The text is taken from my copy of the fourth edition, 1842. This version of Political Justice, originally published in 1793, is based on the corrected third edition, published in 1798.
BOOK VI
Opinion as a Subject of Political Institution
CHAPTER VIII
OF NATIONAL EDUCATION
Arguments in its favour. - Answer. - I. It Pro-
duces permanence of opinion. - Nature of
prejudice and judgement described. - 2. It re-
quires uniformity of operation. - 3. It is the
mirror and tool of national government. - The
right of punishing, not founded in the pre-
vious function of instructing.
A MODE in which government has been accustomed to interfere, for the
purpose of influencing opinion, is by the superintendence it has in a
greater or less degree, exerted in the article of education. It is
worthy of observation that the idea of this superintendence has obtained
the countenance of several of the zealous advocates of political reform.
The question relative to its propriety or impropriety is entitled, on
that account, to the more deliberate examination.
The argument in its favour have been already anticipated. 'Can it be
justifiable in those persons who are appointed to the functions of
magistracy, and whose duty it is to consult for the public welfare, to
neglect the cultivation of the infant mind, and to suffer its future
excellence or depravity to be at the disposal of fortune? Is it possible
for patriotism and the love of the public to be made the characteristic
of a whole people in any other way so successfully as by rendering the
early communication of these virtues a national concern? If the
education of our youth be entirely confided to the prudence of their
parents, or the accidental benevolence of private individuals, will it
not be a necessary consequence that some will be educated to virtue,
others to vice, and others again entirely neglected?' To these
considerations it has been added, 'That the maxim which has prevailed in
the majority of civilized countries, that ignorance of the law is no
apology for the breach of it, is in the highest degree iniquitous; and
that government cannot justly punish us for our crimes when committed
unless it have forewarned us against their commission, which cannot be
adequately done without something of the nature of public education.'
The propriety or impropriety of any project for this purpose must be
determined by the general consideration of its beneficial or injurious
tendency. If the exertions of the magistrate in behalf of any system of
instruction will stand the test, as conducive to the public service,
undoubtedly he cannot be justified in neglecting them. If, on the
contrary, they conduce to injury, it is wrong and unjustifiable that
they should be made.
The injuries that result from a system of national education are, in
the first place, that all public establishments include in them the
idea of permanence. They endeavour, it may be, to secure and to diffuse
whatever of advantageous to society is already known, but they forget
that more remains to be known. If they realized the most substantial
benefits at the time of their introduction, they must inevitably become
less and less useful as they increased in duration. But to describe
them as useless is a very feeble expression of their demerits. They
actively restrain the flights of mind, and fix it in the belief of
exploded errors. It has frequently been observed of universities, and
extensive establishments for the purpose of education, that the
knowledge taught there is a century behind the knowledge which exists
among the unshackled and unprejudiced members of the same political
community. The moment any scheme of proceeding gains a permanent
establishment, it becomes impressed, as one of its characteristic
features, with an aversion to change. Some violent concussion may
oblige its conductors to change an old system of philosophy for a system
less obsolete; and they are then as pertinaciously attached to this
second doctrine as they were to the first. Real intellectual
improvement demands that mind should, as speedily as possible, be
advanced to the height of knowledge already existing among the
enlightened members of the community, and start from thence in the
pursuit of further acquisitions. But public education has always
expended its energies in the support of prejudice; it teaches its
pupils, not the fortitude that shall bring every proposition to the test
of examination, but the art of vindicating such tenets as may chance to
be established. We study Aristotle, or Thomas Aquinas, or Bellarmine,
or chief justice Coke, not that we may detect their errors, but that our
minds may be fully impregnated with their absurdities. This feature
runs through every species of public establishment; and, even in the
petty institution of Sunday schools, the chief lessons that are taught
are a superstitious veneration for the church of England, and to bow to
every man in a handsome coat. All this is directly contrary to the true
interests of mankind. All this must be unlearned before we can begin to
be wise.
It is the characteristic of mind to be capable of improvement. An
individual surrenders the best attribute of man, the moment he resolves
to adhere to certain fixed principles, for reasons not now present to
his mind, but which formerly were.1 The instant in which he shuts upon
himself the career of enquiry is the instant of his intellectual
decease. He is no longer a man; he is the ghost of departed man.
'There can be no scheme more egregiously stamped with folly than that of
separating a tenet from the evidence upon which its validity depends.
