,, ,-J e) #»r***" LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class RUSK1N ON EDUCATION RUSKIN ON EDUCATION SOME NEEDED BUT NEGLECTED ELEMENTS RESTATED AND REVIEWED BY WILLIAM JOLLY *&" **5N. LONDON GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD 1907 [All rights reserved] ^m, PREFACE OxNE of the most reassuring signs of the times, in this over -pushing but progressive age, is the great and growing interest manifested by all classes in the Educa- tion of the young. Remarkable, if not in many respects surprising, as have been the improvements in this all- important subject during the century, especially since the passing of the Education Acts of 1870 and 1872, our views in regard to it still urgently require enlightenment. Our present system sadly needs broadening, deepening, and ele- vating, in both purpose and process, more than even most experts have yet perceived or imagined. Of men to point the way towards desir- able reform, there is no one whose views should be more potential for this end than 181642 VI PREFACE John Ruskin. This is true of his work in Education as much as in other departments of his varied activity, in spite of existing popular and scholastic opinion in regard to his ideas. This opinion is mainly based on ignorance of the man and his views ; on prejudice — both in its common acceptation and in its literal meaning of pre-judgment, condemnation without adequate examination ; on the too ready acceptance of erroneous criticism, by the mass of the people, even by the more thoughtful among them ; and, as he himself has told us, on the narrowing and intolerant pursuit of less worthy aims in this mamm on -loving, competitive time, whose din and dust have drowned and darkened the brightest and wisest thoughts of one of the greatest prophets and preachers of our day. In connection with Education, in spite of the facts being far otherwise, Ruskin has generally been thought to have written little, and done less, than in many other better known fields ; and that little is almost universally considered to be of more extreme PREFACE Vll and eccentric type than is usual even with this unconventional critic and philosopher. At best, his views are deemed by not a few of the more enlightened of his students as " counsels of perfection." They are certainly all this, in its truest sense, and, if listened to and acted on, would lead us, more rapidly than we have yet gone, towards the per- fection which does not exist in such an advancing Science and Art as Education, of whose future developments, however, Ruskin's suggestions form a bright and encouraging vision. The present work is a brief and partial attempt to prove this position in regard to Ruskin ; by rendering more accessible and popular some of his more pregnant views re- garding certain primary and pressing defects in our educational practice, than has yet been possible amid his scattered and multi- tudinous utterances. Portions of the wide educational field traversed by him, I have as yet been pre- vented by want of time and health from overtaking — such as, the all -important and Vlll PREFACE rising function of Physical Education, now, happily, more acknowledged ; the wide and ever-extending range of Intellectual Educa- tion, on which his views are advanced and valuable ; and Mr. Ruskin's own practical attempts at a broader and worthier training than is yet common, which are both inter- esting and instructive. For these, I would at present refer those interested to the in- valuable Bibliography of his works ; the index to " Fors Clavigera " ; Collingwood's " Life and Work of John Ruskin " (Methuen & Co., 1893); "Studies in Ruskin," by Edward T. Cook (George Allen, 1890); and "John Ruskin : his Life and Teaching," by J. Marshall Mather (third edition, 1890 ; Frederick Warne & Co.). This book is the outcome of former expositions of Ruskin's views and their relations to those of other educationists, given by me from time to time : in lectures delivered to the Glasgow Ruskin Society, as President, and to the teachers of my own district, as H.M. Inspector of Schools; in a series of articles in the weekly journal, PREFACE IX Great Thoughts, of which this issue is mainly a reprint ; and in notes buried in Educational Blue Books, which are little read even by the few whose business or studies lead them there, and are neglected by all others. Not the least matter for personal gratifi- cation is the fact, that its present publication was arranged for, unsolicited, by Mr. Allen, whose name is so honourably identified with the artistic production of the Great Master's works. A '« v •; CONTENTS PART FIRST THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Ruskin's Relations to Education — PAGE I. Ruskin's Views on Education should be better known ........ 3 II. His Study of Education was Philanthropic . 4 III. His Opinion of Education as it is . . . 7 IV. His Ideas of what Education should be . . 11 PA AT F/*ST Some General Principles of Education according to ruskin — I. Education should be regulated by Natural En- dowment . . . . . . .12 The Means of discovering it .... 13 II. Education should not be conducted with a view to mere " Success in Life " . . 15 It should aim at Real Advancement in Living 1 7 III. Education should train to Useful Work . . 20 The kind of work needed .... 23 xi Xll CONTENTS HAGE Its effects on Religion . . . . .24 Its relation to Physical Exercise ... 26 The growth of this idea in Schools . . 28 IV. Education should not be estimated by the mere Acquisition of Knowledge .... 32 V. The importance of the world of Nature in Education ....... 36 The out-door class-room .... 41 VI. Our educational standard should not be too high 45 VII. Education should vary with circumstances . 48 VIII. The prevalent estimate of "the Three R's " is erroneous ...... 50 Ruskin's central position in regard to them . 55 The importance of Ruskin's views . . 58 Our existing Educational Ideal low and de- fective . . . . . . .61 PART SECOND THE TRAINING OF TASTE IN SCHOOLS I. The Need for cultivating Taste in Schools 64 The Nature of Taste ..... 66 The chief groups of the /Esthetic Arts . . 67 How much may be essayed in the Cultivation of Taste 68 The vital importance of Childhood in its training . . . - . . . .09 CONTENTS Xlll The importance of the School-room for this training ...... Our Schools devoid of Taste in the past . The Two ways of training Taste in School Schools should be refined in Architecture and Decoration .... The Views of Ancient thinkers . Esthetic Education in Athens . The Views of Montaigne and Fenelon Other Opinions Coincident PAGE 72 74 75 76 78 80 81 83 II. What has been done towards the Realisation of these principles 85 The beginning of an /Esthetic Revival . . 86 III. The Means of /Esthetic Cultivation in Schools 87 1. Scholastic diagrams ..... 87 2. Special aesthetic decorations ... 88 3. Illustrations in school books ... 90 4. Plants and flowers . . . . 91 5. The study of external nature ... 92 A New Crusade in favour of training through Nature needed . 93 6. Other elements in aesthetic training . . 95 IV. The Moral Effects of /Esthetic Culture 9 6 What should be done ? . . . . -97 Recent encouraging progress .... 98 XIV CONTENTS PART THIRD MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS PAGE IOI 1 02 IO4 I05 IO6 IO7 IOS Morality a Constant Element in all Ruskin's Teaching . . . .100 I. The present conduct of Moral Education un- satisfactory ..... Ruskin's condemnation of it . The Need of better Moral Training II. The Teaching should be Systematic . III. Moral Training Paramount and First The Real End of Education is Moral . Ruskin's Summary of its aims Intellectual and Moral Education contrasted by Ruskin . . . . . .109 Herbart's Testimony 1 1 1 IV. The Subject-matter of Systematic Moral teaching 1 12 The Chief Duties to be taught . . . 