Locke’s place in the history of education is not only determined by the writing through which he became known in the world of educators, and not only by his Some thoughts concerning education.
Biographical information
John Locke was born in Wrington, Somerset, in 1632, the first son of John Locke and Agnes Keene. In the struggle between the king, Charles I, and Parliament, John Locke Senior sided with Parliament against those around him, a testament to a courageous and independent character. John Locke Junior inherited these character traits from his father; He also took sides politically later in life, against Charles II and James II, and showed himself politically, philosophically, morally and pedagogically a writer, averse to tradition, relying on his own insight, although it is not always his own original insight, including others. encouraging your own insight. His mother appears to have been a woman of devout religion, of whom he later spoke fondly. His relationship with his father largely determined his later insights into home upbringing.
In 1667 he entered the service of Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury, who was initially a powerful man under Charles II. Locke became governor of the son and friend of the father. From 1675 to 1679 he stayed in France for health reasons. Shaftesbury finally fell into disgrace in 1682, fled to Holland and died in Amsterdam in 1683. Locke left England in the same year and also fled to Holland, where he experienced much friendship. He returned in 1689, after the Revolution that brought Stadtholder William III and his English consort Maria to the English throne. Refusing important positions offered to him by William, he left Westminster in 1691 and lived as a relative at the home of Sir Francis and Lady Masham in Oates, Essex, until his death in 1704. Locke’s major works appeared in quick succession, between 1689 and 1695.
Empirical
Locke’s place in the history of education is not only determined by the writing through which he became known in the world of educationalists, and not only by his Some thoughts concerning education. Some thoughts derives its deeper meaning from the other work, with in some respects a more direct connection with the Essay, in other respects with Of study and Of the conduct of the understanding. In the Essay and in Conduct, Locke makes human knowledge the object of research, in order to find a way to more transparent, therefore more controlled and more fruitful thinking. In the Essay he asks about the origin, certainty and extent of human knowledge and about grounds and degrees of probability-indicating concepts such as belief, opinion, consent. In Conduct, moreover, to the behavior of the mind in its pursuit of knowledge.
Does the origin of our intellectual and moral knowledge lie in mysterious innate ideas; do we arrive at certainty through the old syllogistic method or do we have to look for new ways; Is human cognition capable of understanding all the problems that man is faced with or are there also problems that exceed human cognition?
It is assumed that the soul already receives certain ideas when it is created and brings these ideas into the world. The fact that certain ideas are generally accepted is then considered proof of their innateness. Locke addresses two principles that, according to many, can most rightly claim the epithet innate, namely: What is, is; secondly against: It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be. If both of these were congenital, they must have been known to children in their earliest youth, even to idiots. In fact, they are only discovered when the mind has reached a certain maturity. Even the fact that everyone accepts them as soon as they are presented to him is not an argument for innateness; the same would then apply to such evident truths as 1 + 2 = 3; sweet is not bitter, etc.
To a greater extent, Locke’s argument applies to moral principles. Propositions such as What is, is and It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be, have in any case a high degree of intellectual evidence; but it is impossible to indicate a moral principle which has equally strong moral evidence. One rarely or never accepts moral principles without discourse and argumentation; no moral principle is, from an ethnological point of view, accepted by everyone, moral principles cannot therefore be innate. How could any idea be innate, if even the idea of God is not innate, although the knowledge of a God is the most natural discovery of human reason? If God had left any mark on the mind of man, then this must be a clear and uniform image of Himself, insofar as our limited human powers are able to comprehend so inscrutable a being. But precisely because man initially lacks the Supreme Idea, it cannot be assumed that other ideas are innate to him.
Knowledge, Locke means, is never innate; it is always acquired. With this conclusion he rejects the doctrines of Plato and Descartes. If there are no innate ideas, how do we arrive at knowledge? Locke now gives his theory of knowledge. He asks himself the same famous question: Let us then suppose… the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how does it come to be furnished?… Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this 1 answer in one word, from experience; in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. In our experience we are focused on objects external to us, or on the inner activities of our mind. The two sources of our knowledge are therefore sensation and reflection, sensory and intellectual perception. Our ideas arise from these sources. They provide the material for knowledge; knowledge, the true purpose of which is the honor and veneration of the Creator and the happiness of mankind.
Locke separates three degrees of knowledge, which he refers to as intuition, demonstration, and sensation.
