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Wordsworth complains that by taking things to bits and regard-
ing them singly we never know them. We, also, like the old Chinese
scholars, murder to dissect: analysis destroys creativeness in that
world of thought and yet examinations require this treatment of
classic texts. But the old doctrine no doubt is there
doctrine of human behaviour.
-
the
It is curious that this same charge of making education
merely a process of overloading the memory is one that is met
with most frequently in Europe.
Rabelais caricatures the whole system in his day by adminis-
tering a purge to Gargantua whose mind has been surfeited with
indigestible knowledge, which has remained unassimilated and has
merely dulled the brain. Only by eliminating the old clotted
nonsense can we hope he says to get along on scientific lines.
Montaigne that humane philosopher of France compares such memory
stuffing with the process by which a bird carries good in its beak,
for the purpose of handing it on to others. "Savoir par coeur
n'est pas savoir". To know by heart he says, is not to know at
The understanding is sacrificed to in order that the load
of learning might be increased. Quality and alertness are replaced
by quantity and consequent slowness. Such were the charges made
against the mediaeval methods of Education.
all.
In all the discussions upon the Chinese language this aspect
is apt to be overlooked namely that the old system was an ethical
education, and that the term classical is misleading if it brings
to the mind of the European the works of Turipides, Sophocles,
Virgil, Shakespeare and Milton; when Confucius and Mencius are
mentioned, for the classics in Europe even in their hey day were
superimposed upon, efter much hesitation, and never displaced the
religious and moral element in school and college, whereas in China
they have always combined the two aspects.
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