115 Ruskin's exposition of these . . . .116 V. How to accomplish these Moral aims . .118 VI. Virtues on which Ruskin lays stress . . .119 1. Cleanliness 119 2. Obedience . . . . . .120 3. Kindness to animal life . . . .120 4. Honesty . . . . . . .121 VII. Virtues specially emphasised by Ruskin . .123 1. Intellectual and Social humility . .124 Illustration from his own School Days . 126 CONTENTS XV V \ 2. Reverent admiration .... 3. Emulation condemned No Competition to be allowed The true purpose of Examinations . How should Emulation be used ? . VIII. Education should teach the true meaning of Wealth ...... Our estimate of Wealth generally wrong In what true Wealth consists Education should furnish a child with a Plan of Life ...... The views of several educationists Ruskin's views ..... The editor's views .... IX. The teaching of Social and Political Economy Its past neglect ..... Ruskin's Political Economy . William Ellis's work in this educational field ...... The subject begins to be recognised X. The Systematic teaching of Moral Duty should be universal ..... The Means of doing it . The Influence of such teaching It is partially recognised by the Education Department ..... It should be extended and Systematically taught ....... Text-books for the teaching of the subject PAGE 127 130 131 133 134 135 136 136 138 138 140 143 145 146 147 147 150 151 152 153 154 155 155 XVI CONTENTS PAGE XL Auxiliary aids to Moral Training in school . 157 1. Poetry for Recitation . . . .158 Music Pieces to be Avoided . . -158 Pieces to be Selected . . . .160 2. Pieces for Music 161 Convivial Songs to be Avoided . .162 Love Songs Objectionable . . .163 XII. The Relation of Moral Training to Religious Instruction 165 The General Teaching of Moral Duty is surely now near at hand . . .166 OF TM[ RUSKIN ON EDUCATION PART FIRST THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Of all our contemporaries, since Emerson and Carlyle passed away, there is only one who now fulfils for the nation and for the world the all-important, -ever-needed function of the Prophet — John Ruskin. Like the fervid strains of the great Hebrew and Eastern seers, his utterances on a wide range of vital subjects are powerful, eloquent, fearless, enlightened, formative, and pregnant; condemnatory of the present, and hopefully prognostic of the brighter future. Like theirs, too, they are the flashing fires of a burning enthusiasm for God and for humanity; brilliant, self-consuming, and unextinguishable. They demand, and A 2 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION they deserve, attention ; and though for a season they are, like all prophetic visions, disregarded by the careless world, they will yet, through their form and character, com- mand and receive recognition. Of their wis- dom, there exists, and will long continue to exist, the widest variety of opinion — many, and these a rapidly growing band, holding them as a gospel and a life ; more, fearing them as radical and dangerous ; most, viewing them as amiable, beautiful, but Utopian dreams, impossible of realisation ; but all, regarding their author with growing respect, which is rapidly rising to admiration, for his single- eyed sincerity, unsurpassed eloquence, deep love of his fellow-men, and moral insight and elevation. RUSKIN'S RELATIONS TO EDUCATION I. — RUSKIN'S VIEWS ON EDUCATION SHOULD BE BETTER KNOWN. RUSKIN'S opinions on ^Esthetic and Social problems have received more exposition and criticism than on other subjects of which he has spoken, numerous and interesting though these have been. Of those less known to the world, on which he has written largely, Education certainly stands first. His views on this all-important theme have received far too little consideration, certainly much less than they deserve, from either critics or students, for the sake alike of their author, their nature, or the subject itself. Light on the vital questions connected with a subject so essential to human happiness and progress, should be welcomed from all quarters, especially when coming from a thinker so original, practical, and advanced, 4 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION and — doubt it who may — so wise as John Ruskin. It is my own deep and growing sense of the value of his views on Education, and of the comparative neglect they have as yet received — due in part, no doubt, to their being overshadowed by his better-known writings on other subjects — that suggested the desirability of making them matter for general public exposition, in these pages, for the instruction of the people. I am more and more convinced, as an educationist, that they form a remarkably enlightened and far- reaching contribution towards the better de- velopment of this still very imperfect national and universal function, the training of children, and the education of humanity. II. — HIS STUDY OF EDUCATION WAS PHILANTHROPIC. Ruskin's study of Education was the natural outcome of his profound interest in sail that bears on the well-being of mankind. His labours in this field have had their root in his philanthropy. In this respect, he resembles Pestalozzi, the greatest educational reformer GENERAL PRINCIPLES 5 of modern times, whose enthusiasm in scho- lastic work sprang from his intense desire to " ennoble men," as he expressed it. He also resembles Froebel, the disciple of the great Swiss, and the founder of the Kindergarten system, which was conspicuously framed for the high moral end of enabling man, in Froebel's own words, " to live a life worthy of his manhood and his species." The elevated aims of these two remark- able men, who were philanthropists first and educationists second, exactly express those of Ruskin in origin and motive. Feeling like them, and like all others who have desired to raise mankind to higher things — such as philo- sophers like Plato, religionists like Luther, scientists like Huxley and Spencer — that, to elevate mankind effectively, we must begin at the beginning; to improve the stock, we must operate on the germ ; to educate the race, we must train the children : he was compelled to examine the system by which this training is carried on — in other words, to study Educa- tion. Unlike professional educationists, such as Pestalozzi and Froebel, however, Ruskin has not studied Education so fully as he has O RUSKIN ON EDUCATION done some other subjects ; he has not examined it as a Science or Art, nor has he formulated any special system, like these technical experts. His views on teaching are more general and philosophical than technical and scholastic, ex- cept on Art, and partly on Literature. At the same time, they are remarkably clear, sugges- tive, far-reaching, and practical ; well-founded on principle, full of dissatisfaction with things as they are, prophetic of desirable reform, and deserving and rewarding careful attention from all interested in educational advance- ment. Ruskin's study of Education has, however, been more extensive and thorough than most people would expect, or than even his general readers would think possible, from the time he has given to other matters. For example, the mere index to his educational utterances in Fors Clavigera alone fills seven pages ; and he tells us (preface to Deucalion, 1875), that he proposed writing a life of Xenophon,* for whom he has the highest admiration, which should include an analysis of the general prin- ciples of Education, in ten volumes ; as well * Done partly in Bibliothcca Pastoritm. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 7 as editing n a body of popular literature of en- tirely serviceable quality — of the most precious books needed," "for a common possession of all our school libraries : " * both of these being gigantic undertakings, which would be a life- work for most men. III. — HIS OPINION OF EDUCATION AS IT IS. What is John Ruskin's opinion of Education as it is at present carried on ? It is as con- demnatory as it is of existing Art and social condition, and as unreservedly and vigorously expressed. " Modern Education," says he, in Sesame and Lilies ; "for the most part signifies giving people the faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of impor- tance to them." " Be assured," he asserts, " we cannot read. It is simply and sternly impos- sible for the English public, at this moment, to understand any thoughtful writing — so inca- pable of thought has it become in its insanity of avarice ; " though, lie reassures us, " happily our disease is, as yet, little worse than this * Fors Clavigerci) vol. vi., 1876, p. 216. 8 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION incapacity of thought.'' "As a nation," he says, " we have been going on despising litera- ture, despising science, despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and concentrat- ing our soul on pence." He declares that the development of humanity in England has re- sulted in " physical ugliness, envy, cowardice, and selfishness," instead of what, " by a con- ceivably humane, but hitherto unexampled, edu- cation, might be attempted of physical beauty, humility, courage, and affection." And he sums up the whole by deliberately declaring this : " The more I see of our national faults or miseries, the more they resolve themselves into conditions of childish illiterateness and want of education in the most ordinary habits of thought. It is, I repeat," he continues, " not vice, not selfishness, not dulness of brain, which we have to lament, but an unreachable schoolboy's recklessness, only differing from the true schoolboy's in its incapacity of being helped, because it acknowledges no master." * This is a serious indictment, a painful im- peachment of a country which plumes itself on its educational eminence among the nations, ' Sesame and Lilies^ § 40. £y GENERAL PRINCIPLES 9 and thinks itself, at the worst, second only to Germany in its educational system and results. But Ruskin speaks with deliberation and con- viction. " Do you think," asks he, " these are harsh or wild words ? I will prove their truth to you, clause by clause ;"* and he set himself expressly, and, from his point of view, success- fully, to make good his accusations, in Sesame and Lilies, and elsewhere in his voluminous works, especially in Fors Clavigera. This indictment has been abundantly re- peated by Carlyle, Spencer, Huxley, Lyon Playfair, Matthew Arnold and other inspectors of schools, and by many more who are inter- ested in the well-being of the people — in words which it would take too long fully to quote. I give but one example, to show that Ruskin does not stand alone in his low estimate of Education as it exists. Here is the testimony, out of a host, of a fair and unimpassioned judge, Sir John Lubbock, f of what our average school education is ; and, in the opinion, he includes all schools, higher and lower : — "Our great danger in education is, as it seems * Sesame and Lilies, § 31. t Addresses Political and Educational, p. 98. 10 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION to me, the worship of book learning — the con- fusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory, instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the mechanical act of writing, and the interminable intricacies of spelling ; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their tastes, rather than fill their minds with dry facts. " Too often, moreover, the acquirement of knowledge is placed before them in a form so irksome and fatiguing that all desire for in- formation is choked, or even crushed out ; so that our schools, in fact, become places for the discouragement of learning, and thus produce the very opposite effect from that at which we aim. " Under the present system, our schools will, I fear, become more and more places of mere instruction ; instead of developing intellectual tastes, they will make all mental effort irk- some." GENERAL PRINCIPLES I I IV. — HIS IDEAS OF WHAT EDUCATION SHOULD BE. Ruskin's central conception of Education, it follows, must surely be something radically and essentially different in type and form from what is generally conceived and carried out in these lands, to give rise to such sweeping con- demnation of an educational system, with its mental and moral effects, that has taken so many years and so many hands to build up, and has cost so much in pains and pocket. It is, down to the ground, as diverse from common conception and practice as it well can be; and it will be good for us, in the remainder of this work, to enquire somewhat into the General Principles which, according to Ruskin and other great educationists, should form the foundation of any true educational system, in theory and practice. We must, at present, confine ourselves en- tirely to a few of these general ideas, the subject being in itself so wide; and, even as treated by Ruskin, so broad and so detailed, that it would take volumes even summarily to traverse the ground. SOME GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EDU- CATION ACCORDING TO RUSKIN THE TRUE BASIS OF EDUCATION. I. Education should be regulated by Na- tural Endowment. — Since Education means, simply and truly, development, the manipu- lating of existing materials in the human con- stitution, Ruskin, like all true philosophers, is emphatic on the need of our practical recognition of this fact, and of regulating the treatment of our children according to their constitution and capabilities. These are fixed at birth, being the result of natal and pre-natal con- ditions, and cannot be changed. " You can't manufacture man," says he, "any more than you can manufacture gold. You can find him, and refine him; you dig him out as he is, nugget-fashion, in the mountain stream; you bring him home, and you make him into current coin, or household plate, but GENERAL PRINCIPLES I 3 not one grain of him can you originally produce." * It is, therefore, of the greatest practical moment to discover these capacities in our children, and to utilise and develop them as best we can, varying our treatment and train- ing so as most wisely to secure healthy de- velopment, and putting them to the exact work in life they are best fitted for. The Means of Discovering it. — fi You have a certain quantity of a particular sort of intel- ligence produced for you annually by provi- dential laws, which you can only make use of by setting it to its proper work, and which any attempt to use otherwise involves the dead loss of so much human energy. Well, then, supposing we wish to employ it, how is it to be best discovered and refined ? It is easily enough discovered. To wish to employ it is to discover it. All you need is a School of Trial in every important town, in which those idle farmers' lads, whom their masters never can keep out of mischief, and those stupid tailors' 'prentices, who are always putting the * A Joy for Ever, § 20. " I 4 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION sleeves in wrong way upwards, may have a try at this other trade. "It will be long before the results of experi- ments now in progress will give data for the solution of the most difficult questions con- nected with the subject, of which the prin- cipal one is the mode in which the chance of advancement in life is to be extended to all, and yet made compatible with contentment in the pursuit of lower avocations by those whose abilities do not qualify them for the higher. But the general principle of Trial Schools lies at the root of the matter — of schools, that is to say, in which the knowledge offered and dis- cipline enforced shall be all a part of a great essay of the human soul, and in which the one shall be increased, the other directed, as the tired heart and brain will best bear, and no otherwise." * There is no doubt that this suggestion of Ruskin's as to the wisdom and need of having some such testing machinery as he recommends under the name of " Trial Schools," or, as he also calls them, " Searching or Discovering * A Joy for Ever, § 22. 