Chapter V (pages 123-135), “Play and Fancy”
Young animals, including humans, love play; human children especially love play of the make-believe variety. Play is necessary for a happy childhood, even if amusement has no (other) instrumental value. But play seems to possess non-hedonic utility, too, by providing rehearsal for activities that later will have to be undertaken in actuality. Play is one means for children – who are weak relative to adults – to fantasize about having greater powers. Joy in play is like the joy that adults take from drama. Children don’t really believe that their fantasizing is real – nor should we be assiduous in pointing out the unreality. “I cannot sympathize with the ascetics of truth, any more than with ascetics of other kinds [pp. 127-128].”
Excessive daydreaming in adults is a fault if it serves as a substitute for taking actions that can fulfill dreams. But in children, this substitutability is not yet manifest, so fantasies co-exist with incentives to eventually realize them. “To kill fancy in childhood is to make a slave to what exists, a creature tethered to earth and therefore unable to create heaven [p. 129].”
Don’t despair if your child uses his fancy to create sadistic giants or revengeful pirates. The instinct for power that these fancies represent should be nurtured, not suppressed. The development of useful skills like scientific or artistic dexterity will be one way to pursue power, and will serve humankind. “Thus the secret of instruction, in so far as it bears upon character, is to give a man such kinds of skill as shall lead to his employing his instincts usefully [p. 130].”
Very young children engage in solitary play – they may be too undeveloped even to play with their older siblings. But as they age, competition becomes a predominant element in play. There is merit to the team sports that occupy such a large role in British upper-class education – though such merit typically is exaggerated. Games should neither be suppressed nor made a central component of the educational program.
Games in which the opponent is uncaring nature – as opposed to other humans – have much to recommend them. Sailing, driving, flying, experimenting – all of these are skills that usefully can be taught to children. They instill courage without encouraging brutality. The promotion of athletics, in contrast, seems to come at the cost of underemphasizing academics. “Great Britain is losing her industrial position, and will perhaps lose her empire, through stupidity, and through the fact that the authorities do not value or promote intelligence [p. 134].”
The esprit de corps built by games is considered a feature, not a bug, by those who want to employ such spirit to promote actions that they desire. It has the unfortunate property, however, of crowding out other motives for behavior, so that there is little encouragement for actions which are not competitive. “Nothing is done to promote constructiveness for its own sake, or to make people take an interest in doing their job efficiently even if no one is to be injured thereby [p. 135].”
Friday, February 4, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Education and the Good Life, Chapter IV
Chapter IV (pages 101-122), “Fear”
“By the time the child is six years old, moral education ought to be nearly complete; that is to say, the further virtues which will be required in later years ought to be developed by the boy or girl spontaneously, as a result of good habits already existing and ambitions already stimulated [p. 101].” Healthy two-year olds are well poised for a happy existence, as their powers and freedom of movement increase. They show curiosity and take delight in all new sensations. They can develop new fears, however. Surely some of these fears are acquired from mimicking the fears of the adults they see; others, though, arise out of instinct, including (probably) the fear of some unfamiliar things. [Russell quotes at some length William Stern, the developer of the concept of IQ, on the innate fear of the unfamiliar.] Herds of cows or horses have such fears -- for example, of mechanical toys, as I (Russell) have witnessed firsthand. I (again, Russell) cured my son’s fears of quickly moving shadows and mechanical toys by demonstrating the mechanism that led to these phenomena. This curative process took longer when the feared object was a whoopee cushion. [OK, Russell describes the dreadful item as “a cushion which emitted a long melancholy whine after being sat upon or pressed [p. 107].”] All such fears should slowly be confronted and overcome.
Real dangers, such as falls from heights, should be explained rationally, but the adults should do so with calm reason, and not in a fearful vein. “A grown-up person in charge of a child should never feel fear [p. 109].” Russell describes his own rather uncompromising approach to getting his toddler son to no longer fear the (very cold!) sea, and relates (footnote, page 111) his own even less compromising education on that score. There is something to be said for forceful methods of education if they are employed to overcome irrational fears. The boy who succeeds will be happy and proud of his triumph. As children get older, it is other children (including older siblings) who teach physical courage – and girls need as strong a dose of courage as boys. Instilling the habit of acting with courage reduces the need to call on willpower.
Russell endorses the advice of Dr. Rivers on overcoming fear by acquiring skills to manipulate matter, such as learning to ride a bike. Developing a talent for managing a boat in poor weather, for instance, is a better way of engendering courage than are physical battles among children, even of the organized sports variety. Children, both boys and girls, should be taught to endure small harms without much ado.
Courage in the non-physical realm is more important than physical courage, but bodily bravery might be a pre-requisite for building the higher species of courage. Superstitions around eclipses or earthquakes, for instance, derive from fears of the mysterious. Acquainting children with the scientific explanation of some mysteries will allow them to generalize, to think that there also are non-superstitious explanations for mysteries that they still cannot understand. At that point, mysteries can spur exploration and study.
One mystery children are faced with at an early age is death, and eventually they understand that their parents’ deaths are inevitable, as is their own. Belief in an afterlife can ease the pain of such understanding. Nevertheless, parents whom themselves hold no such belief should not try to instill it in their children just for the sake of comfort: “no consideration on earth justifies a parent in telling lies to his child. It is best to explain that death is a sleep from which people do not wake [p. 119].” Nor should parents impart this information in a dramatic fashion. There is little to be said for anyone to get to brooding about death.
Children should be made comfortable around strangers, in part by not pressing manners too aggressively upon them. They will respond positively to manners when they are at an age where they can appreciate that parents (and others) have rights that must be respected: children have a knack for understanding justice.
Don’t show fear yourself if you would keep your child from being fearful. “Life is full of perils, but the wise man ignores those that are inevitable, and acts prudently but without emotion as regards those that can be avoided [p. 121].” Instill wide and strong interests so that your child does not later dwell upon the possibilities for ill fortune.
“By the time the child is six years old, moral education ought to be nearly complete; that is to say, the further virtues which will be required in later years ought to be developed by the boy or girl spontaneously, as a result of good habits already existing and ambitions already stimulated [p. 101].” Healthy two-year olds are well poised for a happy existence, as their powers and freedom of movement increase. They show curiosity and take delight in all new sensations. They can develop new fears, however. Surely some of these fears are acquired from mimicking the fears of the adults they see; others, though, arise out of instinct, including (probably) the fear of some unfamiliar things. [Russell quotes at some length William Stern, the developer of the concept of IQ, on the innate fear of the unfamiliar.] Herds of cows or horses have such fears -- for example, of mechanical toys, as I (Russell) have witnessed firsthand. I (again, Russell) cured my son’s fears of quickly moving shadows and mechanical toys by demonstrating the mechanism that led to these phenomena. This curative process took longer when the feared object was a whoopee cushion. [OK, Russell describes the dreadful item as “a cushion which emitted a long melancholy whine after being sat upon or pressed [p. 107].”] All such fears should slowly be confronted and overcome.
