1874 — Meeting, The British Association, Belfast, United Kingdom

I feel that in coming forward as a speaker in a meeting like this, where I should be amongst the humblest of listeners, I lay myself open to the charge of presumption. But even the humblest may, without presumption and with some hope of being useful  point to a great gap in our knowledge, to the fog lying across the road we must travel, and urge that light should be brought to bear upon it. This is all I propose to attempt, and if I can convince you, not that I know anything about education, but that, with exceptions few and far between, none of us know it as it ought to be known, and that this ignorance is a grievous hindrance to human progress and happiness, I shall have succeeded to the utmost of my expectations. I must begin by forestalling the question which the title of my paper will surely raise: Is there, or can there be a science of education? If the general public were polled on this question, I have no doubt the negative would be affirmed by an immense majority, and I am afraid the result would scarcely differ if the educational public only were consulted . There is but one of our educational corporations, and that not one of the elder and more illustrious — the College of Preceptors — which has recognized the fact by appointing a professor of the Science and Art of Education. I remember when the appointment was made , seeing at the mention of it, a smile curl the lips of more than one ardent advocate of National Education who evidently thought the professorship an absurdity, and the Science to be professed a crotchet of the professor. And yet no man could be better fitted for the office by his profound knowledge of the subject, than the gentleman appointed, Mr. Joseph Payne. Some years ago the same contempt would have been felt for the Art of Education, and the idea that teaching is a profession requiring special preparation is even yet only partially admitted in theory and not at all recognized in practice beyond the sphere of elementary school — teachers. In every German and Swiss University there is a professor of Pedagogy or the art and method of teaching; but in our Universities the thing is as unknown as the word, and all the secondary education of both sexes is in the hands of those who have never even been taught that there is such an art. Slowly, however, it is dawning on the public mind that teachers require training in their profession, and that if we want our children to be well taught we must make some provision for instructing their teachers in the best methods, and testing the results.

It is the natural course of things that the need of an art should be felt before that of the science whence its rules, so far as they are sound, must be derived. A thing has to be done, and the way to do it somehow, is learnt by practical experiment. All our arts have passed through this period of rule of thumb before the progress of knowledge led to the application to them of scientific methods  So children have had to be taught, and have been taught by methods acquired in the same rough and ready way. But while no educated person will deny the superiority of scientific over unscientific methods in every other department of human activity, how is it that so many in this country deny or disbelieve in it in education?

I think the answer lies in this, that there is no adequate or definite general conception of what education is, and therefore of the magnitude and complexity of the facts on which a science of education, which I need scarcely say can never be an exact, but only a mixed and applied science, must be based. If we had such a conception, giving us a standard by which to measure success or failure, we should at once feel the necessity of scientific methods to realize it. Instead of it we start in this country with a confusion of terms, using education where we should properly use instruction, speaking of persons as well — educated who are simply well — informed, and the confusion of thought indicated by these misnomers, runs through our whole treatment of the subject, theoretical and practical. Every Parliamentary debate on education, every discussion of educational topics in public or private, especially of the education of the working classes and of women, brings out this confusion  I could from my own experience give plentiful illustrations of it from every class of society, illustrations which from the laughable ignorance they display of a subject so momentous, might be described, as I once heard described some anecdotes about the poor, as both “lugubrious and entertaining. “Education for the labouring classes, beyond the barest elements of instruction, is opposed on the ground that it is of no use to them in their condition of life, and sets them above it; and one is gravely told by persons not otherwise wanting in right and kindly feeling, that they should be kept uneducated for the sake of their employers. Education for women beyond what the fashion of the day has sanctioned, is opposed on similar grounds, and one is assured with equal gravity that they should be kept without it for the convenience of men; or it is suggested that cooking, with a sufficient skill in sewing on shirt-buttons, is the proper form it should take. There is no conception of education as the direction given to the development of the whole human being, by the external influences brought to bear upon him, aiding, arresting, or distorting his growth; no ideal of what that development should be; no clear sense of the vital importance to the individual, and to society, that education should be conducted in accordance with the laws, or to use a less ambiguous word, with the order of nature, physical, mental, and social. We should hold him a fool who trusted his farm, his gardens, or his racing stud to persons ignorant of the first principles of agriculture, gardening, or horse-breeding; yet we unhesitatingly trust our children during the years when every faculty is most plastic, and their nature most sensitive to external influences, first to servants, ignorant of everything but the routine prescribed by the social position of their masters, and then, at a later, but not less critical age, to tutors and governesses who may know Greek and Latin, French and German, but have never even thought of learning anything of the nature of their pupils, or of the complex conditions of every kind which must influence them for good or evil. Every mother is credited with an intuitive knowledge of infant management , as if the wants of a human child were as simple and as easily supplied by instinctive affection as those of the chick or the lamb, and it is adduced as the principal reason for denying to women any higher training than that of the average schoolroom, that they are intended to be mother, and therefore cannot want it! The whole process of education is of the happy-go-lucky kind, governed by practical necessities, by customs, fashions, class, habits, and prejudices, by anything but a well-defined purpose, and a scientific method of attaining it. There can, of course, be no science of such an education as that. But in our days, when scientific conceptions are taking the place of unscientific ones in every department of human production, surely it is time that we should form some such conception of the process which should result in the most valuable of all products, human beings developed to the full extent of their natural capacity, trained to understand their work in this world, and to do it. Can we by the application of scientific methods arrive at this result, I will not say with certainty, for the factors are too numerous, and their interaction too complicated, to admit of anything like complete certainty, but with, at least, that approximate certainty, which we feel when a vessel goes to sea, well-built, well-equipped, well-manned, and well-commanded, that she will reach her destined port?

