The principles of rational education / by Charles A. Mercier.

  • Mercier, Charles Arthur, 1852-1919.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The principles of rational education / by Charles A. Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the error of the classicist. It is desirable that all children should have a knowledge of the facts of natural science. It is desirable that a few scattered indi¬ viduals should have a knowledge of Latin and Greek. But it is not desirable that knowledge even of the facts of natural science should be placed in the forefront of education. After purposes have been settled, the next thing is to teach the child so to act as to achieve his purposes; and it is action, action, action, that should be the main theme of education. Children are to be taught to know, but they must first be taught to do, and it is in doing that knowledge is most naturally, most easily, and most tenaciously acquired. Hear that great teacher. Sir Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Physic in the University of Cambridge. In a letter that appeared in The Times within the last month or two he says : ‘ that in action there is a certain pregnancy ; that by action are developed inward rudiments which, left unprovoked, would die unborn; that the limbs in their adven¬ tures have a wider compass, awaken wider responses, lay up in the nervous system, and bring into gear, much beyond the design of their immediate purpose. The child tosses his limbs in no mere effervescence, he is unwittingly building mansions in his brain ; and so onward for all developing life. Hence, before adolescence, instinct draws the boy to the concrete, and especially to this missionary work of the bodily members. He is not blind only to the charms of mute labial stems ”; any chain of passive reflection, literary or scientific, he repudiates as “ rot.” Abstractions leave him cold. And he has creative nature on his side. Doctrines can prove themselves only in action. Meanwhile he is carrying the abstract along with him, to recognize it in its aphorismal forms later. We say to him, “ Think what you are doing.” Abstrac¬ tions before experience are sawdust. . . . Doing, drama, is the boy's life. In the simple dramas of the nursery the infant screams with delight, and the boy's heart glows over his first box of tools. It is true that he loves to hear of