ORDINARY MEETING.*

SIR G. G. STOKES, LL.D., F.R.S., PRESIDENT, IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the following elections took place :

HON. CORRESPONDING MEMBER :-Professor R. Etheridge, F.R.S., F.G.S. ASSOCIATES:-E. John Weightman, Esq., M.D., Lancashire ; Miss I. Alice Weightman.

The following paper was read by the Author :

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION.

By A. T. SCHOFIELD, Esq., M.D. (Chairman, Executive Parents' National Educational Union.)

THE practical importance of the subject of this paper is, in the face of the increasing struggle for existence, beyond all dispute; but the difficulty of speaking on it is great, because one is compelled to use terms from which many English psychologists still shrink, and yet which most in some way or another are obliged tacitly to agree to. We refer to the unconscious faculties of the mind. Without actually insisting on the phrase that best expresses these, viz., the unconscious mind, there is no doubt that most advanced educationalists, amongst whom we include Herbert Spencer, Herbart, Pestalozzi, Froebel, J. P. Richter, Preyer, C. Mason, and many others, clearly recognize that the best and most efficacious form of child-training is that which is addressed to unconsciousness rather than to consciousness; in short, each and all admit, though most probably some would

* May 16th, 1898.

shrink from the words, that there are unconscious psychic powers, and that these can be educated; and not only so, but that it is on their proper education rather than on that addressed to consciousness that the most important part of the character of the individual depends. Dr. Carpenter, for example, says:—

"There are two sorts of influence: that which is active and voluntary and which we exert purposively; and that which is unconscious and flows from us unawares to ourselves. The influence we exert unconsciously will hardly ever disagree with our real character."*

Of course education in the ordinary sense knows nothing of this. For a long time the error prevailed that for a child's first learning there was absolute necessity of a teacher, as if only complete thought could be impressed on the child's brain, and that only by this means the mind would finally be developed in the right manner. Herein lies a gross fallacy." The fallacy is, in fact, that only the conscious mind is susceptible of education.

What is generally understood by early education and child-training is the guidance of the child consciously, by rules and commands and precepts (a fresh one, may be, each day) enforced by smacks and slaps and other penal measures many times a day, coupled with direct instruction in A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, and other forerunners of intellectual culture.

Herbert Spencer forcibly describes the prevailing ignorance and what ordinarily passes as parental education. "While it is seen that to gain a livelihood an elaborate preparation is needed, it appears to be thought that for the bringing up of children no preparation whatever is needed. Not an hour is spent by either a boy or girl in preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities-the management of a family. No rational plea can be put forward for leaving the act of Education out of our curriculum. The subject which involves all other subjects, and that in which education should culminate is the theory and practice of education. management of children is lamentably bad. In most cases the treatment adopted on every occasion is that which the impulse of the moment prompts, and varies from hour to hour, as the feelings vary."‡

W. B. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 4th edit., p. 542. + Preyer, Mental Development of Childhood, p. 66. Herbert Spencer, Education, pp. 95, 96.

The

Conscious education has been varied in every conceivable way. There has been reading with tears, and reading without tears, nursery rule, drawing-room rule, schoolroom rule, but every fad and every variety has followed the same mistaken principle, namely: all education, all training worthy of the name, must address itself to the child's consciousness, i.e., the conscious mind. And this is the tap root error of every such system.

Here the practical man intervenes with the pertinent question, "If this generally adopted system is so bad, so vicious and so pernicious, how is it we get as its result good children, good men, and good women with well developed and well balanced minds?"

At first sight this question seems conclusive in favour of the value and sufficiency, for all practical purposes, of conscious education.

But the true answer is that whether the parent likes it or no, whether the parent knows it or not, whether the parent helps it, hinders it, or ignores it, the education of the unconscious is ever going on; aye, and going on faster far than that of the conscious; and whatever the child subsequently turns out to be, will be far rather due to this than to all the direct efforts made by the parent.

