FO R D H A M U N IV E R SIT Y

G R A D U A T E SCHOOL

March...5., 1942.

This dissertation prepared under my direction by

John :JU...H a rt............................................................................ ........................

entitled Th<a...I?tflue*ica...0£..Hs^.fc^

ijstic...Philosophy...on ..............................................

has been accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the

Degree of ...................................................... ...............

(Faculty vidviser)
r 1

THE INFLUENCE OF HERBERT SPENCER1S EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISTIC

PHILOSOPHY ON AMERICAN EDUCATION

BY
JOHN RICHARD HART
E d #M,, Boston College Graduate School, *33

DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED- IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRADUATE
DEPARTMENT OF THE SCHOOL OF .EDUCATION OF FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
1943.
L
 ProQuest N um ber: 13846675

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

The quality of this reproduction is d e p e n d e n t upon the quality of the copy subm itted.

In the unlikely e v e n t that the a u thor did not send a c o m p le te m anuscript

and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if m aterial had to be rem oved,
a n o te will ind ica te the deletion.

uest
ProQuest 13846675

Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). C opyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author.

All rights reserved.

This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C o d e
M icroform Edition © ProQuest LLC.

ProQuest LLC.
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346
 iii

.r 1

TABUS OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

1. INTRODUCTION. ........ 1

E. SPUNCUR, THU NONCONFORMIST................ ,..... 5

5. SPENCER’S EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISTIC
PHILOSOPHY......... ........... .35

4. THE DIRECT INFLUENCE OF SPENCER’S EVOLUTIONARY

NATURALISTIC PHILOSOPHY ON AMERICAN EDUCATORS
AND THEORISTS ............................ 69

5. THE-INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF SPENCER’S THOUGHT

ON AMERICAN EDUCATION............. ....148
6 . CONCLUSION.......... 197
BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................... 205

L -J
THE INFLUENCE OF HERBERT SPENCER*S EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISTIC
PHILOSOPHY ON AMERICAN EDUCATION
 1

r i

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to show the influence of

Herbert Spencerrs Evolutionary Naturalistic Philosophy on

American education. The term influence is used in the

title to denote two things# First, that Spencer’s

evolutionary naturalistic philosophy was accepted, and

acknowledged to be accepted in part or in substantial

completeness, by certain American educators and theorists.

This kind of influence is called direct influence. The

direct influence of Spencer’s thought on American education,

therefore, is shown in his influence on distinguished

American educators and theorists; namely, on Fiske,

Youmans, Eliot, Hall, Barnard, White, Ward, and Sumner.

Besides exercising direct influence upon the listed

educators and theorists, there was an indirect kind of

influence that Spencer’s thought unquestionably exercised

on American education. This type of influence, the

indirect, is dependent largely for demonstration upon

inference from American educational developments and

educational changes that took place during the last half

of the nineteenth century.

The term American Education, as used in this study,

L _l
denotes the American educators and theorists already

listed. It also denotes the public and private graduate

schools, colleges, normal schools, high schools, and the

public elementary schools. It refers specifically to the

aim and the curricula of these schools.

The term Spencer’s Evolutionary Naturalistic

Philosophy denotes a brief, clear exposition of his

position on basic questions, such as, God, the origin of

the universe and of man, the soul, free will, original

sin, etc., for the purpose of indicating the relation of

his philosophy to his educational principles.

The study is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1
is the introduction. The recurrent theme of the second
chapter emphasizes almost to the exclusion of everything

else, that by birth and training, as well as by youthful

interests, Spencer was a nonconformist and that this

trait led to the growth and development of his evolutionary

naturalism. Chapter three gives the main points in his

philosophical position and indicates their application to

his educational philosophy. A brief criticism of his

educational philosophy is given in that chapter. Chapter

four is devoted to showing the direct influence of Spencer’s

thought on eight distinguished American educators and

theorists. The fifth chapter, in the main, deals with

 3

r -i

Spencer’s indirect influence on American education. The

last chapter is the conclusion.

The primary sources for Spencer were readily accessible

and they were relied upon, almost to the exclusion of other

aids, in the attempt to indicate his nonconformity and to

describe his philosophy and education. Of the educators

and theorists who were influenced by Spencer, considerable

material could be found. However, except for Hall and

White, autobiographies were lacking. Biographies of

practically all of the men were available as well as most

of their written works. General references on almost all

of the educators and theorists were plentiful.

Much of the information gathered to show the indirect

influence of Spencer’s thought on American education was

obtained from the educators studied and particularly from
the .Annual Reports of the United States Commissioner of

Education and the Annual Reports of the National Education­

al Association. Some of the earliest of the Circulars of

Information of the United States Bureau of Education were

quite useful, as well as other publications of that bureau.

The Fonular Science Monthly was valuable for indicating

the course of the controversy between the classics and

science. There were the reports of various committees on

education such as those appointed by the American Associa­

tion for the Advancement of Science, the American Society

L _i
 4

r 1

of Naturalists, and the National Idueational Association

that were very useful for chapter five. The Eeports of

the Committee of Ten and of the Committee of Fifteen

were quite valuable as was the Report of the Committee

on Normal Schools of the National Educational Association.

