Aims of Education
Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (Macmillan, 1929).

 

CHAPTER I
Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of
information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man is the most useless
bore on God's earth. What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture
and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the
ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as
art. We have to remember that the valuable intellectual development is self development,
and that it mostly takes place between the ages of sixteen and thirty. As to training, the
most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve. A saying due to
Archbishop Temple illustrates my meaning. Surprise was expressed at the success in afterlife
of a man, who as a boy at Rugby had been somewhat undistinguished. He answered, "It
is not what they are at eighteen, it is what they become afterwards that matters."

 

In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call
"inert ideas" -- that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being
utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.

 

In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which
at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely
pedantry and routine. The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas. Education
with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful -- Corruptio optimi,
pessima. Except at rare intervals of intellectual ferment, education in the past has been
radically infected with inert ideas. That is the reason why uneducated clever women, who
have seen much of the world, are in middle life so much the most cultured part of the
community. They have been saved from this horrible burden of inert ideas. Every
intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate
protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has
proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own
fashioning.

 

Let us now ask how in our system of education we are to guard against this mental dryrot.
We enunciate two educational commandments, "Do not teach too many subjects," and
again, "What you teach, teach thoroughly."

 

The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of
disconnected ideas, not illumined with any spark of vitality. Let the main ideas which are
introduced into a child's education be few and important, and let them be thrown into
every combination possible. The child should make them his own, and should understand
their application here and now in the circumstances of his actual life. From the very
beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery. The discovery
which he has to make, is that general ideas give an understanding of that stream of events
which pours through his life, which is his life. By understanding I mean more than a mere
logical analysis, though that is included. I mean "understanding' in the sense in which it is
used in the French proverb, "To understand all, is to forgive all." Pedants sneer at an
education which is useful. But if education is not useful, what is it? Is it a talent, to be
hidden away in a napkin? Of course, education should be useful, whatever your aim in life.
It was useful to Saint Augustine and it was useful to Napoleon. It is useful, because
understanding is useful.

 

I pass lightly over that understanding which should be given by the literary side of
education. Nor do I wish to be supposed to pronounce on the relative merits of a classical or
a modern curriculum. I would only remark that the understanding which we want is an
understanding of an insistent present. The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us
for the present. No more deadly harm can be done to young minds than by depreciation of
the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it
is the future. At the same time it must be observed that an age is no less past if it existed
two hundred years ago than if it existed two thousand years ago. Do not be deceived by the
pedantry of dates. The ages of Shakespeare and of Moliere are no less past than are the
ages of Sophocles and of Virgil. The communion of saints is a great and inspiring
assemblage, but it has only one possible hall of meeting, and that is, the present, and the
mere lapse of time through which any particular group of saints must travel to reach that
meeting-place, makes very little difference.

 

Passing now to the scientific and logical side of education, we remember that here also
ideas which are not utilised are positively harmful. By utilising an idea, I mean relating it
to that stream, compounded of sense perceptions, feelings, hopes, desires, and of mental
activities adjusting thought to thought, which forms our life. I can imagine a set of beings
which might fortify their souls by passively reviewing disconnected ideas. Humanity is not
built that way except perhaps some editors of newspapers.

 

In scientific training, the first thing to do with an idea is to prove it. But allow me for one
moment to extend the meaning of "prove"; I mean -- to prove its worth. Now an idea is not
worth much unless the propositions in which it is embodied are true. Accordingly an
essential part of the proof of an idea is the proof, either by experiment or by logic, of the
truth of the propositions. But it is not essential that this proof of the truth should constitute
the first introduction to the idea. After all, its assertion by the authority of respectable
teachers is sufficient evidence to begin with. In our first contact with a set of propositions,
we commence by appreciating their importance. That is what we all do in after-life. We do
not attempt, in the strict sense, to prove or to disprove anything, unless its importance
makes it worthy of that honour. These two processes of proof, in the narrow sense, and of
appreciation, do not require a rigid separation in time. Both can be proceeded with nearly
concurrently. But in so far as either process must have the priority, it should be that of
appreciation by use.

 

Furthermore, we should not endeavour to use propositions in isolation. Emphatically I do
not mean, a neat little set of experiments to illustrate Proposition I and then the proof of
Proposition I, a neat little set of experiments to illustrate Proposition II and then the proof
of Proposition II, and so on to the end of the book. Nothing could be more boring.
Interrelated truths are utilised en bloc, and the various propositions are employed in any
order, and with any reiteration. Choose some important applications of your theoretical
subject; and study them concurrently with the systematic theoretical exposition. Keep the
theoretical exposition short and simple, but let it be strict and rigid so far as it goes. It
should not be too long for it to be easily known with thoroughness and accuracy. The
consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable. Also the
theory should not be muddled up with the practice. The child should have no doubt when it
is proving and when it is utilising. My point is that what is proved should be utilised, and
that what is utilised should -- so far, as is practicable -- be proved. I am far from asserting
that proof and utilisation are the same thing.