All around the child lie countless forces, unnoticed and unknown by the parent, while within the child lies a vast receptive capacity, unknown to the parent, and still largely ignored by these psychologists who should be his teachersthe unconscious mind: and it is to the action of these unnoticed forces upon the ignored mind that the child's real early education and character is mainly due. And this proceeds through life, and indeed, is dimly perceived sooner or later by parents. Take, for instance, the value of a public school education. Does not every parent who has a son at Eton or Harrow well know that the greatest value to the boy is the unconscious education he receives, and not the lessons addressed to his conscious mind?

Here is the reason, then, why an untrained child, that is one whose conscious training has been neglected, grows up often so well. This has been a standing puzzle for ages. One parent adopts all the paraphernalia placed at her disposal for the artificial fashioning of her child's mind; the other lets the child run absolutely wild; and the result is often to make the former doubt the wisdom of her methods.

Now the secret is that, through good luck it may be rather than good care, the "wild" child has been cast amongst unnoticed forces, beneficial to its character, that have trained its unconscious mind and produced the better result of the two.

And this brings us to a further point in the education of the unconscious mind. It is nature's education, natural, and therefore divine, instead of artificial and thus human. This education is no invention of ours. All that is done here is to point out its existence and its importance, and indicate the methods by which the education may be guided into good and wise channels, instead of bad; always remembering that for good or ill, this education steadily proceeds all our lives, though pre-eminently in childhood.

"The soul (unconsciously) observes and reflects and assimilates the countless products of nature; and art which enter it. The result is formation of character, and all which we call life is impressed. The influences from without make a man what he is."

"We are momentarily under the influence of outward events, which are registered within, and become, as it were, part of ourselves; being, indeed, factors in most of our feelings and motives."t

"The least valuable part of education is that which we owe to the schoolmaster (conscious); the most precious lessons are those which we learn out of school (unconscious)."‡

Let us not, however, think from this that direct teaching, instruction, and precept, too, have not their right and proper place, but it is indeed a far lower and humbler one than that generally imagined, and far indeed from occupying the exclusive place it has been given.

Three varieties of education are possible with regard to consciousness and unconsciousness: First, there is the ordinary education; the conscious instruction of the conscious; as, for example, in being taught the French language by a master and books. Secondly, there is the unconscious education of the conscious; or in other words, the education of the conscious through the unconscious. In this it is the unconscious mind that is primarily reached, but

the education does not stop there, but is passed on by the unconscious into consciousness; as, for example, when French is imbibed from residence in France, without conscious effort or definite instruction, or as the French language is learnt by French children. The knowledge reaches consciousness, and the child in each case knows well it can speak French, only the process of education has been addressed in this case to the unconscious mind. Then, lastly, there is the education of the unconscious mind that does not pass on or rise into consciousness, but, as a rule, terminates there; such as, for instance, all those traits and characteristics that distinguish a child brought up in France from one brought up in England. Under this head, too, come motives, character, conscience, principles, intuitions, all of which have their home in unconsciousness.

On some of these we can, indeed, turn the bull's-eye of consciousness with an effort, but their sphere is in the unconscious; and the bringing up of them frequently into consciousness, by careful introspection, often leads to mental hypochondriasis; just as bringing the unconscious organic functions and actions into notice lead to physical hypochondriasis and hysteria. It is well to recognize there are two spheres or divisions of mind, which, to a certain extent, can be made to overlap, but which, nevertheless, have their distinctive properties and value-the springs, the foundations, roots, and principles of life, which lie rather in the Unconscious; the flowers and fruits and actions which lie in the Conscious.

Now, in thus speaking on education, we must, therefore, first distinguish broadly between conscious and unconscious education; and secondly, we can subdivide the latterunconscious education-as we have seen, into that which eventually rises into consciousness in its results though not in the process, and that where both results and process are sub-conscious. We fully justify, however, the right to apply the term "education of the unconscious mind" to both these latter; and, therefore, to all education received unconsciously, whatever its ultimate fruits may be; and with this explanation shall continue to use all references and quotations referring to such training, as examples of the "education of the unconscious mind"; specially emphasizing, however, those particular processes which do not go further, but expend their whole force on developing this all-important part of our mental life.