Real dangers, such as falls from heights, should be explained rationally, but the adults should do so with calm reason, and not in a fearful vein. “A grown-up person in charge of a child should never feel fear [p. 109].” Russell describes his own rather uncompromising approach to getting his toddler son to no longer fear the (very cold!) sea, and relates (footnote, page 111) his own even less compromising education on that score. There is something to be said for forceful methods of education if they are employed to overcome irrational fears. The boy who succeeds will be happy and proud of his triumph. As children get older, it is other children (including older siblings) who teach physical courage – and girls need as strong a dose of courage as boys. Instilling the habit of acting with courage reduces the need to call on willpower.
Russell endorses the advice of Dr. Rivers on overcoming fear by acquiring skills to manipulate matter, such as learning to ride a bike. Developing a talent for managing a boat in poor weather, for instance, is a better way of engendering courage than are physical battles among children, even of the organized sports variety. Children, both boys and girls, should be taught to endure small harms without much ado.
Courage in the non-physical realm is more important than physical courage, but bodily bravery might be a pre-requisite for building the higher species of courage. Superstitions around eclipses or earthquakes, for instance, derive from fears of the mysterious. Acquainting children with the scientific explanation of some mysteries will allow them to generalize, to think that there also are non-superstitious explanations for mysteries that they still cannot understand. At that point, mysteries can spur exploration and study.
One mystery children are faced with at an early age is death, and eventually they understand that their parents’ deaths are inevitable, as is their own. Belief in an afterlife can ease the pain of such understanding. Nevertheless, parents whom themselves hold no such belief should not try to instill it in their children just for the sake of comfort: “no consideration on earth justifies a parent in telling lies to his child. It is best to explain that death is a sleep from which people do not wake [p. 119].” Nor should parents impart this information in a dramatic fashion. There is little to be said for anyone to get to brooding about death.
Children should be made comfortable around strangers, in part by not pressing manners too aggressively upon them. They will respond positively to manners when they are at an age where they can appreciate that parents (and others) have rights that must be respected: children have a knack for understanding justice.
Don’t show fear yourself if you would keep your child from being fearful. “Life is full of perils, but the wise man ignores those that are inevitable, and acts prudently but without emotion as regards those that can be avoided [p. 121].” Instill wide and strong interests so that your child does not later dwell upon the possibilities for ill fortune.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Education and the Good Life, Chapter III
Part II, “Education of Character”
Chapter III (pages 87-100), “The First Year”
The chapter title refers to the first year of life, not the first year of formal education. Formerly the standard was to believe that mothers and nurses possess instinctual knowledge of the best methods of bringing up infants – but they do not. Many children are harmed irremediably through the poor choices of well-intentioned caregivers. Science can provide the tools, for those parents who will take the instruction, to decrease infant mortality and to improve the prospects for enhanced physical and intellectual health as children grow.
Most of the life of a newborn “is passed in a vague bewilderment, from which relief is found by sleeping most of the twenty-four hours [pp. 88-89].” Within a few weeks, though, infants acquire habits, to which they are most passionately attached: infants are natural conservatives. So it is of primary importance that initial habits be good ones, not bad ones. Fortunately, the habits that will promote health also are those that will promote a desirable character. A regular schedule of feeding – not one that habitually responds to cries – is good for digestion and avoids reinforcing complaining by rewarding it. Those who develop the habit of getting what they want by fussing will later be disappointed in the world, at least to the extent that they are not sufficiently powerful to induce adults to continue to placate them. So for infants, caregivers must negotiate a tricky region “between neglect and indulgence [p. 91].” Real physical discomfort must be alleviated for health, but fussing for attention cannot be reinforced, lest the child “quickly develop into a tyrant [p. 91].” [Later (page 99), Russell notes that carers must mask their fears for a child’s health, to prevent the transmission of anxiety.] Infants should be viewed as serious humans, as adults in training. They should not therefore be given an exaggerated sense of their importance.
[Russell is advocating what now is known as controlled crying or controlled comforting ; this technique seems to be controversial, particularly when applied to very young infants. Russell indicates (a bit later, on page 94) that crying both is an indicator of pain in infants and (eventually) a strategy to pursue pleasure. The development of this strategy is sort of an initial birth of reason in the young. While I am interrupting, I can’t resist appending a little Adam Smith, on the anxiety of a mother fearing for her child’s health, from the opening pages of The Theory of Moral Sentiments: “What are the pangs of a mother, when she hears the moanings of her infant that during the agony of disease cannot express what it feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms, for her own sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great. With regard to the future, it is perfectly secure, and in its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human breast, from which reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt to defend it, when it grows up to a man.”]
Russell continues to pound this limited-coddling theme, which seems to accord with a British upper class and stiff-upper-lip mentality: “…parents should be breezy and cheerful and rather matter-of-fact where the child’s possible ailments are concerned [p. 92].” Babies should spend most of their non-feeding time asleep. Raise children to minimize their trouble for the grown-ups. “The right rule is: encourage spontaneous activities, but discourage demands upon others [p. 92].” Inculcating self-discipline, even in the first year, will allow future education to be conducted with minimal external discipline. Swaddling, however, prevents the spontaneous fun that babies can generate for themselves – even though bound babies are less trouble to manage. Rattles and wind-propelled toys, along with their own fingers and toes, can be an endless source of amusement and instruction for the very young. Nonetheless, the first few months of life are boring, but trying to overcome the boredom with external stimulation will interfere with an infant’s necessary sleep. The regular routine that is so important for very young children is complemented by familiar surroundings, which promote feelings of safety.
Within a few months, infants can develop social relationships with people, and a desire for approval manifests itself. Praise and blame then become tools that teachers can manipulate. Nonetheless, blame should be avoided in the first year, and used quite sparingly later. Praise, too, must be rationed, to maintain its value; it is always proper to praise, though, when a child succeeds through extensive effort. “The great incentive to effort, all through life, is experience of success after initial difficulties [p. 98].” We learn by doing ourselves, not by watching or listening to others. If the barriers to success are too great, however, they will lead to discouragement. Praise should not be used when a child does something regular and expected, such as eating or sleeping, as the child will now see its ability to displease you by not performing as expected to be a source of power. Children have some limitations, but a lack of either intelligence or the potential to behave strategically are not among them.
Chapter III (pages 87-100), “The First Year”
The chapter title refers to the first year of life, not the first year of formal education. Formerly the standard was to believe that mothers and nurses possess instinctual knowledge of the best methods of bringing up infants – but they do not. Many children are harmed irremediably through the poor choices of well-intentioned caregivers. Science can provide the tools, for those parents who will take the instruction, to decrease infant mortality and to improve the prospects for enhanced physical and intellectual health as children grow.