There were a number of special studies on the curriculum,

on the normal school, on certification of teachers, etc.

that were useful for the purpose of chapter five.

These sources combined with certain references aided

in indicating that Spencer did influence, indirectly, the

aim and the curriculum of American education.

L
 5

r 1

CHAPTER 11

SPENCER, THE NONCONFORMIST

Herbert Spencer was born on April SO, 18S0, in the

little town of Derby, England,.

Spencerfs parents, William George Spencer and Harriet

Holmes Spencer had nine children, of whom, only Herbert

l
survived. The father had four brothers. Thomas was a
clergyman, John a lawyer, Henry a business man, and the

youngest, William, was a teacher. Both the father and the

uncles were regarded by contemporaries as more or less

eccentric. Spencer alleged that "these brothers were in

the habit of saying very much what they thought, whether

on impersonal questions or on personal ones."2 The father

and the uncles of Spencer were.nominal fesleyans but

"they dissented more or less from that form of dissent.

In his own words Spencer indicates the trend toward

nonconformity on the part of his uncles and of his father.

He says:
To sum up, the traits common to them of most import
to be noted here were independence, self-asserting
judgment, the tendency to nonconformity, and the
unrestrained display of their sentiments and opinions;
more especially in respect of political, social,
religious, and ethical matters.4

1. Herbert Spencer, An Autobiography. New York, D. Appleton-

Century Co., 1904, Yol.l, pp. 71-101.
2. Ibid., pp. 44-46.
Ibid., p. 47. .
4. Ibid., p. 47.
 6

r n

Spencer, in his Autobiography. took pains to point

out that not only were his uncles and his father non­

conformists hut that their forefathers were also inclined

in the same direction.*’ Referring to this ancestral trait

of nonconformity he declares that he has inherited it and

has; displayed it on many occasions. He asserts, "That the

spirit of nonconformity is shovoi by me in various directions,

no one can deny; the disregard of authority, political,

religious, or social, is very conspicuous .

There can be little doubt that Spencer was brought up
in a domestic environment that was not tolerant of authority

and that consequently his own disregard for conformity

could in a large measure be traced to his father and to his

uncles. His mother, unlike the father, was conservative

in her views on life. Spencer thought that she had an

excellent sense of duty but that ", •♦ she was not

sufficiently self-asserting;:”^ and that in her character

n... altruism was too little qualified by e g o i s m , W i t h

respect of the bodily and mental inheritance he derived

from his parents he assertst

Save certain physical traits, I inherit, so far

as I can perceive scarcely anything from maternal

1* Ibid.« PP* 7-14.

2. Ibid., pp. 15-14.
3. Ibid., p. 67.
4. Ibid., p. 67.

L _l
 7

r n
ancestry. Every trait, alike intellectual and
moral, which is at all distinctive, is clearly
traceable to my father.1

Some of Spencer’s boyhood experiences ought to be

described for the light they throw on his subsequent

development.

Probably beeause of his own poor health and because

of the loss of eight children, William George Spencer

permitted his son unusual freedom during the latter*s

boyhood, "...school-drill being almost nominal, and no

very effectual control being exercised over me in other
r e s p e c t s . His father, however, encouraged young Spencer

to observe things in nature. To this end the young

Spencer responded readily. One of his projects led him to

collect insects. He then made drawings of them* Anent

this experience Spencer states that "Most children are
instinctively naturalists, and were they encouraged would

readily pass from careless observations to careful and

deliberate ones.”3

Besides his nature study Spencer engaged in reading

fiction with great pleasure. He had not learned to read

"tolerably" until he was over seven years of age. He

1. Spencer, An Autobiography. Vol.11, p. 190.

E. Spencer, An Autobiography. Vol.l, p. 80.
3. Ibid., p. 80.

L -I
 8

r “i

ascribes this deficiency to the fact that it was not an

easy task to force him to do his lessons, Spencer

considered that his most marked moral trait, “and that

which ran through a variety of manifestations in boyhood

and afterwards, was his disregard for authority. Of

course, one consequence was chronic disobedience.

Relative to this moral trait Spencer*s father wrote, "As

a boy his aversion to any conduct that to him seemed to
partake of tyranny was excessive. "2 The freedom young

Spencer wanted for himself he also wanted for others.

Concerning his intellectual development Spencer

thought that throughout his life his powers of memory

had been just average, if not below par, in terms of

quickness and retentiveness. Even though he was very

fond of novels Spencer could not read for more than an

hour or two at one sitting. He explained thisapparent

restlessness in terms of his inclination to independent

thought* This tended to diminish the degree of

receptivity to ideas set before him.3

Although rebellious against the usual academic

manner of acquiring knowledge and against the routine

1. Ibid.. pp. 87-90.

2. Ibid.. p. 90.
3* Ibid.. pp. 90-92.

L _!
 9

pedagogical methods employed, nevertheless, he gathered

considerable general information rather readily.^-

It is interesting to observe that during the ages

from about seven to ten he had some formal training at

a Mr* Mather*s day school. At that time Spencer rebelled

against learning Latin grammar. His father remarked

that he complained because of its lack of system*
Spencer says that in some measure his father*s explanation

may have been true. However, Spencer had an aversion to

rote-learning and to the dogmatic form. The statement

that "so-and-so is so-and-so, made without evidence or

intelligible reason,"2 seems to have been constitutionally

repugnant to him.

