EDUCATION AND DUTY ■ THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS Delivered before the Manchester University Education Society SIR WILLIAM MATHER, Hon. LL.D. (Princeton) On December 3rd, 1907 Published by Request MANCHESTER At the University Press Sherratt & Hughes, Publishers to the University of Manchester 1908 Class U2>«fri Book ^ ITiKSKNTICD !!Y 3 *v~ > * ~*~-~ EDUCATION AND DUTY. THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY EDUCATION SOCIETY BY SIR WILLIAM MATHER, Hon. LL.D. (Princeton), December 3RD, 1907. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. MANCHESTER At the University Press 1908 V.K Gift *£fo» Dui-versi*-" JAN 17 1910 NOTE. From several quarters the request reached me, after the delivery of this Presidential Address, that it should be published, and Sir William Mather has placed the Society under still greater obligation by the readiness with which he has undertaken to issue the address in pamphlet form. We who heard it are glad to read it again, and we feel that the lofty, and at the same time practical, presentation of the educational ideal, will be a stimulus to all who are enabled to peruse it. And, if I may venture to say so, it is especially worthy of attention in scholastic and academic circles ; we who live by teaching are always prone to exhibit those reactionary tendencies which our President combats in this address. The special value of such a contribution appears to me to lie in its disclosure of personal motives and ideals. Sir William Mather has lived his life before the public eye, untiringly active and eminent in at least three fields of public service : in education, in politics, and in manu- facture. Where, in such a career, are we to seek for the underlying motives? Where does a man, whose lively energy in thought and action has touched so many fields, find the principles, the sentiments which feed the flame? This address answers that question, and the moral need not be laboured by me. J. J. FlNDLAY. February 1st, 1908. The University Education Society, Manchester. Education and Duty. I beg to thank you, the Committee and Members of the Manchester University Education Society, most heartily for the honour you have conferred upon me by electing me the first President of the Society. I fear, however, that you have thereby incurred much responsibility, if you depend on your President for any degree of success. I trust, nevertheless, that we may share and share alike both the honour you have conferred and the responsibility you have incurred during my year of office. No one can welcome more heartily than I do the forma- tion of the Society, or sympathize more sincerely with its spirit and purpose. It is another indication of the steady growth in the interest for Education which is spreading throughout the country. The longer I live, the more am I convinced that true Education is the greatest thing in the world, the " Summum Bonum " of human progress and regeneration, and the hope of mankind's redemption from the rampant evils that descend through hereditary channels from generation to generation. The harmless, if void, promises made by godparents at baptismal ceremonies, that they will be sponsors for the helpless infant's rejection of " the World, the Flesh and the Devil," until he or she be confirmed and assume self-responsibility, denote the traditional belief that the World is beset with evil, the Flesh is prone to evil, the Devil is the incarnation of evil, and that the embryo man is and always will be rough-cast to do or die in a world inevitably and necessarily breathing with evil. If true, it would be a terrible fate and a 6 EDUCATION AND DUTY hopeless world. Happily, it is not true. The ceremonies which seem to justify this ghastly belief were inaugurated when human life was held in the grip of ignorance and barbarism, and the resultant superstition created abject fear among those who piously and sincerely sought to stem the tide of increasing misery and depravity. All honour to their memory ! Since the revelation of the Divine Will through the life of Christ, and the innumerable other rays of light from the Sun of Righteousness — which is the process of evolution — have dispelled the darkness around Mankind's early development, the world, the civilized world, has gradually rejected many superstitions. There is a grow- ing belief in the perfectibility of human nature. The old cry still remains as an excuse among those who do not wish to be perfected that " Human Nature is always the same and always will be," or " What's the good of trying ? " We know, however, to a certainty, from history and experience, that Love and Wisdom do abound in the world to-day, pure and undefiled, though far from all- prevailing. We know that the flesh is not wholly and absolutely weak, as it was in the dark days of barbarism, and we see that even the mythical devil is not so black as he was painted when superstitions reigned over Mankind. We feel in our day something of the sentiment expressed in the lines : — " The world is full of beauty like other worlds above, And did man but do his duty, it might be full of love." Ah ! There's the rub ! " If man did but do his duty " — and that brings me to my subject — " Education and Duty." It is a remarkable fact — almost a paradox — that notwith- standing England's achievements in the history of the EDUCATION AND DUTY 7 world, she is the latest of