Chapter X: Y. Z (1)

EDUCATION.

PLANS FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF BOYS IN LARGE NUMBERS.[33]

(_April and May, 1824._)

This is the work of a very ingenious man, and records the most original experiment in Education which in this country at least has been attempted since the date of those communicated by the Edgeworths. We say designedly 'in this country;' because to compare it with some continental schemes which have been only recently made known to the English public (and not fully made known even yet) would impose upon us a minute review of those schemes, which would be, _first_, disproportionate to our limits--_secondly_, out of its best situation, because it would be desirable to examine those schemes separately for the direct purpose of determining their own absolute value, and not indirectly and incidentally for the purpose of a comparison. The Madras system, again, is excluded from the comparison--not so much for the reason alleged (pp. 123-5), by the author before us--as though that system were _essentially_ different from his own in its purpose and application: the _purpose_ of the Madras system is not exclusively economy of expense, but in combination with that purpose a far greater accuracy (and therefore reality) in the knowledge communicated than could be obtained on the old systems; on this account therefore the possible _application_ of the Madras system is not simply to the education of the poor, though as yet the actual application of it may have been chiefly to them, but also to the education of the rich; and in fact it is well known that the Madras system (so far from being _essentially_ a system for the poor) has been adopted in some of the great classical schools of the kingdom.[34] The difference is more logically stated thus--that the Madras system regards singly the quality of the knowledge given, and (with a view to _that_) the mode of giving it: whereas the system, which we are going to review, does not confine its view to _man as a being capable of knowledge_, but extends it to _man as a being capable of action, moral or prudential_: it is therefore a much more comprehensive system. The system before us does not exclude the final purpose of the Madras system: on the contrary, it is laudably solicitous for the fullest and most accurate communication of knowledge, and suggests many hints for the attainment of that end as just and as useful as they are enlightened. But it does not stop here: it goes further, and contemplates the whole man with a reference to his total means of usefulness and happiness in life. And hence, by the way, it seems to us essential--that the whole child should on this system be surrendered to the school; _i. e._ that there should be no day-scholars; and this principle we shall further on endeavour to establish on the evidence of a case related by the author himself.[35] On the whole therefore we have designedly stated our general estimate of the author's system with a reference to that of the Edgeworths; not only because it has the same comprehensiveness of object, and is in some degree a further expansion of their method and their principles; but also because the author himself strikingly resembles the Edgeworths in style and composition of mind; with this single difference perhaps, that the good sense and perception of propriety (of what in French would be called _les convenances_), which in both is the characteristic merit (and, when it comes into conflict with any higher quality, the characteristic defect),--in him is less coloured by sarcastic and contemptuous feelings; which in all cases are unamiable feelings, and argue some defect of wisdom and magnanimity; but, when directed (as in the Edgeworths they sometimes are) against principles in human nature which lie far beyond the field of their limited philosophy, recoil with their whole strength upon those who utter them. It is upon this consideration of his intellectual affinity with the Edgeworths that we are the less disposed to marvel at his estimate of their labours: that, for instance, at p. 192 he styles their work on education 'inestimable,' and that at p. 122, though he stops short of proposing 'divine honours' to Miss Edgeworth, the course of his logic nevertheless binds him to mean that on Grecian principles such honours are 'due to her.' So much for the general classification and merits of the author, of whom we know nothing more than--that, from his use of the Scotticisms--'succumb,'--'compete,'--and 'in place of' for 'instead of' he ought to be a Scotchman: now then for his system.

[Footnote 33: _Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in large Numbers; Drawn from Experience._ London: 1822. 8vo.]

[Footnote 34: The distinguishing excellence of the Madras system is not that it lodges in the pupils themselves the functions which on the old systems belong to the masters, and thus at the same blow by which it secures greater accuracy of knowledge gets rid of a great expense in masters: for this, though a great merit, is a derivative merit: the condition of the possibility of this advantage lies in a still greater--viz. in the artificial _mechanism_ of the system by which, when once established, the system works itself, and thus neutralises and sets at defiance all difference of ability in the teachers--which previously determined the whole success of the school. Hence is obtained this prodigious result--that henceforward the blessing of education in its elementary parts is made independent of accident, and as much carried out of the empire of _luck_ as the manufacture of woollens or cottons. That it is _mechanic_, is no conditional praise (as alleged by the author before us), but the absolute praise of the Madras system: neither is there any just ground of fear, as he and many others have insinuated, that it should injure the freedom of the human intellect.]

[Footnote 35: We have since found that we have not room for it; the case is stated and argued in the Appendix (pp. 220-227); but in our opinion not fairly argued. The appellant's plea was sound, and ought not to have been set aside. [At the end of the Paper I have restored this 'CASE OF APPEAL' from the original work.--H.]]

