In the broad and final sense all institutions are educational in the sense that they operate to form the attitudes, dispositions, abilities and disabilities that constitute a concrete personality...Whether this
democratic way becomes, therefore, a question of transcendent importance
not only for education itself but for its final effect upon all the
interests and activities of a society that is committed to the democratic
way of life.
-- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher
The toiling masses of the people--the workmen, the peasants, the soldiers--are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But they are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it to them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may here by only aids. They have their own ideas, formed by their social position, so different from the position of those ruling classes and intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear world-conception permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There is no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: The building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.
What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him; a mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education, his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.
The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then, seemed to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly made friends with his half-brother Dmitri (though he arrived later) than with his own brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan, but when the latter had been two months in the town, though they had met fairly often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha was naturally silent, and he seemed to be expecting something, ashamed about something, while his brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed at first that he looked long and curiously at him, seemed soon to have left off thinking of him. Alyosha noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed his brother's indifference at first to the disparity of their age and education. But he also wondered whether the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was absorbed in something--something inward and important--that he was striving towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was not some contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him--a foolish novice. He knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take offense at this contempt, if it existed; yet, with an uneasy embarrassment which he did not himself understand, he waited for his brother to come nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosha learnt all the details of the important affair which had of late formed such a close and remarkable bond between the two elder brothers. Dmitri's enthusiastic references to Ivan were the more striking in Alyosha's eyes since Dmitri was, compared with Ivan, almost uneducated, and the two brothers were such a contrast in personality and character that it would be difficult to find two men more unlike.
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality of Smerdyakov, "who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity." He depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education, who had been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level and certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his father--Fyodor Pavlovitch; and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical conversations with his master's elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse himself at the valet's expense. "He spoke to me himself of his spiritual condition during the last few days at his father's house," Ippolit Kirillovitch explained; "but others too have borne witness to it--the prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigory--that is, all who knew him well.
Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to his pupil. Education is a creative process. The personality of the individual is being “educated” throughout life, is being formed, grows richer in content, stronger and more perfect.
Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I (the liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813) flow from the same sources--the circumstances of his birth, education, and life--that made his personality what it was and from which the actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?
HALE, EDWARD EVERETT (1822-1909), American author, was born in Boston on the 3rd of April 1822, son of Nathan Hale (1784-1863), proprietor and editor of the Boston _Daily Advertiser_, nephew of Edward Everett, the orator and statesman, and grand-nephew of Nathan Hale, the martyr spy. He graduated from Harvard in 1839; was pastor of the church of the Unity, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1846-1856, and of the South Congregational (Unitarian) church, Boston, in 1856-1899; and in 1903 became chaplain of the United States Senate. He died at Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts, on the 10th of June 1909. His forceful personality, organizing genius, and liberal practical theology, together with his deep interest in the anti-slavery movement (especially in Kansas), popular education (especially Chautauqua work), and the working-man's home, were active in raising the tone of American life for half a century. He was a constant and voluminous contributor to the newspapers and magazines. He was an assistant editor of the Boston _Daily Advertiser_, and edited the _Christian Examiner, Old and New_ (which he assisted in founding in 1869; in 1875 it was merged in _Scribner's Magazine_), _Lend a Hand_ (founded by him in 1886 and merged in the _Charities Review_ in 1897), and the _Lend a Hand Record_; and he was the author or editor of more than sixty books--fiction, travel, sermons, biography and history. Entry: HALE
