Thoughts on Education
by Horace Mann
Up next in Education, Serialized is the thought of Horace Mann on education. Mann advocated for universal public education and has been referred to as “the Father of American Education.” Some of his writings on education are offered in bit-sized chunks, which will be presented here.
Education
If ever there was a cause, if ever there can be a cause, worthy to be upheld by all of toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of Education. It has intrinsic and indestructible merits. It holds the welfare of mankind in its embrace, as the protecting arms of a mother hold her infant to her bosom. The very ignorance and selfishness which obstruct its path are the strongest arguments for its promotion, for it furnishes the only adequate means for their removal. It is worthy, therefore, to be urged forward over the dead obstacles of listlessness and apathy, and against the living hostility of those sordid men who oppose its advancement for no higher reason than that of the silversmiths who trafficked in the shrines of the goddess Diana, and who would have quenched the holy light of Christianity for all mankind rather than forego their profits upon idol worship.
Shall we go on?
In regard to intellectual education, no man can offer a single reason for arresting its progress and confining it where it now is, which would not be equally available for reducing its present amount. . . . The useful and elegant arts, that minister to the comfort of man, and gladden his eye with beauty; poetry and eloquence, that ravish the soul; philosophy, that comprehends the workmanship of the heavens, and reads in the present condition of the earth, as in the leaves of a book, the records of myriads of ages gone by ; language, by which we are taught by all the generations that are past, and by which we may teach all the generations that are to come, — all these would be sunk in oblivion, and all the knowledge possessed by the descendants of Bacon, and Newton, and Franklin would be to chatter and mow, to burrow in a hole, and crack nuts with the teeth. Such is the catastrophe to which we should come, could those prevail who would make the present horizon of human knowledge stationary.
Physical education
Physical education is not only of great importance on its own account, but in a certain sense it seems to be invested with the additional importance of both intellectual and moral; because, although we have frequent proofs that there may be a human body without a soul, yet, under our present earthly conditions of existence, there cannot be a human soul without a body. The statue must lie prostrate without a pedestal; and in this sense the pedestal is as important as the statue.
Assimilation
How can a work, at once so vast and delicate as a symmetrical development of the human faculties, be conducted, without the deepest science in the preparation of means, and exquisite skill in applying them? The infant mind grows, not by accretion, but through organization. Intelligence, and wisdom, and virtue, cannot be poured out of one mind into another, as water from a vessel. The increment comes by assimilation, not transfusion. Ideas, knowledge, may be brought within reach of the mind, but if they are not digested, and prepared by a process of the spirit itself upon them, they give no more vigor and power to the mind than sacks of grain nourish the jaded beast when they are fastened to his back.
Importance of early influence
Those who exert the first influence upon the mind, have the greatest power. They have power, not only to regulate the action of given faculties, but they can enlarge or belittle the faculties themselves. Hence, favoring or adverse circumstances in the early culture of mind, though imperceptible at the time, will at last work out broadly into beauty or deformity.
Skill in educating
One of the great masters of painting used to prepare and mix his own colors, lest some crudeness in the material should baffle his skill, and dim the lustre or cloud the majesty of his finished work. Do we act upon this principle in regard to education?
Neglect of education
Whatever deficiency or neglect of education there may be, I cannot attribute it to any general want of parental love. That fire has not gone out, for Nature is its vestal. But if, instead of twenty-one years, the formation of the human character — its fate for weal or woe — were accomplished in twenty-one days, I suppose the merchant would leave his bargains, the farmer the ingathering of his harvests, and even the drunkard would rise from the middle of his debauch, and those three weeks would be spent without much sleep, and with many prayers. Yet it cannot be denied that the consequences of a vicious education given to a child are precisely the same at the end of twenty-one years as they would be at the expiration of twenty-one days after birth, were that the appointed period.
Completed education
The education already given to the people creates the necessity of giving them more. What has been done has awakened new and unparalleled energies; and the mental and moral forces which have been roused into activity, are now to be regulated. These forces are not mechanical, which expend their activity and subside to rest; they are spiritual forces, endued with an inextinguishable principle of life and progression. The coiled spring of the machine loses power as it unwinds; but the living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled: it multiplies its energy, and accelerates its speed, in an upward or downward direction, forever.
Knowledge but an instrument
Our age has unwonted strength, and is advancing to greater; but it wants the spirit of docility and teachableness. Wisdom must be constituted its guardian. Let us think, betimes, that power and freedom may be a curse as well as a blessing; that knowledge is but an instrument, which the profligate and the flagitious may use as well as the brave and the just.
Education of all
Truths, no matter how momentous or enduring, are nothing to the individual until he appreciates them, and feels their force, and acknowledges their sovereignty. He cannot bow to their majesty until he sees their power. All the blind, then, and all the ignorant, — that is, all the children, — must be educated up to the point of perceiving and admitting truth, and acting according to its mandates.
Diffusion and extension of knowledge
It is said that we are an educated people; and there is a sense in which this declaration is true. Such an assertion, however, supposes a comparison. . . . Compared with many, and even with most people on the earth, the result would be in our favor; but compared with what we may be, and should be, our present inferiority is unspeakable.
Action of government in education
How poor was the gift of Midas, fabled to possess the power of turning whatever he touched into gold, compared with the power of turning gold into knowledge, and wisdom, and virtue! How glorious is the prerogative of the legislator when he faithfully uses his privileges for the benefit of his race! Though he fill but a brief hour of political existence, yet in that hour he can speak a word which shall enhance the happiness of posterity at the distance of a thousand years. This is the only worthy immortality upon earth — not to leave a name, to be upon the lips of men, but to do acts which shall improve the condition of men through the flowing ages.
Education, Serialized, a section of EduThirdSpace: The Newsletter, features retellings of how education has been viewed over the course of history from books, reports, letters, and so forth. The posts in this section are the words of the authors and not editorialized by me, Samantha, or anyone else. However, interpretation or commentary on the texts may be published in other sections of EduThirdSpace.