Of this we may judge by two criteria--experimentally by its result, or _à priori_ by its internal aptitude for attaining its ends. Now as to the result, it must be remembered that--even if the author of any system could be relied on as an impartial witness to its result--yet, because the result of a system of education cannot express itself in any one insulated fact, it will demand as much judgment to abstract from any limited experience what really _is_ the result as would have sufficed to determine its merits _à priori_ without waiting for any result. Consequently, as it would be impossible to exonerate ourselves from the necessity of an elaborate act of judgment by any appeal to the practical test of the result--seeing that this result would again require an act of judgment hardly less elaborate for its satisfactory settlement than the _à priori_ examination which it had been meant to supersede,--we may as well do that at first which we must do in the end; and, relying upon our own understandings, say boldly that the system is good or bad because on this argument it is evidently calculated to do good or on that argument to do evil, than blindly pronounce--it is good or it is bad, because it has produced--or has failed of producing--such and such effects; even if those effects were easy to collect. In fact, for any conclusive purpose of a practical test, the experience is only now beginning to accumulate: and here we may take occasion to mention that we had ourselves been misinformed as to the duration of the experiment; for a period of four years, we were told, a school had existed under the system here developed: but this must be a mistake, founded perhaps on a footnote at p. 83 which says--'The plan has now been in operation more than four years:' but the plan there spoken of is not the general system, but a single feature of it--viz. the abolition of corporal punishment: in the text this plan had been represented as an immature experiment, having then 'had a trial of nine months' only: and therefore, as more than three years nine months had elapsed from that time to the publication of the book, a note is properly added declaring that the experiment had succeeded, and that the author could 'not imagine any motive strong enough to force him back to the old practice.' The system generally however must have existed now (_i. e._ November 1823) for nearly eight years at the least: so much is evident from a note at p. 79, where a main regulation of the system is said to have been established 'early in 1816.' Now a period of seven or eight years must have been sufficient to carry many of the senior pupils into active life, and to carry many of the juniors even into situations where they would be brought into close comparison with the pupils of other systems. Consequently, so much experience as is involved in the fact of the systems outliving such a comparison--and in the continued approbation of its founder, who is manifestly a very able and a conscientious man,--so much experience, we say, may be premised for the satisfaction of those who demand practical tests. For ourselves, we shall abide rather in our valuation of the system by the internal evidence of its composition as stated and interpreted by its author. An abstract of all that is essential in this statement we shall now lay before our readers.