Most of the life of a newborn “is passed in a vague bewilderment, from which relief is found by sleeping most of the twenty-four hours [pp. 88-89].” Within a few weeks, though, infants acquire habits, to which they are most passionately attached: infants are natural conservatives. So it is of primary importance that initial habits be good ones, not bad ones. Fortunately, the habits that will promote health also are those that will promote a desirable character. A regular schedule of feeding – not one that habitually responds to cries – is good for digestion and avoids reinforcing complaining by rewarding it. Those who develop the habit of getting what they want by fussing will later be disappointed in the world, at least to the extent that they are not sufficiently powerful to induce adults to continue to placate them. So for infants, caregivers must negotiate a tricky region “between neglect and indulgence [p. 91].” Real physical discomfort must be alleviated for health, but fussing for attention cannot be reinforced, lest the child “quickly develop into a tyrant [p. 91].” [Later (page 99), Russell notes that carers must mask their fears for a child’s health, to prevent the transmission of anxiety.] Infants should be viewed as serious humans, as adults in training. They should not therefore be given an exaggerated sense of their importance.
[Russell is advocating what now is known as controlled crying or controlled comforting ; this technique seems to be controversial, particularly when applied to very young infants. Russell indicates (a bit later, on page 94) that crying both is an indicator of pain in infants and (eventually) a strategy to pursue pleasure. The development of this strategy is sort of an initial birth of reason in the young. While I am interrupting, I can’t resist appending a little Adam Smith, on the anxiety of a mother fearing for her child’s health, from the opening pages of The Theory of Moral Sentiments: “What are the pangs of a mother, when she hears the moanings of her infant that during the agony of disease cannot express what it feels? In her idea of what it suffers, she joins, to its real helplessness, her own consciousness of that helplessness, and her own terrors for the unknown consequences of its disorder; and out of all these, forms, for her own sorrow, the most complete image of misery and distress. The infant, however, feels only the uneasiness of the present instant, which can never be great. With regard to the future, it is perfectly secure, and in its thoughtlessness and want of foresight, possesses an antidote against fear and anxiety, the great tormentors of the human breast, from which reason and philosophy will, in vain, attempt to defend it, when it grows up to a man.”]
Russell continues to pound this limited-coddling theme, which seems to accord with a British upper class and stiff-upper-lip mentality: “…parents should be breezy and cheerful and rather matter-of-fact where the child’s possible ailments are concerned [p. 92].” Babies should spend most of their non-feeding time asleep. Raise children to minimize their trouble for the grown-ups. “The right rule is: encourage spontaneous activities, but discourage demands upon others [p. 92].” Inculcating self-discipline, even in the first year, will allow future education to be conducted with minimal external discipline. Swaddling, however, prevents the spontaneous fun that babies can generate for themselves – even though bound babies are less trouble to manage. Rattles and wind-propelled toys, along with their own fingers and toes, can be an endless source of amusement and instruction for the very young. Nonetheless, the first few months of life are boring, but trying to overcome the boredom with external stimulation will interfere with an infant’s necessary sleep. The regular routine that is so important for very young children is complemented by familiar surroundings, which promote feelings of safety.
Within a few months, infants can develop social relationships with people, and a desire for approval manifests itself. Praise and blame then become tools that teachers can manipulate. Nonetheless, blame should be avoided in the first year, and used quite sparingly later. Praise, too, must be rationed, to maintain its value; it is always proper to praise, though, when a child succeeds through extensive effort. “The great incentive to effort, all through life, is experience of success after initial difficulties [p. 98].” We learn by doing ourselves, not by watching or listening to others. If the barriers to success are too great, however, they will lead to discouragement. Praise should not be used when a child does something regular and expected, such as eating or sleeping, as the child will now see its ability to displease you by not performing as expected to be a source of power. Children have some limitations, but a lack of either intelligence or the potential to behave strategically are not among them.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Education and the Good Life, End of the First Period
The organization of Education and the Good Life suggests a hockey-like two intervals, as opposed to Reading Bertrand Russell’s traditional halftime recess.
Russell believes that new knowledge is available, knowledge that can inform us of appropriate educational practices. That knowledge comes from psychology and from pedagogy, and the pedagogical advances have demonstrated their effectiveness through the Montessori method. Clear standards and a few simple rules will minimize the need for discipline. Children are eager to learn, and will apply themselves without the need for torture – indeed, terror is counterproductive, and will drive children away from their studies. Excellence in adulthood requires a happy childhood.
[Russell’s godfather has a slightly more approving view of terror in education: “And I do not believe that boys can be induced to apply themselves with vigour, and what is so much more difficult, perseverance, to dry and irksome studies, by the sole force of persuasion and soft words. Much must be done, and much must be learnt, by children, for which rigid discipline, and known liability to punishment, are indispensable as means. It is, no doubt, a very laudable effort, in modern teaching, to render as much as possible of what the young are required to learn, easy and interesting to them. But when this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them to learn anything but what has been made easy and interesting, one of the chief objects of education is sacrificed. I rejoice in the decline of the old brutal and tyrannical system of teaching, which, however, did succeed in enforcing habits of application; but the new, as it seems to me, is training up a race of men who will be incapable of doing anything which is disagreeable to them. I do not, then, believe that fear, as an element in education, can be dispensed with; but I am sure that it ought not to be the main element; and when it predominates so much as to preclude love and confidence on the part of the child to those who should be the unreservedly trusted advisers of after years, and perhaps to seal up the fountains of frank and spontaneous communicativeness in the child's nature, it is an evil for which a large abatement must be made from the benefits, moral and intellectual, which may flow from any other part of the education.”
Perhaps we also can compare Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations: “No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given. Force and restraint may, no doubt, be in some degree requisite in order to oblige children, or very young boys, to attend to those parts of education which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during that early period of life; but after twelve or thirteen years of age, provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be necessary to carry on any part of education. Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that, so far from being disposed to neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shows some serious intention of being of use to them, they are generally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of gross negligence.”]
OK, back to Russell. As for the content of a good education, applied science (including psychology) is necessary but not sufficient. The humanities might have to be more strictly rationed, though not abandoned, as scientific knowledge advances. When teaching material that demands close attention and sustained study, such as literature in a foreign tongue, the more practical approach – a modern language as opposed to a dead one – should, all else equal, be given preferment. For the most part, the later years of schooling should be devoted to science and math.
Today we need science and the skeptical scientific approach. Skepticism tout court is detrimental, however – progress is conceivable. Russell associates a scientific approach with a sort of insurance against error: be guided by your beliefs, but not to the point that if your beliefs turn out to be incorrect, untold damage will result. (Both the anti-dogmatism and the policy suggestion of pursuing harm reduction appear elsewhere in Russell’s writings. For instance (beyond the instance of the prior link), from his essay “Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind”: “Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.”)
The traits that education should help to nurture in virtually everyone are “vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence [p. 60].” Vitality promotes an even temperament and intellectual curiosity. Courageous people will think for themselves and not force others to proclaim fidelity to a favored opinion. Sensitiveness will grant standing to other humans, even distant and unknown others, in the cost-benefit analysis of our actions. Intelligence is almost a synonym for the scientific approach: a willingness to learn more – which children have by nature – and a rejection of dogmatism. Open-mindedness helps to extend intelligence into adulthood. The universal application of an education imbued with these precepts holds the potential to promote progress and human happiness almost beyond conceiving.
Now that I have summarized my earlier summentary, I see that there is little on which to pass judgment at this point – or at least that I share virtually all of Russell’s stated aims. The proof, it seems, will be in the pudding of the specific suggestions that follow from Russell’s general precepts. And it is the next section of the book, “Education of Character,” that promises to connect Russell’s more theoretical musings with practical applications.