At about ten years of age he became a pupil of his

uncle William, This man, the youngest of the Spencer

brothers, had inherited the school from Matthew Spencer,

Herbert*s grandfather. It seems that object lessons in

the uncle*s school as well as some of the basic notions

of physical causation, constituted a goodly portion of

the training. Spencer approved of this discipline,

submitted to it, and was more successful than previously*^

1. Ibid., p. 92.
2. Ibid., p. 95.
3. Ibid., pp-. 95-96.

L
 10

He says in reference to his unclers methods, "There was,

I think, in this education comparatively little lesson-

learning: and, as a consequence, I was not in continual

disgrace."3* During that period, he studied the Greek

Testament up to a certain point. However, this study

was undertaken without any preliminary discipline in

grammar.

Over and above this school training, Spencer had

acquired considerable information on politics, on

religion, and on social affairs. The private lessons
given at home by the father to his pupils gave young
Spencer some knowledge of physics. They also provided

exciting adventures for the boy in the domain of

chemistry. This excursion led to independent chemical

experimentation.^
By the time Spencer had reached thirteen he knew

very little Latin and very little Greek. His training

in English had been of an informal nature. Spencer *s

knowledge of arithmetic was average; of mathematics

beyond arithmetic he was ignorant* He knew a little

ancient history, no English history, and of ancient

1. Ibid., p. 96. These scientific studies are

recommended in his work on education.
2. Ibid., pp* 96-98.

L -I
 11

literature in translation he knew nothing. His knowledge

of biography was nil. To offset these deficiencies his

knowledge of the objects of nature and of their principles

and causes was superior to that of boys of his own age.

Of physics, chemistry, botany, anatomy, physiology, he knew

something. His information on geography was advanced.

"Such were the acquisitions which formed a set-off against

the ignorance of those things commonly learned by boys.

The foregoing deficiencies and acquisitions Spencer

refers to in his Preface when he states "... And there

should be noted other large omissions, as well as

considerable additions, which gave to my education a

character unlike that of the ordinary education*”2

Spencer*s father believed in the principle of self­

activity, of the drawing out process rather than the

pouring in technique. It was through the application of

this technique that the principle of physical causation

was made a conscious trait for young Spencer. Since

Spencer's father exhibited the tendency to regard every

Ibid.. pp. 100-101.

2 * Tbid., p. vii.
5. Cf. Herbert Spencer, Educations Intellectual. Moral,and
Physical. New York, B. Appleton-Century Co., 1861, p. 120.
Spencer strenously insists that self-development should
be encouraged to the fullest extent.

L -I
 12

r n

thing as naturally caused, his questions to young Spencer

were always couched in terms which were intended to reveal

that causation was at work in the production of phenomena.

This methodology, practiced by the father on the son, made

the latter conscious of the need for searching for causes*^

The father’s technique established in the son tta tacit

belief in the universality of c a u s a t i o n . "2

I do not remember my father ever referring to

anything as explicable by supernatural agency. I
presume from other evidence that he must at that
time have still accepted tife current belief in
miracles; but I never perceived any trait of it in
his conversation. Certainly, his remarks about the
surrounding world gave no sign of any other thought
than that of uniform natural law.
Let me add that there was on his part, no
appeal to authority, as a reason for accepting a
belief. That same independence of judgment which
he had himself, he tended, alike intentionally and
unintentionally, to foster in others; and in me he
did it very effectually, whether with purpose or
not. Doubtless it existed innately; but his
discipline strengthened it.3

These descriptions of Spencer’s are interesting in

view of the subsequent development of his naturalistic

thought.

Early in the summer of 1833 young Spencer and his

parents visited Hinton Charterhouse, the domestic and

1. Cf. Spencer, Education. pp. 47-48. He recommends the

inductive study of natural phenomena, from which study
principles will be inferred.
2. Spencer, Autobio&rauhy. Vol.l, p. 101.
3 ‘ Ibid., p. 101.

L -I
 15

r n
spiritual domain of his clergyman uncle, Thomas.

An agreement had been reached by the two Spencer

brothers whereby young Herbert Spencer was to be educated

by Uncle Thomas. Spencer’s father was to supervise the

education of the son of his brother Henry. This

arrangement was unknown to Herbert

At Hinton Spencer studied Euclid, Latin, algebra,

physics, Greek and French grammar. His continued

distaste for language studies caused his father some

concern.2 The following excerpts, from a letter of

Spencer's father to his brother Thomas, indicate this

concern, he says: "What do you conceive he is most

adapted to? Does he still retain the aversion to Latin

that he had? And if he does, how do you account for it?