 

At this point of my discourse, I can most directly carry forward my argument in the
outward form of a digression. We are only just realising that the art and science of
education require a genius and a study of their own; and that this genius and this science
are more than a bare knowledge of some branch of science or of literature. This truth was
partially perceived in the past generation; and headmasters, somewhat crudely, were apt to
supersede learning in their colleagues by requiring left-hand bowling and a taste for
football. But culture is more than cricket, and more than football, and more than extent of
knowledge.

 

Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge. This is an art very
difficult to impart. Whenever a textbook is written of real educational worth, you may be
quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be difficult to teach from it. Of course
it will be difficult to teach from it. If it were easy, the book ought to be burned; for it
cannot be educational. In education, as elsewhere, the broad primrose path leads to a nasty
place. This evil path is represented by a book or a set of lectures which will practically
enable the student to learn by heart all the questions likely to be asked at the next external
examination. And I may say in passing that no educational system is possible unless every
question directly asked of a pupil at any examination is either framed or modified by the
actual teacher of that pupil in that subject. The external assessor may report on the
curriculum or on the performance of the pupils, but never should be allowed to ask the
pupil a question which has not been strictly supervised by the actual teacher, or at least
inspired by a long conference with him. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they are
exceptions, and could easily be allowed for under the general rule.

 

We now return to my previous point, that theoretical ideas should always find important
applications within the pupil's curriculum. This is not an easy doctrine to apply, but a very
hard one. It contains within itself the problem of keeping knowledge alive, of preventing it
from becoming inert, which is the central problem of all education.

 

The best procedure will depend on several factors, none of which can be neglected, namely,
the genius of the teacher, the intellectual type of the pupils, their prospects in life, the
opportunities offered by the immediate surroundings of the school and allied factors of this
sort. It is for this reason that the uniform external examination is so deadly. We do not
denounce it because we are cranks, and like denouncing established things. We are not so
childish. Also, of course, such examinations have their use in testing slackness. Our reason
of dislike is very definite and very practical. It kills the best part of culture. When you
analyse in the light of experience the central task of education, you find that its successful
accomplishment depends on a delicate adjustment of many variable factors. The reason is
that we are dealing with human minds, and not with dead matter. The evocation of
curiosity, of judgment, of the power of mastering a complicated tangle of circumstances,
the use of theory in giving foresight in special cases all these powers are not to be imparted
by a set rule embodied in one schedule of examination subjects.

 

I appeal to you, as practical teachers. With good discipline, it is always possible to pump
into the minds of a class a certain quantity of inert knowledge. You take a text-book and
make them learn it. So far, so good. The child then knows how to solve a quadratic
equation. But what is the point of teaching a child to solve a quadratic equation? There is a
traditional answer to this question. It runs thus: The mind is an instrument, you first
sharpen it, and then use it; the acquisition of the power of solving a quadratic equation is
part of the process of sharpening the mind. Now there is just enough truth in this answer to
have made it live through the ages. But for all its half-truth, it embodies a radical error
which bids fair to stifle the genius of the modern world. I do not know who was first
responsible for this analogy of the mind to a dead instrument. For aught I know, it may
have been one of the seven wise men of Greece, or a committee of the whole lot of them.
Whoever was the originator, there can be no doubt of the authority which it has acquired
by the continuous approval bestowed upon it by eminent persons. But whatever its weight
of authority, whatever the high approval which it can quote, I have no hesitation in
denouncing it as one of the most fatal, erroneous, and dangerous conceptions ever
introduced into the theory of education. The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual
activity, delicate, receptive, responsive to stimulus. You cannot postpone its life until you
have sharpened it. Whatever interest attaches to your subject-matter must be evoked here
and now; whatever powers you are strengthening in the pupil, must be exercised here and
now; whatever possibilities of mental life your teaching should impart, must be exhibited
here and now. That is the golden rule of education, and a very difficult rule to follow.
The difficulty is just this: the apprehension of general ideas, intellectual habits of mind,
and pleasurable interest in mental achievement can be evoked by no form of words,
however accurately adjusted. All practical teachers know that education is a patient
process of the mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. There is no
royal road to learning through an airy path of brilliant generalisations. There is a proverb
about the difficulty of seeing the wood because of the trees. That difficulty is exactly the
point which I am enforcing. The problem of education is to make the pupil see the wood by
means of the trees.