3 ' GENERAL PRINCIPLES I 5 Schools," * should be more thoroughly and systematically acted upon, than by present blind and imperfect methods is being done. It should receive the practical attention of all educationists and social reformers. As we all feel, and as Ruskin points out again and again, there is a painful waste of mental energy, and loss of existing talent to society, in our haphazard way of ascertaining the precise work in life to which each child should be put, especially the gifted. It is to be feared that it will never be thoroughly done, or be in any way possible, till, as Ruskin points out and recommends, all education shall be truly national, an organic part, and one of the chief functions, of our governing institu- tions, from the lowest to the highest school, from infant-room to university. THE OBJECT OF EDUCATION. II. It should not be conducted with a View to mere " Success in Life." — Ruskin holds that our Education is poisoned * A Joy for Ever, § 28. 3 V I 6 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION in its essence, in its root and sap; and that till its central aim is renewed radically and thoroughly, there can never be any true teach- ing or educational progress. " This arises be- cause it is," he says, "governed and conducted mainly according to the low notion of securing social advancement, which is the gratification of vanity." In his abundant correspondence on Education, he tells us * " he has been always struck by the precedence which the idea of a position in life takes above all other thoughts in the parents' — more especially in the mothers' — minds. The education befitting such and such a station in life — this is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in itself; even the conception of abstract Tightness in training rarely seems reached by the writers. But an education which shall keep a good coat on my son's back — which shall enable him to ring with confidence the visitors' bell at double-belled doors, which shall result ultimately in the establishment of a double-belled door to his own house ; in a * Sesame and Lilies, § 2. "% GENERAL PRINCIPLES I J word, which shall lead to 'advancement in life.' This we pray for on bent knees, and this is all we pray for." Education should aim at Real Advance- ment in Living. — These low aims mean, he rightly warns us,* "not indeed to be great in life — 'in life itself,' but in its 'trappings;' it means only that we are to get more horses, and more footmen, and more fortune, and more public honour, and — not more personal soul." How true, how sadly true, all this is, we all know ; though few, very few of us, dare to say it aloud, still less to denounce it as we ought, and yet less to take practical action to prevent its continuance. At what, therefore, should Education rightly aim in regard to life ? According to Ruskin, at real advancement in life, for which end we must know "what life is." What is real ad- vancement in life ? Hear Ruskin's answer : " He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. And the men who have this * Sesame and Lilies, § 42. B I 8 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION life in them are the true lords and kings of the earth — they and they only." * The only true Education is "an education which, in itself, is advancement in life — any other than that may perhaps be advancement in death ; and this essential Education might be more easily got or given than we fancy, if we set about it in the right way ; while it is for no price and by no favour to be got, if we set about it in the wrong." f In these fiercely wise words, Ruskin gives eloquent and thrilling utterance to the thoughts of the greatest thinkers of all time. It is the truth sounding ever in dull ears — that u the life is more than meat " or money or minis- tration to vanity. This is, in another form, Milton's idea of "a complete and generous education ; " as " that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the duties of all offices." It is another utterance of what Herbert Spencer so well expresses : ° How to live — that is the essen- tial question for us. The general problem which comprehends every special problem is — the right ruling of conduct in all directions, * Sesame and Lilies, § 42. t Ibid. § 2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES I 9 under all circumstances. To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge." That is the true, the only key-note to the harmonies of life. All others, however spe- cious, however common, however honoured, however seductive, are false, " hollow as the grave," and end only in harshest discord. But alas, alas, Ruskin only utters the sadder and the deeper thoughts of all earnest hearts, when he again says : " I felt, with increas- ing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in ourselves no less than in the teachers ; and that, while the wisdom and Tightness of every act and art of life could only be consistent with a right understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged as in a languid dream — our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our ears closed, lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us — lest we should see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed."* " This intense apathy in all of us, is the first great mystery of life ; it stands in the way of every perception, every virtue. There is no making ourselves feel enough astonishment * Sesame and Lilies, § 107. 20 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION at it. That the occupations or pastimes of life should have no motive is understandable ; but that life itself should have no motive — that we neither care to find out what it may lead to, nor to guard against its being for ever taken away from us — here is a mystery indeed."* THE FIRST CONDITION OF EDUCATION. III. Education should train to Use- ful Work. — There is nothing that Ruskin considers more essential in all Education than to train the child to DO something, to make Work its central idea. We should provide practical work during the period of school- life, in order to train the child to do practical work in after-life. "Let us, for our lives, do the work of men while we bear the form of them. ' The work of men ' — and what is that ? Well, we may any of us know very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are, for the most part, thinking not of what we are to do, but what we are to get." " Whatever our station in life may be," he counsels " those of us who * Sesame and Lilies, § ioS. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 2 I mean to fulfil our duty ought, first, to live on as little as we can ; and, secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we can spare in doing all the sure good we can ; and sure good is, first, in feeding people, then in dressing people, and, lastly, in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or sciences, or any other object of thought." * Therefore, " the first condition of Educa- tion," he says, " the thing you are all crying out for, is being put to wholesome and useful work. And it is really the last condition of it too ; you need very little more ; but, as things go, there will yet be difficulty in getting that. As things have hitherto gone, the difficulty has been to avoid getting the reverse of that." t Ruskin's radical conception has been very different from the common one, of making Education a mere knowledge-grinding process, and a means of social advancement and per- sonal aggrandisement. The most convincing and all-sufficient reason for making Work the end and aim of Educa- tion, and the best preparation for life, is, that * Sesame ami Lilies, §§ 134-5.. t Fors Ciavigera, vol. i., 1S71, p. 215. 