Educational Theory. An Introduction 0710084633

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ISBN 0 7100 8463 3. Printed in Great Britain (TY). For copyright reasons, this book may not be sold, issued on loan, or otherwise disposed of,

except in its original paper cover.

STUDENTS LIBRARY OF EDUCATION G E N E R A L E D I TO R :

Lionel Elvin formerly Director, University of London Institute of Education E D ITO R I A L

BO A R D :

Psychology of Education:

Professor Ben Morris University of Bristol Philosophy of Education:

Professor Richard S. Peters University of London History of Education:

Professor Brian Simon University of Leicester Sociology of Education:

William Taylor Director, University of London Institute of Education Method and Curriculum Studies:

Professor Paul Hirst University of Cambridge Interdisciplinary Studies:

Professor Richard S. Peters University of London

The founding Series GenerJI Editor was the bte

Professor of Education, University of Leicester.

J.

W. Tibble. Emeritus

Educational Theory An Introduction

T. W. Moore University of London Institute of Education

Routledge & Kegan Paul London, Henley and Boston

First published in 1974 by Routledge &.. Kegan Paul Ltd. 39 Store Street London WC1E 7DD, Broadwqy House Newtown Road Henlo/-on-Thames Oxon. RG9 1EN and 9 Park Street Boston, Mass. 02108, U.S.A. First published as a paperback 1977 Reprinted 1977 Set in 10/11 Pilgrim 24 ems Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Ltd Trowbridge and Esher

©

T. W. Moore, 1974

No part ef this book mqy be reproduced in nnyform without permission from the publisher, e'pu blic is with higher education . with the training of t he future rulers. To understa n d Plato's educational reco mm endations \Ve n eed to look at his general philosophical position . Plato held that ' real ity' i nvolved two distinct orders of existence. One is the everyday world of appearan ces, the phenomenal world of obj t'cts and qualities which we experience through the senses. P I J t o thought this world attractive but unreliable. a world of constant change. and held that we could have no re a l knowledge of what was so transi e n t . only opin ion . Behind this con f u s i n g world of appearances i s an other. ideal world . made up of what Plato calls the ' Forms' or 'Types' . The const itu tion and sta tus of t h is other w orld are left vague, but i t may be understood as consisting of a n indefinite n u m ber of perfec t, ete rn a l . changeless entities. pat terns, of wh ich t he ephemeral th ings of the phenomen a l world are imperfect copies. There are m any individual mm in the phenomenal world, but w h a t m a kes t h e m men i s t h a t they a re all copies of the Form of Man. I ndividual men grow old and die but the Form of Man does not ch ange. Likewise . there a re the Forms of the Beautiful . the Just. the State . . . a Form for every general term we have. Beautiful things are

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beautiful because they copy the Form of the Beautiful, j ust actions are j ust because they reflect the Form of Justice, and so on . The Forms themselves are supposed to be ordered in a hierarchy, with the Form of the 'Good' at the apex. Plato holds that, i n so far as knowledge is possible, it m ust be of this world of Forms, since only here can we have the grasp of true rea lity, of certainty, which he supposes to be the essence of knowledge, as distinct from mere opinion . ( 1 4, Ch. 2) We may now look at the assumptions which underli e Plato's theory of educa tion . H e m akes assumptions about the end to be achieved, about the nature o f those who are to be educated, and about the n ature of knowledge and the efficacy of certain methods. He assumes as an over-riding aim the production of a certain type of man, the j ust man, and a certain type of state, the just society, in which just men w i l l find and keep their proper places. A jus t m a n i s o n e trained a n d willing t o fulfil h i s role in society. But, although idea lly every man in society would be j ust in this sense, withi n the c ategory of just men there will be some who are m a rked off from the others by having superior abili ties. Plato's assumption about human beings i n general is that they are entities consisting of a perishable body linked with a soul, one part of which, the rational part, is immortal. Of the two aspects the soul is the more important, and different men have souls of different degrees of quality. Some souls have more of the rational, the noble, than others. Some men, as Plato puts it, have gold in their souls, others have souls of iron and bronze, i n ferior souls. The psychology here is crude and not altogether clear, but what is cl ear is that Plato i s primarily con cerned with the educa tion of those who have superior qualities, souls of gold. Education, whi lst not neglecting the training of the body, ultimately has to do wi t h t he correct n urturing of the soul, turning its a ttention away from the world of mere appearan ces towards the understanding of the world of Forms, and particularly the Form of the Good. To achieve this end, Plato assumes that certain procedures will be e ffective. The educa­ tional programme recommended for those who are to become, first the sol di ers and then the rulers, involves d i fferent regimes to correspond with different stages in the individual's development. At the lowest levels of awareness, in childhood, his life is mainly appetitive and centred on the world of appearances. At this stage his senses are to be tra ined, to instil in him a love of beauty and order and harmony. Then the spirited pa rt of the soul is to be fed w i t h stories of heroes and noble lives, to fire him with moral fervour and a desire to live well . This goes a l on g with a period of military service in which p hysical and in tellectual training is con­ tinued under the most rigorous conditions, the young warriors