 

The solution which I am urging, is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which
kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education,
and that is Life in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children --
Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science,
from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages,
never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of
Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in
substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in
the midst of the living of it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of
contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a
world, and has not yet determined how to put it together.

 

Let us now return to quadratic equations. We still have on hand the unanswered question.
Why should children be taught their solution? Unless quadratic equations fit into a
connected curriculum, of course there is no reason to teach anything about them.
Furthermore, extensive as should be the place of mathematics in a complete culture, I am a
little doubtful whether for many types of boys algebraic solutions of quadratic equations do
not lie on the specialist side of mathematics. I may here remind you that as yet I have not
said anything of the psychology or the content of the specialism, which is so necessary a
part of an ideal education. But all that is an evasion of our real question, and I merely state
it in order to avoid being misunderstood in my answer.

 

Quadratic equations are part of algebra, and algebra is the intellectual instrument which
has been created for rendering clear the quantitative aspects of the world. There is no
getting out of it. Through and through the world is infected with quantity. To talk sense, is
to talk in quantities. It is no use saying that the nation is large, -- How large? It is no use
saying that radium is scarce, -- How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to
poetry and to music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your
octaves. Elegant intellects which despise the theory of quantity, are but half developed.
They are more to be pitied than blamed, The scraps of gibberish, which in their schooldays
were taught to them in the name of algebra, deserve some contempt. This question of
the degeneration of algebra into gibberish, both in word and in fact, affords a pathetic
instance of the uselessness of reforming educational schedules without a clear conception of
the attributes which you wish to evoke in the living minds of the children. A few years ago
there was an outcry that school algebra, was in need of reform, but there was a general
agreement that graphs would put everything right. So all sorts of things were extruded, and
graphs were introduced. So far as I can see, with no sort of idea behind them, but just
graphs. Now every examination paper has one or two questions on graphs. Personally I am
an enthusiastic adherent of graphs. But I wonder whether as yet we have gained very
much. You cannot put life into any schedule of general education unless you succeed in
exhibiting its relation to some essential characteristic of all intelligent or emotional
perception. lt is a hard saying, but it is true; and I do not see how to make it any easier. In
making these little formal alterations you are beaten by the very nature of things. You are
pitted against too skilful an adversary, who will see to it that the pea is always under the
other thimble.

 

Reformation must begin at the other end. First, you must make up your mind as to those
quantitative aspects of the world which are simple enough to be introduced into general
education; then a schedule of algebra should be framed which will about find its
exemplification in these applications. We need not fear for our pet graphs, they will be
there in plenty when we once begin to treat algebra as a serious means of studying the
world. Some of the simplest applications will be found in the quantities which occur in the
simplest study of society. The curves of history are more vivid and more informing than the
dry catalogues of names and dates which comprise the greater part of that arid school
study. What purpose is effected by a catalogue of undistinguished kings and queens? Tom,
Dick, or Harry, they are all dead. General resurrections are failures, and are better
postponed. The quantitative flux of the forces of modern society is capable of very simple
exhihition. Meanwhile, the idea of the variable, of the function, of rate of change, of
equations and their solution, of elimination, are being studied as an abstract science for
their own sake. Not, of course, in the pompous phrases with which I am alluding to them
here, but with that iteration of simple special cases proper to teaching.

 

If this course be followed. the route from Chaucer to the Black Death, from the Black
Death to modern Labour troubles, will connect the tales of the mediaeval pilgrims with the
abstract science of algebra, both yielding diverse aspects of that single theme, Life. I know
what most of you are thinking at this point. It is that the exact course which I have
sketched out is not the particular one which you would have chosen, or even see how to
work. I quite agree. I am not claiming that I could do it myself. But your objection is the
precise reason why a common external examination system is fatal to education. The
process of exhibiting the applications of knowledge must, for its success, essentially depend
on the character of the pupils and the genius of the teacher. Of course I have left out the
easiest applications with which most of us are more at home. I mean the quantitative sides
of sciences, such as mechanics and physics.

 

Again, in the same connection we plot the statistics of social phenomena against the time.
We then eliminate the time between suitable pairs. We can speculate how far we have
exhibited a real causal connection, or how far a mere temporal coincidence. We notice that
we might have plotted against the time one set of statistics for one country and another set
for another country, and thus, with suitable choice of subjects, have obtained graphs which
certainly exhibited mere coincidence. Also other graphs exhibit obvious causal connections.
We wonder how to discriminate. And so are drawn on as far as we will.