2 2 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION it is the source of all true felicity ; it is the secret of happiness in life. " In all other paths by which that happiness is pursued, there is disappointment or destruction ; for ambition and for passion, there is no rest, no fruition ; the fairest pleasures of youth perish in a dark- ness greater than their past light ; and the loftiest and purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of human industry, in- dustry worth ily followed, gives peace.* But the work should not be MERE doing of something, simple action for its own sake, but the doing of something " useful" something 11 serviceable." " I believe," says Ruskin, "an immense gain in the bodily health and happi- ness of the upper classes would follow on their steadily endeavouring, however clumsily, to make the physical exertion they now neces- sarily exert in amusements, definitely service- able. It would be far better, for instance, that a gentleman should mow his own fields, than ride over other people's." f \ * Sesame and Lilies, § 128. t Frondes Agrestes, p. 143. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 2$ With the vehement indignation of the Bap- tist to the rich man of his day, Ruskin cries aloud to the rich man of ours : " Build, my man — build or dig — one of the two ; and then eat your honestly earned meat, thankfully, and let other people alone, if you can't help them." * The Kz?id of Work needed. — Elsewhere he explains, " The three first needs of civilised life are feeding people, dressing people, and lodging people ; f and the law for every Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in direct service towards one of these three needs, as far as is consistent with their own special occu- pation ; and if they have no special business, then wholly in one of these services. And out of such exertion in plain duty, all other good will come ; for, in this direct contention with material evil, you will find out the real nature of all evil ; you will discern, by the various kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism to good; also you will find the most unexpected helps and profound lessons given ; and truths will come thus down * Fors Clavigera, vol. iv., 1874, p. 259. f Sesame and Lilies, § 135. 24 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION to us, which the speculation of all our lives would never have raised us up to. You will find nearly every educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do something ; everybody will become of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what is the best for them to know in that use. Competi- tive examination will then, and not till then, be wholesome, because it will be daily, and calm and in practice ; and on these familiar arts, and minute, but certain and serviceable knowledges, will be surely edified and sus- tained the greater arts and splendid theoretical sciences." * Its Effects on Religion. — "But more than this. On such holy and simple practice will be founded, indeed, at last, an infallible Re- ligion. The greatest of all mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and helpful action. Helpful action, observe ! "You may see continually girls who have never been taught to do a single useful thing thoroughly; who cannot sew, who cannot * Sesame and Lilies, § 1 39. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 2$ cook, who cannot cast an account, nor prepare a medicine ; whose whole life has been passed either in play or in pride ; you will find girls like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate passion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to support them through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation over the meaning of the great Book, of which no syllable w r as ever yet to be understood but through a deed ; all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made vain, and the glory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless agony concerning questions which the laws of com- mon serviceable life would have either solved for them in an instant, or kept out of their way. Give such a girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthu- siasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. " So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin verses and called them educated ; now we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a 26 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION ball with a bat, and call them educated. Can they plough, can they sow, can they plant at the right time, or build with a steady hand ? Is it the effort of their lives, to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word and deed ? " * This it is to be truly educated. The Relation of Work to Physical Exercise. — So earnest, you see, is this practical philoso- pher in his advocacy of the work to which our children and our people should be put being definitely " serviceable," that even exercises for physical education should, he holds, not end only in themselves, as in common gym- nastics, but should result in something real and practical. He says it is "my steady wish that school boys should learn skill in ploughing and seamanship rather than in cricket ; and that young ladies should often be sent to help the cook and housemaid, when they would rather be playing tennis." f So determined is Ruskin to do what he can to make work, " serviceable labour," an essen- tial part of all education and daily life, and all acquirement " serviceable knowledge," as he * Sesame and Lilies , § 140. t /gdrasi/, for August 1890, p. 304. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 2^ calls it, that he has made it a condition of entry into St. George's Guild. The candidate has to swear and subscribe his honest hand to this law: "I will labour, with such strength and opportunity as God gives me, for my own daily bread ; and all that my hand finds to do, I will do it with my might." " Any one," he explains in Fors Clavigera* " may be a companion of St. George, who sin- cerely do what they can to make themselves useful, and earn their own daily bread by their own labour." We all know that our reformer practises what he preaches, even when, to the outside world, he seems most extreme; and we re- member the unwonted enthusiasm he inspired in even the dilletante Oxonians, by leading them for a time to road-making and like serviceable labours, spade and hammer in hand, amid the astonishment and laughter of the British Philistines. He tells us also how he never painted better than after wash- ing down with his hands, on his knees, the wooden stair of a Swiss hotel in which he was staying ! * Fors Clavigera, vol. vi., 1 876, p. 212. 2 8 ruskin on education The Growth of this Idea in Schools. — This demand of Ruskin for Work as the means and end and test of Education, is daily receiving increased recognition among educa- tionists and social reformers ; and it but utters, in new and eloquent and more thorough shape, the aims and ideas of all the best educational philosophers. It is based on the sound prin- ciple of all true training of a child, that of de- veloping his faculties by appropriate exercise, which all educational reformers, as far as they have been right, have made the basis of their systems, however varied in form. It was the central idea in Xenophon's edu- cation of Cyrus, whose Cyropcedia is one of Ruskin's greatest educational books ; in Fel- lenberg's celebrated institution at Hofwyl, in which education was united with and carried on through agriculture; in Robert Owen's Infant schools and philanthropic Communities ; in Pestalozzi's educational reforms; in Froe- bel's Kindergarten system, which is organised, playful work, and in which the intimate union of u hand work and head work " from the first has been lately shown by the issue of a re- markable exposition of the system, in a work GENERAL PRINCIPLES 29 under that title by the greatest expounder of Froebel's system, Baroness Bulow.