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living communally and h aving no property or family l ife of t heir own. Then, those who show themselves fitted for it begin a study w hich will open the way to true knowledge. knowledge of the world of Forms. This, Pl ato thinks. must i nvolve acqu aintance with t h e mathematical sciences, arithmetic and geometry, w hi c h will turn the pupils' a ttention away from the world of appearances, towards the underlying, orderly, structure of things w hi c h m athe­ m a tics reflects. Plato's poi n t is that when we study, say. geometry, w e are not really concerned with the material l ines and shapes, the triangles on paper, but with 'rea l ' obj ects, m a thematical obj ects which these visua l a ids presuppose. These 'mathematical objects' are entities similar to, but inferior to, the Forms themselves. Mathe­ m atics is thus a 'bridge' study, leading from the world of appearances to the world of reality. Again . this study of m athe­ m atics corresponds to a higher stage in the individual's development. a sort of half-way house between a concentration on appearances and a rational grasp of the n on-p henomen al \vorld. Pl ato i l l ustrates this by the simile of 'The Line' i n Book 6 of The Repu blic w here t here is a progression from mere illu sion . through beliefs about the p hysical world, to mathematical reasoning as a prelude to t he highest mode of intellectual awareness . an intuition of the Forms t hemselves. There is a n i nteresting ana logy here in the account given by Piaget, who sees the child as developing from a pre-ra tional stage, through a stage centred on sensory experiences and on to a stage of formal operations not tied closely to sense experience. In Plato, when this mathematical training is completed the pupi l enters into the study of a kind of philosophy. akin to math em atics and logic, called 'dialectic' , which operates . in a w a y not clearly specified, on the Forms themselves . and culmin ates in a grasp of the highest Form of all. the Form of the Good. The assumption here is that to know the Form of the G ood is to be equipped with true knowledge , with a certain grasp of re.1lity from w hich all other knowledge can be derived . Thus the possessor of this u ltimate knowledge will unerringly know what is good and the reason why it is so. The p h ilosopher. for such h e will have become . will be able to apply this knowledge . especially to the ruling of the state. The G uardians will thus be philosophers . educated to the highest degree of ration ality. and fitted to rule because they alone will know what is good and just and wise. The other orders i n the state will not kno w i n this sense . and will need to have their opinions guided by those who do. Plato's educltional recom mendations then , are : Select the m ost intelligent and bravest, those who h ave souls of gold . and educate them according to the different st ages of their development. giving them first a sense of the harmony and order which underlies the

