which have come into existence in modern times, and which are still in progress, should be introduced into a Liberal Education, to such an extent as to acquaint the student with their nature and principles. It is an important inquiry, in determining the proper scheme of a Liberal Education, what portion of science is best fitted for this purpose. I have already remarked elsewhere*, that among the sciences, Natural History affords very valuable lessons which may beneficially be made a portion of Education: the more so, inasmuch as this study may serve to correct prejudices and mental habits which have often been cherished by making pure mathematics the main instrument of intellectual education. The study of Natural History teaches the student that there may be an exact use of names, and an accumulated store of indisputable truths, in a subject in which names are not appropriated by definitions, but by the condition that they shall serve for the expression of truth. These sciences show also that there may exist a system of descriptive terms which shall convey a conception of objects almost as distinct as the senses themselves can acquire for us; at least when the senses have been educated to respond to such a terminology. Botany, in particular, is a beautiful and almost perfect example of these scientific merits and an acquaintance with the Philosophy of Botany will supply the student with a portion of the Philosophy of the Progressive Sciences, highly important, but for the most part hitherto omitted in the usual plans of a Liberal Education. But the Philosophy of Botany cannot be really understood without an acquaintance with a considerable portion, at least, of * Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Book xIII. Chap. 3. Intellectual Education. + Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Book XII. Chap. 2. The Education of the Senses. the details of Systematic Botany. On these grounds, I should much desire to see Botany, or some other branch of Natural History, or Natural History in general, introduced as a common element into our Higher Education, and recommended to the study of those who desire to have any clear view of the nature of the Progressive Sciences; since it is, in fact, the key and ground-work of a large portion of those sciences. 24 I have ventured to give reasons* why the Chemical Sciences (Chemistry, Mineralogy, ElectroChemistry) are not, at the present time, in a condition which makes them important general elements of a Liberal Education. But there is another class of sciences, the Palætiological Sciences, which, from the largeness of their views and the exactness of the best portions of their reasonings, are well fitted to form part of that philosophical discipline which a Liberal Education ought to include. Of these sciences, I have mentioned two, one depending mainly upon the study of Language, and the other upon the sciences which deal with the material world. These two sciences, Ethnography, or Comparative Philology, and Geology, are among those Progressive Sciences which may be most properly taken into a Liberal Education, as instructive instances of the wide and rich field of facts and rea * Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Book XII. Chap. 3. Intellectual Education. Of course it is not here intended to imply that Chemistry and the Sciences connected with it are not studies highly philosophical and important, and very suitable and instructive parts of a Liberal Education; but only, that if we select some of the progressive sciences as necessary portions of our educational scheme, there are much stronger reasons in favour of taking Natural History than Chemistry, for this purpose. It is further to be recollected, that a knowledge of Chemistry is quite essential as a part of the professional education in medicine. sonings with which modern science deals, still retaining, in many of its steps, great rigour of proof; and as an animating display also of the large and grand vistas of time, succession, and causation, which are open to the speculative powers of man. Moreover these sciences have the further recommendation of giving occasion to pointed and striking applications of some of the more limited sciences which we have noticed as fit elements of our Higher Education. Geology uses as her instruments, among others, the sciences of Mechanics and Hydrostatics, and the various branches of Natural History. And Ethnography, or Comparative Philology, though it cannot be pursued at all without a knowledge of several other languages besides Greek and Latin, many very conveniently and naturally begin from those relations between Greek, Latin, and English, which a classical education forces upon our notice, and from that ready perception of the relations of language which a classical education cultivates. 25 Of the two classes of studies above mentioned, the Permanent and the Progressive Studies, the former are the most essential as parts of Education; and must be mastered before the others are entered on, in order to secure such an intellectual culture as we aim at. A full apprehension of the force of Reason and the beauty of Language are necessary, to connect men with the most gifted and most cultivated portions of their species which have hitherto existed. When they have arrived at such an apprehension, but not till then, they may go on to sympathize with the most gifted and cultured minds of their own time, in the activity of their progressive tendencies. But the former step must necessarily precede the latter. An acquaintance with the past must be a portion of Education, in order that there may be an intelligence as to the present. Intellectual progress cannot be a part of the occupation of life, if intellectual discipline be not included in Education. Attempts at progressive knowledge can have no value or real result, in the minds of those who have not been prepared to understand what is still to do, by understanding what has already been done. It is very possible to introduce a large portion of progressive studies into Education; but they can never properly constitute the whole of it; nor can the education of the youth include the whole intellectual progress of the man, if he is really to share in the progress of his times. A man who really participates in the progress of the sciences, must do so by following their course when the time of education is past. The Progressive Sciences are to be begun towards the end of a Liberal Education. On the other hand, the Permanent Studies, Classical Literature and Solid Reasoning, are fundamental parts of a Liberal Education, and cannot be dispensed with. Modern Science and Philosophy ought to be introduced into education so far as to show their nature and principles; but they do not necessarily make any considerable or definite part of it. The intellectual culture, though it will be incomplete if these are excluded, may still be a culture which connects a man with the past, and prepares him for the present; but an education from which classical literature or mathematical reasoning is omitted, however familiar it may make a man with the terms of modern literature and philosophy, must leave him unprepared to understand the real purport of literature and philosophy, because he has not the intellectual culture which the greatest authors in literature and philosophy have always had. SECT. 4. Of English Education. 26 The above views are drawn from the Idea of a Liberal Education considered in the most general manner. They have been to a great extent realized in the Education given in this country as the Higher Education, to those who pass through the usual course of English Schools and Universities; at least so far as the Permanent Studies are concerned. Grammar and Arithmetic at the Schools; Classical Authors and Logic, or Classical Authors and Mathematics, at the Universities, have represented the two classes of Permanent Studies by which the two faculties of Language and Reason are to be educed and unfolded, as the completeness of man's intellectual constitution requires them to be educed and unfolded. In the University of Cambridge, the Classical Authors have always formed a leading part of the subjects of study. The other portion of the Higher Education, by which the Reason is especially cultivated, may be considered as having been Logic in former times, while Disputations in set logical forms, both in the Colleges and in the Public Schools of the University, constituted a large part of the business of a university student; and as being Mathematics in recent and present times; the Disputations being now in a great measure done away, and a proficiency in Mathematics forming a large portion of the knowledge required by the University, as the condition of conferring her Degrees and awarding her Honours. 27 In this general scheme of the subjects with which the intellectual Education of the University of Cambridge is concerned, we find nothing but what is right and conformable to the necessary general idea of the Higher Education of youth, as we have attempted to show on general principles. But the same principles, if they are applied to the detail of such a scheme, will point out some more special rules with regard to the subjects thus employed in a Liberal Education, and the mode of employing them; and we may be thus led to make, respecting the present modes of teaching |