should have a rational attitude to all knowledge, and be open to the influences and experiences and questions of life from day to day. Encyclopaedism, not of acquired knowledge, but of faculty and interest-that is what we aim at.

In respect then both of Aim, Method, and Matter of Education I claim Locke as essentially a Humanist, who had gone astray on the subject of language and discipline in his Thoughts, while he corrected himself in his Conduct of the Understanding. Had he deliberately connected the latter work with the former he would have seen the true significance, and indeed the necessity, of language-discipline in the school. By what other road indeed save Language and Mathematics is it possible for a man to reach that Ideal of Reason which he sketches in the more advanced book, the statement of his latest thoughts and not published till after his death? Locke's supreme defect, which detracts from his Humanistic claims, was his inability to see the educative effect of literature as such, and his entire ignorance of the relation of the aesthetic emotions to the moral and religious education of youth.

I have dwelt longer on Locke than on any other educational writer because I consider him the greatest of them all, in spite of his attitude to Language and Literature, and his encyclopaedism. After all, the encyclopaedism is justifiable from his point of view; for he was considering the all-round education of a young gentleman" only; nor did he for a moment contemplate that all the subjects he recommends should be taught in schools. As to the middle and artizan classes, he belonged to his own epoch and considered that a knowledge of the Bible and of their own trades would suffice. Notwithstanding his debt to Rabelais, and still more to Montaigne, his educational conceptions are in the truest sense his own'.

1 His Essay on Study (collected from his Journal) should be read as an appendix to the Conduct of the Understanding. It is printed by Quick at the end of his edition of the Thoughts.

CHAPTER XVI.

HERBERT SPENCER, THE MODERN

SENSE-REALIST.

I HAD not intended in this volume to speak of the educational system of any contemporary, but on reflection it seemed to me that an exception should be made in the case of Mr Herbert Spencer, whose little volume has had so wide a circulation. And this because I consider him to be the most eminent and most logical representative of the Naturalistic School of Philosophy, sometimes called Sensationalist, Utilitarian and Phenomenalist1. It is most instructive I think to have before us an illustration of the fact that the philosophy of a man must determine his educational theory and his advice to the world as to educational practice.

It is in the bearing of a philosophical theory on Moral Education-the ethical ideal which we propose to ourselves in educating that we see the true significance of the philosophy we profess or affect, and it is this to which I would chiefly refer in the subsequent remarks.

But first, in justice to Mr Spencer, I must say something on his educational aim. It is "Complete Living." No one can take exception to the phrase so far as it goes, but when we look to its definition by Mr Spencer himself, we find that it

1 Not that any of these terms accurately describes Mr Spencer's philosophical position.

practically means the adaptation of man to his environment— environment of nature and of other men with whom he is associated in a political society-"in what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what way to utilize those sources of happiness which nature supplies; how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others." If we learn to do all this we have attained to "Complete Living." But inasmuch as we cannot exhaust a complete preparation, we must lay chief stress on the most important subjects.

The subject of primary importance is the preservation of health and life. Therefore teach physiology, that is to say, in the sense of Hygiene.

Next comes preparation for making a living, and as all industrial activities rest ultimately on science, the subject next in importance to physiology is Science in general and in particular.

After this will naturally come instruction in the rearing of offspring. This also depends on Science. Then also the moral discipline of offspring can be illuminated only by mental

science.

Next come the functions of the Citizen-History properly understood and presented, and Economics. The key is here again Science.

Finally, those occupations which promote the enjoyment of life and are for leisure are not to be neglected, but postponed; and even these things Literature, Art, etc., though it may not be at first sight obvious, rest for their true appreciation on Science. "Accomplishments, the fine Arts, Literature, etc.," all those things which constitute the efflorescence of civilization should be wholly subordinate to that instruction and discipline on which investigation rests. "As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should they occupy the leisure part of education.”

Science, also, is not only best for knowledge, but for intellectual discipline. Nay also, it has direct bearing on the moral perceptions and the religious emotions. Thus to the question "What knowledge is of most worth?" the uniform reply is 'Science.' And to the question "What discipline is of most worth?" the answer is again 'Science'; and this even in the moral and religious sphere.

We see in all this the most logical and lucid exposition of the educational theory of the Sense-realistic school. It rests on a philosophy of man, which amounts to this, that man's task on this earth is, like that of any other sentient organism, to adapt himself to his environment in order that he may live comfortably, and, as a condition of comfort, reputably. Morality even is subordinated to comfortable living-called Complete Living. The theory opposed to this, as light to darkness, we have called the Real-humanistic. Its aim is not complete living but complete life. It may be summed up as character and culture. It seeks to define the life of man as that of a spirit which rises above its environment and seeks ideal aims, ethical, aesthetic, and religious, and a will formed to right conduct. But it does not, on that account, ignore the claims of a knowledge of the phenomenal world and of society and of man's relations to both. It assumes this as necessary alike to conduct and the highest spiritual life; but in the education of the people, as in the development of the man to his full manhood, it regards the knowledge of all that has to do with the body and with nature as merely contributory to true education.

The best reply to Spencer is Locke, although he was no idealist. And all I would say here is that, suppose we had a man with all the pigeon-holed acquirements that Mr Spencer would give him, we should say 'Now let us begin to educate him.' In fact suppose an anthropoid ape who had lost the divine gift of instinct and was endowed with the imperfect beginnings of reason instead, and Mr Spencer's system of

education would be admirable. The literary, aesthetic, religious and even morality as an ideal system of perfection, are all decorative merely. The intelligent anthropoid ape's desire for decoration would be satisfied with coloured ribbons and straw which please the village idiot, and would rightly be postponed to material necessities. Man's function on earth, we believe, is to use his environment as a mere basis for higher things-the things by which men truly live, and these must from the first and all through, constitute the substance of his education.

Assuredly, we all hope never to be, and never to meet, that incorporation of the elements of all the sciences which Mr Spencer calls a man, even though endowed with the pru- · dential bourgeois morality which by the help of the police keeps things going. A classical prig and pedant is bad enough, but, after all, he is in touch with the best in humanity: the prig pedant who has fed on the dry crumbs of science since he was a baby would be wholly intolerable. There is surely some other ideal of the completely educated man which carries us far beyond the sphere of "complete living" in the Spencerian sense. The total inadequacy of sense-realism to conceive such a theory will I think be well illustrated by turning to Mr Spencer's special treatment of Moral Education which has not so far as I know been subjected to adverse criticism, attention having for the most part been directed to the intellectual part of his treatise.

But before doing so I would say that Mr Spencer's chapter on Method, although it is, perhaps because it is, a collection of recognized precepts lucidly and logically put, is well worthy of the perusal, both of teachers and theorists.

Moral Education.-A Criticism.

I heartily concur with Mr Spencer, both in the beginning and the conclusion of his chapter on "Moral Education." His first paragraph concludes with this utterance:-"The subject