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sensible world, and then by rigorous formal studies turning their souls away from the errors and confusions of the world of sense to grasp the truth, the knowledge of true reality. Only in this way, by bein g ruled by those who understand , will the state be made, and kep t, j ust. Such are Plato's dec lared aims and recommendations. It would, however, be appropriate here to ask : 'What are the un­ declared aims ? What is Plato really recommending here ? ' To answer this we have to put The Republic into historical perspective. Plato l ived in a time of great unrest. The defeat of Athens by Sparta was fol lowed by an increase in t h e power of the Athenian people, who challenged the established order in t he city. Plato, who belonged to the Athenia n aristocracy, was apprehensive of such democratic power, hence his ready assumption that the best kind of society was one in which the different socia l orders keep their p laces. Plato's declared rationale for this was that such a state would reflect the Good, with harmony in the body politic. I f we a ccept this and a ccept the rule of an elite as analogous to the rule of reason in the soul, then, on Plato's terms, we have the equation of a j ust society with a n aristocratic society, a society ruled by the 'best' . Plato's educational views were thus a reflection of his social and political sympathies. The Repu blic offers an educa­ tiona l theory presented in the most persuasive terms : i t aims at producing just men in a j ust society. What it does in fact i s to recommend a n aristocratic, elitist order based on what are held to be fundamental differences in men, and gives a recipe for achieving such an order. This is not, as such, a criticism of the theory. I t may b e t h a t in Plato's d a y a n elitist sol ution w a s t h e best available, as it may be argued that i t is today. But such a case needs to be argued . It is not self-evidently true : the underlying assumptions need to be brought out and established and the arguments sub­ m i tted to scrutiny. In Plato's theory there is an assumption about ends, about the kind of social order desirable. Acceptance of the educational theory i n volves acceptance of t his assumption. One is not, of course, obliged to accept it.

iii

The educational theory of Rousseau

Rousseau's most important contribution to educational theory is to be found in his Emile, p ublished in i 762. Rousseau was a con­ troversial, sometimes confused and often confusing writer whose i n fluence on European thinking has none the less been original and stimulating. I t is i mpossible to do justice to his work in a short space and what follows i s no more than a n outline. Perhaps the best way of bringing out the sign ificance of his educational theorising i s to rel ate i t to h is social philosophy as a whole. It 31

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m ust be realised, however, that Rousseau's thinking a n d w riting i s complex and controversial a n d t h a t m ore t h a n o n e interpretation o f h i s views is possible. Rousseau belonged to the generation which preceded the Fre n c h Revolution of 1 789 and he is prominent amongst t h e wri ters a n d thinkers who prepared the in tellectual c l imate for t h a t gre at up­ heaval . His writings, though intensel y personal and individual isti c , were very m u c h connected w i t h the social developme n ts of his time. These developments, put briefly and wi t h all t h e dis­ advantages of compression and oversimplification, could be said t o spring from the cha nge from a semi-feudal nation-state to a modern industrial-type society m oving towards democracy. France in the m i d-eighteenth century w as beginning t o anticipate the soc i a l and industrial develop ment which was to come i n t he n ineteen t h cen­ tury. The au tocrati c regim e establis hed by Louis Xl\" was begi n n ing to feel the social strains which were eventually to break i t apart. But this is hardly how Rousseau would have seen the s i t u at ion or his part i n i t. The distinction between declared and un­ declared, unconscious aims is pronounced i n Rousseau's work. He probabl y saw himself as something other than one of the spokesmen of the new order about t o be born , and he put t h e m atter i n rather different terms. He w a s n o n e t h e less a severe critic of French society of his day, holding it to be corrupt :m d un­ just, and one of his m ost i m portant books. The Social Con tract ( 1 762), may be regarded as an a t tempt to point the way towards the political regenera tion of society . The Social Con tract w as a plea for a new kind of society, based upon the real in terests of all i ts members as opposed to one bJ.scd on aristocratic priY il cge: specific­ ally, it tries to deal with the problem of how men can sec ure t h e rea l and substantial benefits o f social l ife without losing their i ndividual freedom a s men. Exactly what rela tion Emile bears to The Social Con tract is a m a tter for debate, but the posi tion may be put, not too misleadingly, as follows : Th e S o cial Con t rmct ta kes men as they are and tries to a n s w e r the q u estion : ' \\"h a t political arrangements are needed to bring about a better socie t y . ·w here freedom and order a rc bot h secured ? · tm ile takes l .iws .rnd social arrangements as they a re and tries to :rnswer the question : '\\'hat kind of m a n cou l d l ive well even i n this society , a n d how is he to be produced ? ' Taken together t he two works a mount t o a m ore or less coherent attempt a t providing a progr.:i.mme for a new society. and a new kind of m a n . one w ho could live well �n t he new soc iety as well as i n the old. Rousseau is thus not to be regarded simply as an educat ional· reformer. His educ a t io n a l t heory i s t o a l a rge extent complement ary to his politic.:i. l writings. I n these Rousseau a dvocates what amounts to a democratic form of govern ment