- Intuitive knowledge provides the highest degree of certainty, it is immediately and unquestionably established, requires no proof, cannot even be proven.
- ‘Demonstrated’ knowledge lacks the moment of immediacy, it requires proof and the use of reason. The great majority of ideas rest on it.
- Intuitive and ‘demonstrated’ knowledge constitute the actual knowledge; everything that lies outside these two categories, i.e. sensation, falls under probability. The concepts of belief, opinion, assent apply to this last category; believe; opinion, consent.
Innate potentials
So far, Locke can be regarded as the great seventeenth-century empiricist, empiricist and, tout et devant tout, as he has been called, founder of the English philosophical tradition. He is considered the man of the tabula rasa, for whom the mind was like a white paper, void of all characters.
At the end of Some thoughts he repeats this image. He regarded the young Clarke as white paper, or wax, to be edited to one’s pleasure. In this view of the mind as tabula-rasa he connects with Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and his immediate predecessor, the Frenchman Gassendi. But one must be careful with that white paper. In Some thoughts, Locke accepts innate giftedness, innate dispositions, innate tendencies. He is not a pure empiricist after all.
The educators
The parents
Locke has many criticisms of contemporary education. The moral suffering of the children touches his heart. Countless parents lack any understanding of educational responsibility; Children are often irreparably corrupted at an early age. Partly by parental example, partly also by the downright teaching them vice, by bluntly teaching them vice. Through ignorance and indifference they provoke the children to ostentation, mendacity and intemperance; worse: to cruelty and revenge.
It could be so different. Although children must be treated with tenderness, they must learn from an early age to act according to the will of their parents. They must see in their parents their lords, their absolute governors. Freedom and indulgence do young children no good. He remembers his parental home later in life. His father was strict, demanded strict obedience, and kept him at a distance as long as he was a boy; he showed rapprochement and allowed rapprochement as he grew up as a youth; after all, he lived with him as a friend. This memory makes him write in Some thoughts: respect for parents as a child; casual contact when maturing into a man; as a man your affectionate friend.
The Governor
Throughout Some thoug/its the person of the tutor, the governor, plays. He participates intensively in education; he is in charge of intellectual education. France had its mutineries scolaires in the seventeenth century, England had them then and later. In the eyes of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, the school failed; in school their sons certainly did not learn the virtues they desired in them. Virtue, wisdom, breeding could flourish best in the well-managed family, with the support of the governor.
The governor must be of good birth, well-traveled, man of the world, knower of people. By his nature: virtuous, wise, modest, sober. For his position: erudite, skilled, active. In all things a living example for his pupil, in whom he must cultivate self-control, in whom he must learn to pursue with full conviction everything that can promote the dignity and excellence of a reasonable creature.
Ideas about practical education
As we have seen, Locke belongs to the proclaimers of the superiority of natural education, with an emphasis on nature and nurture. Characteristic of them is, among other things, their great confidence, almost absolute confidence, in the formative possibilities of education. Nine-tenths of the human being is therefore a product of education. He is also regarded as an educationalist by, among others, the Frenchman Helvétius [17151771], who goes one step further: Léducation peut tout. That shouldn’t be surprising nine parts of ten. Anyone who rejects innate ideas, intellectual and moral, with such a wide range of arguments as Locke does, must fall back on an almost unlimited belief in the possibilities of education. The great differences in behavior and talent that Locke, a human expert, observed in his contact with people must be attributed to education more than anything else. A further conclusion that fits in with the empiricist’s scheme of thought.
Children easily deviate from the norms of good and evil, norms that are indeed the product of adult meditation , but with which they must nevertheless be introduced as soon as possible, according to the demands of reason and reasonableness that should have the decisive say in everything. The lofty task of education is simply the promotion of wisdom and virtue. Natural reason is not easily appealed to in vain, not even in the case of children.
Locke repeatedly falls back on innate tendencies, innate dispositions. The father [there is hardly any mention of the mother as an educator] must study the nature of his son [the daughters are also neglected] in a timely and thorough manner, to determine whether he is docile or stubborn, open-hearted or closed, merciful or cruel. Therefore, one cannot impose tasks on children at any given moment: the child must be internally prepared to accept the task. Some suggestiveness is permitted, it can even have a beneficial effect, but: one cannot force the child to learn. In many respects, Locke appears to be able to deviate from his rigid starting principle. Undoubtedly guided by experience, but by an experience that showed him two paths, towards epistemological rigor and towards pedagogical mildness.