* It has gained increased impulse in the new and growing extension of Manual Instruction, by which pupils are taught to use their hands as well as their heads in school, and not to be ashamed of manual labour; and in its most recent development, through the noteworthy Swedish movement of Otto Salomon, that of Sloyd, whose special object is i( the acquire- ment of manual dexterity, exercise of judg- ment and technical skill, development of the physique, gradual training of the pupil, by a progressive series of work from simple to skilled workmanship ; " | and in the mixed but notable modern cry for Technical Edu- cation. Though Ruskin's idea and advocacy reach further and deeper than these, and signify a more radical change in the matter of labour, throughout society when reconstituted; yet these are encouraging proofs that his notions, however contrary to common practice and traditional opinion, are sound, philosophical, * Handwork and Headwork. (Swan Sonnenschein.) t Cyclopedia of Education, p. 407. {Ibid.) 30 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION and less Utopian than they first seemed. But the dead wall of prejudice and false pride that hides the true dignity of labour from the mass of mankind, both rich and poor, is one still standing broad, high, shameless, and almost unbroken. Charles G. Leland, the " Hans Breitmann " of the literary world, one of the greatest advocates of practical education that we have, is likewise convinced that it is only " by making hand work a part of every child's education that we shall destroy the vulgar prejudice against work as being itself vulgar." He declares that "this prejudice exists where we should least expect to find it — not in the tradition-bound countries of Europe, but in the United States ; and that there is no country in the world where manual work is practically in so little respect, or where there are so many trying to get above it, as in the American Republic. While there are a few superior to this rubbishness, there are still millions who are practically enslaved by it." He speaks only simple fact when he further states that " perhaps half the real suffering in Europe and America is the result of the effort GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 I to appear genteel ; " and he names one of the chief causes of this painful pursuit of the false conception of the true gentleman, when he says, that " it arises from the fact that work — hand work — is not yet sufficiently identified with Education and culture." * Has Ruskin not reason to be angry ? Are his burning words too strong in exposing this social sham, and in seeking to lead us to a higher and holier conception, not only of the dignity of labour, but the need, the philosophic wisdom, the redemption for the race, that lies in Work ; and in every man, woman, and child on this round earth hourly taking their hard and hearty share in it ? There are signs, though painfully rare and slow, that the world does partially begin to realise, and to act on, Carlyle's words, of which Ruskin's are a perpetual and impas- sioned commentary : " There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness in work. There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works ; in idleness alone, there is perpetual despair." * Practical Education, by Charles G. Leland. (London, Whittaker & Co., 1888.) 32 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS. IV. Education should not be estimated BY THE MERE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE. — One of the chief tendencies of modern opinion is to estimate Education by means of exami- nations; and this tendency is one that is yearly growing. This is a natural conse- quence of the increased desire to make our teaching more thorough, and it is a reaction against the partial and imperfect teaching of the past. But it is attended with many evils — educational, moral, and social; the chief of which is, that it makes mere acquirement, the acquisition of knowledge, the chief end of all education. Instead of this, it is a minor aim, and should be made a means to what is higher — the training of faculty, ability to execute, in the intellectual field, and still better, in the moral world ; to give power to live a higher and happier life for one's self and for otherc On this subordination of mere knowledge, and the dignifying of the moral elements in Education, Ruskin is most emphatic. " In the education either of the lower or upper classes," he says, " it matters not the GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 3 least how much or how little they know, pro- vided they know just what will fit them to do their work and to be happy in it." "A man is not educated," he continues, " in any sense whatsoever, because he can read Latin or write English, or can behave himself in a drawing-room ; but he is only educated, if he is happy, busy, beneficent, and effective in the world: millions of peasants are, therefore, at this moment, better educated than most of those who call themselves gentlemen ; and the means taken to educate the lower classes in any other sense may very often be productive of a precisely opposite result."* These are radical but glorious sentiments, that cannot be too much preached in this Philistine age and country, in which mere acquisition, whether of pelf in the pocket or knowledge in the head, is made the test of educational efficiency and rank in society, and not least among the learned classes. Other enlightened educationists and friends of humanity, believers in true manhood as something different from its market value in the world, have spoken with like vigour and * Stones of Venice, iii., App. vii. , p. 232. 34 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION indignation against the worship of mere know- ledge, which, in our time, is almost as fatal to true character and happiness as the worship of wealth. The matter was expressed pithily by the Lancashire workman to his apprentice, when he said, "Tha wants to know ta mich ; tha do exactly what a tell tha, and tha'll do reet." * Never was the rebellion against this tyranny of knowledge in Education better advocated than by Edward Thring, late head-master of Uppingham Public School, an advanced and enlightened educationist of the Ruskin type, who put this and many more of Ruskin's radical positions with epigrammatic point, in spite of his being the chief of an English higher-rank school. He pleaded with teachers to " banish the idolatry of knowledge, to realise that call- ing out thought and strengthening mind are an entirely different and higher process from the putting in of knowledge and the heaping up of facts." He bade them " choose deliber- ately a large amount of ignorance, and fling- omniscience into the common sewer, if ever they mean to be skilled workmen, masters of * Cyclopedia of Education, p. 202. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 3 5 mind, lords of thought, and to teach others to be skilled workmen." * " The knowledge-hack and knowledge-omnibus business," he scath- ingly continues, " may minister to animated steam engines and to intellectual navvies, but it can never teach life or train souls." f "A teacher is not," he says, " a parrot-master, is not a truck-loader at a goods station ; but he is one who sows the seeds of life and fosters them." J These are sentiments surely expressed quite to Ruskin's heart. They should be made to resound throughout the country, and re-echo in every schoolroom in the land. Happily for teachers, and still more for children, a strong blow to this worship of knowledge and its yard measure of examinations has lately been struck by the virtual abolition of "payment by results " in our Education Codes. It remains to be seen how teachers and examiners will take advantage of the new freedom, by culti- vating intelligence more than memory, ability more than acquirement, and character more than all. * Rawnsley, Life of Thring^ p. 30. t Ibid. p. 34. X Ibid. pp. 35, 142. $6 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION NATURE IN EDUCATION. V. The Importance of the World of Nature in Education. — Ruskin's name is synonymous with the advocacy of Beauty as an essential element in all culture ; he is, beyond question, the greatest apostle of ^Esthetic training as necessary for human development and felicity the modern world has yet seen. He holds that " all educa- tion to beauty is first " — first in importance and first in time — " in the beauty of gentle human faces round a child ; secondly, in the fields." "Without these," he holds, "no one can be educated humanly. He may be made a calculating machine — a walking dictionary — a painter of dead bodies — a twanger or scratcher on keys or catgut— a discoverer of new forms of worms in mud. But a properly so-called human being — never." He advocates, with reiterated, fervid, and poetic eloquence, the importance, the vital need, of training children through intercourse with Nature. Not Wordsworth himself has more than he pleaded for, insisted on, proved, and illus- trated the absolute necessity of this open-air GENERAL PRINCIPLES 37 element for human training, happiness, health, and progress. The education of every child should include " heavenly realities ; " — and " see first," he ex- claims with ethical and lyrical fervour — "see first that its realities are heavenly, in the fields — in grass, water, beasts, flowers and sky ! " Speaking of this training through Nature, he says that there is no part of the subject of Education that he feels more or can press more upon us.* Natural scenes he calls " the pleasant places which God made at once for the schoolroom and the playground of our children ; " t and he declares that u a quiet glade of forest, or the nook of a lake shore, are worth all the schoolrooms in Christendom." J Speaking of the education of girls, after advo- cating Literature and Art as necessary thereto, he continues : " There is one more help which a girl cannot do without — one which, alone, has sometimes done more than all other influences besides — the help of wild and fair nature." Then he quotes, as an example to be followed * Sesame and Lilies, § 84. t Ibid. § 85. % A Joy for Ever, § 105. 38 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION in Britain, De Quincey's account of Joan of Arc's education, in the forests of Domremy in France ; where, De Quincey says, her education was "mean according to the present standard," but " ineffably grand according to a purer philosophic standard," — a standard Ruskin has never ceased to raise in the eyes of his countrymen. Crying aloud, as with apocalyptic voice in the existing wilderness of human error in regard to the education of our children, for whom love should impel us to do our best, he says : — u Oh ye women of England ! from the Prin- cess of Wales to the simplest of you. . . . You cannot baptize your children rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth for ever from the rocks of your native land — waters which a Pagan would have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only with pollution. You cannot lead your children to these narrow axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven — the mountains that sustain your island throne — mountains on which a GENERAL PRINCIPLES 39 Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud — remain for you without inscription ; altars built, not to but by an Unknown God." * In this advocacy of Nature, and if possible Wild Nature, of which we have such magnifi- cent and beautiful examples in our own land, easily and cheaply accessible, Ruskin is only emphasising what Pestalozzi and Froebel have already uttered and acted on. I have pur- posely tried to draw a parallel between this great man, our own master, and these best exponents of modern wise advance in educa- tional science and practice ; to show that, even where the outside world are not slow to con- sider Ruskin extreme and impracticable, his ideas carry with them the seal of the wisest thinkers on the very subjects which the world ignorantly misunderstands and therefore con- demns. Speaking of the time that he spent amid the wonderful scenery of Switzerland with Pestalozzi, who made intercourse with Nature in the training of his pupils an inte- gral and regular part of his teaching, Froebel records, in his Autobiography, a great and * Sesame and Lilies, § 85. 4-0 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION valuable work, happily now accessible to Eng- lish readers,* these interesting experiences bearing on the part Nature ought to play in all education : — " Closely akin to the games in their morally strengthening aspect, were the walks, especi- ally those of the general walking parties, more particularly when conducted by Pestalozzi him- self. These walks were by no means always meant to be opportunities for drawing close to Nature ; but Nature herself, though unsought, always drew the walkers close to herself. Every contact with her elevates, strengthens, purifies. It is from this cause that Nature, like noble, great-souled men, wins us to her ; and when- ever school or teaching duties gave me respite, my life at this time was always passed amidst natural scenes and in communion with Nature. From the tops of the high mountains near by, I used to rejoice in the clear and still sunset, in the pine-forests, the glaciers, the mountain meadows, all bathed in rosy light. Such an evening walk came, indeed, to be an almost irresistible necessity to me after each actively * Translation by Messrs. Charles and Moore, 1886. (Swan, Sonnenschcin, & Co.) GENERAL PRINCIPLES 4 I spent day. As I wandered on the sunlit, far- stretching hills ; or along the still shore of the lake, clear as crystal, smooth as a mirror; or in the shady groves, under the tall forest trees: my spirit grew full with ideas of the truly God-like nature and priceless value of a man's soul, and I gladdened myself with the con- sideration of mankind as the beloved children of God." And Froebel has made Nature a necessary part of his 1 system : for as Baroness Biilow, the greatest expounder of Froebel's educa- tional philosophy and practice, says : " With- out Nature, the life of the fields and forests, of the animal and vegetable universe, the human being must be without the most essential and natural elements of its development." * THE OUT-DOOR CLASS-ROOM. These sentiments, which seem an echo of Wordsworth and Ruskin, are the independent, sober, unimpassioned statement of the practical convictions and conclusions of a philosophic * Child and Child Nature, p. 116. 42 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION German, reflecting on the great problems of human development, and its educational pro- cess through the daily work of our school- rooms ; and we shall only be wise in our practice when we make them part and parcel of the training of all our children, whether they are immured in our crowded cities or sur- rounded by natural beauty in the country. It ought to be made an important portion of the weekly work of every school, to take the children out into the country, under the guid- ance of their several teachers, to breathe its balm, grow strong in its healthy breezes, see and enjoy its beauties, learn to observe accu- rately and intelligently its varied phenomena, and receive there a glorious training of sense and soul, head and heart, possible only beneath the blue vault of heaven. All this to be done under as careful guidance and earnest pursuit of intellectual and moral aims as in the schoolroom itself. In truth, the country should — and will, some wiser day — become an outer, uncovered classroom ; a Divine museum, utilised by our teachers ; the windows of heaven in the sky that illuminate it, opening windows of heaven in the soul, GENERAL PRINCIPLES 43 through which the imprisoned spirits of our weary children may gain celestial glimpses