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based on what he calls the General Will. the rational will of all the n:�mbers �f the state , and a society composed of independen t cl tlzens, with a widespread ownership of property. As a corollary of this political aim he advocated freedom of thought, simplicity i n social life, independenc e a n d individualism in m e n . tmile, the hero of Rousseau ' s educational programme, is to be brought up with what Marxists would call the 'bourgeois' virtues. This, or something like this, is the undeclared aim of the educa­ tion a l theory-the m aking of the bourgeois citizen , the middle-class man of the new social order. The declared aim is put somewhat differently. In Emile, Rousseau does not call for the making of a bourgeois citizen as such. Instead, he appeals for a 'return to n ature' , and his educational theory is often represented as a ' naturalist' revolt against formalism . Rousseau advocates, not bour­ geois man, but what he sometimes calls the 'natural' man, and the educational policy he offers is one 'according to n ature'. Now in dealing with this slogan we are in some difficulty since the term 'nature' is one of considerable ambiguity and Rousseau uses it in more than one way. Consequently students of Rousseau have to do a good deal of interpretation to bring out at all clearly what his message is, and there is always the possibility that his meaning may be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Rousseau's claim is that education should be 'according to nature ' , and tmile is to be the 'natural m a n ' . Several things may be meant by this, but for the moment we will deal with only two of them. By 'nature' may be meant the way things are in the world of sense experience. This is n ature in the sense in which rocks and trees, sunshine and rain are a part of n ature, the sense in which a child is a n atural object. In this case, to follow nature would be to treat the c hild as a human animal. according to the laws of its growth, the development of its various faculties, its maturation. No doubt this is at least partly what Rousseau meant. He wanted to concentrate attention on the child as a c hild. He reacted strongly against the eighteenth century fashion of treating children as though they were little adults a nd c hildhood as an inconvenient period of imperfection to be disguised and got through as quickly as possible. Rousseau points out that chi ldren are not adults , cer­ tainly n ot m iniature adults. They do not think as adults do, nor do they have the same needs, interests or concerns as adults; they should not be regarded as imperfect adults or treated as such. Rous­ sea u , it has been said, 'discovered the c hild' , emphasising that child­ hood was a distinct and important part of the individua l's life, with its own peculiar development, its own typical ways of thinking and feeling. and its own perfection. Child-rearing , he thought, should be 33

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a m atter of respecting the child's nature as a growing. developing being, to enable it to reach the perfection of childhood. Chi ldhood should be a time when the child lived a life of sensations rather than of knowledge. a l ife of experience through the sen ses, a period of coming to terms with the natural world about h i m . I t was not a t ime for adult concerns, or even preparation for adult concerns­ this would come l ater. Childhood was to be the 'sleep of reason ' . a n d a n education according to nature would b e one which recog­ n ised this and took due account of the child's l ife i n the 'country of sens ations'. There i s also. however. i n Rousseau another notion which bears on this point, in which 'nature' is contrasted favourably w i t h 'soci a l ' . Rousseau had argued i n t w o earlier works . the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts and the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, that m a n i s not improved b y civi l i sation . and t h a t i n some pre-social 'state of nature' h e w a s superior i n goodness t o the artificial. civilised man of modem society. This c l a i m would ha rd ly stand up to a nthropological enquiry but Rousseau uses i t as a hypothesis to account for the presence of evil in the world. This , h e a lleged. comes. n o t from m a n ' s original nature, w hich is good . but from the corruption brought about by society. This doctrine may support a belief that what is required for the regenera tion of m a n i s the removal o f arbitrary social restraints. t h e corrupting influences of social life, so that t he na tural goodness of the indiv idu a l m ay be revealed. This same doctrine may be used to un derwri te an in fluen­ tial interpretation of Rousseau's \· iews on child-rea ring . The child is assumed to be na turally good. so that all that is needed for his upbringing is a watchful passivity by his teacher, w ho is not to impose adult social res traints on him but rather i s there to provide opport un ities for him t o develop his innate goodness. There is m u c h i n Rousseau t o support s u c h a view . a t least as regards t h e n urture of the young child. fm ile is to be brou ght up in the country. away from the town . H e is not to be taught adult moral standa,rds. t hese w i l l mean nothing to h i m . He is to be as free as his situation permits. He is to be controlled by his ov..-i1 l i m i tat ions in the face of natural obstacles to his will and . s o far as his real needs as a child are concerned , by the dictates of his Tutor. w hose \V ill is to seem to f.mile an impersonal force like that shown by the i ntractable 'things' of nature. fmile is not to be restrained at this time by merely soc ial conventions. These will have their force w hen he is a man, but by then his 'natural' goodness will have been developed, and even if he has to live in a corrupt society he will not be corrupted by it. He will be the 'sav age w h o can live i n the town' , the n atural m a n a t home in society. ( 3 8 . B k 3 ) This strain i n Rous­ seau has prompted more than one experiment i n the permissive