the foremost countries to apply herself to the educational progress of the masses of her people. The oldest of all existing civilized Nations, she is the youngest in providing facilities for the intellectual development of her citizens. The first nation to establish practically universal manhood suffrage as the basis of government, she was the last to establish universal child- hood education in order to train up an intelligent electorate. The first kingdom to govern the people for the people through the people, she was the last to attempt to form a wise and understanding people. England is the most stable and firmly fixed of all civilized countries. She controls and governs the most extensive Empire, and is responsible for the welfare of the greatest number of human beings of varied races. She has developed to a greater extent than any other nation her mineral resources, her trade, industry, commerce, shipping, manufacture. She has discovered in Science the greatest of Nature's secrets, and has applied them by her inventive genius to the welfare of mankind. In all material resources that make a nation rich and powerful she stands the highest. And yet she has left almost un- developed the great intellectual resources latent in the millions of the working-classes, and depended, until quite recently, on the knowledge and learning of the few who were privileged to have access to ancient and endowed institutions or to private voluntary schools of an expensive character. England's greatest compeers at the present time in all that has made her gre.it are America and Germany, and they have long forestalled her in drawing upon the intellec- tual resources of their citizens by the universal and free instruction of the children of their working-classes; and notwithstanding political revolutions, invasions, civil wars, and chaotic distractions of all sorts, they opened to the people schools, colleges and Universities, throughout their 8 EDUCATION AND DUTY countries, long years before we did. I remember being profoundly impressed, when visiting America for the first time in 1883, with the Declaration of the Independence of the United States — that imperishable document setting forth the duties and responsibilities of a self-governing people. The paragraph that struck me most was one re- lating to Education, which declared that for a self- governing Nation to be strong and permanent, it was vital to its existence that the people from the bottom should be educated so as to understand and act up to their responsi- bilities ; therefore, Education was the first duty of every State in the Union. We cannot discuss to-night the ex- planation of these strange differences of opportunity for the masses of the people between these countries and our own. Suffice it that England is awake at last ; the blinds are drawn up, and the spirit of Education is gradually inspiring us to make up for lost time. As we are the last of the great nations to adopt a national system of education, which means the develop- ment of the intellectual resources of all our people, we have the great advantage of avoiding what is imperfect in systems that have been at work for generations elsewhere, and whose defects are known. With a similar advantage Germany and America, generations after us, undertook development of their material resources by adopting and improving the means and methods we had found to be the most practical up to that time for our enormous output to supply the wants of the world. My studies and observa- tions concerning the great problems of life, and the ex- perience common to us all of the enormous waste of the infinite intellectual and spiritual forces with which man is endowed, have led me to the settled conviction that Education is the anchor of mankind's safety; the nurse, guide, and guardian of all its inherited moral powers ; and the soul of its progress towards a nobler and happier condition of human society. This consummation, which EDUCATION AND DUTY 9 we all devoutly wish, depends upon the meaning we attach to Education, and the extent of its application in training the Children of the Nation. I will venture to lay before you the meaning I have adopted. It is not original, nor am I an expert on this question, as you well know. I base my meaning on the teachings of German, British and American writers : Pestalozzi, Rein, Locke, Spencer, Huxley, Playfair, Dr. John Brown, Sadler, Horace Mann, Murray Butler, Elliott, Woodward, Emerson and others, among whom are not a few poets; and also on some personal experience of my own. Education is life, inasmuch as it means the continuous growth and evolution of our inherited potentialities, physical, intellectual and spiritual, to the end that we may acquire power for doing duty constantly and efficiently all through life. True education is not limited to acquiring knowledge or becoming learned in the conventional sense. It must form within us the vital principles by which con- duct, service, sacrifice and use are inspired and embodied in actions which make up the whole duty of life. To the individual men there comes a time when the natural body ceases to be the instrument of his will and conscience in active duty ; but his deeds and example live and germinate in the lives of others ; and thus the evolution of mankind is secured. If life and education are identical, then educa- tion and duty are inseparable ; the one is