Russell believes that new knowledge is available, knowledge that can inform us of appropriate educational practices. That knowledge comes from psychology and from pedagogy, and the pedagogical advances have demonstrated their effectiveness through the Montessori method. Clear standards and a few simple rules will minimize the need for discipline. Children are eager to learn, and will apply themselves without the need for torture – indeed, terror is counterproductive, and will drive children away from their studies. Excellence in adulthood requires a happy childhood.
[Russell’s godfather has a slightly more approving view of terror in education: “And I do not believe that boys can be induced to apply themselves with vigour, and what is so much more difficult, perseverance, to dry and irksome studies, by the sole force of persuasion and soft words. Much must be done, and much must be learnt, by children, for which rigid discipline, and known liability to punishment, are indispensable as means. It is, no doubt, a very laudable effort, in modern teaching, to render as much as possible of what the young are required to learn, easy and interesting to them. But when this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them to learn anything but what has been made easy and interesting, one of the chief objects of education is sacrificed. I rejoice in the decline of the old brutal and tyrannical system of teaching, which, however, did succeed in enforcing habits of application; but the new, as it seems to me, is training up a race of men who will be incapable of doing anything which is disagreeable to them. I do not, then, believe that fear, as an element in education, can be dispensed with; but I am sure that it ought not to be the main element; and when it predominates so much as to preclude love and confidence on the part of the child to those who should be the unreservedly trusted advisers of after years, and perhaps to seal up the fountains of frank and spontaneous communicativeness in the child's nature, it is an evil for which a large abatement must be made from the benefits, moral and intellectual, which may flow from any other part of the education.”
Perhaps we also can compare Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations: “No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are really worth the attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are given. Force and restraint may, no doubt, be in some degree requisite in order to oblige children, or very young boys, to attend to those parts of education which it is thought necessary for them to acquire during that early period of life; but after twelve or thirteen years of age, provided the master does his duty, force or restraint can scarce ever be necessary to carry on any part of education. Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that, so far from being disposed to neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shows some serious intention of being of use to them, they are generally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of gross negligence.”]
OK, back to Russell. As for the content of a good education, applied science (including psychology) is necessary but not sufficient. The humanities might have to be more strictly rationed, though not abandoned, as scientific knowledge advances. When teaching material that demands close attention and sustained study, such as literature in a foreign tongue, the more practical approach – a modern language as opposed to a dead one – should, all else equal, be given preferment. For the most part, the later years of schooling should be devoted to science and math.
Today we need science and the skeptical scientific approach. Skepticism tout court is detrimental, however – progress is conceivable. Russell associates a scientific approach with a sort of insurance against error: be guided by your beliefs, but not to the point that if your beliefs turn out to be incorrect, untold damage will result. (Both the anti-dogmatism and the policy suggestion of pursuing harm reduction appear elsewhere in Russell’s writings. For instance (beyond the instance of the prior link), from his essay “Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind”: “Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.”)
The traits that education should help to nurture in virtually everyone are “vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence [p. 60].” Vitality promotes an even temperament and intellectual curiosity. Courageous people will think for themselves and not force others to proclaim fidelity to a favored opinion. Sensitiveness will grant standing to other humans, even distant and unknown others, in the cost-benefit analysis of our actions. Intelligence is almost a synonym for the scientific approach: a willingness to learn more – which children have by nature – and a rejection of dogmatism. Open-mindedness helps to extend intelligence into adulthood. The universal application of an education imbued with these precepts holds the potential to promote progress and human happiness almost beyond conceiving.
Now that I have summarized my earlier summentary, I see that there is little on which to pass judgment at this point – or at least that I share virtually all of Russell’s stated aims. The proof, it seems, will be in the pudding of the specific suggestions that follow from Russell’s general precepts. And it is the next section of the book, “Education of Character,” that promises to connect Russell’s more theoretical musings with practical applications.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Education and the Good Life, Chapter IIb
Chapter II, “The Aims of Education,” second half (pages 69-83)
An appropriate emotional response to stimuli, a proper sensitiveness, is the third in the list of universally desirable traits. (Recall that these traits are “vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence [p. 60].”) Some interest in being praiseworthy, and sympathy for the sufferings of even remote others, form part of the requisite sensitiveness. Much of the world’s suffering, including harsh child labor and tyrannical treatment of subject peoples, is permitted to continue because of the difficulty of feeling sympathy towards impersonal, abstract others.
The extolling of virtue (in the form of abstinence from supposed sins) as opposed to intelligence undermines both knowledge and the willingness to acquire knowledge. Intelligence is more about susceptibility to a flow of new learning than it is about a stock of acquired knowledge, but the susceptibility to incremental knowledge only grows through practice. “The more a man has learnt, the easier it is for him to learn still more – always assuming that he has not been taught in a spirit of dogmatism [p. 73].” Nevertheless, it is a simple matter to educate someone in such a way that receptivity to further knowledge is undermined – and such modes of education are common. Attempts to impose preferred beliefs come at the expense of the building of intelligence.
Curiosity is at the root of intelligence, though it must be curiosity aimed at more than the vices of one’s neighbors. (We readily accept malicious gossip, however: “Our neighbors’ sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinize the evidence closely [p. 75].") The type of curiosity that builds intelligence is an interest in all types of knowledge, and is exhibited by children. As people age, the unknown loses its luster, and becomes a source of distaste. The final stage of this death of curiosity (and enervation of “active intelligence”) is marked by expressions of how modern society has deteriorated since the glory days of one’s youth.
Adult curiosity, not as potent as in the young, tends to be aimed at a higher level of generality, indicating more intelligence. Methods of acquiring knowledge allow curiosity to bear fruit. Inertia and catering to our own self-esteem threaten us with close-mindedness towards new truths. “Open-mindedness should therefore be one of the qualities that education aims at producing [p. 77].” Courage is needed for open-mindedness as well as for physical fortitude. Many isms are available to protect us against the unknown, but those who want to learn must eschew such security.
People like to get on well with their near connections; simultaneously, a rejection of popular untruths can lead to isolation. How much should we cooperate with our group? Should education aim to weaken our devotion to cooperation and to sharing the emotion running through a crowd? I [Russell] endorse a healthy commitment to cooperation, but one that can be sublimated to more important concerns when required. People who have made great advances often have had to withstand the enmity of others. Nevertheless, some respect for received opinion is helpful, and surely the ideas that average people hold concerning scientific matters are much improved by their willingness to accept the opinions of those who are more knowledgeable. Accepting the common wisdom generally is desirable in all matters except those in which you have particular expertise or a special interest. Don’t be an universal naysayer – society requires a sort of cooperative default – but do have the fortitude to express unpopular opinions when you think it is important to do so. If everyone possessed the desirable traits that this chapter examines, there would be no need to fear expressing an unpopular opinion, and organizations like the Ku Klux Klan that promote persecution would have no recruits. “The good world can only be created and sustained by fearless men, but the more they succeed in their task the fewer occasions there will be for the exercise of their courage [p. 82].”