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upbringing of c hildren , with an emphasis on their innate goodness and on the perils of adult restraints on childish ways. These views allow us to give one interpretation to Rousseau's thesis that education should be according to nature. Education, it m ay be said, should be natural in that it follows the child-like nature of the pupil, accommodating his nurture to his age and his real needs as a c hild and not to the requirements of the adult he may become. The emphasis is to be on activity by the child, on a widen­ ing of his experience, on his exploration of his environment, on the satisfaction of his present needs and interests. In Book 2 of 'Emile, Rousseau develops this idea of a practical, experiential, first-hand education. The child is to be concerned with things rather than with words, with the concrete world about him rather than with books and formalised knowledge. Everything he is required to learn is to be immediately relevant to him as a child. Education should be n atural, too, in the sense that it should aim at releasing the n atural man, here understood as the free, unspoiled being who is usually confined beneath the social veneer. This may well be taken as a gospel of freedom for the children, a cry for a 'negative' education , a policy of minimal restraint on the child's innate spon­ taneity of impulse. Interpreted in this way Rousseau's theory is 'progressive' rather than tradition al, child-centred rather than teacher-centred or subject-centred. Those who have subsequently offered progressive theories of education, Pestalozzi and Froebel for example, have all been influenced by such an interpretation. Those who do not see education in 'progressive' terms have been inclined to blam e Rousseau for an approach they regard as anti­ intellectual, anti-social and, in so far as it is thought to play down the idea of initiating the child into traditional areas of formal knowledge, anti-educational. A reading of Rousseau may lead to such an interpretation. But, as suggested earlier, another interpretation is possible. I t may be said that it is wrong to suppose that Rousseau sees the 'natural man' simply in terms of a pre-social innocence, as a 'noble savage'. There was a view, not uncommon in the eighteenth century, that m an is a perfectible being, that there is no assignable limit to his possible improvement. Man, the optimistic humanist philosophes of eighteenth-century France thought, is held back from perfection by his imperfect social arrangements. His condition depends entirely on his environment and its influence. This environment is alterable and, given adequate social and educational arrangements, man's future is one of continuous amelioration of his circum­ stances and improvement of his faculties. Education, in a broad sense, was the key to perfectibility. 'Education peut tout', declared Helvetius, one of Rousseau's contemporaries. Rousseau may be 35