of beauty and grandeur, of higher and happier possibilities, and from which our dull and narrow scholastic systems still entirely shut them out. And this is not Utopia. It has been the blessed experience of many teachers and scholars, and will, some day — God speed it ! — become universal; and when that day comes, no compulsory clause will be required in our Codes for that part of the work. It was done in Switzerland ; and it is done wherever a true Kindergarten is fully carried out. It has been done by many good schoolmasters, who, rising above scholastic routine, have led their pupils out to the fields, and found there together joys that cannot be uttered. While I was a teacher myself, I attempted to carry this into practice ; and others of my friends have done the same, with unspeakable advantage to themselves and their children. One good teacher in one of the Govan Board Schools, Mr. John Main, an enthusiastic scientist, with broader notions than common of what Education means, has taken his pupils 44 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION out to Nature for the last fifteen years; and he is still a young man. Two years ago, his class, the Fourth Stan- dard, made three rambles round Glasgow, and a senior class under him made nine. The num- bers ranged from twenty to fifty at a time; and under his guidance, they have visited most places of interest and beauty round the city. In longer journeys, they carry their own pro- visions, which are washed down with milk from a neighbouring farm, water from the running brook, happy feelings, and healthy appetites. If this happy practice were at all common — and there is no reason why it should not be universal, except the apathy or ignorance of our teachers — "not a bird should fly un- noticed," as Edward Thring, of Uppingham, who advocated such education, says ; " not a song should sound, not a wing be moved, with- out appealing to seeing eyes and hearing ears." If such were general, " the names of Edward and Robert Dick," he continues, " then would not shine like stars, because of the daylight ; and tens of thousands, using happy eyes, would find delight in common things." * * Rawnsley, Life of Thring, p. 18. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 4$ OVERPRESSURE. VI. Our Educational Standard should not be too high. — There are few things on which Ruskin is so persistent and strenuous as in recommending that the faculties of our children ought not to be strained in the educa- tion we give them ; and that the training and instruction they receive should be specially and intimately adapted to their capacities of mind and body, and to the circumstances in which they live. His counsels in this are peculiarly needed in these days of proved Overpressure and its painful deterioration of individual and national life. There exists a reprehensible ambition, in both parents and teachers, to drive the children beyond their powers, for present paltry gain of fame, or place, or social position, to future certain detriment, and ultimate loss or failure. These are facts that cannot be gainsaid; and it is well that they are receiving more weight and attention from all parties concerned — from physicians, physiologists, educationists, Par- liament, and thoughtful persons generally. Ruskin was long as a voice crying in the 46 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION wilderness on this point, and is still greatly in advance of public opinion in regard to it. Some of his utterances are of the bluntest, but out-and-out wise, and it behoves us as a nation to give them more earnest heed. Among many appeals equally plain and pithy, here is one going straight to the mark ; and more need not be said : " Nor should the natural torpor of whole- some dulness be disturbed by provocations, or plagued by punishments. The wise proverb ought in every schoolmaster's mind to be deeply set — 'You cannot make a silk purse of a sow's ear ; ' expanded with the further scholium that the flap of it will not be the least disguised by giving it a diamond earring. If, in a woman, beauty without discretion be as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, much more in man, woman or child, knowledge without discretion — the knowledge which a fool receives only to puff up his stomach, and sparkle in his cock's-comb. As I said, in matters moral, most men are not intended to be any better than sheep and robins ; so, in matters intellec- tual, most men are not intended to be wiser than their cocks and bulls, — duly scientific of GENERAL PRINCIPLES 47 their yard and pasture, peacefully nescient of all beyond. To be proud and strong, each in his place and work, is permitted and ordained to the simplest ; but ultra — ne sutor, ne fossor. " The entire body of teaching throughout the series of Fors Clavigera is one steady asser- tion of the necessity, that educated persons should share their thoughts with the unedu- cated, and take also a certain part in their labours. But there is not a sentence imply- ing that the education of all should be alike, or that there is to be no distinction of master from servant, or of scholar from clown. That education should be open to all, is as certain as that the sky should be ; but, as certainly, it should be enforced on none, and benevolent nature left to lead her children, whether men or beasts, to take or leave at their plea- sure. Bring horse and man to the water, and let them drink if, and when, they will : the child who desires education will be bettered by it ; the child who dislikes it, only disgraced." * * Fors Clavigera, vol. viii., pp. 257-S-9. 48 RUSKIN ON EDUCATION VII. Education should vary with Cir- cumstances. — A logical outcome of the posi- tion thus maintained by Ruskin is another on which he is equally pungent and pressing — the wisdom and need of adapting the edu- cation given to the varying circumstances of the children to be educated. This is radically sound, and is being more and more acted on in Public Schools under the Education Depart- ment; but its importance is as yet but dimly perceived, and little practised. The traditions of Popular Education, among both our ad- ministrators and teachers, have mostly been against it, and a colourless uniformity has been too much the aim and the result of the methods adopted — a result as far as Nature, against which such a doctrine rebels, has allowed. In combating it, Ruskin waxes more indignant than usual, as in the passage quoted below. This is taken from the in- valuable summary of the principles of the Education he has advocated for half a cen- tury, given in the concluding volume (vol. viii.) of For s Clavigera, pp. 254-5 — a summary that should be read, learnt, and inwardly digested by the nation, and especially by its leaders GENERAL PRINCIPLES 49 in both educational and general affairs. Listen to Ruskin : — " I start with the general principle, that every school is to be fitted for the children in its neighbourhood who are likely to grow up and live in its neighbourhood. The idea of a general education which is to fit every- body to be Emperor of Russia, and provoke a boy, whatever he is, to want to be some- thing better, and wherever he was born, to think it a disgrace to die, is the most entirely and directly diabolical of all the countless stupidities into which the British nation has been of late betrayed by its avarice and ir- religion. There are, indeed, certain elements of education which are alike necessary to the inhabitants of every spot of earth. Cleanliness, obedience, the first laws of music, mechanics, and geometry, the primary facts of geography and astronomy, and the outlines of history, should evidently be taught alike to poor and rich, to sailor and shepherd, to labourer and shop-boy. But for the rest, the efficiency of any school will be found to increase exactly in the ratio of its direct adaptation to the circumstances of the children it receives ; and n 5