The spread of vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence would usher in a brave new world, one that would be considerably happier than what exists at present. Destitution would be eliminated, poor health made rare, and sexual relations could become a source of pleasure. Women would be liberated from the fear that they now are taught in the name of inculcating virtue, and fearless women can liberate everyone. “Education is the key to the new world [p. 83].”
An appropriate emotional response to stimuli, a proper sensitiveness, is the third in the list of universally desirable traits. (Recall that these traits are “vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence [p. 60].”) Some interest in being praiseworthy, and sympathy for the sufferings of even remote others, form part of the requisite sensitiveness. Much of the world’s suffering, including harsh child labor and tyrannical treatment of subject peoples, is permitted to continue because of the difficulty of feeling sympathy towards impersonal, abstract others.
The extolling of virtue (in the form of abstinence from supposed sins) as opposed to intelligence undermines both knowledge and the willingness to acquire knowledge. Intelligence is more about susceptibility to a flow of new learning than it is about a stock of acquired knowledge, but the susceptibility to incremental knowledge only grows through practice. “The more a man has learnt, the easier it is for him to learn still more – always assuming that he has not been taught in a spirit of dogmatism [p. 73].” Nevertheless, it is a simple matter to educate someone in such a way that receptivity to further knowledge is undermined – and such modes of education are common. Attempts to impose preferred beliefs come at the expense of the building of intelligence.
Curiosity is at the root of intelligence, though it must be curiosity aimed at more than the vices of one’s neighbors. (We readily accept malicious gossip, however: “Our neighbors’ sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinize the evidence closely [p. 75].") The type of curiosity that builds intelligence is an interest in all types of knowledge, and is exhibited by children. As people age, the unknown loses its luster, and becomes a source of distaste. The final stage of this death of curiosity (and enervation of “active intelligence”) is marked by expressions of how modern society has deteriorated since the glory days of one’s youth.
Adult curiosity, not as potent as in the young, tends to be aimed at a higher level of generality, indicating more intelligence. Methods of acquiring knowledge allow curiosity to bear fruit. Inertia and catering to our own self-esteem threaten us with close-mindedness towards new truths. “Open-mindedness should therefore be one of the qualities that education aims at producing [p. 77].” Courage is needed for open-mindedness as well as for physical fortitude. Many isms are available to protect us against the unknown, but those who want to learn must eschew such security.
People like to get on well with their near connections; simultaneously, a rejection of popular untruths can lead to isolation. How much should we cooperate with our group? Should education aim to weaken our devotion to cooperation and to sharing the emotion running through a crowd? I [Russell] endorse a healthy commitment to cooperation, but one that can be sublimated to more important concerns when required. People who have made great advances often have had to withstand the enmity of others. Nevertheless, some respect for received opinion is helpful, and surely the ideas that average people hold concerning scientific matters are much improved by their willingness to accept the opinions of those who are more knowledgeable. Accepting the common wisdom generally is desirable in all matters except those in which you have particular expertise or a special interest. Don’t be an universal naysayer – society requires a sort of cooperative default – but do have the fortitude to express unpopular opinions when you think it is important to do so. If everyone possessed the desirable traits that this chapter examines, there would be no need to fear expressing an unpopular opinion, and organizations like the Ku Klux Klan that promote persecution would have no recruits. “The good world can only be created and sustained by fearless men, but the more they succeed in their task the fewer occasions there will be for the exercise of their courage [p. 82].”
The spread of vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence would usher in a brave new world, one that would be considerably happier than what exists at present. Destitution would be eliminated, poor health made rare, and sexual relations could become a source of pleasure. Women would be liberated from the fear that they now are taught in the name of inculcating virtue, and fearless women can liberate everyone. “Education is the key to the new world [p. 83].”
Friday, October 22, 2010
Education and the Good Life, Chapter IIa
Chapter II, “The Aims of Education,” first half (pages 47-69)
"The Aims of Education" is sufficiently long and involved that I have decided to allot two separate posts to its summentary.
Russell’s famous teacher and Principia Mathematica co-author, Alfred North Whitehead, presented a lecture in 1916 entitled “The Aims of Education;” Whitehead later (1929) published a book with the same title, featuring the 1916 address. [Whitehead’s argument, incidentally, is that teachers should avoid trying to transmit “inert ideas.” Rather, knowledge has to be mentally active, challenged and recombined and applied. Knowledge does not fit into our standard disciplinary boundaries: “There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.”] The academic year at the University of Chicago is initiated annually by an “Aims of Education” address to the incoming undergraduate class. Chapter II of Education and the Good Life is Russell’s turn at The Aims of Education, which was not yet a Chicago tradition when Russell was in residence.
Education molds people, so we must know the types of people we want to have before we can rationally design education. Sometimes the designers prove to be not so rational, and produce people much different than what they are aiming for. But in general, education works, in the sense of achieving the outcome desired – though different educators hold markedly different views about what human traits are desirable.
The Chinese and the ancient Athenians had similar approaches to learning: an emphasis on rote memorization of the classics (Confucius, Homer) and a requirement for some formal shows of piety, while encouraging a skeptical approach to questions. “The Athenians and the Chinese alike wished to enjoy life, and had a conception of enjoyment which was refined by an exquisite sense of beauty [p. 49].” The Greeks were more active than the Chinese, making the Greeks vulnerable to dissension from within. The relative passivity of the Chinese does not seem to be a result of their education, however, because Japanese people trained in the Confucian style avoided “indolent cultured skepticism [p. 50].” Science and progress need energy and skepticism; modern countries and democracy need science.
Powerful countries tend to place national power at the center of education – Japan is the exemplar. Free thought in Japan has been sacrificed to national self-preservation, but the Japanese methods have met with amazing success. [Russell writes before the mindset he refers to contributed to untold horrors for the Japanese.] The constraints on thinking present the danger that progress can only take place via revolution. Education should not inculcate acquiescence, either to skepticism or dogma. Education should instill the notion that knowledge (or improvements in knowledge) can be achieved with effort (contra skepticism), but that currently much of what passes for knowledge is incorrect (contra dogmatism). We must be guided by our beliefs, but we should beware of taking steps that would prove disastrous should our beliefs be mistaken. This mindset is the scientific mindset.
Jesuit education sacrificed the good of the pupil to the goal of helping the Catholic Church. Generally, their methods worked, and helped to spur the counter-reformation. Thomas Arnold’s aristocratic educational system aimed “to train men for positions of authority and power, whether at home or in distant parts of the empire [p. 53].” The training necessarily sacrificed intellect (which is a dangerous source of doubt), sympathy, imagination, and kindliness – and it no longer serves the needs of the modern world, with free citizens, not subjects. In America, the public schools fulfill the melting-pot function, making one out of many. To some extent this is accomplished by disparaging the advantages of Old World countries. “The intellectual level in Western Europe and the artistic level in Eastern Europe are, on the whole, higher than in America [p. 56].”