In a passage of his Recollections, the late eminent Italian author and statesman, Massimo d’Azeglio, after glancing over the long series of revolutions and catastrophes which make up the history of Italy, asks, “And why so many falls, so many ruins? Was it perhaps that they knew not how to find the form which makes a civilized and powerful government? No ! It was because they knew not how to form hearts and character; because, in one word, they knew not how to create men.” This is the knowledge which the science of education should give us. Let us look now at the conditions of the problem.

The human being we have to deal with has a threefold nature, — physical, intellectua , and emotional, blended into one indivisible unity, yet subject to different and often conflicting sets of laws, and endowed with the power of volition, which makes him a responsible agent. Certain elements of his constitution are common to him with the whole human race; others are common to him, and that division only of the human race to which he belongs; others common only to his immediate line of descent, and others peculiar to himself, and forming that element of variety from a common type which constitutes his individuality. He is placed under external conditions, physical, mental, and social, which, like the elements of his constitution, may be classed under different degrees of generality, some being common to all human beings, some to all of his time and country and social position, and some peculiar to himself, and forming his individual lot. In the attempt to arrive at general principles we must, of course, leave out of consideration what is peculiar to individuals, although the study of it will form the most important part of the task of the practical educator, just as the scientific pathologist in his general diagnosis of disease and its treatment, leaves out of sight the idiosyncracies of particular patients, which yet are the principal study of the practising physician. But, after deducting this element of individuality  there is left the wide field of general facts and forces, and the study of the combination of these forces, and their resultant influence on the formation of character, is the study of education as a science.

It is at once apparent how large a field of knowledge is thus covered. We must go to physiology for the principles of a physical training which shall not only cultivate health and strength, but also grace and beauty. Let me say, in passing, that the latter seem to me second only to the former in value, and that I wish we could take a lesson from the old Greeks in their respect and care for the temple of the body, leading not to indulgence of its appetite, but to their subjection to the law of healthy and harmonious development. Such regard for the body would involve respect for the form nature gave it, and would forbid modes of dress and living by which it would be injured and distorted. When a generation or two had been educated in these views, we might hope to see the hideous and unhealthy caprices of fashion replaced by the true conception of dress as the complement and set-off, not the distortion of nature’s design.

But to return from this Utopian digression: as we need physiology for the scientific education of the body, so we need psychology for the scientific education of the mind. We must learn from it the natural order of development of the moral and intellectual faculties, their relation to each other as the legislative, the executive and the subject powers in the constitution of man, and thence deduce the methods by which the growth of his faculties may be aided, and this due hierarchy of powers maintained. This will include not only right methods of teaching, but what subjects ought to be taught in accordance with the natural order of development; and thus would be set at rest the ceaseless controversies about what should or should not be taught in schools for boys or girls, or for different classes of society, and a final answer be given to that eternal cui bono which is the bane and the torment of every educational reformer.

In each of the three divisions of mental education, the intellectual, moral and spiritual, there is one paramount object to which all others should be subservient. In intellectual education this is the training of reason to form right judgments; in moral education, it is the discipline of the will to obey the law of duty; in spiritual education, it is the leading of the imagination to conceive of the heart to love and worship, pure and noble ideals finding their sum and perfection in the Supreme ideal, God. How these paramount objects are to be attained must be learnt by study of the mental laws of association and attention which govern the formation of habit, passive and active. When we know how to form habits, we shall have gained the master power of education, the power of creating what has been truly called a second nature, acting as instinctively as the original one. How little this is generally understood may be seen by the common case of education acting by contraries, the son of a miser turning out a spendthrift, the son of a pious clergyman becoming a profligate; a Luther issuing from an Augustine monastery; a Voltaire from a college of Jesuits.