What is the characteristic difference, in the fewest possible words, of this system as opposed to all others? We nowhere find this stated in a pointed manner: the author has left it rather to be collected from his general exposition; and therefore we conceive that we shall be entitled to his thanks by placing it in a logical, if possible in an antithetic, shape. In order to this, we ask--what is a school? A school is a body of young persons more or less perfectly organised--which, by means of a certain constitution or system of arrangements (A), aims at attaining a certain object (B). Now in all former schemes of education this A stood to B the positive quantity sought in the relation of a logical negative (_i. e._ of a _negation_ of quantity = _0_), or even of a mathematic negative (_i. e._ of-_x_):--but on this new system of the author before us (whom, for the want of a better name, we shall call the Experimentalist) A for the first time bears to B the relation of a positive quantity. The terms _positive_ and _negative_ are sufficiently opposed to each other to confer upon our contradistinction of this system from all others a very marked and antithetic shape; and the only question upon it, which arises, is this--are these terms justified in their application to this case? That they are, will appear thus:--Amongst the positive objects (or B) of every school, even the very worst, we must suppose the culture of morals to be one: a mere day-school may perhaps reasonably confine its pretensions to the disallowance of anything positively bad; because here the presumption is that the parents undertake the management of their children excepting in what regards their intellectual education: but, wherever the heads of a school step into the full duties of a child's natural guardians, they cannot absolve themselves from a responsibility for his morals. Accordingly, this must be assumed of course to exist amongst the positive objects of every boarding-school. Yet so far are the laws and arrangements of existing schools from at all aiding and promoting this object, that their very utmost pretension is--that they do not injure it. Much injustice and oppression, for example, take place in the intercourse of all boys with each other; and in most schools 'the stern edict against _bearing tales_,' causes this to go unredressed (p. 78): on the other hand, in a school where a system of nursery-like _surveillance_ was adopted, and 'every trifling injury was the subject of immediate appeal to the supreme power' (p. 80), the case was still worse. 'The indulgence of this querulousness increased it beyond all endurance. Before the master had time to examine the justice of one complaint, his attention was called away to redress another; until, wearied with investigation into offences which were either too trifling or too justly provoked for punishment, he treated all complainants with harshness, heard their accusations with incredulity, and thus tended, by a first example, to the re-establishment of the old system.' The issue in any case was--that, apart from what nature and the education of real life did for the child's morals, the school education did nothing at all except by the positive moral instruction which the child might draw from his lessons--_i. e._ from B. But as to A, _i. e._ the school arrangements, either at best their effect was = 0; or possibly, by capricious interference for the regulation of what was beyond their power to regulate, they actually disturbed the moral sense (_i. e._ their effect was =-_x_). Now, on the new system of our Experimentalist, the very laws and regulations, which are in any case necessary to the going on of a school, have such an origin and are so administered as to cultivate the sense of justice and materially to enlarge the knowledge of justice. These laws emanate from the boys themselves, and are administered by the boys. That is to say, A (which on the old system is at best a mere blank, or negation, and sometimes even an absolute negative with regard to B) thus becomes a positive agent in relation to B--_i. e._ to one of the main purposes of the school. Again, to descend to an illustration of a lower order, in most schools arithmetic is one part of B: now on the new system it is so contrived that what is technically termed _calling over_, which on any system is a necessary arrangement for the prevention of mischief, and which usually terminates there (_i. e._ in an effect = 0), becomes a positive means of cultivating an elementary rule of arithmetic in the junior students--and an attention to accuracy in all: _i. e._ here again, from being simply = 0, A becomes = + _x_ in relation to B. A school in short, on this system, burns its own smoke: The mere negative conditions of its daily goings on, the mere waste products of its machinery, being converted into the positive pabulum of its life and motion. Such then, we affirm, is the brief abstract--antithetically expressed--of the characteristic principle by which the system under review is distinguished from all former systems. In relation to B (which suppose 20 _x_) A, which heretofore was =-_x_, or at best = 0, now becomes = + _x_, or + 2 _x_, or 3 _x_, as it may happen. In this lies the merit of the conception: what remains to be inquired--is in what degree, and upon what parts of B, it attains this conversion of A into a positive quantity: and this will determine the merit of the execution. Let us now therefore turn to the details of the book.

The book may be properly distributed into two parts: the first of which from page 1 to page 125 inclusively (comprehending the three first chapters) unfolds and reviews the system: all that remains from page 126 to page 218 inclusively (_i. e._ to the end)--comprehending four chapters--may be considered as a second or miscellaneous part, treating of some general topics in the business of education, but with a continual reference to the principles laid down in the first part. An appendix, of twenty pages, contains a body of illustrative documents. The first of the three chapters, composing what we have called the first part, is entitled _Outline of the System_: and, as it is very brief, we shall extract it nearly entire.

'A schoolmaster being a governor as well as a teacher, we
must consider the boys both as a community and as a body of
pupils. The principle of our government is to leave, as much
as possible, all power in the hands of the boys themselves:
To this end we permit them to elect a committee, which
enacts the laws of the school, subject however to the _veto_
of the head master. We have also courts of justice for the
trial of both civil and criminal causes, and a vigorous
police for the preservation of order. Our rewards consist of
a few prizes given at the end of each half year to those
whose exertions have obtained for them the highest rank in
the school; and certain marks which are gained from time to
time by exertions of talent and industry. These marks are of
two kinds: the most valuable, called premial[36] marks, will
purchase a holiday; the others are received in liquidation
of forfeits. Our punishments[37] are fine and imprisonment.
Impositions, public disgrace, and corporeal pain, have been
for some years discarded among us. To obtain rank is an
object of great ambition among the boys; with us it is
entirely dependent on the state of their acquirements; and
our arrangements according to excellence are so
frequent--that no one is safe, without constant exertion,
from losing his place. The boys learn almost every branch of
study in classes, that the master may have time for copious
explanations; it being an object of great anxiety with us,
that the pupil should be led to reason upon all his
operations. Economy of time is a matter of importance with
us: we look upon all restraint as an evil, and to young
persons as a very serious evil: we are therefore constantly
in search of means for ensuring the effective employment of
every minute which is spent in the school-room, that the
boys may have ample time for exercise in the open air. The
middle state between work and play is extremely unfavourable
to the habits[38] of the pupil: we have succeeded, by great
attention to order and regularity, in reducing it almost to
nothing. We avoid much confusion by accustoming the boys to
march; which they do with great precision, headed by a band
of young performers[39] from their own body.'

[Footnote 36: '_Premial_ marks:' this designation is vicious in point of logic: how is it thus distinguished from the less valuable?]