Education is best when the pupils are treated as ends in themselves, not as means to some other end, whether nation-building or religion-upholding. Excellent humans will tend to produce outcomes that are good for humanity, too. But even in civilized countries, with the exception of Denmark and China, male children are educated, not to make them excellent, but to make them willing to engage in warfare over inconsequential matters.
What constitutes excellence in humans? Some traits are universally desirable, while other traits need only be held by a fraction of the population. “We cannot therefore frame our education with a view to giving every one the temperament of a poet [p. 60].” Four universally desirable traits are “vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence [p. 60].” These traits can be inculcated through proper education – though standard education seems to sap children of vitality.
Vitality is akin to the “zest” that Russell adumbrates in The Conquest of Happiness (published four years after Education and the Good Life). Vitality counters our tendency to excessive self-absorption, envy, and boredom, and “makes it easy to take an interest in whatever occurs, and thus promotes objectivity, which is an essential of sanity [p. 61].” Vitality is neither necessary nor sufficient for human excellence – Newton and Locke did not score highly on the vitality scale – but it neutralizes negative tendencies like envy, and promotes a healthy interest in the world.
Courage relates to avoiding and controlling fear, though sometimes fear is rational. Irrational fears play an enormous role in emotional life, even for sane people. Only a few fears seem to be instinctual for humans. Others, such as fear of the dark, are learned, and can be spread rapidly. Children acquire fears from adults even when adults don’t know they are transmitting fear. “Hitherto, men have thought it attractive in women to be full of irrational terrors, because it gave men a chance to seem protective without incurring any real danger [p. 63].” The young sons of these men and women pick up these fears, and the general level of courage declines – but one small element in the huge harm caused by the subjection of women.
Courage is signaled by being steadfast in trying circumstances, and by not showing physical signs (trembling, pallor) of fear. The usual method of instilling such outward courage, ironically, is by making the fear of shame greater than the fear of present danger. But this approach does not so much control fear as repress it, in an unhealthy manner. The sublimated fear is reflected in the cruelty shown by aristocratic overlords to their subjects. The cruelty that stems from fear should receive the same contempt as other forms of cowardice.
Inward courage requires “a combination of self-respect with an impersonal outlook on life [p. 66].” Self-respect means that you are not overly dependent on the opinion of your neighbors – but it does not imply a false humility that really is aimed at receiving approbation. Neither submission nor domination, neither obedience nor command, should be taught; leadership in cooperative enterprises should be like that granted the captain of a sports team, not an autocrat. “Our purposes should be our own, not the result of external authority; and our purposes should never be forcibly imposed upon others [p. 67].”
An impersonal outlook can be instilled in the cheap fashion of monk-like repression, but with undesirable consequences. Self-abnegation will lead to desire to repress the pleasures of others. [This is a recurrent theme for Russell.] Love, knowledge, art, and wide interests all provide routes out of ourselves. Broad cares indicate that we are not the be-and-end-all of creation, that there are many other valuable things outside ourselves, making us courageous in the face of death.
"The Aims of Education" is sufficiently long and involved that I have decided to allot two separate posts to its summentary.
Russell’s famous teacher and Principia Mathematica co-author, Alfred North Whitehead, presented a lecture in 1916 entitled “The Aims of Education;” Whitehead later (1929) published a book with the same title, featuring the 1916 address. [Whitehead’s argument, incidentally, is that teachers should avoid trying to transmit “inert ideas.” Rather, knowledge has to be mentally active, challenged and recombined and applied. Knowledge does not fit into our standard disciplinary boundaries: “There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.”] The academic year at the University of Chicago is initiated annually by an “Aims of Education” address to the incoming undergraduate class. Chapter II of Education and the Good Life is Russell’s turn at The Aims of Education, which was not yet a Chicago tradition when Russell was in residence.
Education molds people, so we must know the types of people we want to have before we can rationally design education. Sometimes the designers prove to be not so rational, and produce people much different than what they are aiming for. But in general, education works, in the sense of achieving the outcome desired – though different educators hold markedly different views about what human traits are desirable.
The Chinese and the ancient Athenians had similar approaches to learning: an emphasis on rote memorization of the classics (Confucius, Homer) and a requirement for some formal shows of piety, while encouraging a skeptical approach to questions. “The Athenians and the Chinese alike wished to enjoy life, and had a conception of enjoyment which was refined by an exquisite sense of beauty [p. 49].” The Greeks were more active than the Chinese, making the Greeks vulnerable to dissension from within. The relative passivity of the Chinese does not seem to be a result of their education, however, because Japanese people trained in the Confucian style avoided “indolent cultured skepticism [p. 50].” Science and progress need energy and skepticism; modern countries and democracy need science.
Powerful countries tend to place national power at the center of education – Japan is the exemplar. Free thought in Japan has been sacrificed to national self-preservation, but the Japanese methods have met with amazing success. [Russell writes before the mindset he refers to contributed to untold horrors for the Japanese.] The constraints on thinking present the danger that progress can only take place via revolution. Education should not inculcate acquiescence, either to skepticism or dogma. Education should instill the notion that knowledge (or improvements in knowledge) can be achieved with effort (contra skepticism), but that currently much of what passes for knowledge is incorrect (contra dogmatism). We must be guided by our beliefs, but we should beware of taking steps that would prove disastrous should our beliefs be mistaken. This mindset is the scientific mindset.
Jesuit education sacrificed the good of the pupil to the goal of helping the Catholic Church. Generally, their methods worked, and helped to spur the counter-reformation. Thomas Arnold’s aristocratic educational system aimed “to train men for positions of authority and power, whether at home or in distant parts of the empire [p. 53].” The training necessarily sacrificed intellect (which is a dangerous source of doubt), sympathy, imagination, and kindliness – and it no longer serves the needs of the modern world, with free citizens, not subjects. In America, the public schools fulfill the melting-pot function, making one out of many. To some extent this is accomplished by disparaging the advantages of Old World countries. “The intellectual level in Western Europe and the artistic level in Eastern Europe are, on the whole, higher than in America [p. 56].”
Education is best when the pupils are treated as ends in themselves, not as means to some other end, whether nation-building or religion-upholding. Excellent humans will tend to produce outcomes that are good for humanity, too. But even in civilized countries, with the exception of Denmark and China, male children are educated, not to make them excellent, but to make them willing to engage in warfare over inconsequential matters.
What constitutes excellence in humans? Some traits are universally desirable, while other traits need only be held by a fraction of the population. “We cannot therefore frame our education with a view to giving every one the temperament of a poet [p. 60].” Four universally desirable traits are “vitality, courage, sensitiveness, and intelligence [p. 60].” These traits can be inculcated through proper education – though standard education seems to sap children of vitality.
Vitality is akin to the “zest” that Russell adumbrates in The Conquest of Happiness (published four years after Education and the Good Life). Vitality counters our tendency to excessive self-absorption, envy, and boredom, and “makes it easy to take an interest in whatever occurs, and thus promotes objectivity, which is an essential of sanity [p. 61].” Vitality is neither necessary nor sufficient for human excellence – Newton and Locke did not score highly on the vitality scale – but it neutralizes negative tendencies like envy, and promotes a healthy interest in the world.