But the study of education as a science must include, besides physiology and psychology (which give only what I may call the statics of human nature), the study of its dynamics, human nature in action, as we see it in the world around us, and as it is recorded in history; not the mere history of wars and dynasties, which ordinarily goes by that name, but the history of human societies, of human development through religion, literature, art, science, and legislation. Only through such observation and study can we arrive at the living springs of human action, and more especially at that spiritual or idealistic element which can as little be seized through the analysis of the psychologist as the vital force by an anatomical dissection, and which yet is the most potent of all. For, as Mr. Morley has truly said, “men are governed by their ideals.”

In the study of education as a science I include not only the education of individuals but that of nations. That nations have a character as well as individuals, and that their prosperity or failure equally depends upon it all history attests. Can any questions be more worthy of scientific study than how these characters are formed? What conditions favour the good and check the evil in them? How far are they modifiable at all by direct action of any sort, legislative or otherwise? How do legislative enactments affect the character of a people; and what are those defects in legislation which make it also act by contraries, and produce or foster the very evils it was intended to check? If it be said that these questions concern the statesman rather than the educator, I answer that the statesman is an educator, and the most important of educators, since his work, directly in some degree, indirectly in a very large degree, helps to form that social atmosphere which is the most active in the education of each individual, before which the wisest teacher will be comparatively powerless. Take only one example. A few years ago Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act, which should properly have been called the Elementary Instruction Act, and it was triumphantly proclaimed that the universal and, if need were, the compulsory teaching of the three R’s, was going to give us an educated people. But the real elementary education act was passed generations ago, when the poor law declared that every man should eat, whether he worked or no. That law is an instance of the working by contraries, for it was directed against vagrancy and mendicity, and for one vagrant and mendicant whom it has suppressed it has created a hundred, and it has educated the most numerous class in the country to consider it their right to be supported, and bring families into the world to be supported by the fruits of other people’s toil. If our statesmen could trace out the educational influence of that law on the successive generations which have entered life under its influence, and had its lessons stamped on their memories in the indelible characters of early habits and associations, would they not stand aghast and pause in wholesome fear before that task of legislative enactment which they are apt to plunge into so lightly, and with such assurance that the good they intend will result from their efforts.

I must refer to the valuable work of Mr. Herbert Spencer on the Study of Sociology for other instances of a similar kind, and I need hardly point out that Sociology, which is in fact the physiology of society, is as important as the basis of the education of nations, as physiology and psychology in the education of individuals. I would refer also to Mr. Spencer’s admirable chapters on the method of studying Sociology and the mental preparation it requires which apply equally to the study of Education, and treat, far better than I could do, a branch of the subject which want of time forbids my touching upon here.

The same difficulty as to time makes it impossible for me to indicate, however briefly, all the practical questions requiring for their solution to be brought to the test of a scientific theory. But there are some which have such a paramount importance at the present time and bear so immediately upon our whole educational system that I must say a few words upon them.

The first of these is the question of class in education. In England and Ireland we have, as a rule, preserved in our educational arrangements the class distinctions which prevail in our society, whilst, as is well known, in Scotland, which had the earliest system of national education; in Germany, in Switzerland, and in the United States no such distinctions prevail, and the primary school, the secondary school, and the University form part of one whole, each giving the instruction suited to a particular age and period of mental development, not to a particular social class.

The impartial study of the two systems in their moral and social as well as purely educational results, leading to some authoritative expression of the balance of evidence on either side, would greatly assist us in dealing with the general problem of national education, and guide us in the gradual remodelling of our educational institutions now going on, under the impulse of that vast movement of transition which characterises our epoch.

A second problem pressing for solution is that of sex in education, and as there is none that touches on such burning questions, so there is none that more urgently requires to be considered in the spirit of scientific enquiry which sets aside prejudice and partisanship and seeks the truth only. Whether the difference between the sexes is one of kind, of degree, or only of proportion between the various mental and moral faculties, and how the difference should be dealt with in education; whether the best training for both sexes can be given by the same methods, under similar school arrangements, by the mixed or by the separate system; whether regular and sustained mental effort under the hygienic conditions equally essential for both sexes, carried on through the transition from girlhood to womanhood, is injurious to the perfect development of women’s physical constitution or tends rather to calm and steady their nervous system and establish the healthy balance between the intellectual and emotional nature essential to the sound mind in a sound body what, in short, is the true type of perfect womanhood, and by what process of education it is to be developed, all these questions are waiting for impartial study and solution, and it is not too much to say that upon their right solution the future health and happiness of our race largely depends.

