科学教育と古典教育
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Pt.2 Education of Character Chap. 6: ConstructivenessWhen I speak of constructiveness, I am not thinking only of material construction. Such occupations as acting and choral singing involve co-operative non-material construction ; they are pleasant to many children and young people, and should be encouraged (though not enforced). Even in purely intellectual matters it is possible to have a constructive or a destructive bias. A classical education is almost entirely critical : a boy learns to avoid mistakes, and to despise those who commit them. This tends to produce a kind of cold correctness, in which originality is replaced by respect for authority. Correct Latin is fixed once for all.. it is that of Vergil and Cicero. Correct Science is continually changing, and an able youth may look forward to helping in this process. Consequently the attitude produced by a scientific education is likely to be more constructive than that produced by the study of dead languages. Wherever avoidance of error is the chief thing aimed at, education tends to produce an intellectually bloodless type. The prospect of doing something venturesome with one's knowledge ought to be held before all the abler young men and young women. Too often, higher education is regarded as conferring something analogous to good manners, a merely negative code by which solecisms are avoided. In such an education, constructiveness has been forgotten. The usual type produced is, as might be expected, niggling, unenterprising, and lacking in generosity. All this is avoided when positive achievement is made the goal of education. |
(掲載日:2015.04.03/更新日: )