necessary to the other for the fulfilment of the law of our being. Of course Education in this sense is not mere Instruction. One must differentiate largely between Education and Instruc- tion. The principles of evolution, as demonstrated by Darwin, Fiske and others, have illuminated many dark and mysterious operations in Nature, which through all the ages had been unintelligible ; but in no field of philo- sophy have they shed greater light than on the laws which govern the growth and development of the physical, 10 EDUCATION AND DUTY mental and spiritual nature of man. Education has be- come an infinitely more important part of life since we know more of the physical and psychical nature of the human being. We can understand now why knowledge derived from mere instruction does not materially affect or improve the moral and spiritual nature of the young. We can under- stand also why it not unfrequently happens that children of ignorant and uncultivated, though devoted and good, parents, have displayed an earnest desire for self -improve- ment and culture and exemplary conduct through life. The human infant, though possessed of the highest organ- isation and potentialities, is the most helpless of all young animals, and has to be cared for and tended at an age when all other animals are able to take care of themselves. The complex organisation of a young child, body, mind, and spirit, needs a long period of adjustment to its en- vironment in civilized society ; and the higher the civiliza- tion, the more thorough the adjustment must be. Society, institutions, customs, commerce, industry, methods, pro- cesses, laws, constitutions, ambitions and aspirations in our day are the inheritance of accumulated human experi- ence through all the ages up to the present time. To ad- just the child of to-day to the infinite complexity of life, so that his subsequent duty may be adequately performed, needs not only more time, but more scientific methods, based on the knowledge we now possess of child-nature on the one hand and the laws of Nature on the other, and, further, is dependent on the development of the spiritual faculty or conscience which should guide and govern every civilized being through a long and healthy life. According to the adjustment needed to adapt the child of to-day to the life and duty of to-day must the traditions of the past, both theoretical and practical, give way to the theory and practice adapted to a new age. " Old things have passed away, all things have become EDUCATION AND DUTY 11 new," so far at least as the material life of man is con- cerned. The masses of the people in the most advanced countries have come into their political inheritance at last — that of self-government. With that has come the neces- sity, — the imperative and vital necessity of preparing each individual for the time when he will come of age to enter upon his inheritance. This preparation cannot be efficient if we withhold from him that natural and inalienable right, which no man or society of men has given or can give, the right of opportunity and means in childhood and youth for the growth of his physical, mental and spiritual nature. This opportunity is the birthright of every child in a civilized State. Rightly understood, Education is this opportunity. It is the drawing-out, evolving, un- folding of the inherent powers and faculties of the child with which the Creator has endowed him in His own Image and Likeness. The powers and faculties to be educated are manifold. Through them the child is en- titled to the inheritance of scientific knowledge, of the laws of Nature and their operation, of physical health and strength, of manual skill and aptitude, of the appreciation and conception of the beautiful in Art and Life, in Litera- ture, in human institutions, in duty to his fellow- creatures, in religious life and conduct. Instruction will not bring a child to his inheritance in these things. In- struction is putting something in ; education is drawing out something already there, that it may be used, strength- ened, developed, expanded continuously by self-activity; the coming into possession of the inborn power, that it may be used by the individual man for the benefit of his country and the human race. Education in this sense leads to Duty, which is the outward active embodiment of every inward and spiritual grace, and to the acquisition of knowledge and higher intelligence all through life. I think the term education has been persistently mis- applied in describing what was merely a theory and prac- 12 EDUCATION AND DUTY tice of instruction in mediaeval times. In the history of that period we have no record of any human institutions or of a system of Government based on any principle other than that of " Might is right," and " Force the Remedy " to put down what the autocratic rulers thought wrong. Wise and learned men have, however, lived in every age, and have contributed, according to the knowledge of the times in which they lived, some immortal services to man- kind. Marcus Aurelius is a high type of such philosophers, and they have, happily for mankind, never been wholly wanting, even in the darkest ages. The scientific, intellec- tual and spiritual insight of such men inspires us with reverence and homage to-day. Teachers in the highest sense they were and still remain for us in their works. The revival of learning came through the ecclesiasticism