Book contents
- Frontmatter
- A PREFATORY LETTER
- Contents
- LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS
- I ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE
- II EMANCIPATION—BLACK AND WHITE
- III A LIBERAL EDUCATION: AND WHERE TO FIND IT
- IV SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
- V ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES
- VI ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY
- VII ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE
- VIII THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM
- IX ON A PIECE OF CHALK
- X GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE
- XI GEOLOGICAL REFORM
- XII THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
- XIII CRITICISMS ON “THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES”
- XIV ON DESCARTES' “DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE METHOD OF USING ONE'S REASON RIGHTLY AND OF SEEKING SCIENTIFIC TRUTH”
III - A LIBERAL EDUCATION: AND WHERE TO FIND IT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- A PREFATORY LETTER
- Contents
- LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS
- I ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE
- II EMANCIPATION—BLACK AND WHITE
- III A LIBERAL EDUCATION: AND WHERE TO FIND IT
- IV SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
- V ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES
- VI ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY
- VII ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE
- VIII THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM
- IX ON A PIECE OF CHALK
- X GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY AND PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE
- XI GEOLOGICAL REFORM
- XII THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
- XIII CRITICISMS ON “THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES”
- XIV ON DESCARTES' “DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE METHOD OF USING ONE'S REASON RIGHTLY AND OF SEEKING SCIENTIFIC TRUTH”
Summary
The business which the South London Working Men's College has undertaken is a great work; indeed, I might say, that Education, with which that college proposes to grapple, is the greatest work of all those which lie ready to a man's hand just at present.
And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recognised. You cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less confused and contradictory talk on this subject—nor can you fail to notice that, in one point at any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like discussions in former days. Nobody outside the agricultural interest now dares to say that education is a bad thing. If any representative of the once large and powerful party, which, in former days, proclaimed this opinion, still exists in a semi-fossil state, he keeps his thoughts to himself. In fact, there is a chorus of voices, almost distressing in their harmony, raised in favour of the doctrine that education is the great panacea for human troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly to go to the dogs, everybody must be educated.
The politicians tell us, “you must educate the masses because they are going to be masters.” The clergy join in the cry for education, for they affirm that the people are drifting away from church and chapel into the broadest infidelity. The manufacturers and the capitalists swell the chorus lustily.
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- Information
- Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews , pp. 31 - 59Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1870