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thought to subscribe to this perfectibilist view when, i n the Dis­ course on the Origin of Inequality he maintains that man differs from the animals in being able to perfect himself through the development of his reason. ( 1 7, C h . 3 ) So i t is possible to see Rousseau's natural man as idealised man , not the uncorrupted savage of a pre-social past, but the perfected man of the future. I n this case, making the natural m a n would n o t b e a matter of throw­ ing off social restraints and certainly not a mat ter of playing down man's intellectual heritage in the interests of a childish integrity. It would, instead, involve reconstructing, positively, on a rational basis, those social conditions necessary for a free m a n in a n improving society, a nd of using t h e w hole of ma n's intellectual capital to further his development. The Social Con tract, Emile. and an 'education according to nature' make good sense on this assumption. Rousseau's theory thus interpreted would amount to the recommendation that the child should be so taught that his nature would be realised to the full . tha t h e should become the free, morally-mature citizen, ideal man. (45, Ch. 2) It is likely that such an interpretation is closer to what Rousseau really meant. It is certainly more consistent with the view ex­ pressed in Emile taken as a whole. The former interpretation with its stress on the negative approach to education gains most support from the earlier parts of the book. which deal \Vith the educa tion of young children . The later interpretation . w hich takes into account Rousseau's insistence on a change to a positive education as f:mile grows older, makes sense of much that otherwise seems puzzling in Rousseau. It would absolve him from ch.u ges of incon­ sistency, of maintaining that men should be both 'natural men' and 'citizens', and that, whilst social influences corrupt , the adolescent f:mile should none the less be schooled in that social herit age. Rousse t� 's message could then be given fairly simply and intel­ ligibly. � ducation is the means to producing the natural man; the 'nature' referred to here is man's ideal self . the 'perfected' iman . The society which corrupts is the imperfect society of the day. which needs to be refashioned to give effect to the general will of its citizens. I n the making of the natural man all the intellectual heritage of humankind is to be deployed. although. of course , it is to be made available to the pupil on ly in so far as i t is relevant to his present needs and experience. In re.1 lising his nature as a man. his 'nature' as a child, a growing. developing being. must not be ignored. y_ After this somewhat compressed account of Rousseau' s educa­ tional thinking we may look again at his theory in the light of the assumptions made in it. Rousseau makes an initial assumption of value, that the end of the educational process should be the 'natural 36

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man'. He makes, too, an assumption about the raw material of education , human nature, to the effect that men, or children, are born good, naturally good. He also makes the assumption that men are, in some sense, perfectible. Lastly, he makes certain assumptions about what knowledge is appropriate and what methods are best calculated to realise the end. That knowledge is appropriate which fits in with Emile's n ature as a child and as a man, his n ature as a growing being and as a candidate for per­ fectibility. Beginning with simple sensory awareness it goes on to include the traditional formalised culture of humankind, 'mathe­ m atics and science, history and philosophy, literature and religion. The methods to be recommended are those which, to begin with, encourage Emile to explore his world and to learn at first hand what he needs to know. As he gets older first hand knowledge gives way to learning from books, active exploration of the environment is supplemented by teaching about the ways of men and institutions; the simple development of the senses is followed by activities designed to develop social and moral attitudes which become a man, a husband and a citizen. On the basis of these assumptions Rousseau advocates the pedagogy of Emile, which, so far as its emphasis on child activity and respect for children goes, has brought about a revolution in educational methods since his day. iv

The educational theory of James Mill

The educational theory to be examined next is that of the group of early nineteenth century thinkers known as the English Utilitarians. The Utilitari ans, the more important of whom were Bentham, James Mill and John Stuart Mill, were social critics and reformers of great influence. They lived when England was ch anging from a predominantly agricultural country to the foremost indu strial coun­ try in the world, and they became deeply involved in the social and political movements which accompanied this change. With them, as with Plato and Rousseau, we can distinguish between the declared and undeclared elements in their political and social theories. England at this time was undergoing a shift from a semi­ feudal kind of society in which men had traditional places and roles, to a society of 'free' and 'independent' individuals. 'free', that is, of traditional roles. A 'market economy', a competitive arena for individual energies and talents, was replacing the paternalistic regime which had lasted more or less since medieval times. In this new economic clim ate, an energetic and individualistic 'middle class' , thrifty, prudent and industrious, was making its way, coming in time to own the coal mines and cotton mills and to sit in the reformed parliaments from 1 8 3 2 onwards. It would not be greatly 37

