EDUCATION is an art, the art, namely, of drawing out (Lat. edeicere) or developing the faculties—of training human beings for the functions for which they are destined. Now, in order to the perfection of an art, it must be founded on a corresponding science; and of nothing is this more true than of education. Before we can hope to mold a human being in a desired way, the nature of that being must be well known. The knowledge of man's nature is usually comprehended under three divisions: the consti tution of his body (physiology); the constitution of his mind (psychology); his moral and religious nature (ethics and religion). If we suppose these branches of knowledge thoroughly investigated, they would furnish the solution of the two main points on which all questions of E. turn: first—What are the dispositions and acquirements which it is most desirable to implant and foster? in other words, what is the end or aim that the educator ought to pursue? and second—What are the best means to attain that end? But the sciences above named are themselves in too imperfect and unsettled a state to be the basis of any theoretical plan that would be generally accepted; for our knowledge of living beings, and still more of moral beings, must, as is now well under stood, be the last to acquire the shape and certainity of science. See SCIENCE. It is needless, therefore, to look as yet for any complete theory or philosophy • of oducation. E. has existed as an art from the very infancy of society, but it is as yet mostly an empirical art, the rules and methods of which have been arrived at by the blind grop ing of experience—by the process of trial and error. The art of E. is stilt in the condition in which the art of agriculture was until the present century, when, by the aid of chemistry and vegetable physiology, then arriving at something like perfection, a scientific foundation was laid for it by Liebig and others. Even were the sciences of physiology, psychology, and ethics, on a more satisfactory footing, they would not be immediately serviceable as a foundation for a theory of E., without a preliminary step. This would consist in deducing from them an intermediate science, embodying the laws of the formation of character. According to J. S. Mill, it is a body of doctrine of this nature, to which he proposes to give the name of ethology (Gr. ethos, habit, cus
tom), that would properly be " the science of which education is the art." But so far is such a science from being yet constructed, that it is only lately that the necessity for it has been pointed out. Notwithstanding this lack of scientific foundation, the practi cal art of E. has, in recent times, undergone great improvement in almost all its details. It is chiefly in discussions on the subject that the want of fixed scientific prin ciples makes itself felt. A debate on any topic connected with E. usually pre sents little but a hopeless chaos of conflicting opinions, the most inconsistent arguments being often urged in favor of the same view. What renders the confusion greater, E. is a subject on which every one thinks himself or herself capable of pronoun cing an opinion. But this is only another indication of the want of fixed scientific principles. No one presumes to meddle with a question of astronomy or of chemistry unless he has made it the study of a life. In like manner, it is to be hoped that, in pro portion as we advance to a philosophy of E., there will be fewer who will take upon themselves to settle off-hand the most difficult questions regarding it.
In the present article, we can do little more than notice the chief divisions into which the subject of E. naturally falls, together with the leading questions that give rise to differences of opinion.
is necessary at the outset to limit the application of the term educa tion. In the widest sense of the word, a man is educated, either for good or evil, by everything that he experiences from his cradle to his grave. But in the more limited and usual sense, the term E. is confined to the efforts made, of set purpose, to train men in a particular way—the efforts of the grown-up part of a community to inform the intellect and mold the character of the young; and more especially to the labors of professional educators, or schoolmasters. It is evident, however, that school E. can not be understood or practiced rightly except by those who have mastered the idea of E. in its widest sense. It is only the educator who can appreciate the influences which have gone before his own, which are running parallel with them, and will come after them, that is in a position to judge of the course to be pursued.