122 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION AND PUBLIC 

 OPINION. 



THE editor of the Revue des Deux 

 Mondes contributes to a recent 

 number of that periodical an article 

 entitled Education and Instruction, 

 in which are some things with which 

 we heartily agree and others from 

 which we are compelled to dissent. 

 The article as a whole, however, is 

 of undoubted value, inasmuch as it 

 sets for^h the true theory of educa- 

 tion, while what we regard as errors 

 are in matters of detail. M. Brune- 

 tiere remarks at the outset that for- 

 merly the ideas of education and of 

 instruction were but little distin- 

 guished from each other. True, to 

 instruct meant " to furnish," and to 

 educate meant "to lead forth" or 

 "develop" and so "to mold" ; but 

 it was always assumed that the fur- 

 nishings provided for the mind would 

 be of such a nature, and would be so 

 imparted, as to promote development 

 and favor true culture ; and thus the 

 words were to a great extent used 

 interchangeably. In the present day 

 we are compelled to separate their 

 meanings, owing to the fact that, 

 in our modern systems of so-called 

 "education," while much effort is 

 concentrated on fitting up the mind 

 with an equipment of knowledge, 

 the right direction of mental growth, 

 and, above all, the right develop- 

 ment of character, receive but little 

 attention, and indeed are almost left 

 out of sight. Our children are in- 

 structed in the schools of to-day; 

 but, he maintains, they are not edu- 

 cated in the true sense. Personally, 

 he expresses his regret that educa- 

 tion was not allowed to remain a 

 private matter; but seeing that it 

 has passed into the hands of the 



state, we have simply to see what 

 we can do to get the maximum of 

 good out of the huge mechanism 

 which the state has set up. 



Now it might readily have been 

 supposed by any one speculating be- 

 fore the event, that when state edu- 

 cation became general it would at 

 least have one strong point: it would 

 aim at fitting the rising generation 

 for social and political life ; it would 

 aim at overcoming or at least tem- 

 pering in the interest of the com- 

 munity the natural selfishness of the 

 individual. The error in this calcu- 

 lation would have lain in imagining 

 that the state, as represented by in- 

 dividuals, has any consciousness of 

 its own interests. The individuals 

 in question have a consciousness of 

 their own interests; the best among 

 them have, in additiou, some sense 

 of public duty ; but the state can not, 

 through the officers and teachers it 

 appoints, study and strive after its 

 own interests as the individual stud- 

 ies and strives after his. Hence, in 

 any system of public education, the 

 claims of the state never get more 

 than a partial and fitful recognition : 

 the whole drift of the work done is 

 in the direction of an intensified in- 

 dividualism, or, as M. Brunetiere ex- 

 presses it, " la culture intensive du 

 Moi" the intensive culture of the 

 Ego. Referring to the statement 

 made by Sir John Lubbock that the 

 progress of education and that of 

 morality kept pace in England, M. 

 Brunetiere exclaims : " Happy Eng- 

 land! and most fortunate accident! 

 for statistics have brought nothing 

 similar to light in France or any- 

 where else, in Germany or in Amer- 

 ica. In these countries, on the con- 

 trary, we see that quite ignorant 