And will it be well to yield to it?15

A dispute with his uncle concerning the problem of

inertia indicates Spencer's independence of mind, during

the Hinton period. The point at issue was whether an

inert body could have anything but passive resistance.

Spencer's uncle sided with the author of the physics

1. Ibid.„ pp. 104-105.

2. Cf. Spencer, Education, pp. 73-81. He argues f o r the
superiority of science over language for discipline.
He tries to show that the training in memory derived
from science is equal to or superior to that derived
from language. Further, he states that science gives
a better training in intellectual, moral, and religious
matters than does language.
3. Spencer, Autobiography. Yol.l, pp. 115-116.

L
 14

text, Dr. Arnott. Spencer disagreed with both. Young

Spencer contended that only simple passiveness could be

expected of inert bodies. Spencer declared, Mand my

constitutional disregard for authority was shown by

dissenting from the opinions of both.

This incident was morally significant in showing

how deepseated was the tendency to criticize opinions,

and to reject those which did not commend themselves;

for Spencer, the incident was also intellectually

significant nas showing a guiek insight into physical

truths. For I was right in my position, notwithstanding

the authorities against me. ”2

Thomas Spencer, writing to Herbert’s father not long

after this disagreement stated, that in his opinion, the

’’grand deficiency in Herbert’s natural character is in

the principle of Fear ... By Fear, I mean both that

’Fear of the Lord* which ’is the beginning of wisdom’

and that fear of Parents, Tutors, &c.”3

During most of his life, dating from the Hinton

period down until the last years of his father’s life,

Spencer corresponded with his parent. This correspondence

indicates a very close intimacy between the two.

1. Ibid., pp. 116-117.

S. Ibid., p. 117.
3. Ibid.» p. 119. Cf. Spencer, Autobiography« Vol.11, p. 513.
Spencer claims that he inherited a "disregard for authority.**

L
 15

r -i

Summing up his education at Hinton, he approved of the

physical advantages that accrued to him. He returned to

Derby strong, in good health, and of good stature.

Intellectually he had profited much. A fair amount of

mathematics had been acquired and the accompanying

discipline had strengthened his reasoning powers.

Concerning proficiency in Latin, Greek, French, and

English grammar "but trifling success had been achieved."1

The education at Hinton, Spencer thought, was helpful

morally. Discipline at his home was attempted but not

enforced. Referring to his moral education, he says:

"The best results would have been achieved by one who had

my father*s higher ideal along with my uncle’s stronger

will ..."2

In reference to his aunt and to his uncle Thomas he

averred that he owed them much. "They had to deal with

intractable material - an individuality top stiff to be

easily'moulded."3

After leaving Hinton, Spencer became a teacher in

August, 1837. He had been appointed assistant to his old

schoolmaster, Mr. Mather. He continued at his teaching for

1. Spencer, Autobiography^- Vol.l, p. 131.

2. Ibid., p. 132.
3. Ibid.. p. 133.

L _i
three months. He was quite successful.1 However, he did

not care for teaching under the poor conditions he alleged

obtained at the time. He would have liked to have founded

an educational institute of his own in which he could apply

2
his own ideas. Since this plan did not come to fruition,

he found work in railroad engineering. This work continued,

on and off, from 1837 to 1845. As before, he continued to

express himself and he declares, "This tendency to indepen­

dent thinking had, as at Hinton, disagreeable concomitants."5

His colleagues on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway

classified him in the following terms, "He is a queer fellow;
he*s always finding fault with something or other."4

When Spencer was just twenty, he indicated to his father

his desire to write a criticism on certain subjects. He

confided to the parent:

I was thinking the other day that I should like to

make public- some of my ideas upon the state of the
world and religion, together with a few remarks on
education. I think, however, that I may employ my
time better at present.5
With respect of religious matters, Spencer at the time

was inclined to be a skeptic. This fact is clear from a

letter sent to his father in the latter part of 1840.

1. Ibid. p. 138.
2. Ibid. p. 140.
3. Ibid. pp. 149-150.
4. Ibid. p. 162.
5. Ibid. p. 179.
 17

«" i
Writing on the 26th of September, 1840, he informs

his father of his interest in fossil remains and in the

general domain of geology. One result of this geological

interest was the purchase of Lyell*s Principles of

Geology.^ In this connection he speaks of his awareness

"of the hypothesis that the human race had been developed

from some lower race; though what degree of acceptance it

had from me, memory does not say."2 One of Lyell*s

chapters was devoted to a refutation of Lamarck’s views on

the origin of species. These arguments of Lyell’s made

Spencer lean toward Lamarck’s position. He explains

this inclination to accept Lamarck, even in view of the

strictures of Lyell’s, as due, doubtless, "... to its

harmony with that general idea of the order of Nature
towards which I had, throughout life, been growing."^

He then continues with these significant remarks;

Supernaturalism, in whatever form, had never

commended itself. Prom boyhood there was in me
a need to see, in a more or less distinct way,
how phenomena, no matter of what kind, are to he
naturally explained. Hence, when my attention
was drawn to the question whether organic forms
have been specially created, or whether they
have arisen by progressive modifications,
physicallyrcaused and inherited, I adopted the

1. Ibid., p . 201.
Ibid., p. 201.
3. Ibid.. p. 201. Cf. Spencer, Education, pp. 117-118,
. for the influence of Lamarck’s theory on his educational
thought.