[Footnote 37: 'Our punishments,' &c. This is inaccurate: by p. 83 'disability to fill certain offices' is one of the punishments.]

[Footnote 38: 'Habits!' habits of what?]

[Footnote 39: 'Performers!' _Musical_ performers, we presume.]

Such is the outline of the system as sketched by the author himself: to us however it appears an insufficient outline even for 'the general reader' to whom it is addressed: without having 'any intention of reducing the system to practice,' the most general reader, if he asks for any information at all, will ask for more than this. We shall endeavour therefore to draw up an account of the plan somewhat less meagre, by separating the important from the trivial details. For this purpose we shall begin--1. with the GOVERNMENT of the school; _i. e._ with an account of the _legislative_, the _executive_, and the _judicial_ powers, where lodged--held by what tenure--and how administered. The _legislative power_ is vested in a committee of boys elected by the boys themselves. The members are elected monthly; the boy, who ranks highest in the school, electing one member; the _two_ next in rank another; the _three_ next a third; and so on. The head-master as well as all the under-masters are members by virtue of their office. This arrangement might seem likely to throw a dangerous weight in the deliberations of the 'house' into the hands of the executive power, especially as the head-master might pursue Queen Anne's policy under the Tory ministers--and, by introducing the fencing-master--the dancing-master--the riding-master, &c. under the unconstitutional equivocation of the word '_teachers_,' carry a favourite measure in the teeth of the patriotic party. Hitherto however the reigning sovereign has shown so laudable a desire to strengthen those checks upon his own authority which make him a limited monarch--that 'only one teacher has been in the habit of attending the committee's meetings' (p. 5): and, where any teacher himself happens to be interested in the question before the house (_e. g._ in a case of appeal from any decision of his), 'it has lately been the etiquette' for that one who does attend to decline voting. Thus we see that the liberty of the subject is on the growth: which is a sure argument that it has not been abused. In fact, as a fresh proof of the eternal truth--that in proportion as human beings are honourably confided in, they will _in the gross_ become worthy of confidence, it will give pleasure to the reader to be informed that, though this committee 'has the formation of _all_ the laws and regulations of the school (excepting such as determine the hours of attendance and the regular amount of exercises to be performed),' yet 'the master's assent has never even in a single instance been withheld or even delayed.' 'I do not remember,' says Sir William Temple in 1683 to his son, 'ever to have refused anything you have desired of me; which I take to be a greater compliment to you than to myself; since for a young man to make none but reasonable desires is yet more extraordinary than for an old man to think them so.' A good arrangement has been adopted for the purpose of combining the benefits of mature deliberation with the vigour and dispatch necessary for sudden emergencies: by a standing order of the committee a week's notice must be given before a new law can be introduced for discussion: in cases of urgency therefore a sort of _orders of council_ are passed by a sub-committee composed of two principal officers for the time being: these may of course be intercepted _in limine_ by the _veto_ of the master; and they may be annulled by the general committee: in any case they expire in a fortnight: and thus not only is a present necessity met, but also an opportunity gained for trying the effect of a law before it is formally proposed. The _executive_ body, exclusively of its standing members the upper and lower masters, is composed of a sheriff (whose duties are to levy fines imposed by the court of justice, and to imprison on non-payment)--of a magistrate, and of two constables. All these officers are elected every month by the committee immediately after its own election. The magistrate is bound, in conjunction with his constables, to detect all offences committed in the school: petty cases of dispute he decides himself, and so far becomes a _judicial_ officer: cases beyond his own jurisdiction he sends to the attorney-general, directing him to draw an impeachment against the offending party: he also enforces all penalties below a certain amount. Of the _judicial_ body we shall speak a little more at length. The principal officers of the court are the judge who is elected monthly by the committee, and the attorney-general who is appointed at the same time by the master. The court assembles every week: and the jury, consisting of six, is 'chosen by lot from among the whole number of qualified boys:' disqualifications arise in three ways; on account of holding a judicial office, on account of conviction by the court within the preceding month, and on account of youth (or, what we presume to be tantamount, being 'in certain lower classes'). The jury choose their own foreman. The attorney-general and the accused party, if the case be penal, and each disputant, if civil, has a _peremptory_ challenge of three, and an unlimited right of challenge _for cause_. The judge decides upon the validity of the objections. Such is the constitution of the court: its forms of proceeding we cannot state in fewer words than those of the Experimentalist, which we shall therefore quote: 'The officers of the court and the jury having taken their seats, the defendant (when the cause is penal) is called to the bar by the crier of the court, and placed between the constables. The clerk of the court then reads the indictment, at the close of which the defendant is asked if he object to any of the jury--when he may make his challenges (as before stated). The same question is