8. CHAPTER VIII
OF NATIONAL EDUCATION
A mode in which government has been accustomed to interfere, for the purpose
of influencing opinion, is by the superintendence it has in a greater or
less degree, exerted in the article of education. It is worthy of observation
that the idea of this superintendence has obtained the countenance of several
of the zealous advocates of political reform. The question relative to its
propriety or impropriety is entitled, on that account, to the more deliberate
examination.
The argument in its favour have been already anticipated. 'Can it be justifiable
in those persons who are appointed to the functions of magistracy, and whose
duty it is to consult for the public welfare, to neglect the cultivation
of the infant mind, and to suffer its future excellence or depravity to be
at the disposal of fortune? Is it possible for patriotism and the love of
the public to be made the characteristic of a whole people in any other way
so successfully as by rendering the early communication of these virtues
a national concern? If the education of our youth be entirely confided to
the prudence of their parents, or the accidental benevolence of private individuals,
will it not be a necessary consequence that some will be educated to virtue,
others to vice, and others again entirely neglected?' To these considerations
it has been added, 'That the maxim which has prevailed in the majority of
civilized countries, that ignorance of the law is no apology for the breach
of it, is in the highest degree iniquitous; and that government cannot justly
punish us for our crimes when committed unless it have forewarned us against
their commission, which cannot be adequately done without something of the
nature of public education.'
The propriety or impropriety of any project for this purpose must be determined
by the general consideration of its beneficial or injurious tendency. If
the exertions of the magistrate in behalf of any system of instruction will
stand the test, as conducive to the public service, undoubtedly he cannot
be justified in neglecting them. If, on the contrary, they conduce to injury,
it is wrong and unjustifiable that they should be made.
The injuries that result from a system of national education are, in the
first place, that all public establishments include in them the idea of permanence.
They endeavour, it may be, to secure and to diffuse whatever of advantageous
to society is already known, but they forget that more remains to be known.
If they realized the most substantial benefits at the time of their introduction,
they must inevitably become less and less useful as they increased in duration.
But to describe them as useless is a very feeble expression of their demerits.
They actively restrain the flights of mind, and fix it in the belief of exploded
errors. It has frequently been observed of universities, and extensive establishments
for the purpose of education, that the knowledge taught there is a century
behind the knowledge which exists among the unshackled and unprejudiced members
of the same political community. The moment any scheme of proceeding gains
a permanent establishment, it becomes impressed, as one of its characteristic
features, with an aversion to change. Some violent concussion may oblige
its conductors to change an old system of philosophy for a system less obsolete;
and they are then as pertinaciously attached to this second doctrine as they
were to the first. Real intellectual improvement demands that mind should,
as speedily as possible, be advanced to the height of knowledge already existing
among the enlightened members of the community, and start from thence in
the pursuit of further acquisitions. But public education has always expended
its energies in the support of prejudice; it teaches its pupils, not the
fortitude that shall bring every proposition to the test of examination,
but the art of vindicating such tenets as may chance to be established. We
study Aristotle, or Thomas Aquinas, or Bellarmine, or chief justice Coke,
not that we may detect their errors, but that our minds may be fully impregnated
with their absurdities. This feature runs through every species of public
establishment; and, even in the petty institution of Sunday schools, the
chief lessons that are taught are a superstitious veneration for the church
of England, and to bow to every man in a handsome coat. All this is directly
contrary to the true interests of mankind. All this must be unlearned before
we can begin to be wise.
It is the characteristic of mind to be capable of improvement. An individual
surrenders the best attribute of man, the moment he resolves to adhere to
certain fixed principles, for reasons not now present to his mind, but which
formerly were.[1] The instant in which he shuts upon himself the career
of enquiry is the instant of his intellectual decease. He is no longer a
man; he is the ghost of departed man. 'There can be no scheme more egregiously
stamped with folly than that of separating a tenet from the evidence upon
which its validity depends. If I cease from the habit of being able to recall
this evidence, my belief is no longer a perception, but a prejudice: it may
influence me like a prejudice; but cannot animate me like a real apprehension
of truth. The difference between the man thus guided and the man that keeps
his mind perpetually alive is the difference between cowardice and fortitude.
