The priority of mention is due not so much to its
special or pre-eminent importance, as to its being the most feasible and
hopeful of the practical applications of conjoined psychology and logic.
I say this, however, with a more express eye to _intellectual_
education. I deem it quite possible to frame a practical, science
applicable to the training of the intellect that shall be precise and
definite in a very considerable measure. The elements that make up our
intellectual furniture can be stated with clearness; the laws of
intellectual growth or acquisition are almost the best ascertained
generalities of the human mind; even the most complicated studies can be
analyzed into their components, partly by psychology and partly by the
higher logic. In a word, if we cannot make a science of education, as
far as Intellect is concerned, we may abandon metaphysical study
altogether.
I do not speak with the same confidence as to _moral_ education. There
has long been in existence a respectable rule-of-thumb practice in this
region, the result of a sufficiently wide experience. There are certain
psychological laws, especially those relating to the formation of moral
habits, that have a considerable value; but to frame a theory of moral
education, on a level in a point of definiteness with the possible
theory of intellectual education, is a task that I should not like to
have imposed upon me.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191