Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~190,000 words · 902 passages
Cite this work
- APAHerbert Spencer. (n.d.). Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/essays-on-education-and-kindred-subjects
- MLAHerbert Spencer. Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/essays-on-education-and-kindred-subjects.
- ChicagoHerbert Spencer. Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/essays-on-education-and-kindred-subjects.
Reference to the reproduced edition. SigPhi is the digital reproduction, not the publisher. Year, publisher and translator are included when recorded; “n.d.” means the year is unknown. Responsibility for an introduction or note depends on the passage cited.
What it is about
Spencer's four essays on education, of 1861, headed by the one asking what knowledge is of most worth, which helped push Latin out of the centre of the school.
Context and history
Spencer's answer is 'science', and the argument is not one of taste but of function: if education is to prepare for living, subjects must be ranked by which vital activity they serve — self-preservation, earning a living, rearing children, citizenship, leisure — and the classical languages come last. The other essays deal with intellectual, moral and physical education, and defend positions that were then in the minority: less memorising and more observation, no corporal punishment, exercise and open air for girls as well as boys. The book was very influential in the nineteenth century; read today, one sees both what it won and what its hierarchy left out.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
instruction in applied science as an important element in advanced education. Such institutions as the Seafield Park Engineering College, the City Guilds of London Institute, the City of London College, and the Battersea Polytechnic are instances of the same development. Some endowed institutions for girls illustrate the same tendencies, as, for example, the Bedford College for Women and the Royal Holloway College. All these institutions teach sciences in considerable variety, and in the way that Spencer advocated,--not so much because they have distinctly accepted his views, as because modern industrial and social conditions compel the preparation in science of young people destined for various occupations and services indispensable to modern society. The method of the preparation is essentially that which he advocated. Spencer's propositions to the effect that the study of science was desirable for artisans, artists, and, in general, for people who were to get their livings through various skills of hand and eye, were received with great incredulity, not to say derision--particularly when he maintained that some knowledge of the theory which underlies an art was desirable for manual practitioners of the art; but the changes of the last fifty years in the practice of the arts and trades may be said to have demonstrated that his views were thoroughly sound. The applications of science in the arts and trades have been so numerous and productive, that widespread training in science has become indispensable to any nation which means to excel in the manufacturing industries, whether of large scale or small scale. The extraordinary popularity of evening schools and correspondence schools in the United States rests on the need which young people employed in the various industries of the country feel of obtaining more theoretical knowledge about the physical or chemical processes through which they are earning a livelihood.…