of the Renaissance, and never penetrated far afield beyond the portals of monastic institutions. The theory and prac- tice of teaching were narrow in purpose and extent; but within their limits they gave to the world precious know- ledge and truths, amid much that, in the light of our day, is neither knowledge nor truth. Up to, and during, the period when our noble Universities were founded and their Colleges increased, bringing to our land the inheritance of learning from all ages, the conception of education was narrow and exclusive. Milton, in his " Tractate on Education," stated that education is that " which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, private and public, of both peace and war." Yet the only men in Milton's mind were of the professions of lawyers, clergymen, physicians, soldiers and gentlemen, and a " Gentleman " is defined by Milton as a man " who retires himself to the enjoyment of ease and luxury." These five estates constituted the educated classes, and no doubt he included statesmen, the then ruling class, under the definition of " gentlemen." Since those days the sixth estate — the greatest and most powerful of all — that of the EDUCATION AND DUTY 13 world's producers, constructors, distributors and consumers of the fruits of knowledge and of the fruits of the earth, has acquired its inherent right to political freedom and, by degrees, its full share of political power and control. The spirit of knowledge held captive for ages by the powerful and privileged few has been liberated and is gradually " spreading over the earth as the waters cover the sea." It is almost beyond human comprehension that so many scholarly men of the classes I have named should have held knowledge and learning as too sacred for use in the ordinary affairs of life. I know an eminent scholar in America — an Englishman, it is true — formerly President of a great university in America and a very charming man, who declared his regret that the higher mathematics had been found useful in the study of electrical appliances, being of opinion that " as the utility of a subject increases, its educational value decreases." Even Matthew Arnold, himself a promoter and Inspector of National Education, asked the question in one of his notable essays : " If England were swallowed by the sea to-morrow, which of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, interest and admiration of mankind — the England of the last twenty years, or the England of Elizabeth, a time of splendid spiritual effort, but when coal and our in- dustrial operations dependent on coal were very little developed." Such views confirm one's surmise that the acquisition of learning and knowledge by the theory and practice of the older Universities and schools, uncorrected by post-graduate studies and experience of life, was not a liberal education in the true sense. And is it not true at this day that such methods — the academic methods — so far as they now exist in practice (and who will say they do not and that they are not beloved of many?) partake more of the character of instruction than of education? It is surely true that our public schools, and private schools modelled on them, and also the public 14 EDUCATION AND DUTY elementary schools, have all of them, in more or less at- tenuated degrees, the academic tinge in the method of teaching and subjects taught. I am fully convinced that the comparatively superficial, and therefore unsatisfactory, results of our present system of training in public ele- mentary and higher elementary and secondary schools is owing to the fact that both theory and practice are seriously imperfect. I believe that Education is neglected in favour of mere instruction — the putting into the brain of the child what he is not able to assimilate, instead of drawing out his mental activity and will power, and directing, nourishing, and exercising all his faculties to fit him physically, intellectually and morally, for duty and service all through life. I am deeply impressed with the fact that the public Elementary and higher schools in every country have hitherto failed — a large proportion altogether and the rest in a lesser degree possibly — to turn out their scholars even moderately well-equipped to face the world and take up its work in the right spirit, with proper ambition and self- reliance. I do not say they have not been instructed and have not acquired some knowledge on many subjects, some useful and some not. But I am certain there is a lack of thoroughness all round, and a lamentable absence of zeal and ambition to pursue self-education on leaving school- life. The whole effect of the teaching seems to be that a task of a more or less unpleasant sort has been got through : it is a good thing to have got done with it, at any rate in that way. I received an unexpected confirma- tion of these impressions the other day, as I was making notes for my address to-night, from a far higher authority than I could ever be — one of the ablest and most successful of Head-masters in a great higher elementary school in a large city. I had written to him about the great Franco- British Exhibition, 1908 : one section of the Exhibition will be devoted to a demonstration of British Education EDUCATION AND DUTY 15 from top to bottom, and of this section I have the honour to be chairman. My friend wrote as follows : " I hope the teachers of this