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Untitled Article
for imposing upon the ignorance of the parents ? Whether parents do , in point of fact , prove themselves as solicitous , and as well qualified , to judge rightly of the merit * of places of education , as the theory of Adam Smith supposes ? Whether the truth he not , that , for the most part , they bestow very little thought upon the matter ; or , if they do , show themselves in general the ready dupes of the very shallowest
artifices ? Whether the necessity of keeping parents in good humour does not too often , instead of rendering the education better , render it worse ; the real ends of instruction being sacrificed , not solely ( as would be the case under other circumstances ) to the ease of the teacher , but to that , and also to the additional positive vices of claptrap and lip-proficiency ? We may ask , whether it is not matter of experience , that a schoolmaster who endeavours really to educate , instead
of endeavouring only to seem to educate , and laying himself out for the suffrages of those who never look below the surface , and only for an instant at that , is almost sure , unless he have the genius and the ardour of a Pestalozzi , to make a losing speculation ? Let us do what we may , it will be the study of the mere trading schoolmaster to teach down to the level of the parents , be that level high or low ; as it is of the trading author to write down to the level of his readers . And in the one shape
as in the ether , it is at all times and in all places indispensable , that enlightened individuals and enlightened governments should , from other motives than that of pecuniary gain , bestir themselves to provide that good and wholesome food for the wants of the mind , for which the competition of the mere trading market affords in general so indifferent a substitute . ' To quote another author : —
* As . regards the common run of day and boarding schools , it is well known that they are , as much as any shopkeepers , obliged to gratify the tastes , and satisfy the wishes of their customers ; and that , even if some establishments have risen into such popularity , as to render it truly difficult to insure places in them , this enables them no more to resist and combat , the prevailing prejudices , than the- most fashionable shop in the metropolis has it in its power to abolish all fanciful fashions ,
and to introduce a plain and simple dress * . Their high popularity is founded upon the opinion , that by them the public taste will be gratified more than anywhere else ; but let it for a moment be suspected , that there is a design radically to reform that taste , or merely to correct and purify it , and all the popularity will be gone in an instant . Nowhere is there a more extensive application made of the maxim , Mundus wit decipi , ergo decipiatur ; that is to say , in education , —the vanity and
folly of the parents will be flattered , therefore let us flatter them . And although the weakness of the parents , and the servility of schoolmasters , has been fully explored , and although they heartily despise one another , yet the practical language of a father , when putting his child to school , is still , * ' 1 want to be deceived , —I want to be flattered ;* ' and the schoolmaster ' s answer is no less , You may rely upon it , it shall be done , in general matters , on the usual terms , and in special matters , at so much extra , " ' * What wonder , then , if they who . so ill provide for what most
* Biber ' i * Lectures on Christian Education , p . 181 .
Untitled Article
Reform in Education . 505
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 505, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/45/
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