If I cease from the habit of being able to recall this evidence, my
belief is no longer a perception, but a prejudice: it may influence me
like a prejudice; but cannot animate me like a real apprehension of
truth. The difference between the man thus guided and the man that
keeps his mind perpetually alive is the difference between cowardice and
fortitude. The man who is, in the best sense, an intellectual being
delights to recollect the reasons that have convinced him, to repeat
them to others, that they may produce conviction in them, and stand more
distinct and explicit in his own mind; and, he adds to this a
willingness to examine objections, because he takes no pride in
consistent error. The man who is not capable of this salutary exercise,
to what valuable purpose can he be employed? Hence it appears that no
vice can be more destructive than that which teaches us to regard any
judgement as final, and not open to review. The same principle that
applies to individuals applies to communities, There is no proposition
at present apprehended to be true so valuable as to justify the
introduction of an establishment for the purpose of inculcating it on
mankind. Refer them to reading, to conversation, to meditation; but
teach them neither creeds nor catechisms, either moral or political.
Secondly, the idea of national education is founded in an inattention to
the nature of mind. Whatever each man does for himself is done well;
whatever his neighbours or his country undertake to do for him is done
ill. It is our wisdom to incite men to act for themselves, not to
retain them in a state of perpetual pupillage. He that learns because
he desires to learn will listen to the instructions lie receives, and
apprehend their meaning. He that teaches because he desires to teach
will discharge his occupation with enthusiasm and energy. But the
moment political institution undertakes to assign to every man his
place, the functions of all will be discharged with supineness and
indifference. Universities and expensive establishments have long been
remarked for formal dullness. Civil policy has given me the power to
appropriate my estate to certain theoretical purposes; but it is an idle
presumption to think I can entail my views, as I can entail my fortune.
Remove those obstacles which prevent men from seeing, and which restrain
them from pursuing their real advantage; but do not absurdly undertake
to relieve them from the activity which this pursuit requires. What I
earn, what I acquire only because I desire to acquire it, I estimate at
its true value; but what is thrust upon me may make me indolent, but
cannot make respectable. It is an extreme folly to endeavour to secure
to others, independently of exertion on their part, the means of being
happy. - This whole proposition of national education is founded upon a
supposition which has been repeatedly refuted in this work, but which
has recurred upon us in a thousand forms, that unpatronized truth is
inadequate to tire purpose of enlightening mankind.
Thirdly, the project of a national education ought uniformly to be
discouraged on account of its obvious alliance with national government.
This is an alliance of a more formidable nature than the old and much
contested alliance of church and state. Before we put so powerful a
machine under the direction of so ambiguous an agent, it behoves us to
consider well what it is that we do. Government will not fail to employ
it, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions. If we
could even suppose the agents of government not to propose to themselves
an object which will be apt to appear in their eyes, not merely
innocent, but meritorious; the evil would not the less happen. Their
views as institutors of a system of education will not fail to be
analogous to their views in their political capacity: the data upon
which their conduct as statesmen is vindicated will be the data upon
which their instructions are founded. It is not true that our youth
ought to be instructed to venerate the constitution, however excellent;
they should be led to venerate truth; and the constitution only so far
as it corresponds with their uninfluenced deductions of truth. Had the
scheme of a national education been adopted when despotism was most
triumphant, it is not to be believed that it could have for ever stifled
the voice of truth. But it would have been the most formidable and
profound contrivance for that purpose that imagination can suggest.
Still, in the countries where liberty chiefly prevails, it is reasonably
to be assumed that there are important errors, and a national education
has the most direct tendency to perpetuate those errors, and to form all
minds upon one model.
It is not easy to say whether the remark 'that government cannot justly
punish offenders, unless it have previously informed them what is virtue
and what is offence' be entitled to a separate answer. It is to be
hoped that mankind will never have to learn so important a lesson
through so incompetent a channel. Government may reasonably and
equitably presume that men who live in society know that enormous crimes
are injurious to the public weal, without its being necessary to
announce them as such, by laws, to be proclaimed by heralds, or
expounded by curates. It has been alleged that 'mere reason may teach
me not to strike my neighbour; but will never forbid my sending a sack
of wool from England, or printing the French constitution in Spain'.
This objection leads to the true distinction upon the subject. All real
crimes that that can be supposed to be the fit objects of judicial
animadversion are capable of being discerned without the teaching of
law. All supposed crimes not capable of being so discerned are truly
and unalterably placed beyond the cognisance of a sound criminal
justice. It is true that my own understanding would never have told me
that the exportation of wool was a crime: neither do I believe it is a
crime, now that law has been made affirming it to be such. It is a
feeble and contemptible palliation of iniquitous punishments to signify
to mankind beforehand that you intend to inflict them. Men of a lofty
and generous spirit would almost be tempted to exclaim: Destroy us
if you please; but do not endeavour, by a national education, to destroy
in our understandings the discernment of justice and injustice. The
idea of such an education, or even perhaps of the necessity of a written
law, would never have occurred if government and jurisprudence had never
attempted the arbitrary conversion of innocence into guilt.
Footnotes
1Book 1, Chap. V, p. 127.
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