put to the attorney-general. A short time is then allowed the defendant to plead _guilty_, if he be so disposed: he is asked no question however that he may not be induced to tell a falsehood: but, in order to encourage an acknowledgment of the fault, when he pleads _guilty_--a small deduction is made from the penalty appointed by the law for the offence. The consequence is--that at least five out of six of those who are justly accused acknowledge the offence in the first instance. If the defendant be determined to stand his trial, the attorney-general opens the case and the trial proceeds. The defendant may either plead his own cause, or employ a school-fellow as counsel--which he sometimes does. The judge takes notes of the evidence, to assist him in delivering his charge to the jury: in determining the sentence he is guided by the regulations enacted by the committee, which affix punishments varying with the magnitude of the offence and the age of the defendant, but invest the judge with the power of increasing or diminishing the penalty to the extent of one-fourth.' A copy of the sentence is laid before the master, who has of course 'the power of mitigation or pardon.' From the decision of the court there lies an appeal to the committee, which is thus not only the legislative body, but also the supreme court of judicature. Two such appeals however are all that have yet occurred: both were brought by the attorney-general--of course therefore against verdicts of acquittal; and both verdicts were reversed. Fresh evidence however was in both cases laid before the committee in addition to that which had been heard in the court below; and on this as well on other grounds there was good reason to acquit the jury of all partiality. Whilst appeals have thus been so rare from the verdicts of juries, appeals from the decisions of the magistrate, and even from those of the teachers, have been frequent: generally indeed the decisions have been affirmed by the committee; and, when they have been reversed, in all but two cases the reversal has met with the sanction of the teachers as a body. Even in these two (where, by the way, the original decision was only modified and not annulled); the Experimentalist is himself of opinion (p. 12) that the non-concurrence of the teachers may possibly have been owing to a partiality on their side. So far indeed as his experience had then extended, the Experimentalist tells us (p. 79) that 'one solitary instance only' had occurred in which the verdict of the jury did not coincide with his own opinion. This judgment, deliberately pronounced by so competent a judge, combined with the entire acquiescence in the verdict of the jury which is argued by the non-existence of any appeals except on the side of the crown (and then only in two instances), is a very striking attestation to the spirit of conscientious justice developed in the students by this confidence in their incorruptible integrity. 'Great,' says the Experimentalist, 'great, but of course unexpressed, anxiety has more than once been felt by us--lest the influence of a leading boy, which in every school must be considerable, should overcome the virtue of the jury: but our fears have been uniformly relieved, and the hopes of the offender crushed, by the voice of the foreman pronouncing, in a shrill but steady tone, the awful word--Guilty!' Some persons, who hate all innovations, will pronounce all this '_mummery_,' which is a very compendious piece of criticism. For ourselves, though we cannot altogether agree with the Experimentalist, who seems to build too much on an assumption that nature and increasing intercourse with human life contribute nothing of themselves without any artificial discipline to the evolution and culture of the sense of justice and to the power of the understanding for discovering where justice lies, yet thus much is evident, 1. That the intellectual faculties must be sharpened by the constant habit of discriminating the just and the unjust in concrete cases such as a real experience of life produces; 2. That the moral sense must be deepened, if it were only by looking back upon so large a body of decisions, and thus measuring as it were, by the resistance which they had often overcome arising out of their own immediate interest, the mightiness of the conscientious power within which had compelled them to such decisions; 3. That all sorts of forensic ability is thus cherished; and much ability indeed of larger application: thus the logical faculty of abstracting the essential from the accidental is involved in the summing up of the judge; in the pleadings for and against are involved the rhetorical arts of narrating facts perspicuously--of arranging arguments in the best order of meeting (therefore of remembering) the counter-arguments; of solving sophisms; of disentangling misrepresentations--of weighing the value of probabilities--to say nothing of elocution and the arts of style and diction which even the records of the court and the committee (as is urged at p. 105) must tend to cultivate: 4. (to descend to a humbler use) that in this way the master is absolved from the grievous waste of time in administering justice, which on the old system was always imperfect justice that it might waste but little time, and which yet wasted much time though it was imperfect justice. The author's own _moral_ of this innovation is as follows (p. 76); and with this we shall leave the subject: 'We shall be disappointed if the intelligent reader have not already discovered that by the establishment of a system of legislation and jurisprudence wherein the power of the master is bounded by general rules, and the duties of the scholar accurately defined, and where the boys are called upon to examine and decide upon the conduct of their fellows, we have provided a course of instruction in the great code of morality which is likely to produce far more powerful and lasting effects than any quantity of mere precept.'