PROFESSOR HUXELEY ON EDUCATION AND CASTE.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 402, 17 January 1872, Page 7

PROFESSOR HUXELEY ON EDUCATION AND CASTE.

, following interesting' acldresis was recently delivered by Professor Huxley at Birmingham:—

Thfe Professor said it was 'iroposs ; .bl<% even (fit were desirable, to shut their eyes to the fact that there was a minority, not j inconsiderable ' in numbers, nor deficient in supporters of weight and authority, iv whose judgnient all, this educational legislation was a step in the wrong direction , false in principle, and consequently sure to produce evil in practice. The arguments employed by these; objectors were of two kinds. The'first was what he would venture to call the caste argument; for, if logically carried out, it, would end in the separation of the people of this country into castes as pennahent and as well de- | fined, if not as numerous, as those which divided the people of India; It was maintained that the whole 'fabric of society would be destroyed if the poor as well as the rich were educated— : that anything like good and sound education would only make them discontented with their station, and raise hopes which, in the great majority of cases, must needs be bitterly disappointed. It was said there must be hewers of wood and drawers o v f water, scavengers and coal-heavers, daily- laborers and domestic servants, or the work of society would come to a standstill *, but if they educated and refined everybody, nobody would be content to assume ' those functions, and all the world would want to; be gentlemen and ladies. They heard that,' argument hiore frequently from the representatives of the well-to-do middle classes, and coming 1 from them it struck him as perfectly incorisfis'tdnt— (cheer?) — as the one thing that they admired, strived after, and advised their own children to do, was to get on in the world, and if possible to rise out of the class in which they were born, into that above them. Society needed grocers and merchants as much as it needed coal-heavers; but if a merchant accumulated wealth and worked his way to a Baronetcy, and if the son of a greengrocer became a Lord Chancellor or an . Archbishop, or if a successful soldier won his way to a Peerage, all the world admired them, and looked with pride upon the social system) which rendered such achievements possible ; but nobody suggested that there was anything" wrong in their being discontented with their station, or that, in their case, society suffered by men of ability reaching the position for which nature had fitted them. (Hear, hear.) A new-born infant did not come into the world labelled " scavenger," "shopkeeper," "bishop," or "duke." (Laughter.] It was only by finding out what his faculties were good for, and by seeking — nor for the sake of gratifying a paltry vanity, but as a duty to himself and his fellow men — to put himself in that position in which his faculties could attain their full development, that a man could discover his true station. That which was to be lamented, he fancied, was not that society should do its utmost to help capacity to ascend from the lower strata to the higher, but that it had no machinery by which to facilitate the descent of incapacity from the higher strata' to the lower. (Cheers.) In that noble romance, "The Republic," which had now been made accessible to every English reader in the admirable translation of the Master of Baliol, Plato made Socrates s<*y that he should like to inculcate upon the citizens of his ideal State just one royal rule—" Citizens, I shall say to them in our tale, yuu are brothers, yet God has frarried you differently. Some of you have the power to command, and these he has composed of gold, wherefore, also, they have f.he greatest honor ; others of silver, to be auxiliaries ; others again, who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen, he has made of brass and iron, and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But, as you ape of the same original family, a golden parent Will sometimes have a silver son ; and God proclaims to the rulers/as the first principle, that before all they should watch over their offspring, and see what elements mingle with 'their nature. If the son of a golden parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of tbe ruler must not be pitiful to wards his child, because he has to descend in the scale and become husbandman, or artisan ; just as there niay be others who. sprung from tbe artisan class, who are raised to honor, and become guardians and auxiliaries i for an oracle says, ' When a man of iron or brass guards the State, it will then be destroyed.'" Time, whoset tooth gnawed. away everything else, was? powerless truth, and the lapse of •" mofe 'th".n 2000 years had not weakened the force of those wise words. Nor was it' necessary that, as Plato suggested, Society^ should provide functionaries expressly "charged with the performance of the difficult duty of picking omt the teen ;6f brass from rh6se of s'ilvet and of gold. The educated and 'the latter would (Jertainlv rise.

to tihe top. Remove all those artificial 1 props' by wlbich 'the bras"s and ir6ii'folk were Icept to the top, and by ii Jaw as surei as that olt gravitatidn they v»6uld gradually' sink to the bottom. They had all kn6wn| noble Lords who wonld have bfepn co&clH 'men. br gamekeepers, ! pr billiard-markers, \ if they had aot been kept afloat by social corks. '(LajV£.M' er ') They .had known men of the lowest ranks of wh6m 'it was said, *' What niight that man hSyebecotoe: if he had only a littlie 'education." T j(Hear,: hear.) Who that haiattaindd even in the, most superficial way to a knovvied^eof /the conditions upttn which the stability of; modern society fesfed, and especially of 6,; society like purs, ii which recent le^isla- '. tion had placed s&vereign .authority in the t hands pf the masses, whenever they were united. enPng-h to use it-, could doubt that eVery man of hi^h .<i n tellectual ability who was both ignorant and miserable," was as great a d^ujer to society as a rocket with-