Courage relates to avoiding and controlling fear, though sometimes fear is rational. Irrational fears play an enormous role in emotional life, even for sane people. Only a few fears seem to be instinctual for humans. Others, such as fear of the dark, are learned, and can be spread rapidly. Children acquire fears from adults even when adults don’t know they are transmitting fear. “Hitherto, men have thought it attractive in women to be full of irrational terrors, because it gave men a chance to seem protective without incurring any real danger [p. 63].” The young sons of these men and women pick up these fears, and the general level of courage declines – but one small element in the huge harm caused by the subjection of women.
Courage is signaled by being steadfast in trying circumstances, and by not showing physical signs (trembling, pallor) of fear. The usual method of instilling such outward courage, ironically, is by making the fear of shame greater than the fear of present danger. But this approach does not so much control fear as repress it, in an unhealthy manner. The sublimated fear is reflected in the cruelty shown by aristocratic overlords to their subjects. The cruelty that stems from fear should receive the same contempt as other forms of cowardice.
Inward courage requires “a combination of self-respect with an impersonal outlook on life [p. 66].” Self-respect means that you are not overly dependent on the opinion of your neighbors – but it does not imply a false humility that really is aimed at receiving approbation. Neither submission nor domination, neither obedience nor command, should be taught; leadership in cooperative enterprises should be like that granted the captain of a sports team, not an autocrat. “Our purposes should be our own, not the result of external authority; and our purposes should never be forcibly imposed upon others [p. 67].”
An impersonal outlook can be instilled in the cheap fashion of monk-like repression, but with undesirable consequences. Self-abnegation will lead to desire to repress the pleasures of others. [This is a recurrent theme for Russell.] Love, knowledge, art, and wide interests all provide routes out of ourselves. Broad cares indicate that we are not the be-and-end-all of creation, that there are many other valuable things outside ourselves, making us courageous in the face of death.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Education and the Good Life, Chapter I
Chapter I: “Postulates of Modern Educational Theory,” pages 15-46.
Part I shares the name of the entire book (at least in its American incarnation), “Education and the Good Life”. Two chapters form the whole of Part I. The first chapter is unpromisingly titled “Postulates of Modern Educational Theory.”
Early educational theorists such as Locke and Rousseau had in mind the education of an individual boy from an aristocratic family. Now we must think about educating every boy and girl. At the same time, we should not sacrifice excellence by insisting upon a rigid equality in education: “we must approach educational democracy carefully, so as to destroy in the process as little as possible of the valuable products that happen to have been associated with social injustice [p. 17].” Fortunately, some of the best recent advances in education, including those of Madame Montessori, can be made available on a broad scale.
The provision of a democratic education available to all becomes a forum in which a standard educational conflict plays out: the conflict between those who favor practical education and those who support “ornamental” learning. Gender equality adds another feature to the conflict, namely, to what extent the practical education of girls should include the domestic arts – so the discussion, for the nonce, continues by considering only the education of boys. The issue of useful versus ornamental learning crops up with respect to the teaching of trades, professions, classics, science, manners, and art appreciation. But the issue is largely illusory, as broadly speaking, an education that brings good results is useful. We care about ultimate outputs, and judge the inputs by the extent to which the outputs they contribute are desirable. Education should surely be useful from this perspective. Most people, though, discuss the usefulness of education by the degree to which it promotes the making of machines, which in turn promotes the satisfaction of physical needs – production that is not per se desirable, though surely an urgent issue for much of humanity.
Some aristocratic education really was ornamental in the strict sense; nevertheless, the issue today is to what extent we should try to inculcate patterns of thought that lack direct utility, but might be said to be good in themselves. An understanding of Hamlet, for instance, might make its possessor a better person, despite its lack of practical value. Some democratic partisans display a bit of inconsistency, railing against the useless education of gentlemen but wishing to bring the learning of Latin and Greek, and other “useless” learning, to the working classes. Presumably the motive is to extinguish boundaries between a working and an ornamental class, and the impulse largely is valid.
The question of a practical education takes two other forms as well. One is the interest in material well-being versus mental delights. The world, if well organized, is poised to be able to provide adequately for the physical needs of the whole population, and to reduce the burden of disease. Improvements in physical well-being should not be slighted, so applied science must be a significant part of education. “Without physics and physiology and psychology, we cannot build the new world. We can build it without Latin and Greek, without Dante and Shakespeare, without Bach and Mozart [p. 27].” But we can’t let the accomplishments of the humanities decay in our quest for extinguishing war and privation.
Must (humanistic) knowledge that is claimed to be intrinsically valuable be useless? My own [Russell’s] youthful exertions on Latin and Greek never did me any good, and such knowledge as the exertions produced surely had no intrinsic value, beyond providing an example for the current discussion! But my science and math training was both useful and possessed of the intrinsic value of “affording subjects of contemplation and reflection, and touchstones of truth in a deceitful world [p. 28].” One can profit from the literature of modern foreign languages as readily as from Latin and Greek classics – so with their greater utility, study of modern languages would seem to dominate the study of Latin and Greek. As science progresses, we must jettison some elements of traditional humanistic education to allow time for the absorption of new knowledge.
My proposal isn’t for a solely scientific or a solely humanistic education. “What I suggest is that, where a difficult technique is indispensable to the mastering of a subject, it is better, except in training specialists, that the subject should be useful [p. 30].” The strenuous part of education in later years should be devoted to science and math – but only in general, so that special tastes or talents can be accommodated.
We must avoid the sacrifice of aesthetics for efficiency. The appreciation of great literature needn’t be abandoned because it takes time away from more practical matters. Those who promote the utility of an education are willing to devote huge amounts of time to teaching humans how to kill each other.
Psychology is helping to improve how material is taught. The traditional approach to discipline was to chastise children who did not apply themselves earnestly enough to their studies – even solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water was employed. (The fading doctrine of original sin helped to perpetuate this approach.) “The old idea was that children could not possibly wish to learn, and could only be compelled to learn by terror [p. 36].” Ignorance of pedagogy allowed the terror system to continue, but now it is clear that children will be happy to learn age-appropriate materials. A few disciplinary rules such as not interfering with another child are easily comprehended and complied with. Children develop self-discipline, towards their studies and towards others. It isn’t easy to achieve, but with proper training for teachers (and the techniques of Madame Montessori), it can be done.
Thomas Arnold is justly remembered for being a liberal reformer of British public schools, but while he diminished flogging, he remained a proponent of it, and thought corporal punishment required as an appropriate Christian response to moral evil in the young. “I shudder when I think of the wars, the tortures, the oppressions, of which upright men have been guilty, under the impression that they were righteously castigating ‘moral evil [p. 40].’” Fortunately, the belief that children are inhabited by Satan has subsided.
The opposite belief, that kids are naturally virtuous until corrupted by adults, is equally wrong, though less costly. Kids are neither inherently good nor bad. Their limited instincts are shaped by their environment into habits that can be either positive or negative, with the direction chiefly determined by the wisdom of their mother or nurse. Healthy children generally can be made happy with little effort. “Happiness in childhood is absolutely necessary to the production of the best type of human being [pages 41-42].” Kids take well to learning material that they perceive as valuable. Children will shun learning if the material seems to be useless, or if the teachers are viewed as tyrannical.