L
 18

last supposition; inadequate as was the evidence,

and great as were the difficulties in the way.
Its congruity with the course of procedure
throughout things at large, gave it an
irresistible attraction; and my belief in it
never afterwards wavered, much as I was, in after
years ridiculed for entertaining it.3-

Elaborating on this acceptance, he says: "There are

some minds to which the marvellous and the unaccountable

strongly appeal, and which ever resent any attempt to

bring the genesis of them within comprehension."2 Other

minds, partly by nature and partly by culture, refuse to

accept the unintelligible "until causation has been

carried to its confines. To this last order of minds

mine, from the beginning belonged."3

Perhaps a more objective view of Spencer’s mind when

he was about twenty is given by his friend, whom Spencer

designates as E.A.B* Spencer had manifested an early

1. Ibid., p. SOI. Of. Ralph Barton Perry, Philosophy of

the Recent Past. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1926, p. 37. Perry says that Spencer attached great
weight because of his belief in moral regeneration to
the "inheritance of acquired characters,"and
defended this view in a long controversy with Weismann.
Cf. Sir William Dampier, A History of Science» New York,
Macmillan Co., 1938, p. 302; 303. Dampier says
that Weismann, critically examined the evidence for
acquired characters and rejected the theory as inadequate.
Biologists soon came generally to accept the new ideas,
but Herbert Spencer, to the end of his days engaged in
active controversy with Weismann.
2* iHid., p. 202.
3 * ibid.« P« 202.

L
 19

r n

interest in psychological traits which led him into the

study of phrenology. He had had his head measurements

taken by one Bumball and he had them forwarded eventually

to his friend, E.A.B. Among other things, E.A.B. had the

following to say on the phrenologists deductions concerning

Spencer:

... He speaks of your ‘veneration and respect for

superiors as large.f That is the last thing I
should have thought of accusing you of, and I
believe I understand and can appreciate your
character very well. I think that my definition
of your mind as a radical one, is as good a one
as can be given. You are radical all over in
anything and everything - in religion, in politics,
in engineering, manners, etc., etc.^

Shortly after this, Spencer got his chance to

publicize his views.

The advanced Dissenters, when Spencer was about

twenty-two, had just established a newspaper to serve as

an organ for their views. This paper, The Nonconformist.

was at that time edited by a Mr. Edward Miall. Spencer,

after some discussions with his Uncle Thomas, determined

to contribute to the paper. This presented an

opportunity for him to voice some of the views he held.

His uncle knew Mr. Miall and this fact facilitated

publication*2

It thus came to pass that Spencer wrote twelve letters

1. Ibid., p. 231.
2. Ibid.. pp. 237-238.

L _l
 20

r ' "»
for The Nonconformist, They later,appeared in his work,

The Proner S-phere of Government. Spencer says, referring

to the writing of these letters, "... Had they never been

jf-
written, Social Statics, which' originated from them,.would
not even have been thought of. In short, there was a

natural development from the writing of these letters, to

'the writing of other works’which culminated in the System

of Synthetic Philosophy.^ Without these letters, n...

there would have been no System of Synthetic Philosophy."^

The letters treated successively, of Commercial

Restrictions, A National Church, The Poor-Laws, War,

Government-Colonization, National Education, and

Sanitary Administration,

Some extracts from these letters were incorporated

into the Autobiography. These extracts make manifest
ideational, patterns and trends of thought which

foreshadowed, in embryo, the direction his later thought

would take, . The extracts show, Spencer says, that there

was at that time in the development of his thought:

. . definitely expressed a belief in the universality

of law law in the realm of mind as in that of
matter— -law throughout the life of society as
throughout individual life. So, too, is it with

1.'Ibid,, p. 242.
2. Ibid., p. 242.
3. Ibid., p. 242.

L _J
 SI

r i

the correlative idea of universal causation; implied

in the extracts given, this also pervades the entire
argument. Quite pronounced is the assertion that
; .♦ throughout the organic world, there goes on a
process of adaptation hy which faculties are fitted
for their functions.*- This process is said to hold
of Man as of other creatures: the inference following
the one quoted being that, according as his social
relations are of one or other kind, Man will gain
or lose character and intelligence. And then there
is the definite statement that along with this
equilibration between the faculties of individuals
and their circumstances, there is a tendency in
society towards equilibrium-— there is self
adjustment, individual and social. Thus the
tendency of thought was even at that time towards
a purely naturalistic interpretation, and there was
a recognition of certain factors in the process of
evolution at large.^

On his own authority one finds Spencer adhering to

evolutionary naturalism while still in his early twenties.

