Education : intellectual, moral, and physical / by Herbert Spencer.

  • Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Education : intellectual, moral, and physical / by Herbert Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    greater part of it drops out of his memory; and if he occasionally vents a Latin quotation, or alludes to some Greek myth, it is less to throw light on the topic in hand than for the sake of effect. If we inquire what is the real motive for giving boys a classical education, we find it to be simply conformity to public opinion. Men dress their children’s minds as they do their bodies, in the prevailing fashion. As the Orinoco Indian puts on paint before leaving his hut, not with a view to any direct benefit, but because he would be ashamed to be seen without it; so, a boy’s drilling in Latin and Greek is insisted on, not because of their intrinsic value, but that he may not be disgraced by being found ignorant of them—that he may have “ the education of a gentleman ”—the badge marking a certain social position, and bringing a consequent respect. This parallel is still more clearly displayed in the case of the other sex. In the treatment of both mind and body, the decorative element has continued to predominate in a greater degree among women than among men. Originally, personal adornment occupied the attention of both sexes equally. In these latter days of civilization, however, we see that in the dress of men the regard for appearance has in a considerable degree yielded to the regard for comfort; while in their education the useful has of late been trenching on the ornamental. In neither direction has this change gone so far with women. The wearing of ear-rings, finger-rings, bracelets; the elaborate dress- ings of the hair; the still occasional use of paint; the immense labour bestowed in making habiliments suffi- ciently attractive ; and the great discomfort that will