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overstating the truth to say that the Utilitarians were t h e voice of this new middle class and that their social theories supported t he new order. This was not always explicitly declared in t h ei r recom­ mendations. When they advocated parliamentary, legal. economic or educational reform they did not usually refer to the desirability of establishing a middle-class society. Instead, they spoke of the need to promote the 'greatest happiness of the greatest n um ber ' . This was the celebrated 'principle of u tility' which they used t o m easure the adequacy o f a n y institution, l a w or social practice t h a t came to their attention. I f i t could be shown t h a t these t h ings did not or were not likely to m axim ise the general happiness, this, the Utilitarians held, was a good reason for altering t he m , for repealing the law or amending the practice. They conceived of the p ublic happiness in middle-class terms and were tireless in s hovdng t hat much of the social fabric of the time was not c a lculated to promote such happiness. Their historical task was to bring social institutions into conformity with the c hanging economic conditions of t heir day . The Utilitarians saw in education a p owerful reforming device. Education, they realised, was a means of bringing up future generations to behave in ways likely to rea l ise the Utilitari a n ideal. Their theory of education was simple and it was set out with a brief clarity by James Mill, in t he essay on 'Educ a t ion' published in a supplement to the Ency clopaedia Bri tann ica in 1 8 2 i . ( 25) The theory is admirable for our present purpose since. resting on a few simple assumptions and pointing to. though not specifying in det a i l . p edagogical recommenda tions of a somewhat uncompromising kind, i t reveals its basic structure in a transparent way. Mill begins with an assumption about t h e aim of education. This follows from his general positio n . that the purpose of all rational activity ought to be to increase the amount of happiness in the world and to diminish the amount of p .1 in. This is , for him, what politics, econom ics , law, morals and education are all a9out. The over-riding aim in education is to p roduce the kind of man whose actions a re likely to i n crease. not only his own happiness . but a lso that of everyone who has deal ings \Vi t h h i m . The end of educa tion, he says. is to render the human m ind, as far JS possibl e , the ca use of h u m a n happiness. An educated m a n would be Utili­ tarian Ma n . Mill thought thJt such a man would have the virtues of temperance, generosity and j ustice, al lied with what he calls 'intell igence' , which includes bot h knowledge zmd sagacity . know­ ing abou t the world and being able to use that knowledge. Such virtues and accomplishments were. in fact, j ust those which would enable him to live well in the individualistic kind of society the

Utilitarians were helping to bring about. 38

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Mill's theory involves two important assumptions about those who are to be educated. First, that they are essentially selfish. Men can only act in such ways as they think will increase their own pleasure or avoid pain for themselves. This is the doctrine of psychological hedonism, accepted generally by the Utilitarians. Mill does not admit this doctrine explicitly in the essay, but it is to be found in other writings of his and it is implied in what he does say in the essay about human motives. The second assumption, once again implicit rather than spelt out in the essay, is that men are born intellectually empty. Their minds at birth are, metaphorically, like clean slates, or perhaps empty rooms, and need to be written on by experience, or filled up with mental furniture. This assumption comes from Locke, the seventeenth-century philo­ sopher, and was commonly held by the empiricist philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I t was thought that we received 'sensations' or 'impressions' from the world outside us and that these sensations or impressions were taken into the mind, which was represented as a kind of non-spatial warehouse in which experiences could be stored, sorted and compared. Sensations or impressions could be reproduced as 'ideas', by means of the memory and the imagination . To remember was to bring out an idea from its storage place; to forget was to be unable to find some mental acquisition; to use the imagination was to join up ideas in a free and fanciful way with no necessary correspondence to the real world. We still talk in this way when we speak of a man h aving a 'well-stored mind', or of someone being 'empty headed', and Mr Gradgrind in Dickens's Hard Times echoed this assumption w hen he regarded the children in school as there simply to be 'filled up with facts' . The traditional model of education owes much to this view. The important point, however, is that all our ideas are thought to come to us from experience, and so the kind of ideas a man has will depend on the experiences he has. For Mill, then, the raw material of education was an individual, essentially egoistic, who could be put in the way of sensations and ideas by a suitable manipulation of his environment and experiences. Mill's theory also involved assumptions about the nature of knowledge and the effectiveness of pedagogical methods. With the 'clean slate' view of the mind went the doctrine that ideas tend to associate together according to the frequenc;:y with which the corresponding elements in the external world are experienced to­ gether. The sensation of fire, for example, is usually accompanied by the sensation of heat, so the two related ideas ':ill be closely associated in our minds. Whenever we see a fire or thmk of one we think of it as hot. Similarly, we expect ice to be cold and un39