country will be able to learn something from the Education section of the Exhibition over which you will preside. To my mind the greatest obstacle to the true educational progress in this country is the multiplicity of subjects that have to be taught the children under fourteen years of age, at which time it is of the greatest importance that a sure foundation should be laid, and a desire created in the minds of scholars for further studies by a fair mastery of a few subjects rather than a smattering of many. The teacher has not time to allow the boy to think and work for himself. The boy no sooner meets with difficulty than he seeks help, which the teacher gives him because he has so much ground to cover. There is no self-reliance, no strength of mind — that can only come, like strength of body, from exercise — and the pupil does not experience that sweet delight that one feels after a difficulty has been overcome by one's own effort. It is this delight that nourishes the desire for further improvement." This is a very serious expert opinion formed after using the method of instruction prescribed for all authorities under the Education Acts of this country. It may be that " Polite Learning," as Milton styled the education of the privileged few in his day, may still be taught in the Public Schools of the wealthy class without serious harm to the country. But in the great democracy, the character of the nation must be formed, and its future power, pros- perity and happiness can only be secured, by educational progress through scientific methods and on principles that shall cause each child to come into his inheritance of trained powers, and by the application of these to our inheritance of Nature, Art, Science, Literature, and Religion, so that the child is induced to love them, to understand them, and embody them in life and duty. 16 EDUCATION AND DUTY How can the regeneration of mankind — or, if you prefer it, the evolution of mankind to a higher life — be attained otherwise ? The decree has gone forth throughout the world, and has resounded for ages : " It is not the will of my Eather in Heaven that one of these little ones shall perish." It is to belittle this great truth if we suppose it can be satisfied by nourishing the body only, and preventing cruelty and starvation and disease. That, indeed, is the least that can be done. But the great thing is to save the mind and heart and soul of the child, through a true education, by the evolution of all his powers and faculties through child- hood : on the lines of Nature, by scientific methods, manual work, physical exercises and loving ministrations of teachers adequately trained to the duty from the love of it. This is the simplest, the least expensive, the most profitable; for co-operation, self-help, the eager joy of the young to use their faculties, will lighten the labour. Such an education up to fourteen years of age will secure the foundation for any superstructure on the same lines of natural laws. The acquisition of knowledge, the joy of wholesome life, the duties of citizenship, skill and interest in work, the desire to do always the best, the inspiration of self-reliance, courage, honour, love of truth and justice — all these potential qualities in the nature of a child will by such education develop a true man and a true woman. The redemption of the adult from hereditary evil can, it seems to me, be accomplished only in this way in the plastic period of youth. The conception of God and of the future life, and the knowledge of the relation of children to the true purpose and duty of their earthly life, will grow through the plastic state of youth, with the strengthening of the facul- ties that comprehend them, to become fixed habits and principles in the matured men and women. No teaching is true education that does not " inspire the young with EDUCATION AND DUTY 17 the belief that life is a great and noble calling ; not a mean and grovelling thing, that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny." What a noble calling is that of the teacher of youth, who believes in the perfectibility of human nature, and that in his hands is the plastic mind and spirit of which it is to be formed ! It is better to make school life, from the first step of the ladder, an inspiration to the child to prevent evil, than to rely on the exhortations of the pulpit to try to cure it in the adult. I have seen schools and methods of education which were an inspiration; and I have never seen such joyous intelligence, such appreciation of knowledge and thorough- ness in acquiring it, as when the school system is based on the training of the faculties as the first and foremost object. In such training knowledge is inevitably acquired, and thoroughly — for the subjects of general knowledge are the material used in forming and strengthening the faculties. This is the one thing needful, and all things will be added to it in a life of ambitious self-education, and in the faithful performance of Duty which must necessarily follow on true education. In this way alone can hereditary evil be checked and its stream eventually dried up. There is no land or people so fitting as our own for its realization. We have been the last to deal with this greatest of all questions — National Education. Let us be the first to show that the way to a purer and higher National life lies through the schools of our children. I