 

But in considering this description, I must beg you to remember what I have been insisting
on above. In the first place, one train of thought will not suit all groups of children. For
example, I should expect that artisan children will want something more concrete and, in a
sense, swifter than I have set down here. Perhaps I am wrong, but that is what I should
guess. In the second place, I am not contemplating one beautiful lecture stimulating, once
and for all, an admiring class. That is not the way in which education proceeds. No; all the
time the pupils are hard at work solving examples drawing graphs, and making
experiments, until they have a thorough hold on the whole subject. I am describing the
interspersed explanations, the directions which should be given to their thoughts. The
pupils have got to be made to feel that they are studying something, and are not merely
executing intellectual minuets.

 

Finally, if you are teaching pupils for some general examination, the problem of sound
teaching is greatly complicated. Have you ever noticed the zig-zag moulding round a
Norman arch? The ancient work is beautiful, the modern work is hideous. The reason is,
that the modern work is done to exact measure, the ancient work is varied according to the
idiosyncrasy of the workman. Here it is crowded, and there it is expanded. Now the essence
of getting pupils through examinations is to give equal weight to all parts of the schedule.
But mankind is naturally specialist. One man sees a whole subject, where another can find
only a few detached examples. I know that it seems contradictory to allow for specialism in
a curriculum especially designed for a broad culture. Without contradictions the world
would be simpler, and perhaps duller. But I am certain that in education wherever you
exclude specialism you destroy life.

 

We now come to the other great branch of a general mathematical education, namely
Geometry. The same principles apply. The theoretical part should be clear-cut, rigid, short,
and important. Every proposition not absolutely necessary to exhibit the main connection
of ideas should be cut out, but the great fundamental ideas should be all there. No omission
of concepts, such as those of Similarity and Proportion. We must remember that, owing to
the aid rendered by the visual presence of a figure, Geometry is a field of unequalled
excellence for the exercise of the deductive faculties of reasoning. Then, of course, there
follows Geometrical Drawing, with its training for the hand and eye.

 

But, like Algebra, Geometry and Geometrical Drawing must be extended beyond the mere
circle of geometrical ideas. In an industrial neighbourhood, machinery and workshop
practice form the appropriate extension. For example, in the London Polytechnics this has
been achieved with conspicuous success. For many secondary schools I suggest that
surveying and maps are the natural applications. In particular, plane-table surveying
should lead pupils to a vivid apprehension of the immediate application of geometric
truths. Simple drawing apparatus, a surveyor's chain, and a surveyor's compass, should
enable the pupils to rise from the survey and mensuration of a field to the construction of
the map of a small district. The best education is to be found in gaining the utmost
information from the simplest apparatus. The provision of elaborate instruments is greatly
to be deprecated. To have constructed the map of a small district, to have considered its
roads, its contours, its geology, its climate, its relation to other districts, the effects on the
status of its inhabitants, will teach more history and geography than any knowledge of
Perkin Warbeck or of Behren's Straits. I mean not a nebulous lecture on the subject, but a
serious investigation in which the real facts are definitely ascertained by the aid of accurate
theoretical knowledge. A typical mathematical problem should be: Survey such and such a
field, draw a plan of it to such and such a scale, and find the area. It would be quite a good
procedure to impart the necessary geometrical propositions without their proofs. Then,
concurrently in the same term, the proofs of the propositions would be learnt while the
survey was being made.

 

Fortunately, the specialist side of education presents an easier problem than does the
provision of a general culture. For this there are many reasons. One is that many of the
principles of procedure to be observed are the same in both cases, and it is unnecessary to
recapitulate. Another reason is that specialist training takes place -- or should take place --
at a more advanced stage of the pupil's course, and thus there is easier material to work
upon. But undoubtedly the chief reason is that the specialist study is normally a study of
peculiar interest to the student. He is studying it because, for some reason, he wants to
know it. This makes all the difference. The general culture is designed to foster an activity
of mind; the specialist course utilises this activity. But it does not do to lay too much stress
on these neat antitheses. As we have already seen, in the general course foci of special
interest will arise; and similarly in the special study, the external connections of the subject
drag thought outwards.