It was in this decade between the ages of twenty to thirty

that Spencerfs evolutionary naturalism began to take on

that form that is found in his works. On occasions he

was allowed to express his views publicly through his

employment on The. Pilot and then later, in 1848, as a

sub-editor on The Economist. However, his growing

evolutionary naturalism is better observed in his discussions

with his friends. One of these, Mr. W.F. Loch had worked

with Spencer on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway.

Their discussions were often on religious questions and they

began in 1845.

1. Cf. Spencer, Education, p. ?4.

2. Spencer, Autobiography. Vol.l, pp. 242-243.

L
 22

r "i

From that year until about 1848, "... the question of

reyelation" was a constant subject of debate between the

two* Spencer says he did not attach much weight to Loch*s

arguments derived from historical evidence. When Loch

told Spencer that he was reading Paley's Evidences and

that he thought its arguments were unanswerable but that

he would be glad to read on the other side, Spencer

recommended Strauss* Life of Jesus. Loch examined this

work closely and Spencer declared that: "... Loch says

that what the Westminster Review says of the work is

perfectly true - namely that after reading it, all

(that) had before looked so clear, simple, and

straightforward, becomes a misty chaos of contradiction

and uncertainty.

A letter from E.A.B., dated May 6, 1845, makes some

relevant observations on Spencer*s religious thought at

that time. The gist of this letter amounted to a desire

on E.A.B.*s part to terminate their relationship. E.A.B.

claimed that although.they disagreed on many subjects

which were matters of opinion, and these disagreements

were not particularly significant, yet, the subjects the

two had recently discussed were different.

1. Ibid., pp. 303-304.

' 2. Ibid., pp. 303-304.

L
 23

r -i

♦.* They involve everything in our existence of

more than momentary interest; our principles and
practice, hopes and fears, our happiness or
misery here and hereafter. Such matters are of
no light moment, and it seems to me that no two
persons holding so very different views as you
and 1 do upon such vital points can remain
friends to each other.1

E.A.B. then goes on to say, that if he thought he

could, he would endeavor to bring Spencer around to a

true view of the truths of religion, but he knew that/

”... no argument on such a subject ever yet convinced

one who has closed his ears to everything but human

reason... Spencer regretted losing this association

with E.A.B.

Referring to a work entitled Kosraos by Baron

Humboldt, a review of which Spencer had read in The

Westminister Review, he says, “Judging by the quotations
it seems to me that Baron Humboldt has a leaning to the

♦development theory’...”^ And then, he continues,

“This last remark implies that as far back as 1845, the

general idea of organic evolution, espoused five years

before, had become a subject of interest to me."^

!• I k P P * 316-317.
2. Ibid., p. 339.
3. Ibid., p. 339.
4. Ibid.. p. 339. This is important in that it has been
thought by many that Darwin was the one who gave ■
Spencer his universal law of evolution. Gf. Perry,
on.cit., -p. 30. Cf. Dampier, on.cit.. p. 293, for
confirmation that this was a popular misconception.

L _I
 24

Remarking on the contents of a letter from his

father to his uncle, written in December, 1846, in which

the father showed concern for Emersonrs probable influence

on his son, Spencer suggests, that his father over-estimated

EmersonTs influence.

My rationalistic convictions (at that time far more

exceptional than they would be now) had been slowly
and insensibly growing for years: being, as already
intimated caused by perception of the radical
incongruity between the Bible and the order of
Nature. Such writings as those of Emerson and
Carlyle served simply to present to me my own
convictions under other aspects.1
Thomas Spencer, the clergyman uncle, moved to London

in 1849. Young Spencer visited his aunt and his Uncle

frequently on Sunday nights. On three successive of these

Sunday evenings Spencer and his uncle debated the validity

of the belief in a personal God. Young Spencer1s views
i
on this question appear in a letter to his father.
Concerning the question at issue, namely, the validity

of the belief in a personal God, SpencerTs views,

expressed in 1848 and in 1849, showed, that he, ”...

had reached a quite definite form of the conviction

set forth twelve years later in First Principles.”2

I M a . . pp. 358-359.
S. Ibid., p. 398.

L
 25

r i

He contended that, **..♦ we are as utterly incompetent

to understand the ultimate nature of things, or origin of

them, as the deaf man is to understand sounds or the blind

man l i g h t . H i s position was that one could know nothing

about ultimate reality, that one could never know. He

claimed that man can affirm nothing about ultimate reality.

There is no evidence, and for this reason, man can deny

nothing. He alleged:

Either alternative leaves us in inextricable

difficulties. An uncaused Deity is just as
inconceivable as an uncaused Universe. If
the existence of matter from all eternity is
incomprehensible, the creation of matter out
of nothing is e q u a l l y incomprehensible.’ Thus
finding that either attempt to conceive the
origin of things is futile, I am content to
leave the question unsettled as, the
insoluble mystery... I have lately had
several conversations on this matter with my
uncle, and have been pleased with his
liberality of treatment.2

The foregoing views of Spencer, -illustrate the drift

of his thought on some fundamental aspects of religious

and of philosophical problems. There is, indubitably,

in those utterances a highly colored, embryonic naturalism.