out astib'k to Ihe 'person "who fired it ? (Hear, .-bfertr/).- Vas la match that never . vfiSnt but. , 'Genius as :1 ah explosive .beat £unp'dwder hbllbw, : &nd if khbwledge, which would give r th at 'power giiidaTice, were waQtSng, the chance's Wefe n6t sfnall that the^.'rockeX.. woulb ftin f iamongst friends afcd^oeß. What g&ve force to the socialistic movement which was now stirring /European' sp'cie'fy to its depth, was the deterniinatodtiyon the part of naturally able men among the pfbCetdire to. put an end somehow or bthe'r to this misery and degradation in which a large .proportion of j their fellows were steeped. The question whether the means by which they purposed to achieve that end were adequate or not, was at this moment the mo>t important of all political questions, and it was beside his present purpose to discuss ir. All he desired to point out was that if the 1 chances <it the controversy being decided calmly and rationally, ii&o by passion and force, looked riiiserably small to the impartial bystander, the ris.k was that not one in ten thousand of tho& who constituted the ultimate court of appeal by wbi«'h questions of the utmost difficulty, as well as of the most momentous gravity, 'would have to be decided, was prepared by education to comprehend even the real nature of the problem brought bef6re the tribunal. Finally, as to ladies and gentlemen, he wished that every ■woman-child t)orn into the world were trained to be a lady, and every man-child were trafned Xo be a gentleman. (Cheers.) But he did. not use those much-abused words by way of distinguishing people .who wore fine clothes and lived in fine houses and talked aristocratic slang— (laughter ad cheers)— from those who wentiaboutin -fustian, and lived in back slums, and talked gutter slang. Some inborn plebeian blindness perhaps prevented him from understanding wbat advantage the former had over the latter. He had never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham—(cheers)—should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Wbitechapel was low— (cheers and laughter)- — or why) *• What a lark !'' 'should be coarse, when one heard " How awfully 'jolly !" dropped from the most refined lips twenty times in an evening. ThoughtfulneSs for others, generosity) modesty, and self-re-; spect were the qualities which made a 'real gentleman or lady, as distinguished fronv the veneered articles that went by the name. .He by no means wished t6 express any sentimental preference for Lazarus over Dives ; but on the face of the matter, one did not see why the practice of those virtues should be more difficult In one state of life than in another , and anydne who had bad a wide experience among all sorts and conditions of menj would, he thought, agree with him that they Were as common in the lower ranks of life as in the higher. (Cheers.) Dr Huxley> accepting the proposition that the functions of the State might all be summed op in one great negative commandment, " Thou shalt not allow any man to interfere whh the liberty of any other man," said he was unable to see that the consequence was any such restriction of. the power of Government as its supporters implied. If his next door neighbor chose to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere which he breathed at the risk of typhus and diptheria, it was just as much a restriction on his just freedom to live as if bis life were threatened with a pistol. If his neighbor were allowed to let his children go unvaccinated, he might just as well be allowed to leave strychnine lozenges about in the way of his (Dr Huxley's) children. And if his neighbor brought up his children untaught aDd untrained to earn 'their living, he was doing his best to restrict his (the lecturer's) freedom by increasing the burden of taxation for the support of gaols and workhouses which be had to pay. Af'er noticing the objection that, 'this principle once admitted, there was no stopping, and replying to it that the Government was the corporate reason Of the community, Dr Huxley proceeded to discuss the question on wbat foundation the r authority of the State rested, and how the limits of that authority were to be determined. The notion that the social body shbuld be organised in such a manner as to advance the welfare of its members was as old as political thought; and the schemes of. modern socialism bore witness that men whose capacity was of no mean order, and whose desire to benefit their fellow- men had never been excelled, had been Strongly convinced that Government might attain its end—the good of the people — by sdme more effectual process thanthe very-simple-and easy one of putting its hands into its pockets and 'lettihg things alone. ( it might, be that all 'the Schemes of Social reorganisation hitherto Were, irapracticable : ; but if ~s6, 'it 'prbve'i, 'not; that the idea was Worthiest, but '6nl'y 'that; the science of politics wai 'in a "very 'rudi-' mentary 'state.. Politics; ! aS a was certainly not older than asVOdbmy, 'aWd 'though the subject- matter 'tff 'the fattS'r science was vasrl'y less complek'tha'n %hat of the former, the theory fff thja Ynddn's motion was not quite settled. Assuming that, the object oi tGpyernment was the godd of mahkind, what was tbe g^oocl of mankind k He took it that it was the attainment by -every man of all the hkppinesS he could enjoy withont diniinlshino: the happiness of his«,fellowr(ban. '{Cheers.) For 'example, he c«uld conceive the existence of -an : ecdlesiastical TeVtablishment' which shonld be a- blessing to the.cpm-raunity-^a church in which-, week' by week, services should- be demoted* not to the iteration of abstract p ( r6ppsi.ti6ns "6f th66logv-. but td 'setting before' men's minds the ideal of justj pnre, atid true living—a .place in which those \Veary '6f the burden of daily cares should find a moment'^ peace in 'the conten&iplation of that higher life #hich was possible fof-all-,' but : which -so ;fe w 'artained-^a ''■■ place in which nien of strife and business should hatfe .tiaae, po. .•think^h^w^^. small) after all',

weiH the rewards tuey coveted coinpnre<fll with 'peace and charitj% If such a church JRXfsted,.no one would, seek to (iisestHblish. it. iDr Huxley cbncltided by insisting on tberiebeisity of Government assisting tho diffusioh of f>du cation, bpcause it prombtfld morality alid refihemerit by teachinja: men tb disciplihe'themselves, and leading them r tb"see that the 'highest position is to he -r trained j not by „ grovelling ih the rank and steaming valleys of sehlse, but f>y cohtihu?tiry strivihg tbwards, thbse high beaks where, resting in eternal CHlrh, th»y mijfht see the undefined ancl bright iHenl of the highest good— a cloud . by day, a pillar 6f fire by night. f (Loud a^lausft.)