The New Liberal Paradigm: Modern Education Principles and Proposals

John Stuart Mill Coleridge (1840) and On Liberty (1859) (civic education in
chapter two)(individual education in chapter three) Matthew Arnold Literature and
Science and Thomas Henry Huxley Science and the Christian Tradition (1889)
I.

Mills optimistic theorems about the perfectibility of human

societies in civic action: the modern, liberal view of truth

(1) All students of man and society () are aware that the besetting danger is not so much of
embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole. It might be plausibly
maintained that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social
philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though in the wrong in what they
denied; and that if either could have been made to take the others views in addition to its own,
little more would have been needed to make its doctrine correct. (PEV I p. 458)

(Truth is a socially defined function of several truths, pragmatic and synthetic. It is

obtained as a combination that results after harmonising several partial truths, as
can be possessed by real people in concrete circumstances)

(2) Thus, it is in regard to every important partial truth; there are always two conflicting modes of
thought, one tending to give to that truth too large, the other to give it too small a place; and the
history of opinion is generally an oscillation between these extremes. (Ditto, p. 460).Thus,
every excess in either direction determines a corresponding reaction; improvement consisting
only in this, that the oscillation, each time, departs rather less widely from the centre, and an
ever-increasing tendency is manifested to settle finally in. (Ditto, p. 461)

(It is possible to harmonize the conflicting modes, but only in the long run, and very
gradually There is a kind of physical, mathematical necesity shown to be at work in
this extremely rational model of human society, which proves the point made
before, about the model of science underlying the clear, persuasive liberal
discourse.)

(3) There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes
of human life. () Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very
condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms
can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right. (Ditto) Truth
prevails over error (or as Mill calls error human fallibility), because it is possible to
correct past errors and to learn from them, so that all times there is just enough truth for correct
action (On Liberty, in PEV, p. 510).

Here, Mills theory veers into the moral and ethical realm, and it seems inspired by
one of Jesus Christs own reassuring teachings to the disciples.The way to incline
the balance in favour of truth by correcting error is, therefore, in action. Here is the
key of Mills pragmatic optimism which he inherited by means of a closely
supervised education from his father, Englands greatest utilitarian philosopher,
James Mill.
Mills case about the role and rules of public opinion (In On Liberty Chapter II: On the Liberty of

Thought and Discussion (anthologized in PEV I, pp 507 535)

He (man in general, our note) is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience.
Not by experience alone. There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong
opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any
effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without
comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending
on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong. (PEV I, p. 511)
(Discussion, is the complement of thought and experience, which are of necessity

limited, just as the individual person is. Exchange of ideas and experience, however,
if conducted according to the laws of justice and rationality, or if conducted fairly
enough can correct errors and make humanity asymptotically approach in
action what it cannot hope to attain in principle.)
II.

Mill, On Liberty Chapter III: Of Individuality as One of the

Elements of Well-Being and Matthew Arnold about Bildung

Mill focused on the Bildung, the development of the instrument of public well-being:
the mature, fully responsible individual.
Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by
the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege and proper condition of a
human being, arrived at the maturity of his faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own
way. It is for him to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to his own
circumstances and character. And ()The human faculties of perception, judgment,
discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference are exercised only in making a
choice. He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice. He gains no practice
either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular, powers
are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing
merely because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not conclusive to the persons
own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by adopting it.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him has no need of
any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself
employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee,
activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided,
firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision. () It is possible that he might be
guided in some good path, and kept out of harms way, without any of these things. But what will
be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only what men do,
but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man which human life is
rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first importance surely is man himself.
Supposing it were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes tried, and
even churches erected and prayers said by machinery by automatons in human form- it would
be a considerable loss to exchange for these automatons even the men and women who at
present inhabit the more civilized parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved
specimens built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which

requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces
which make it a living thing.

The same point is made by Matthew Arnolds in Literature and Science, one of his
Discourses in America (1885), in connection with the general education of innate
faculties to make them powers:
At present it seems to me that those who are for giving to natural knowledge, as they call it [i.e., to
positive sciences, our note] the chief place in the education of the majority of mankind, leave one
important thing out of their account: the constitution of human nature (.) [These, the people who are for
giving to natural knowledge the chief place] can hardly deny that () the powers which go to the building
up of human life () are the power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty,
and the power of social life and manners () Human nature is built up by these powers; we have the
need for them all. When we have rightly met and adjusted the claims of them all, we shall then be in a fair
way for getting soberness and righteousness, with wisdom. (OAEL p. 1047).

This recalls Newmans principles in The Idea of a University

education is a higher word; it implies an action upon our mental nature, and the
formation of a character; it is something individual and permanent, and is
commonly spoken of in connection with religion and virtue.
III.

Thomas Henry Huxleys Desiderata for Modern Education

Towards the end of the Victorian Age, already, positive, practical ideas of education
took the upper hand. In Thomas Henry Huxleys words, education should be
pragmatic and avoid useless scholarship for its own sake:
In fact, there is a chorus of voices, almost distressing in their harmony, raised in favour of the doctrine
that education is the great panacea for human troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly to go to the
dogs, everybody must b e educated ().
The politicians tell us, You must educate the masses because they are going to be masters. The clergy
join in the cry for education, for they affirm that the people are drifting away from church and chapel into
the broadest infidelity. The manufacturers and the capitalists swell the chorus lustily. They declare that
ignorance makes bad workmen; that England will soon be unable to turn out cotton goods, or steam
engines, cheaper than other people; and then, Ichabod! Ichabod! The glory will be departed from us. And
a few voices are lifted up in favour of the doctrine that the masses should be educated because they are
men and women with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suffering, that it is as true now, as it ever
was, that the people perish for lack of knowledge
What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of thoroughly liberal education? of that education
which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves of that education which, if we could mould
the fates to our own will, we could give to our children?
. Education, Huxley says, is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I
include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections
and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws.(