1. Ibid., p. 397. Cf. Spencer, Education, p. 83.

■2. Ibid.. pp. 397-398.

L -I
 26

r 1

Spencer published his first book, Social Statics, in

1850. He was thirty years old. The publication of this

work brought Spencer confidence in himself as a writer and

also gave him a reputation with the public as a young

1
author of promise. With his new confidence he wrote for

the liberal paper, The Leader, several essays. The most

significant one on ftThe Development Hypothesis” owed its

significance to the fact that it promulgated the^general

theory of evolution. This was published in 1852. In

the same year his nA Theory of Population,n appeared in

The Westminister Review. In that essay, seven years

before Darwin1s Origin of Species, he asserted that among

human beings the survival of those who are the select of

2
their generation is a cause of their development.

Through the kind offices of George H, Lewes and

David Masson, he was able to contribute to The North

British Beview and to The British Quarterly Review. He

also contributed to The Edinburgh Beview.

It was in some of the above named Reviews that there

first appeared the essays comprising his famous volume

entitled Education: Intellectual. Moral and Physical,

published in 1861.

Tbid., p. 422.
2. Ibid.« pp. 450-451.

L -I
 27

r 1

It has already been indicated that the subject of

education was an interesting one for Spencer* In the

Social Statics he devoted a chapter each to "The rights

of Children," and to "State Education." In The

Nonconformist of August, 1853, Spencer had written in his

article, "Mr. Hume and National Education" that it was

not the duty of the state to educate the people.^*

For the Edinburgh Review in 1852, he planned his

"Method in Education." Both the title and the publisher

were changed. In 1854, the essay appeared as the "Art of

Education" in The North British Review. He contended

that education should be a pleasant process of self-

instruction; that method in education should correspond

to the principles of bodily and mental organization.2

The British Quarterly Review published his next

educational thesis. It was called the "Moral Discipline

of Children." This article appeared in April of 1858. Its

argument was, "that there shall habitually be experienced

the natural reaction consequent on each action.

A year later, April, 1859, in the same Beview, his

1. Cf. Spencer, Education, p. 15. He argues that the

"family comes before the State in order of time..."
2. Cf .-.Spencer, Education, pp. 43-51. Cf. Spencer,
Autobiography, Vol.l, pp. 507-508.
3. Spencer, Autobiography, Vol.11, p. 21. Cf. Spencer,
Education,.p. 45, where he argues for the discipline
of natural consequences.

L
 28

r “i

essay on "Physical Education” stressed the method of

nature. The evil consequences of over-education, of

under nourishment, and of poor and inadequate clothing

were made manifest."*-

"What Knowledge is of Most Worth” was perhaps his

most significant critique of the then current educational

practices. The Westminister Beview in July, <1859,

published this essay. It charged that the teaching of the

classics should give place to the teaching of science. p

Although these four essays were published in his

volume, Education: Intellectual. Moral, and Physical, it

would be unwise to consider his views on the subject of

education to have been compartmentalized in his mind.

The essays on education Y/ere reflections of the general

Spencerian mentality, gradually maturing, during the

decade from 1850-1860.

The development of Spencerfs naturalistic outlook

on life and his bias in the direction of the development

hypothesis have been indicated.

1. Of. Spencer, Education, pp. 78-89.

2. Cf. Spencer, Education, pip. 20-25;, pp. 231-233. Cf.
Spencer, Autobiography, Vol.11, pp. 38-39.
3. Perry, op.cit., p. 30.

L J
r “i

The Principles of Psychology was started in 1855.

The "Psychology” was critized in The National Review, the

existing quarterly organ of the Unitarians by R.H. Hutton.

This man referred to Spencerfs work in an article called

"Modern Atheism.” Spencer says, "A review so entitled

was of course damaging; and the more so because it gave

the cue to some other reviewers.”^ If he were reviewing

the book, Spencer would have said among other things that;
It takes for granted the hypothesis, repudiated by
all men of science at the present day, that the
various species of animals and plants have arisen
through '’the *successive modifications slowly
produced by the working together of natural causes
... ”the development hypothesis” as it is called.2

In 1856, he wrote "Progress: Its Law and Cause,” for

The Westminister Review.^ In 1857, he gathered his

miscellaneous essays together and published them in a

separate volume. This collection was-called Essays.
These writings were all based upon a naturalistic

interpretation of phenomena. Many of them had reference

to evolution.4

1. Cf.Spencer, Autobiography, Vol.l, p. 546.

2. Cf.Spencer, Autobiography. Vol.l, p. 547 and Vol.11,
p. 12.
5. Cf.Spencer, Autobiography. Vol.l, p. 558.
4. Cf.Spencer, Autobiography. Vol.11, p. 54.Spencer in
the Preface to First Principles, fourth edition,
declares that he should have in his first edition,
included the dates of his Essays as well as stressed
their "cardinal importance as containing in a brief
form, the general Theory of Education."