Education
Locke starts primary education very early. The child learns to read as soon as it can speak, normally at the age of two to three. This early moment determines the method. There can be no question of coercion; reading should be learned as a game. The later reading must also have an attractive character: the fables of Aesop, Reynard the Fox. Early memorized are the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Confession of Faith. Only fascinating and at the same time edifying stories are read from the Bible: the story of Joseph, David and Goliath, etc. The child learns to write as soon as he can read well; draw as soon as he has mastered the art of writing. This completes primary education; so mother tongue education [speaking, reading, writing] and religious education. The second stage, which partly overlaps the first, is that of language teaching. French is learned, natural education requires the living language when the child speaks English well. It is taught using the direct method. Normally Latin is started two years later, also using the direct method. The Latin tongue would easily be taught the same way. Unfortunately, few teachers have the courage to deviate from the traditional methodology, which is through grammar. Languages arise and develop through everyday use, not through grammatical regulations. One should learn languages based on daily use.
No speeches on Latin themes such as Omnia vincit amor. The whole old trivium: rhetoric, logic, grammar arouses his reluctance. Rhetoric and logic are of little use: young people only learn to pursue victory instead of the truth. He fervently advocates a good command of English, oral and written. Every gent1st man should cultivate his mother tongue.
The third stage, which again overlaps the second, includes the modern sciences. First of all , geography, chronology, the flow of time and its division, history, the actual event. These three subjects correlate: What happens happened once and happened somewhere. Furthermore, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and anatomy.
Further training
The training program is not yet completed. Insight into the basic principles of ethics, constitutional and civil law is necessary: also knowledge of the English constitution and government structure. Locke has a difficult time with natural science. He does not differentiate sufficiently, only distinguishes between metaphysics and physics. Metaphysics deals with God and his works, physics with bodies. As opposed to the speculative systems, the actual experiments. A gentleman should be somewhat familiar with both. Of infinity, he writes in Of study, no knowledge is possible; he likes to put forward physicists such as Boyle and the Incomparable Newton.
The young noble must learn to honor and love science; know how to find the paths to science , if he is attracted to science. We still proclaim it, also for people other than young noblemen.
Science, not art. Locke has objections to poetry and music. They are often kept in bad company. Art and company have caused the loss of many a paternal inheritance.
He prefers physical activity. Dancing, fencing, horse riding can cause disagreement, confusion, even war. From the state of nature, as a means of self-protection, grows the civil state , civil society, which for the Englishman Locke of 1690 takes the form of a constitutional monarchy on the basis of popular sovereignty, a regime that does not allow unbridled freedom that leads to anarchy. , nor the slavery of despotism. The individual lives in freedom under freedom-restricting law. He is free as long as he does not intervene in the freedom of others; the government is an instrument for the promotion of individual happiness, security of property, prosperity, life unless the general welfare must prevail.
Thus, Locke is one of the founders of modern political democracy. In accordance with his contemplative nature, he focuses primarily on cultivating a democratic disposition, as we still understand it. The gentleness that adorns him pushes him towards a pacifism, which he openly professes. In Sorne thoughts and in Of study. He shuns the adulation of war heroes, the great butchers of mankind. He accepts the war of defense, but war remains the great evil for him. Freedom as a necessity of life, reasonableness as a principle of life, gentleness as the tenor of life, each individually, but certainly jointly, has as a moral consequence tolerance, positive tolerance. Locke’s principle of tolerance also has an epistemological foundation, which should not be surprising. Our actions are determined by certainties and probabilities. Where certainty is lacking, probability becomes the basis and motive of action, we must approach our neighbor with patience and love, not damn him for rejecting our position, realize our mutual ignorance. Den Tex calls Locke the church father of the dogma of tolerance.
His tolerance is two-sided, political and religious. Even if he knew how to sacrifice for his own political principle, he could not be a political die-hard. No church has the right to persecute anyone for their faith; the fact that someone adheres to a doctrine that we do not agree with does not mean that he has renounced his natural law freedom of self-determination. Tolerance is a moral evil and can therefore never coincide with the feeling of happiness with which God rewards the actions he deems desirable.