It used to be believed that bad desires could only be overcome by the will – the desires themselves were permanent. But this meant that those desires could hold sway in areas where the will was lacking. “Theories which justify cruelty almost always have their source in some desire diverted by the will from its natural channel, driven underground, and at last emerging unrecognized as hatred of sin or something equally respectable [pages 43-44].”
Psychoanalysis, despite its unscientific, fantastic elements, nevertheless holds useful approaches for early moral education. In getting children to sleep, making a fuss over the child with rocking and lullabys is helpful in the short run but costly in the long run. It teaches that not sleeping results in attention. “The result is equally damaging to health and character [p. 45].” Better to instill the habit that going into the cot means going to sleep. At any rate, the attention of psychology to infancy has shown the importance of proper and early instruction in both morals and knowledge, and more scientific advances can be expected in the future.
Part I shares the name of the entire book (at least in its American incarnation), “Education and the Good Life”. Two chapters form the whole of Part I. The first chapter is unpromisingly titled “Postulates of Modern Educational Theory.”
Early educational theorists such as Locke and Rousseau had in mind the education of an individual boy from an aristocratic family. Now we must think about educating every boy and girl. At the same time, we should not sacrifice excellence by insisting upon a rigid equality in education: “we must approach educational democracy carefully, so as to destroy in the process as little as possible of the valuable products that happen to have been associated with social injustice [p. 17].” Fortunately, some of the best recent advances in education, including those of Madame Montessori, can be made available on a broad scale.
The provision of a democratic education available to all becomes a forum in which a standard educational conflict plays out: the conflict between those who favor practical education and those who support “ornamental” learning. Gender equality adds another feature to the conflict, namely, to what extent the practical education of girls should include the domestic arts – so the discussion, for the nonce, continues by considering only the education of boys. The issue of useful versus ornamental learning crops up with respect to the teaching of trades, professions, classics, science, manners, and art appreciation. But the issue is largely illusory, as broadly speaking, an education that brings good results is useful. We care about ultimate outputs, and judge the inputs by the extent to which the outputs they contribute are desirable. Education should surely be useful from this perspective. Most people, though, discuss the usefulness of education by the degree to which it promotes the making of machines, which in turn promotes the satisfaction of physical needs – production that is not per se desirable, though surely an urgent issue for much of humanity.
Some aristocratic education really was ornamental in the strict sense; nevertheless, the issue today is to what extent we should try to inculcate patterns of thought that lack direct utility, but might be said to be good in themselves. An understanding of Hamlet, for instance, might make its possessor a better person, despite its lack of practical value. Some democratic partisans display a bit of inconsistency, railing against the useless education of gentlemen but wishing to bring the learning of Latin and Greek, and other “useless” learning, to the working classes. Presumably the motive is to extinguish boundaries between a working and an ornamental class, and the impulse largely is valid.
The question of a practical education takes two other forms as well. One is the interest in material well-being versus mental delights. The world, if well organized, is poised to be able to provide adequately for the physical needs of the whole population, and to reduce the burden of disease. Improvements in physical well-being should not be slighted, so applied science must be a significant part of education. “Without physics and physiology and psychology, we cannot build the new world. We can build it without Latin and Greek, without Dante and Shakespeare, without Bach and Mozart [p. 27].” But we can’t let the accomplishments of the humanities decay in our quest for extinguishing war and privation.
Must (humanistic) knowledge that is claimed to be intrinsically valuable be useless? My own [Russell’s] youthful exertions on Latin and Greek never did me any good, and such knowledge as the exertions produced surely had no intrinsic value, beyond providing an example for the current discussion! But my science and math training was both useful and possessed of the intrinsic value of “affording subjects of contemplation and reflection, and touchstones of truth in a deceitful world [p. 28].” One can profit from the literature of modern foreign languages as readily as from Latin and Greek classics – so with their greater utility, study of modern languages would seem to dominate the study of Latin and Greek. As science progresses, we must jettison some elements of traditional humanistic education to allow time for the absorption of new knowledge.
My proposal isn’t for a solely scientific or a solely humanistic education. “What I suggest is that, where a difficult technique is indispensable to the mastering of a subject, it is better, except in training specialists, that the subject should be useful [p. 30].” The strenuous part of education in later years should be devoted to science and math – but only in general, so that special tastes or talents can be accommodated.
We must avoid the sacrifice of aesthetics for efficiency. The appreciation of great literature needn’t be abandoned because it takes time away from more practical matters. Those who promote the utility of an education are willing to devote huge amounts of time to teaching humans how to kill each other.
Psychology is helping to improve how material is taught. The traditional approach to discipline was to chastise children who did not apply themselves earnestly enough to their studies – even solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water was employed. (The fading doctrine of original sin helped to perpetuate this approach.) “The old idea was that children could not possibly wish to learn, and could only be compelled to learn by terror [p. 36].” Ignorance of pedagogy allowed the terror system to continue, but now it is clear that children will be happy to learn age-appropriate materials. A few disciplinary rules such as not interfering with another child are easily comprehended and complied with. Children develop self-discipline, towards their studies and towards others. It isn’t easy to achieve, but with proper training for teachers (and the techniques of Madame Montessori), it can be done.
Thomas Arnold is justly remembered for being a liberal reformer of British public schools, but while he diminished flogging, he remained a proponent of it, and thought corporal punishment required as an appropriate Christian response to moral evil in the young. “I shudder when I think of the wars, the tortures, the oppressions, of which upright men have been guilty, under the impression that they were righteously castigating ‘moral evil [p. 40].’” Fortunately, the belief that children are inhabited by Satan has subsided.
The opposite belief, that kids are naturally virtuous until corrupted by adults, is equally wrong, though less costly. Kids are neither inherently good nor bad. Their limited instincts are shaped by their environment into habits that can be either positive or negative, with the direction chiefly determined by the wisdom of their mother or nurse. Healthy children generally can be made happy with little effort. “Happiness in childhood is absolutely necessary to the production of the best type of human being [pages 41-42].” Kids take well to learning material that they perceive as valuable. Children will shun learning if the material seems to be useless, or if the teachers are viewed as tyrannical.
It used to be believed that bad desires could only be overcome by the will – the desires themselves were permanent. But this meant that those desires could hold sway in areas where the will was lacking. “Theories which justify cruelty almost always have their source in some desire diverted by the will from its natural channel, driven underground, and at last emerging unrecognized as hatred of sin or something equally respectable [pages 43-44].”
Psychoanalysis, despite its unscientific, fantastic elements, nevertheless holds useful approaches for early moral education. In getting children to sleep, making a fuss over the child with rocking and lullabys is helpful in the short run but costly in the long run. It teaches that not sleeping results in attention. “The result is equally damaging to health and character [p. 45].” Better to instill the habit that going into the cot means going to sleep. At any rate, the attention of psychology to infancy has shown the importance of proper and early instruction in both morals and knowledge, and more scientific advances can be expected in the future.
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