Education; Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804; Science -- Study and teaching
Those who urge the difficulty of instructing young people in
science are apt to forget another very important condition of
success--important in all kinds of teaching, but most essential, I am
disposed to think, when the scholars are very young. This condition is,
that the teacher should himself really and practically know his
subject. If he does, he will be able to speak of it in the easy
language, and with the completeness of conviction, with which he talks
of any ordinary every-day matter. If he does not, he will be afraid to
wander beyond the limits of the technical phraseology which he has got
up; and a dead dogmatism, which oppresses, or raises opposition, will
take the place of the lively confidence, born of personal conviction,
which cheers and encourages the eminently sympathetic mind of
childhood.
I have already hinted that such scientific training as we seek for may
be given without making any extravagant claim upon the time now devoted
to education. We ask only for "a most favoured nation" clause in our
treaty with the schoolmaster; we demand no more than that science shall
have as much time given to it as any other single subject--say four
hours a week in each class of an ordinary school.
For the present, I think men of science would be well content with such
an arrangement as this: but speaking for myself, I do not pretend to
believe that such an arrangement can be, or will be, permanent. In
these times the educational tree seems to me to have its roots in the
air, its leaves and flowers in the ground; and, I confess, I should
very much like to turn it upside down, so that its roots might be
solidly embedded among the facts of Nature, and draw thence a sound
nutriment for the foliage and fruit of literature and of art. No
educational system can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognises
the truth that education has two great ends to which everything else
must be subordinated. The one of these is to increase knowledge; the
other is to develop the love of right and the hatred of wrong.
With wisdom and uprightness a nation can make its way worthily, and
beauty will follow in the footsteps of the two, even if she be not
specially invited; while there is perhaps no sight in the whole world
more saddening and revolting than is offered by men sunk in ignorance
of everything but what other men have written; seemingly devoid of
moral belief or guidance; but with the sense of beauty so keen, and the
power of expression so cultivated, that their sensual caterwauling may
be almost mistaken for the music of the spheres.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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