Three Absurdities of Certain Modern Theories of Education [pp. 265-292]

Conservative and Progressive.
servative harmony of thought in reference to all great funda mental truths, which constitutes the only solid basis for an
organic, and, therefore, a real and permanent progress.
Let education, then, be thorough and well-proportioned, as far
as it goes, or, in other words, combining a proper adjustment
of the several departments of knowledge; let it be liberal,.8Ea
E%Evo;~,o5, as Aristotle calls it, that is, for man as man, instead
of being ever warped to those one-sided, partial pursuits, that
have falsely usurped the name of the practical, and which will
ever take care of themselves, without any special patronage;
let it, in short, be predominantly spiritual, in the most catholic
sense of the word, as opposed generally to the materializing
tendency of almost all that goes under the name of business,
and which needs to be repressed rather than stimulated in the
soul's early training: let education have these characteristics,
we say, and without doubt will it be conservative, constructive,
truly progressive, and humane-that is cherishing a respect for
the common reason and universal sentiments of the race, and
for all those institutions which have ever grown out of their
spontaneous action, or which justly claim for themselves a
divine appointment. Such institutions, instead of destroying
for the sake of any untried forms or fancied reforms, it would
ever conserve, by makling them share in the true progress of
the race, so far as such progress may be an upward as well as
an onward movement of our humanity. It would thus conserve, by ever modifying them into fresh channels for good,
and thus regarding them as the abiding media, through which
the best and highest life of which we are capable in this world
is to be developed. Let education, on the other hand, be every
where partial, utilitarian in the ordinary sense of the word,
one-sided-let it be rapid and superficial in its course, as it
can, must, and will be, when regarded as a means to success
in what is called business, or as subordinate to any end
that is actually of a lower nature than itself-let it be predominantly physical and materializing-let it cast off all deference
to authority, and all connexion with the past-let it be proud
of an assumed independence, clamorous for private judgment
in that sense which denies that any truths are conclusively settled for the human reason, boastful of the present, ever strain VOL. XXIII.-NO. II. 26
1851.]
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