Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Hence it can be enjoyed in any high degree only by a few. It is, however, capable of great ideal expansion; we can derive gratification from the contemplation of superior power, and the outlets for this are numerous, including not merely the operations of living beings, but the forces of inanimate nature. For example, the Sublime is an ideal of great might or power.

We have now almost, but not quite, led up to the much-urged educational motive, the gratification of the sense of self-activity in the pupils. This must afterwards undergo a very searching examination. Let us, however, first briefly review another leading class of wellmarked feelings, those designated by the familiar terms -Self-complacency, Pride, Vanity, Love of Applause. Whether these be simple or compound in their nature, they represent feelings of great intensity, and they are specially invoked in the sphere of education.

The Emotions of Self.

'Self' is a very wide word. Selfish,' 'Self-seeking,' 'Self-love,' might be employed without bringing any new emotions to the front. All the sources of pleasure, and all the exemptions from pain, that have been or might be enumerated, under the Senses and the Emotions, being totalized, could be designated as 'Self' or 'Self-interest.' But connected with the terms Selfesteem, Self-complacency, Pride, Vanity, Love of Praise, there are new varieties of feeling, albeit they are but offshoots from some of those already given. It is not our business to trace the precise derivation of these complex modes, except to aid in estimating their value as a distinct class of motives.

SELF-GRATULATION.-LOVE OF PRAISE.

79

There is an undoubted pleasure in finding in ourselves some of those qualities that, seen in other men, call forth our love, admiration, reverence, or esteem. The names self-complacency, self-gratulation, self-esteem, indicate emotions of no little force. They have a good influence in promoting the attainment of excellence; their defect is ascribable to our enormous self-partiality: for which cause they are usually concealed from the jealous gaze of our fellows. It is only on very special occasions that persuasion is made to operate through these powerful feelings; they are too ready to turn round and make demands that cannot be complied with.

A still higher form of self-reflected sentiment is that designated by the Love of Praise and Admiration. We necessarily feel an enhanced delight when our own good opinion of self is echoed and sustained by the expressions of others. This is one of the most stirring influences that man can exert over man. It exists in many gradations, according to our love, regard, or admiration for the persons bestowing it, as well as our dependence upon them, and according to the number joining in the tribute.

The bestowal of praise is an act of justice to real merit, and should take place apart from ulterior considerations. But in rewarding, as in punishing, we cannot help looking beyond the present; we have in our eye merits that are yet to be achieved. The fame that attends intellectual eminence is an incentive to study, and the educator has this great instrument at his command.

Praise, to be effectual and safe, has to be carefully apportioned, so as to approve itself to all concerned. As

the act of praising does not terminate with the moment, but establishes claims for the future, thoughtless profusion of compliment defeats itself. Praise may operate in the form of warm kindly expression, and no more; in which sense it is an offering of affection, and has a value in that character alone. A pleased smile is a moral influence.

Discipline, properly so called, works in the direction of pain; pleasures are therein viewed in their painful obverse. The positive value of delights is of consequence only as the starting-point wherefrom to count the efficacy of deprivations. The pains opposed to the pleasures of Self-esteem and Praise are among the most powerful weapons in the armoury of the disciplinarian. They are the chief reliance of such as deprecate corporal inflictions. Bentham's elaborate scheme of discipline in the Chrestomathia' is a manipulation of the mo tives of Praise and Dispraise, which he would fain make us believe to be all-sufficient.

Of the two divisions of the present class of emotions, namely, Self-esteem on the one hand, and Desire of Praise on the other, the opposite of the first-Selfreproach, Self-humbling—is very little under foreign influence. To induce people to think meanly of themselves is no easy task; with the mass of human beings. it is well-nigh hopeless. Any success that attends the endeavour is to be traced to the second member of the class under discussion, namely, Dispraise, Depreciation. There is no mistaking our aim here; we can make our power felt in this form, whether it has the other effect or not. People live so much on one another's good opinion that the remission tells in an instant; from the simple

LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE.

81

abatement or loss of estimation there is a descent into the depths of disesteem with a result of unspeakable suffering. The efforts that the victim makes to right himself under censure only show how keenly it is felt. There can be little doubt that on the delicate handling of this instrument must depend the highest refinements of moral control.

The Emotions of Intellect.

The pleasurable emotions incident to the exercise of the Intellectual Powers have not the formidable magnitude that we have assigned to the foregoing groups. Indeed, even on the occasions when they seem to burst forth with an intense glow, we can discern the presence of emanations from these other great fountains of feeling.

It is an effort of prime importance to trace exhaustively the inducements and allurements to intellectual exertion. What are the intrinsic charms of knowledge, whether in pursuit or in possession? The difficulty of the answer is increased, rather than diminished, by the flow of fifty years' rhetoric.

Knowledge has such a wide compass, embraces such various ingredients, that, until we discriminate the kinds of it, we cannot speak precisely either of the charms it possesses or of the absence of charm. Some sorts of knowledge are interesting to everybody; some interest only a few. The serious part of the case is, that the most valuable kinds of knowledge are often the least interesting.

The important distinction to be drawn here is between Individual or Concrete Knowledge, and General or Abstract Knowledge. As a rule, particulars are

interesting as well as easy; generals uninteresting and hard. When particulars are not interesting, it is often from their being overshadowed by generals. When generals are made interesting, it is by a happy reflected influence upon the particulars. It would serve nearly all the purposes of the teacher to know the best means of overcoming the repugnance and the abstruseness of general knowledge.

Waiving for a time the niceties of the abstract idea, and the obstacles in the way of its being readily comprehended, we may here adduce certain motives that cooperate with the teacher's endeavours to impress it. A little attention, however, must first be given to the various kinds of interest that pertain to individual or particular facts.

Any kind of knowledge, whether particular or more or less general, that is obviously involved in any of the strong feelings or emotions that we have passed in review, is by that very fact interesting. Now a great many kinds of knowledge are implicated with those various feelings. To avoid pains, and obtain pleasures, it is often necessary to know certain things, and we willingly apply our minds to learn those things; and the more so, the more evident their bearing upon the gratification of our desires. A vast quantity of information respecting the world, and respecting human beings, is gained in this way; and it constitutes an important basis of even the highest acquisitions.

The readiness to imbibe this immediately fructifying knowledge is qualified by its being difficult or abstruse; we often prefer ignorance, even in matters of consequence, to intellectual labour.

« AnteriorContinuar »