Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/213

Rh than among peasants, even though the working-men may be the better instructed. Some statisticians have remarked that the moral influence of knowledge begins to be real at the moment when learning ceases to be a tool to become a work of art. To exert a moral influence is, in fact, to raise minds above egotist views and purely material interests, toward general ideas and impersonal sentiments. For that reason, instruction should be not only professional, and technical or scientific, but literary and æsthetic as well.

The citizen of a democracy must, further, have precise knowledge in public polity, and this should be made obligatory. It may be that a man has a right to be and continue incapable in matters that concern himself alone, but that can not be allowed in affairs that concern all. Society as a whole must demand some guarantees from the associated individuals—a certain maturity, not of age alone, but also of intelligence and education. John Stuart Mill says that the elector ought to be able to copy a few lines of English, and do a sum in the rule of three. We have not much faith in the virtue, in this matter, of the rule of three. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are double-edged blades; everything depends on what one reads and how he uses his arithmetic. Mr. Spencer remarks with much force that the multiplication-table will not help one to comprehend the falsity of the socialist dogmas. What good does the laborer's ability to read do him if he only reads what confirms him in his delusions? The higher grades of instruction are doubtless more efficacious than the primary; but they are far from being of themselves competent to develop political capacity. Mr. Spencer, having shown how poorly prepared is the EngglishEnglish [sic] university graduate, with his knowledge of Homer and Sophocles, to perform his duties as a member of Parliament, adds that to prepare a person for political life he ought to be given education in politics, while the contrary is done. Yet, when we wish to teach our daughters to become good musicians, we do not furnish them with a painter's apparatus, but seat them in front of a piano. The classical studies, so much criticised, have at least an æsthetic and moral influence, if they do not develop the political sense; but the study of the sciences, as it is ordinarily pursued, has neither of these advantages. Our courses are overcharged with historical and scientific studies, the tendency of which is to overload the memory of the pupils, without developing their judgment or elevating their character, and the result has been deplorable. Courses charged with calculations, analyses, and classifications, can not even contribute to the moral and intellectual elevation of the mind. There should be taught, besides the elementary and practical principles, the most speculative principles, and the most general results of the sciences, or, in short, their philosophy. In this way only has science an educational virtue; in this way it lifts the mind instead of merely furnishing the memory, and is liberal instead of servile and military. As usually taught, it serves only to