 

Again, there is not one course of study which merely gives general cultures and another
which gives special knowledge. The subjects pursued for the sake of a general education
are special subjects specially studied; and, on the other hand, one of the ways of
encouraging general mental activity is to foster a special devotion. You may not divide the
seamless coat of learning. What education has to impart is an intimate sense for the power
of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structure of ideas, together with a particular
body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it.
The appreciation of the structure of ideas is that side of a cultured mind which can only
grow under the influence of a special study. I mean that eye for the whole chess-board, for
the bearing of one set of ideas on another. Nothing but a special study can give any
appreciation for the exact formulation of general ideas, for their relations when
formulated, for their service in the comprehension of life. A mind so disciplined should be
both more abstract and more concrete. It has been trained in the comprehension of
abstract thought and in the analysis of facts.

 

Finally, there should grow the most austere of all mental qualities; I mean the sense for
style. It is an aesthetic sense, based on admiration for the direct attainment of a foreseen
end, simply and without waste. Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic,
style in practical execution have fundamentally the same aesthetic qualities, namely,
attainment and restraint. The love of a subject in itself and for itself, where it is not the
sleepy pleasure of pacing a mental quarter-deck, is the love of style as manifested in that
study.

 

Here we are brought back to the position from which we started, the utility of education.
Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most
useful. It pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style hates waste;
the engineer with a sense for style economises his material; the artisan with a sense for style
prefers good work. Style is the ultimate morality of mind.

 

But above style, and above knowledge, there is something, a vague shape like fate above the
Greek gods. That something is Power. Style is the fashioning of power, the restraining of
power. But, after all, the power of attainment of the desired end is fundamental. The first
thing is to get there. Do not bother about your style, but solve your problem, justify the
ways of God to man, administer your province, or do whatever else is set before you.
Where, then, does style help? In this, with style the end is attained without side issues,
without raising undesirable inflammations. With style you attain your end and nothing but
your end. With style the effect of your activity is calculable, and foresight is the last gift of
gods to men. With style your power is increased, for your mind is not distracted with
irrelevancies, and you are more likely to attain your object. Now style is the exclusive
privilege of the expert. Whoever heard of the style of an amateur painter, of the style of an
amateur poet? Style is always the product of specialist study, the peculiar contribution of
specialism to culture.

 

English education in its present phase suffers from a lack of definite aim, and from an
external machinery which kills its vitality. Hitherto in this address I have been considering
the aims which should govern education. In this respect England halts between two
opinions. It has not decided whether to produce amateurs or experts. The profound change
in the world which the nineteenth century has produced is that the growth of knowledge
has given foresight. The amateur is essentially a man with appreciation and with immense
versatility in mastering a given routine. But he lacks the foresight which comes from
special knowledge. The object of this address is to suggest how to produce the expert
without loss of the essential virtues of the amateur. The machinery of our secondary
education is rigid where it should be yielding, and lax where it should be rigid. Every
school is bound on pain of extinction to train its boys for a small set of definite
examinations. No headmaster has a free hand to develop his general education or his
specialist studies in accordance with the opportunities of his school, which are created by
its staff, its environment, its class of boys, and its endowments. I suggest that no system of
external tests which aims primarily at examining individual scholars can result in anything
but educational waste.

 

Primarily it is the schools and not the scholars which should be inspected. Each school
should grant its own leaving certificates, based on its own curriculum. The standards of
these schools should be sampled and corrected. But the first requisite for educational
reform is the school as a unit, with its approved curriculum based on its own needs, and
evolved by its own staff. If we fail to secure that, we simply fall from one formalism into
another, from one dung hill of inert ideas into another.

 

In stating that the school is the true educational unit in any national system for the
safeguarding of efficiency, I have conceived the alternative system as being the external
examination of the individual scholar. But every Scylla is faced by its Charybdis -- or, in
more homely language, there is a ditch on both sides of the road. It will be equally fatal to
education if we fall into the hands of a supervising department which is under the
impression that it can divide all schools into two or three rigid categories, each type being
forced to adopt a rigid curriculum. When I say that the school is the educational unit, I
mean exactly what I say, no larger unit, no smaller unit. Each school must have the claim to
be considered in relation to its special circumstances. The classifying of schools for some
purposes is necessary. But no absolutely rigid curriculum, not modified by its own staff,
should be permissible. Exactly the same principles apply, with the proper modifications, to
universities and to technical colleges. When one considers in its length and in its breadth
the importance of this question of the education of a nation's young, the broken lives, the
defeated hopes, the national failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which it is
treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage. In the conditions of modern
life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all
your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at
sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science
will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment
which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

 

We can be content with no less than the old summary of educational ideal which has been
current at any time from the dawn of our civilisation. The essence of education is that it be
religious.

 

Pray, what is religious education?

 

A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises
from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could
have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is
this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence,
backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.