ISMAIL (1830-1895), khedive of Egypt, was born at Cairo on the 31st of December 1830, being the second of the three sons of Ibrahim and grandson of Mehemet Ali. After receiving a European education at Paris, where he attended the École d'État-Major, he returned home, and on the death of his elder brother became heir to his uncle, Said Mohammed, the Vali of Egypt. Said, who apparently conceived his own safety to lie in ridding himself as much as possible of the presence of his nephew, employed him in the next few years on missions abroad, notably to the pope, the emperor Napoleon III. and the sultan of Turkey. In 1861 he was despatched at the head of an army of 14,000 to quell an insurrection in the Sudan, and this he successfully accomplished. On the death of Said, on 18th January 1863, Ismail was proclaimed viceroy without opposition. Being of an Orientally extravagant disposition, he found with considerable gratification that the Egyptian revenue was vastly increased by the rise in the value of cotton which resulted from the American Civil War, the Egyptian crop being worth about £25,000,000 instead of £5,000,000. Besides acquiring luxurious tastes in his sojourns abroad, Ismail had discovered that the civilized nations of Europe made a free use of their credit for raising loans. He proceeded at once to apply this idea to his own country by transferring his private debts to the state and launching out on a grand scale of expenditure. Egypt was in his eyes the ruler's estate which was to be exploited for his benefit and his renown. His own position had to be strengthened, and the country provided with institutions after European models. To these objects Ismail applied himself with energy and cleverness, but without any stint of expense. During the 'sixties and 'seventies Egypt became the happy hunting-ground of self-seeking financiers, to whose schemes Ismail fell an easy and a willing prey. In 1866-1867 he obtained from the sultan of Turkey, in exchange for an increase in the tribute, firmans giving him the title of khedive, and changing the law of succession to direct descent from father to son; and in 1873 he obtained a new firman making him to a large extent independent. He projected vast schemes of internal reform, remodelling the customs system and the post office, stimulating commercial progress, creating a sugar industry, introducing European improvements into Cairo and Alexandria, building palaces, entertaining lavishly and maintaining an opera and a theatre. It has been calculated that, of the total amount of debt incurred by Ismail for his projects, about 10% may have been sunk in works of permanent utility--always excluding the Suez Canal. Meanwhile the opening of the Canal had given him opportunities for asserting himself in foreign courts. On his accession he refused to ratify the concessions to the Canal company made by Said, and the question was referred in 1864 to the arbitration of Napoleon III., who awarded £3,800,000 to the company as compensation for the losses they would incur by the changes which Ismail insisted upon in the original grant. Ismail then used every available means, by his own undoubted powers of fascination and by judicious expenditure, to bring his personality before the foreign sovereigns and public, and he had no little success. He was made G.C.B. in 1867, and in the same year visited Paris and London, where he was received by Queen Victoria and welcomed by the lord mayor; and in 1869 he again paid a visit to England. The result was that the opening of the Canal in November 1869 enabled him to claim to rank among European sovereigns, and to give and receive royal honours: this excited the jealousy of the sultan, but Ismail was clever enough to pacify his overlord. In 1876 the old system of consular jurisdiction for foreigners was modified, and the system of mixed courts introduced, by which European and native judges sat together to try all civil cases without respect of nationality. In all these years Ismail had governed with _éclat_ and profusion, spending, borrowing, raising the taxes on the fellahin and combining his policy of independence with dazzling visions of Egyptian aggrandizement. In 1874 he annexed Darfur, and was only prevented from extending his dominion into Abyssinia by the superior fighting power of the Abyssinians. But at length the inevitable financial crisis came. A national debt of over one hundred millions sterling (as opposed to three millions when he became viceroy) had been incurred by the khedive, whose fundamental idea of liquidating his borrowings was to borrow at increased interest. The bond-holders became restive. Judgments were given against the khedive in the international tribunals. When he could raise no more loans he sold his Suez Canal shares (in 1875) to Great Britain for £3,976,582; and this was immediately followed by the beginning of foreign intervention. In December 1875 Mr Stephen Cave was sent out by the British government to inquire into the finances of Egypt, and in April 1876 his report was published, advising that in view of the waste and extravagance it was necessary for foreign Powers to interfere in order to restore credit. The result was the establishment of the Caisse de la Dette. In October Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen and M. Joubert made a further investigation, which resulted in the establishment of Anglo-French control. A further commission of inquiry by Major Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer) and others in 1878 culminated in Ismail making over his estates to the nation and accepting the position of a constitutional sovereign, with Nubar as premier, Mr (afterwards Sir Charles) Rivers Wilson as finance minister, and M. de Blignières as minister of public works. Ismail professed to be quite pleased. "Egypt," he said, "is no longer in Africa; it is part of Europe." The new régime, however, only lasted six months, and then Ismail dismissed his ministers, an occasion being deliberately prepared by his getting Arabi (q.v.) to foment a military _pronunciamiento_. England and France took the matter seriously, and insisted (May 1879) on the reinstatement of the British and French ministers; but the situation was no longer a possible one; the tribunals were still giving judgments for debt against the government, and when Germany and Austria showed signs of intending to enforce execution, the governments of Great Britain and France perceived that the only chance of setting matters straight was to get rid of Ismail altogether. He was first advised to abdicate, and a few days afterwards (26th June), as he did not take the hint, he received a telegram from the sultan (who had not forgotten the earlier history of Mehemet Ali's dynasty), addressed to him as ex-khedive, and informing him that his son Tewfik was his successor. He at once left Egypt for Naples, but eventually was permitted by the sultan to retire to his palace of Emirghian on the Bosporus. There he remained, more or less a state prisoner, till his death on the 2nd of March 1895. Ismail was a man of undoubted ability and remarkable powers. But beneath a veneer of French manners and education he remained throughout a thorough Oriental, though without any of the moral earnestness which characterizes the better side of Mahommedanism. Some of his ambitions were not unworthy, and though his attitude towards western civilization was essentially cynical, he undoubtedly helped to make the Egyptian upper classes realize the value of European education. Moreover, spendthrift as he was, it needed--as is pointed out in Milner's _England in Egypt_--a series of unfortunate conditions to render his personality as pernicious to his country as it actually became. "It needed a nation of submissive slaves, not only bereft of any vestige of liberal institutions, but devoid of the slightest spark of the spirit of liberty. It needed a bureaucracy which it would have been hard to equal for its combination of cowardice and corruption. It needed the whole gang of swindlers--mostly European--by whom Ismail was surrounded." It was his early encouragement of Arabi, and his introduction of swarms of foreign concession-hunters, which precipitated the "national movement" that led to British occupation. His greatest title to remembrance in history must be that he made European intervention in Egypt compulsory. (H. Ch.) Entry: ISMAIL
FICHTE, IMMANUEL HERMANN (originally HARTMANN) VON (1797-1879), German philosopher, son of J.G. Fichte, was born at Jena on the 18th of July 1797. Having held educational posts at Saarbrücken and Düsseldorf, in 1836 he became extraordinary professor of philosophy at Bonn, and in 1840 full professor. In 1842 he received a call to Tübingen, retired in 1867, and died at Stuttgart on the 8th of August 1879. The most important of his comprehensive writings are: _System der Ethik_ (1850-1853), _Anthropologie_ (1856, 3rd ed. 1876), _Psychologie_ (1864-1873), _Die theistische Weltansicht_ (1873). In 1837 he had founded the _Zeitschrift für Philosophie_ as an organ of his views, more especially on the subject of the philosophy of religion, where he was in alliance with C.H. Weisse; but, whereas Weisse thought that the Hegelian structure was sound in the main, and that its imperfections might be mended, Fichte held it to be incurably defective, and spoke of it as a "masterpiece of erroneous consistency or consistent error." Fichte's general views on philosophy seem to have changed considerably as he advanced in years, and his influence has been impaired by certain inconsistencies and an appearance of eclecticism, which is strengthened by his predominantly historical treatment of problems, his desire to include divergent systems within his own, and his conciliatory tone. His philosophy is an attempt to reconcile monism (Hegel) and individualism (Herbart) by means of theism (Leibnitz). He attacks Hegelianism for its pantheism, its lowering of human personality, and imperfect recognition of the demands of the moral consciousness. God, he says, is to be regarded not as an absolute but as an Infinite Person, whose nature it is that he should realize himself in finite persons. These persons are objects of God's love, and he arranges the world for their good. The direct connecting link between God and man is the "genius," a higher spiritual individuality existing in man by the side of his lower, earthly individuality. Fichte, in short, advocates an ethical theism, and his arguments might easily be turned to account by the apologist of Christianity. In his conception of finite personality he recurs to something like the monadism of Leibnitz. His insistence on moral experience is connected with his insistence on personality. One of the tests by which Fichte discriminates the value of previous systems is the adequateness with which they interpret moral experience. The same reason that made him depreciate Hegel made him praise Krause (panentheism) and Schleiermacher, and speak respectfully of English philosophy. It is characteristic of Fichte's almost excessive receptiveness that in his latest published work, _Der neuere Spiritualismus_ (1878), he supports his position by arguments of a somewhat occult or theosophical cast, not unlike those adopted by F.W.H. Myers. He also edited the complete works and literary correspondence of his father, including his life. Entry: FICHTE