The man who is, in the best sense, an intellectual being delights to recollect
the reasons that have convinced him, to repeat them to others, that they
may produce conviction in them, and stand more distinct and explicit in his
own mind; and, he adds to this a willingness to examine objections, because
he takes no pride in consistent error. The man who is not capable of this
salutary exercise, to what valuable purpose can he be employed? Hence it
appears that no vice can be more destructive than that which teaches us to
regard any judgement as final, and not open to review. The same principle
that applies to individuals applies to communities, There is no proposition
at present apprehended to be true so valuable as to justify the introduction
of an establishment for the purpose of inculcating it on mankind. Refer them
to reading, to conversation, to meditation; but teach them neither creeds
nor catechisms, either moral or political.
Secondly, the idea of national education is founded in an inattention
to the nature of mind. Whatever each man does for himself is done well; whatever
his neighbours or his country undertake to do for him is done ill. It is
our wisdom to incite men to act for themselves, not to retain them in a state
of perpetual pupillage. He that learns because he desires to learn will listen
to the instructions lie receives, and apprehend their meaning. He that teaches
because he desires to teach will discharge his occupation with enthusiasm
and energy. But the moment political institution undertakes to assign to
every man his place, the functions of all will be discharged with supineness
and indifference. Universities and expensive establishments have long been
remarked for formal dullness. Civil policy has given me the power to appropriate
my estate to certain theoretical purposes; but it is an idle presumption
to think I can entail my views, as I can entail my fortune. Remove those
obstacles which prevent men from seeing, and which restrain them from pursuing
their real advantage; but do not absurdly undertake to relieve them from
the activity which this pursuit requires. What I earn, what I acquire only
because I desire to acquire it, I estimate at its true value; but what is
thrust upon me may make me indolent, but cannot make respectable. It is an
extreme folly to endeavour to secure to others, independently of exertion
on their part, the means of being happy. - This whole proposition of national
education is founded upon a supposition which has been repeatedly refuted
in this work, but which has recurred upon us in a thousand forms, that unpatronized
truth is inadequate to tire purpose of enlightening mankind.
Thirdly, the project of a national education ought uniformly to be discouraged
on account of its obvious alliance with national government. This is an alliance
of a more formidable nature than the old and much contested alliance of church
and state. Before we put so powerful a machine under the direction of so
ambiguous an agent, it behoves us to consider well what it is that we do.
Government will not fail to employ it, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate
its institutions. If we could even suppose the agents of government not to
propose to themselves an object which will be apt to appear in their eyes,
not merely innocent, but meritorious; the evil would not the less happen.
Their views as institutors of a system of education will not fail to be analogous
to their views in their political capacity: the data upon which their conduct
as statesmen is vindicated will be the data upon which their instructions
are founded. It is not true that our youth ought to be instructed to venerate
the constitution, however excellent; they should be led to venerate truth;
and the constitution only so far as it corresponds with their uninfluenced
deductions of truth. Had the scheme of a national education been adopted
when despotism was most triumphant, it is not to be believed that it could
have for ever stifled the voice of truth. But it would have been the most
formidable and profound contrivance for that purpose that imagination can
suggest. Still, in the countries where liberty chiefly prevails, it is reasonably
to be assumed that there are important errors, and a national education has
the most direct tendency to perpetuate those errors, and to form all minds
upon one model.
It is not easy to say whether the remark 'that government cannot justly
punish offenders, unless it have previously informed them what is virtue
and what is offence' be entitled to a separate answer. It is to be hoped
that mankind will never have to learn so important a lesson through so incompetent
a channel. Government may reasonably and equitably presume that men who live
in society know that enormous crimes are injurious to the public weal, without
its being necessary to announce them as such, by laws, to be proclaimed by
heralds, or expounded by curates. It has been alleged that 'mere reason may
teach me not to strike my neighbour; but will never forbid my sending a sack
of wool from England, or printing the French constitution in Spain'. This
objection leads to the true distinction upon the subject. All real crimes
that that can be supposed to be the fit objects of judicial animadversion
are capable of being discerned without the teaching of law. All supposed
crimes not capable of being so discerned are truly and unalterably placed
beyond the cognisance of a sound criminal justice. It is true that my own
understanding would never have told me that the exportation of wool was a
crime: neither do I believe it is a crime, now that law has been made affirming
it to be such. It is a feeble and contemptible palliation of iniquitous punishments
to signify to mankind beforehand that you intend to inflict them. Men of
a lofty and generous spirit would almost be tempted to exclaim: Destroy us
if you please; but do not endeavour, by a national education, to destroy
in our understandings the discernment of justice and injustice. The idea
of such an education, or even perhaps of the necessity of a written law,
would never have occurred if government and jurisprudence had never attempted
the arbitrary conversion of innocence into guilt.