that action is, in some degree at least,
controlled and modified by thought. Nevertheless, instruction is not
the principal part of education; for human worth is more essentially
and more intimately identified with character and heart than with
knowledge and intellect. What we will is more important than what we
know; and the importance of what we know is derived largely from its
influence on the will or conduct.
A nation, like an individual, receives rank from character more than
from knowledge; since the true measure of human worth is moral rather
than intellectual. The teaching of the school becomes a subject of
passionate interest, through our belief in its power to educate
sentiment, stimulate will, and mould character. For in the school we
do more than learn the lessons given us: we live in an intellectual and
moral atmosphere, acquire habits of thought and behavior; and this,
rather than what we learn, is the important thing. To imagine that
youths who have passed through colleges and universities, and have
acquired a certain knowledge of languages and sciences, but have not
formed strongly marked characters, should forge to the front in the
world and become leaders in the army of religion and civilization, is
to cherish a delusion. The man comes first; and scholarship without
manhood will be found to be ineffectual. The semi-culture of the
intellect, which is all a mere graduate can lay claim to, will but help
to lead astray those who lack the strength of moral purpose; and they
whom experience has made wise expect little from young men who have
bright minds and have passed brilliant examinations, but who go out
into the world without having trained themselves to habits of patient
industry and tireless self-activity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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