H I S TO R I C A L

T H E O RI E S

O F

E D UCATION

supported objects to fall, simply because we have experienced these connections frequently in the p ast. Some connections between sensations and ideas are natural, in that they depend on the n ature of the physical world. Fire and heat, solidity and weight, a re n a tural associations and such connections consti tute 'scientific' know ledge. Other associations are artific ial in that they depend on h u m an choice and decision, and so constitute 'moral' knowledge . The association between the ideas of 'steal ing' and 'punishment' is not a natural association . Society decides to p unish t hieves ; no-one decides that fires should be hot. I t was also a p art of the doctrine that associations tend to be strengthened \vhen they involve p leasurable conseq uen ces t o the individual, for example, the associ­ ation between the idea of virtuous conduct and the idea of a reward. Mill accepted this doctrine more or l ess i n full . so that for h i m knowledge w a s s i m p l y a matter of having those associations of ideas which corresponded to the natural zmd artificial facts of the world, or, more strictly, to the order of the sensati o ns we m a y have . Education on this view is nothing more than the forming in the p u pil's mind certain desirable tra ins of ideas . by presenting him with certain sequences of sensations. The associations required w ill be those which form the basis of the desired kind of be haviour, those which constitute the knowledge and attitudes most l ikely to p roduce hdppiness for the p upil and for others. The Uti litarian curriculum, not given in detai l in the essay. would provide for associations of the natural kind , knowledge of the physical world and the behaviour of other people. This would enable the pupil to make correct predictions about the fut ure course of events and to act accordingly. It would provide also for associ.1tions of the artificial sort , giving knowledge about how one ought to beh.we. the basis o f g e n e r o u s . prudent. :r nd equitable actions. It would include , p resumably. the disciplines of science and m .:n hematics. history and geography. and 'moral' subj ects like l iteratu re . philo­ sophy and religion . Possessing this knowledge thl' p upil w o u l d be able to act in a rational w.1 y . b.1srd on :i co rr e ct a p p reciat i on of his situa tion . But merely being in possession of the right associ­ at ions of ideas \\' i l l not of i t se l f produce t h e desired cond uct. This must come from moral training .rn d persuasion. �1 ill assumes that the pupil will only .1ct to p ro mo te his own happiness , so he m ust be taught to associate h is own h.1 p piness w ith that of others. Mill calls this 'social education ' . It ta kes the form of associating the idea o f social :i pp ro v al with the desi red behaviour and disapproval with behavio u r t o be discouraged . 1 hese forces, by acting on the individual's desire for happiness and the avoidance of pain would. Mill thinks, be well nigh irresistible in moulding character i n the desired way.

40

HISTORICAL THEORIES

OF

E DUCATION

Mill does not give any detailed pedagogical recommenda tions i n the essay, h olding that to do so was impracticab le in a brief article. We could, however, infer from his psychology what h is a ssu mptions abou t methods would be. The psycho logical assump­ . t10ns were that if two sensations or ideas are joined frequently in experienc e the occurrence of one of them w i l l tend to be accom­ panied or followed by the other. The most effective methods then would be those that secured the systematic joining of certain sensations and ideas in the pupil, by presenting him with t hose con­ j unctions frequently and making their establishment i n his mind a source of satisfaction to him. Mill in fact used such methods i n t h e education of his o w n children. In p rp onse. By co ntras t . a c ti v i ties like. say, playing d arts or doing jigsaw pu zzles . do not generally lead on t o much beyond t hem sel ves and so do not widen one's horizons to any great exten t , and so do n o t . i n Dewey's sense . lead on t o , or constitute, grm,v t h . G rowth. for Dewey . involws the extension and development of one's powers and p oss ibilit ies :is a hum�rn being. and for him ontinued growt h is synonymous \\' i t h .

successful living.

Dewey usually iden t ifies 'educ. 1 t ion' w i t h ' grow th ' and :>ees it as a process of con tin uous interact ion between t h e indi\' i d u a l :i n d h i s e n v iron m e n t . going o n t h roughout life . .rnd not to be t hought of simply in te rms of form a l sch ooli n g . This iden tifica tion of educ. 1 t ion with person al growth inhibits h i m from adm i tting .my ext e rna l end to be served b y e