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY (1752-1817), American divine, writer, and educationalist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 14th of May 1752. His father, Timothy Dwight, a graduate of Yale College (1744), was a merchant, and his mother was the third daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He was remarkably precocious, and is said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson, and to have been able to read the Bible before he was four years old. In 1769 he graduated at Yale College, and then for two years taught in a grammar school at New Haven. He was a tutor in Yale College from 1771 to 1777; and then, having been licensed to preach, was a chaplain for a year in a regiment of troops engaged in the War of Independence, inspiring the troops both by his sermons and by several stirring war songs, the most famous of which is "Columbia." From 1778 until 1783 he lived at Northampton, studying, farming, preaching, and dabbling in politics. From 1783 until 1795 he was pastor of the Congregational church at Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, where he opened an academy which at once acquired a high reputation and attracted pupils from all parts of the Union. From 1795 until his death at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of January 1817, he was president of Yale College, and by his judicious management, by his remarkable ability as a teacher--he taught a variety of subjects, including theology, metaphysics, logic, literature and oratory,--and by his force of character and magnetic personality, won great popularity and influence, and restored that institution to the high place from which it had fallen before his appointment. President Dwight was also well known as an author. In verse he wrote an ambitious epic in eleven books, _The Conquest of Canaan_, finished in 1774, but not published until 1785; a somewhat ponderous and solemn satire, _The Triumph of Infidelity_ (1788), directed against Hume, Voltaire and others; _Greenfield Hill_ (1794), the suggestion for which seems to have been derived from John Denham's _Cooper's Hill_; and a number of minor poems and hymns, the best known of which is that beginning "I love thy kingdom, Lord." Many of his sermons were published posthumously under the titles _Theology Explained and Defended_ (5 vols., 1818-1819), to which a memoir of the author by his two sons, W.T. and Sereno E. Dwight, is prefixed, and _Sermons by Timothy Dwight_ (2 vols., 1828), which had a large circulation both in the United States and in England. Probably his most important work, however, is his _Travels in New England and New York_ (4 vols., 1821-1822), which contains much material of value concerning social and economic New England and New York during the period 1796-1817. Entry: DWIGHT
For nearly 300 years the history of Hesse is comparatively uneventful. The land, which fell into two main portions, upper Hesse round Marburg, and lower Hesse round Cassel, was twice divided between two members of the ruling family, but no permanent partition took place before the Reformation. A _Landtag_ was first called together in 1387, and the landgraves were constantly at variance with the electors of Mainz, who had large temporal possessions in the country. They found time, however, to increase the area of Hesse. Giessen, part of Schmalkalden, Ziegenhain, Nidda and, after a long struggle, Katzenelnbogen were acquired, while in 1432 the abbey of Hersfeld placed itself under the protection of Hesse. The most noteworthy of the landgraves were perhaps Louis I. (d. 1458), a candidate for the German throne in 1440, and William II. (d. 1509), a comrade of the German king, Maximilian I. In 1509 William's young son, Philip (q.v.), became landgrave, and by his vigorous personality brought his country into prominence during the religious troubles of the 16th century. Following the example of his ancestors Philip cared for education and the general welfare of his land, and the Protestant university of Marburg, founded in 1527, owes to him its origin. When he died in 1567 Hesse was divided between his four sons into Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Marburg and Hesse-Rheinfels. The lines ruling in Hesse-Rheinfels and Hesse-Marburg, or upper Hesse, became extinct in 1583 and 1604 respectively, and these lands passed to the two remaining branches of the family. The small landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg was formed in 1622 from Hesse-Darmstadt. After the annexation of Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Homburg by Prussia in 1866 Hesse-Darmstadt remained the only independent part of Hesse, and it generally receives the common name. Entry: HESSE
BENTON, THOMAS HART (1782-1858), American statesman, was born at Hillsborough, Orange county, North Carolina, on the 14th of March 1782. His father, an Englishman of refinement and scholarship, died in 1790, leaving the boy under the influence of a very superior mother, from whom he received lessons in book learning, piety and temperance quite unusual in the frontier country. His home studies, facilitated by his father's fine library, were supplemented by a brief stay at the university of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) in 1799. The family removed, probably in this year, to a large tract of land which had been acquired by the father on the outskirts of the Indian country (at Benton Town, now Leipers Fork) near Franklin, Tennessee. The following years, during which Benton was at various times school teacher, farmer, lawyer and politician, were the distinctively formative period of his life. His intense democracy and many features of his boldly cast personality were perfectly representative of the border people among whom he lived; although his education, social standing and force of character placed him above his fellows. In 1809 he served a term as state senator. Between 1815 and 1817 he transferred his interests to St Louis, Missouri, and in 1820 was elected United States senator from the new state. His senatorial career of thirty years (1821-1851) was one of extreme prominence. A friendship early formed in Tennessee for Andrew Jackson was broken in 1813 by an armed fracas between the principals and their friends, but after the presidential election of 1824 Benton became a Jacksonian Democrat and Jackson's close friend, and as such was long the Democratic leader in the Senate, his power being greatest during Jackson's second term. He continued to be the administration's right-hand man under Van Buren, but gradually lost influence under Polk, with whom he finally broke both personally and politically. Entry: BENTON