Foremost among these applied sciences I would place EDUCATION, the
subject of the day. The priority of mention is due not so much to its
special or pre-eminent importance, as to its being the most feasible and
hopeful of the practical applications of conjoined psychology and logic.
I say this, however, with a more express eye to _intellectual_
education. I deem it quite possible to frame a practical, science
applicable to the training of the intellect that shall be precise and
definite in a very considerable measure. The elements that make up our
intellectual furniture can be stated with clearness; the laws of
intellectual growth or acquisition are almost the best ascertained
generalities of the human mind; even the most complicated studies can be
analyzed into their components, partly by psychology and partly by the
higher logic. In a word, if we cannot make a science of education, as
far as Intellect is concerned, we may abandon metaphysical study
altogether.
I do not speak with the same confidence as to _moral_ education. There
has long been in existence a respectable rule-of-thumb practice in this
region, the result of a sufficiently wide experience. There are certain
psychological laws, especially those relating to the formation of moral
habits, that have a considerable value; but to frame a theory of moral
education, on a level in a point of definiteness with the possible
theory of intellectual education, is a task that I should not like to
have imposed upon me. In point of fact, two problems are joined in one,
to the confusion of both. There is _first_ the vast question of _moral
control_, which stretches far and wide over many fields, and would have
to be tracked with immense labour: it belongs to the arts of government;
it comes under moral suasion, as exercised by the preacher and orator;
it even implicates the tact of diplomacy. I do not regard this as a
properly educational question (although it refers to an art that every
teacher must try to master); that is to say, its solution is not
connected with education processes strictly so called. The _second_
problem of moral education is the one really within the scope of the
subject--the problem of _fixing moral bents_ or habits, when the right
conduct is once initiated. On this head, some scientific insight is
attainable; and suggestions of solid value may in time accrue, although
there never can be the precision attainable in the intellectual region.
* * * * *
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