MATTHEW ARNOLD ON EDUCATION.

It is proposed to make the training in natural science the main part of education, for the great majority of mankind at any rate. And here, I confess, I part company with the friends of physical science with whom up to this point I have been agreeing. The smallness of my acquaintance with the disciples of natural science is ever before my mind, and I am fearful of doing them injustice.

At present it seems to me that those who are for giving to natural knowledge, as they call it, the chief place in the education of the majority of mankind, leave one important thing out of their account-the constitution of human nature. But I put this forward on the strength of some facts not at all recondite, very far from it, facts capable of being stated in the simplest possible fashion, and to which, if I so state them, the man of science will, I am sure, be willing to allow their due weight.

Deny the facts altogether, I think, he hardly can. He can hardly deny, that when we set ourselves to enumerate the powers which go to the building up of human life, and say that they are the power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, and the power of social life and manners-he can hardly deny that this scheme, though drawn in rough and plain lines and not pretending to scientific exactness, does yet give a fairly true representation of the matter. Human nature is built up by these powers; we have the need for them all. This is evident enough, and the friends of physical science will admit it. But perhaps they may not have sufficiently observed another thing: namely, that these powers just mentioned are not isolated, but there is in the generality of mankind a perpetual tendency to relate them one to another divers ways. With one such way of relating them I am particularly concerned now. Following our instinct for intellect and knowledge, we acquire pieces of knowledge; and presently, in the generality of men, there arises the desire to relate these pieces of knowledge to our sense for conduct, to our sense for conduct, to iyr sense for beauty. and there is weariness and dissatisfaction if the desire is baulked. Now in this desire lies, I think, the strength of that hold which letters have upon us.-

Even if literature is to retain a large place in our education, yet Latin and Greek, say the friends of progress, will certainly have to go. Greek is the grand offender in the eyes of these gentlemen. The attackers of the established course of study think that against Greek, at any rate, they have irresistible arguments. Literature may perhaps be needed in education they say; but why on earth should it be Greek literature? Why not French or German? Nay, 'has not a man of English speech models in his own literature of every kind of excellence?' As before, it is not on any weak pleadings of my own that I rely for convincing the gain-sayers; it is on the constitution of human nature itself, and on the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. The instinct for beauty is set in human nature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the instinct for conduct, or the instinct for society. If the instinct for beauty is served by Greek literature as it is served by no other literature, we may trust to the instinct of self-preservation in humanity for keeping Greek as part of our culture. We may trust to it for even making the study of Greek more prevalent than it is now. Greek will come, I hope, to be studied more rationally than at present; but it will be increasingly studied as men increasingly feel the need in them for beauty, and how powerfully Greek art and Greek literature can serve this need. Women will again study Greek, as Lady Jane Grey did. I believe that in that chain of forts, with which the fair host of the Amazons is engirding the English universities, I find that in the happy families of your mixed American universities out West, they are studying it already.

Education, many people go on to say, is still mainly governed by the ideas of men like Plato, who lived when the warrior caste and the priestly and philosophical class were alone in honor, and the really useful part of the community were slaves. It is an education fitted for persons of leisure in such a community. This education passed from Greece and Rome to the feudal communities of Europe, where also the warrior caste and the priestly caste were alone held in honor, and where the really useful and working part of the community, though not nominally slaves, as in the pagan world, were practically not much better off than slaves, and not more seriously regarded. And how absurd it is, people end by saying, to inflict this education upon an industrious modern community, where very few indeed are persons of leisure, and the mass to be considered has not leisure, but is bound, for its own great good, and for the world's great good, to plain labor and to industrial pursuits, and the education in question tends necessarily to make men dissatisfied with these pursuits and unfitted for them.

That is what is said. So far I must defend Plato, as to plead that his view of education and studies is in the general, as it seems to me, sound enough, and fitted for all sorts and conditions of men, whatever their pursuits may be. 'An intelligent man,' says Plato, 'will prize those studies which shall result in his soul getting soberness, righteousness and wisdom, and will disregard the rest.' I cannot consider that a bad description of the aim of education, and of the motives which should govern us in the choice of studies, whether we are preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat in the English House of Lords or for the pork trade in Chicago. [Matthew Arnold, in the "Manhattan" for April.