The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions — John Shaqi
The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and DiscussionsCobbe, Frances Power
Religion
The Scientific Spirit of the Age, and Other Pleas and Discussions
Cobbe, Frances Power
Knowledge, Sociology of; Philosophy and religion; Science -- Moral and ethical aspects
As to the instruction of young men and women in Physiological Science in
particular, I am exonerated from treating the subject by being
privileged to cite the opinions of two of the most eminent and
experienced members of the scholastic profession. I do so with great
thankfulness, believing that it will be a revelation to many parents,
blindly caught by scientific claptrap, to learn that such are the views
of men among the best qualified in England to pronounce judgment on the
subject.
The late lamented Mr. Thring, of Uppingham, wrote to me, Sept. 6, 1886:—
My writings on Education sufficiently show how strongly I feel on
the subject of a literary education, or rather how confident I am in
the judgment that there can be no worthy education which is not
based on the study of the highest thoughts of the highest men in the
best shape. As for Science (most of it falsely so called), if a few
leading minds are excepted, it simply amounts, to the average dull
worker, to no more than a kind of upper shop work, weighing out and
labelling and learning alphabetical formulæ,—a superior grocer
assistant’s work, and has not a single element of higher mental
training in it. Not to mention that it leaves out all knowledge of
men and life, and therefore—is eminently fitted for life and its
struggle! Physiology in its worse sense adds to this a brutalizing
of the average practitioner, or rather a devilish combination of
intellect worship and cruelty at the expense of feeling and
character. For my part, if it were true that Vivisection had
wonderfully relieved bodily disease for men, if it was at the cost
of lost spirits, then let the body perish. And it is at the cost of
lost spirits. I do not say that under no circumstances should an
experiment take place, but I do say that under no circumstances
should an experiment take place for teaching purposes. You will see
how decided my judgments are on this matter.
The Rev. J. E. C. Welldon, Head Master of Harrow, has been good enough
to write to me as follows:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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