Chapter 5 Psychology in Relation to Current Thought
Educational Thought in the Eighteenth Century.––If the end of the eighteenth and the end of the nineteenth centuries have one feature in common more than another, it is, that in both education comes to the front as among the chief ends of man. The eighteenth-century people had the best of it. They had clear oracles in their Locke and their Rousseau. They knew what they wanted to do, and they did it with charming enthusiasm. The period teems with memoirs; and it is very pleasant to read about the philosophically and consistently brought up children of the more thoughtful families. They had convictions, and they had the courage of their convictions. We are less happy. A few decades ago we too were in a furore of joyous excitement about education. Educational ‘movements,’ schools, colleges, lectures, higher education for women, ‘public’ day schools for girls, examination tests which should give assurance on every point, were multiplied all over the country and all over the world. It was a forward movement which has brought us incalculable gains; and not the least of these gains is the fact that today we are dissatisfied and depressed, and inclined to wonder whether we are not on the wrong tack. If educational work of the best kind had not been going on amongst us for the last two or three decades, we should not have arrived at this ‘divine discontent.’ All the same, it is pretty evident that the time has come when we must change our front. Now, elementary schools, now, girls’ high schools, now, public schools, now, women’s colleges, are pronounced to be, on the whole, ‘a failure.’ They do a great deal, it is said, but is what they do worth doing? Is it, in fact, education? The bolder sceptics go so far as to attack our two ancient universities; but they, very likely, will weather the storm because of the very inertness, the ‘masterly inactivity,’ let us call it, which their opponents abuse; the universities do a great deal of ‘letting-alone.’