]?ARMERs' INSTITUTES. Yll 



to recover warmth. It is still more manifest in the case of complex 

 actions. The action of an engineer, of a surgeon, or of a statesman, in^ 

 volves a quantity of knowledge of A-arious kinds. 



The knowledge which is thus serviceable for doing things or for 

 practice is of two sorts. The first kind of knowledge, being derived 

 from what maj^ be called unrevised experiences and observations is 

 called empirical. The second kind being the outcome of those processes 

 or re\isions and extensions of everyday empirical knowledge which 

 makes up the work of science is named scientific. 



We call any department of practice an art, when the actions ijivolved 

 are of sufficient complexity and difficulty to demand special study, and 

 to offer scope for individual skill. Thus we talk of an art of cooking, 

 because with our advanced civilization the prepara'tion of food has 

 become so elaborate a process as to call forth special preparation or 

 training. Every art requires a certain amount and variety of knowledge. 

 In the earlier stages of development the various arts were carried on 

 by help of empirical knowledge. Thus, in agriculture, men sowed certain 

 crops rather than others in given soil because they and their predecessors 

 had found out from experience that these were the best fitted. 



Similarly, in medicine, men resorted at first to particular remedies in 

 particular diseases, because their practical experience had taught them 

 the utility of so doing. As an art, education aims at the realization of' 

 a particular end. This end must of course be assumed to be clearly 

 defined before we can repair to science to ascertain what agencies we 

 can best employ in order to compare it. At first sight, however, it 

 might seem that this condition is not satisfied. Writers have discussed 

 at length what the true end of education is, and they have proposed very 

 different definitions of the matter. The reason of this uncertainty is 

 apparent. 



Education, unlike such an art as cooking, has a large and compre- 

 hensive ob.iect, namelj', to help to mold and fashion in certain definite 

 ways no less complex a thing than a human being, with his various phys- 

 ical, intellectual and moral capabilities, so as to fit him to fulfill his highest 

 function and destiny, and to ascertain what the rightly fashioned man 

 is like, and wherein consists his true work and service is a problem of 

 much difliculty. In truth, we can only satisfactorily settle this when 

 we have determined the supreme end of human action— in other words, 

 the highest good of man. 



It is the province of the great practical science of ethics to ascertain 

 this for us; and the teachers of this science have from ancient times been 

 divided into opposed schools. We need not, however, wait for the resolu- 

 tion of this grave and difficult problem. Men are, to a large extent, 

 practically agreed as to what is right and wrong, though they have not 

 settled the theoretical basis of this distinction. In like manner, educators 

 are practically as one as to the objects they aim at. In spite of ethical 



