NA TURE 



321 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1917. 



EDUCATION AND ORGANISED 



THOUGHT. 



(i) The Organisation of Thought, Educational 



and Scientific. By Prof. A. N. Whitehead. 



Pp. vii + 228. (London : Williams and Norgate, 



1917.) Price 65. net. 

 {2) The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking: 



Essays and Addresses. By Prof. Cassius J. 



Keyser. Pp. 314. (New York : Columbia 



University Press ; London : Oxford University 



Press, 1916.) 

 T'^HESE two collections of essays and addresses 

 -'■ by Prof. Whitehead and Prof. Keyser con- 

 tain much matter of considerable interest to the 

 large number of persons who are at present 

 occupying- themselves with the consideration of 

 the many difficult questions connected with 

 educational reconstruction. Distinguished scienti- 

 fic, or literary, specialists are not always, perhaps 

 not often, trustworthy guides in educational 

 affairs. Their absorption in a special line of 

 thought i& apt to produce in them a bias in regard 

 to the relative values of different branches of 

 study, destructive of that keen sense of propor- 

 tion which a sound educationist must possess. The 

 specialist is apt to live in a sub-universe of his 

 own, without troubling himself much about the 

 social value of his study or its relations with other 

 parts of the world of thought and action. Even 

 In the teaching of his own subject the specialist 

 not infrequently finds it difficult sufficiently to dis- 

 tinguish between that instruction which is 

 directed to special training and that which is 

 afipropriate for forming part of a scheme of libe- 

 ■ ral education. However, when a specialist has 

 sufficient breadth of mind to enable him to over- 

 come the temptations incidental to his own 

 occupation, he is frequently able to make contri- 

 butions to educational thought which exhibit an 

 insight greater than is possessed by many of those 

 who approach the problem of education without 

 those advantages which accrue from a profound 

 study of some one department of knowledge. 



Both Prof. Whitehead and Prof. Keyser have 

 the advantage of being mathematical specialists 

 with a deep interest in the philosophical aspect 

 of mathematics, and both of them very properly 

 select their illustrations in expressing their 

 educational views from the domain most familiar 

 to them. But Prof. Whitehead, at least, has 

 attained to a certain catholicity of outlook in 

 educational matters which makes his detailed 

 expression of views such as will appeal to many 

 even of those who may not agree with some of his 

 opinions. 



(i) Of the two authors Prof. Whitehead 

 remains nearer the solid earth ; indeed, his whole 

 treatment of educational questions is permeated 

 by a profound conviction of the importance of 

 education as the means of fitting human beings 

 for life itself in all its phases. He regards educa- 

 tion neither merely as the provision of a stimulant 

 NO. 2513, VOL. 100] 



to the higher faculties which shall operate as a 

 more or less ornamental and detachable supple- 

 ment to ordinary life, nor simply as a scheme of 

 training of the kind which aims at producing 

 purely practical efficiency. 



One of the most crucial questions which must 

 receive a practical solution in the framework of 

 educational reconstruction is that of the proper 

 relation between liberal or general education and 

 that special or technical study which is necessary 

 in order to fit a student for some definite career. 

 That a failure to make due provision for both these 

 sides of education would be disastrous in its 

 consequences is widely, but, unfortunately, not 

 universally, recognised. Experience has amply 

 demonstrated that a special or technical training 

 is to a large extent a failure unless it is based upon 

 a sound and sufficient general education. The 

 insistence upon this truth has been so frequent that 

 it may be thought to have become a platitude ; 

 nevertheless, the pressure of the purely practical 

 side of life is likely to become so urgent in^ the 

 near future that the danger of education becoming 

 too purely utilitarian in the narrow sense of the 

 term cannot safely be neglected. 



In the higher meaning of the expression, Prof. 

 Whitehead is decidedly utilitarian in his view of 

 the aims of education ; indeed, the key-note to his 

 ideas about education is struck in his definition 

 of education as " the acquisition of the art of the 

 utilisation of knowledge." Like all statements of 

 a utilitarian flavour, this definition is capable of 

 being interpreted in a narrow or in a broad sense. 

 Its real or apparent defect, that it suggests a too 

 exclusive reference to externality, and lays no 

 stress upon the development of the inner life, may 

 perhaps be held to be removed by means of a 

 sufficiently liberal interpretation of the terms 

 " utilisation " and " knowledge." 



In regard to the methods and subject-matter 

 of instruction, Prof. Whitehead emphasises most 

 strongly the importance of not allowing any one 

 branch of study to be treated in such a manner 

 that it is wholly isolated from other depart- 

 ments, and that of exhibiting clearly and con- 

 tinually the relations of all subjects and portions 

 of subjects to one another as parts of a connected 

 and coherent whole ; in fact, he holds that " there 

 is only one subject-matter for education, and that 

 is life in all its ramifications." The great practical 

 difficulty in realising such high educational ideals 

 in the actual work of instruction arises from the 

 very insistent demands which modernist methods 

 make upon the skill and energy of the teacher. 

 Failure on the part of a teacher who attempts to 

 teach in accordance with the newer theories is 

 apt to be more disastrous than when the older and 

 more mechanical methods are employed. It is 

 only fair to say that Prof. Whitehead does not 

 attempt to ignore the practical difficulties of this 

 kind which arise when his ideals are carried into 

 the practical domain. 



(2) Prof. Keyser, in his essay on " The Human 

 Worth of Rigorous Thinking," and in various 

 other essays on the teaching and philosophy of 



S 



