CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



some ideal or some standard, and he wishes to 

 raise him whom he educates up to this standard. 

 For this purpose he chooses the means which he 

 deems suitable, and acts with deliberate aim and 

 purpose. This is the usual sense of the word. 

 But while using the word in this sense, we inevit- 

 ably pass into the other. For no results that 

 can be produced by the deliberate efforts of man 

 are ever simple, but are always combined with 

 those produced by the influence of nature or the 

 unconscious influence of man. The two sets of 

 influence are inextricably combined. And the 

 man who deliberately educates has to take into 

 consideration all the other influences that help 

 to bring out the powers of the person whom he 

 is educating. 



We now proceed to examine more minutely 

 the principles which are to guide us in education ; 

 and at the very threshold we come on one which 

 is of the utmost importance. We have found that 

 in one sense Nature educates. The first thing, 

 then, we have always to do is, to examine the pro- 

 cesses which take place when Nature educates. 



We place a child before our observation. He 

 is looking at a ship. What takes place ? That 

 ship produces a certain impression on him. How 

 can we describe this impression ? We may say 

 that it is a clear impression : he sees it dis- 

 tinctly. Or we may say that it is an indistinct 

 impression : he cannot see it well. Or he cannot 

 see it at all, or very dimly, and struggles to catch 

 a sight of it, and feels pained and disappointed. 

 Or it is a pleasing impression : he delights to look 

 at it Suppose it were the sun that he was look- 

 ing at Then its dazzling light might overpower 

 him, and through excess of light, the impression 

 produced would be simply one of utter confusion. 

 Here we get five kinds of impressions which 

 objects may produce If the stimulus is exactly 

 proportionate to the power of the mind, we have 

 a clear impression. If the circumstances are such 

 as to produce a contrast between the present state j 

 of his mind and the last favourably, the impres- 

 sion may be a pleasant one. If the stimulus is 

 too little, the impression is indistinct, and when 

 the stimulus reaches zero, then there is distress 

 and pain. The result is nearly the same when 

 the stimulus is too powerful for the mind. Then 

 the mind is overpowered, and can feel no impres- 

 sion but that of utter confusion and disappoint- 

 ment Now, it is plain that the only stimuli 

 which the educator can use are those which 

 are proportionate, or produce a pleasing impres- 

 sion. And this holds as a universal maxim for 

 all the complex processes which in the higher 

 stages of education come into play. The mind 

 is capable of healthy activity only on certain sub- 

 jects and on a certain amount of them. Every- 

 thing above or below this is injurious. But let 

 us look at the powers in the mind itself. How 

 does the mind apprehend or catch an impression ? 

 Now we may conceive three qualities resident in 

 the mind in regard to this matter. The mind 

 may seize the impression strongly. It grasps the 

 impression with vigour. Or it may grasp it vividly. 

 That is, for instance, in looking at a ship, the 

 mind may, if it is vivacious, seize hold of a great 

 number of details. It may notice not merely the 

 general form of the hull, but many of its special 

 features. And it may be able to catch the impres- 

 sion quickly or slowly. It may be able to take 

 B 



the impression fully within a certain time more or 

 less in length. These are the three qualities which 

 we can believe the mind to possess : strength, 

 vivacity, and rapidity. And there is no reason for 

 supposing it to possess any more. For, let us 

 look what takes place further. The mind has 

 formed an impression of the object. The object 

 has passed away ; but the impression has left a 

 trace behind. When the object appears a second 

 time, the second impression blends with the trace 

 of the first ; and when, through repeated impres- 

 sions, and their union with the previous traces, the 

 impression has gained strength, and the mind can 

 recall the object without its actual presence, then 

 the mind is said to recollect it But suppose that 

 there has been only one object of which impres- 

 sions have been produced in the mind, then there 

 is in the mind a memory for only that one object 

 The power of recollection depends entirely on the 

 original strength, vivacity, or quickness of the 

 mind in receiving impressions, on the appropriate- 

 ness of the strength of the stimulus which the 

 object exercises on the mind, and on the frequency 

 with which strong impressions are thus produced. 

 There is, therefore, no such faculty as memory, 

 separate and distinct. In fact, there are no 

 separate and distinct faculties ; but there are 

 separate and distinct operations. It is exceedingly 

 important to remember this in education, because 

 the generalisation into one memory, or one reason, 

 or one will, is apt to be productive of great evil 

 A man has not one memory, but many memories. 

 He remembers some things well, and other things 

 ilL He has a good memory for certain facts, 

 because his mind and these facts have often come 

 powerfully into contact He has a bad memory 

 for others, because they have not come powerfully 

 into contact No doubt, if a person practises his 

 memory in certain directions, he will be the better 

 fitted to remember other matters to which as yet 

 he has not applied his mind. But this will be 

 the case only when the subjects are akin to each 

 other. A man who has devoted himself to the 

 acquisition of a foreign language will be better 

 able to learn another foreign language than a 

 person who has not, cateris paribus. But the 

 person who has stored his mind with words is not 

 a whit the more capable of remembering numbers. 

 The subjects here are different, and they do not aid 

 each other. So a man may have a strong will in 

 one direction, and a weak one in another. If he 

 has again and again applied special means to a 

 special end, he will be able at once to make up 

 his mind in this matter. But he may find his will 

 powerless in other matters to which he is a 

 stranger, or in which he has not exerted himself 

 aright 



These are some of the principles which we 

 think must lie at the foundation of education. 

 We have illustrated them mainly by a reference to 

 the intellectual activity of man. But they apply 

 equally to his whole nature. 



And here it is important to draw a distinction 

 which is carefully observed by German writers, 

 but is often overlooked by us. Education is the 

 effort to bring out all the faculties of man in a 

 healthy way. Instruction is the mere communi- 

 cating by one person of what he knows to another. 

 Education keeps in view the entire individuality 

 of the person, and aims at awakening all the 

 powers of the person being educated. Instruction 