The last point I shall mention is the system of examinations which has of late years assumed such vast proportions as practically to govern our whole scholastic procedure. Examinations which were intended to test the progress of the learner are now in danger of becoming the sole end and aim of learning. Instead of the examination following as it ought the lead of the teaching, the teaching all works up to the examination. It is therefore of primary importance that we should decide on some scientific principle what is the right system of examination, whether it should be mainly directed to test the acquisition and retention of knowledge, or the power of using the knowledge acquired, whether the knowledge tested shall be that of words and rules, or of ideas and principles underlying the rules; whether the power it rewards shall be that of accurately remembering facts or of accurately reasoning from the facts remembered. Since an examination is now made the inevitable portal through which every professional career must be entered, I venture to say that as is our system of examination, so will be our system of education; the results it tests or rewards will be the only ones generally aimed at.

I shall no doubt be asked, with a smile of more or less derision, whether I expect every tutor and governess and mother of a family to master this vast range of knowledge and be prepared with solutions of all these problems. My answer is, that I no more expect it than we expect the captain of a ship to construct the chart he sails by, and still less create the science of navigation. What I want is to see our schoolmasters and mistresses and all concerned in practical education, placed in the same position as our navigators, furnished with the principles of a science they have not had to discover for themselves, and with charts to guide their general course, while leaving to their individual judgment and acumen the modifications and adaptations required by special circumstances. We have such scientific knowledge to guide us in improving our breeds of cattle, our horses, our dogs, our crops; these are no longer the subject of ignorant empiricism. Must we remain without any such reliable guide in the infinitely more important business of improving our human crop, of getting out of our human soil all that it can be made to yield for social and individual good? Must every tyro still be allowed to try experiments, not in corpore vili, but in the most delicate and precious of materials, the human body and mind; on the most powerful of forces, human passions and the human will? experiments in which success or failure means virtue or vice, happiness or misery, lives worthy or unworthy, sowing with every action a seed of good or ill to reproduce itself in an endless series beyond all human ken? If knowledge giving us any approximate certainty of results so inexpressibly important as these is attainable, can any folly be greater than neglecting to attain it? It may be demanded that I should adduce proofs that the results we at present obtain are so unsatisfactory as to warrant the charges I have brought against our present system or want of system. But if I had attempted anything like full proof I must have doubled or trebled the length of this already tedious paper. I can only refer to the reports of the Public Schools Commission, of the Schools Enquiry Commission, of almost every school inspector since school inspection was instituted, to the reports of the various medical examining bodies, of the Civil Service Commissioners, of the Local University Examinations, and to the unanimous testimony of the best school-masters and mistresses to the miserably defective moral and mental preparation of the greater number of pupils sent to them, whether from home or other schools. Finally, I may refer to the facts of our social life, and ask if they indicate a general diffusion of sound moral and mental culture, or the reverse?

I trust you will not suppose me to mean that nothing has yet been done towards constructing a science of education, or that I forget or undervalue the services rendered to it by writers and practical educators both at home and abroad, in times past and present. But the same dread of trespassing upon your time forces me to be silent, where gratitude and reverence would bid me speak. I contend only that those services have not received their due meed of public recognition and acknowledgment; that the valuable materials they have supplied have not yet been co-ordinated into a body of science taking its place in the recognized hierarchy of sciences. And yet, even here in this Association, where every science has an illustrious representative except this one of education; and it has for its advocate only a woman, — a woman, and therefore weak; a woman, and therefore debarred in youth from aiding her weakness by the higher training reserved for the stronger sex alone, — even here, and such as I am, I dare boldly aver that this science, so little thought of, so contemptuously ignored, is the crowning science of all, for it is the application of all other sciences to the production of the highest of all results, “the perfect man, “brought up to ” the measure of the stature and the fulness” of that Divine image , the germ of which was implanted in his nature, when, in the long series of his evolution from the primæval monad to the human being “so fearfully and wonderfully made,” “the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

Source: Paper on The Study of Education as a Science by Mrs. Wm. Grey, Read at the Meeting of the British Association at Belfast, to Which is Added The Speech Delivered by Mrs. Grey on the 25th August 1874 also at Belfast (London: William Ridgway, 1874), pp. 3-19.