L
 30

r T

The Essays plus the four essays found in his Education

were cut from the same naturalistic cloth. They were the

spring board for his larger project The Synthetic

Philosophy. The plan of The Synthetic Philosophy was

executed at the very beginning of the year 1858. It was

predicated upon what he then called the law of progress or

what is how known as the law of evolution. The

Synthetic Philosophy was to cover the several departments

of science and of philosophy. In the middle of this

year of 1858, six months after Spencerfs plan had been

conceived, Darwin and Wallace, in their reading of

papers before the Linnaean Society, proclaimed to the
•4 i
world the principle and doctrine of Natural Selection.

The project for The Synthetic Philosophy had given

Spencer an outline of what he thought would be enough

work to keep him busy for at least twenty years. Speneer

began his gigantic task in 1859. His First Principles

bore the date 1862 and in 1867 he published his The

Principles of Biology. This was followed in 1873 by the

popular work, particularly in America, of The Study of

p
Sociology. The Principles of Ethics was published in
1893. Fear, lest death prevent him from doing The

Principles of Ethics, caused him to postpone The

1. Cf. Spencer, Autobiography, Vol.l, pp. 450-451, for

a statement of the principle of the survival of the fit.
2. This was not part of The Synthetic Philosophy.
L
 31

r n

Principles of Sociology, until after the completion of

the former.1 The Synthetic Philosophy was in 1896 complete.

Spencer at that time was seventy-six years of age.

Beyond the Synthetic, Philosophy Spencer had

organized the work in Descriptive Sociology and it was

completed about 1881. The Autobiography was ready for

the printer in 1889. It did not appear as Spencer had

requested until after his death. It was published in

1904. In 1893 Spencer added a chapter "Reflections,”

to his An Autobiography. His last book, in the order of
.writing, Facts and Comments, was published in 1902.

Before closing this chapter on Spencer’s life, it

should remarked that he made a visit to the United States

in the fall of 1882. Spencer’s American friends and

admirers, led by Edward L. Youmans, persuaded Spencer to
make the visit so that their friendship and admiration for

him could be made manifest. Spencer’s visit was climaxed

by a banquet tendered to him at Delmonico’s in New York

City on November 11, 1882. Many leaders of the intellectual,

political, and social world were on hand to greet him and

to eulogize him for his philosophical achievements. Most

1. Cf. Spencer, Autobiography. Vol.11, p. 361.

L _i
 32

r l

of the men treated in this study either by their presence

at the banquet or by letters to Youmans acknowledged their

debt to SpencerTs thought.

Spencer died on December 8, 1903. According to his

own instructions his body was cremated and the remains were

buried in Golders* Green without a religious ceremony.

Summing up it can be said that Spencer, both morally

and intellectually, was a nonconformist. He was a person

who could not tolerate too much authority. Spencer wanted

to be free from restraining influences. That was the type

of freedom he wanted for others. Spencer’s idea of _

freedom was reflected both in his philosophy and in his

education.

In his moral and intellectual development there is

observable, as Spencer matures, a growing skepticism

concerning the source of all authority, namely, God,

and a leaning more and more in the direction of making

the individual man an authority unto himself. His

philosophical and educational theories evince this

tendency to ’rugged individualism* in philosophy and

education.

■L -I
 33

CHAPTER 111

SPENCER rS EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISTIC PHILOSOPHY

Since the purpose of this investigation is to show

the influence of Spencer's evolutionary naturalistic

philosophy on American education, it seems appropriate,

at this time, to ask the question, what is naturalism?

The term naturalism is, unfortunately, an ambiguous

one.-** The ambiguity of the term would seem to be due to
the fact that it does not represent a fixed philosophical

doctrine or a special set of dogmas but simply a

:• 2
philosophical attitude or point of view.

The special feature that would seem to constitute

the essence of naturalism is expressed in the proposition
g
that nature is the source of all that exists. Thus, the

various naturalistic philosophies either deny, or exclude,

or ignore the supernatural. Naturalists would teach,

therefore, in explaining man, that there is no essential

difference between man and the animal. Both man and the

animal would be explicable in terms of the forces of

1.' Cf. Louis I.A. Mercier, The Challenge of Humanism. New

York, Oxford University Press, 1933, p. 13.
2. Cf. Pierre J. Marique, History of Christian Education«
New York, Fordham University Press, 1932, Vol.Ill, pp.
82-83.
3 • IMsL* > P • 83 •

L
 34

r t

nature. All life would develop progressively out of

matter. Animal life would spring from vegetative life,

rational life would develop from brute life and all

civilization must trace its beginning to a primitive

natural state. Nature would be tbe source of man and of

society. Naturalism, in general, denies to man an immaterial

soul and it is antithetical to supernatural religion, and

frequently, antagonistic to Christianity in its traditional,

historical meaning of revealed religion.^

Materialism and pantheism are the historical types of

naturalism. Positivism and evolutionism are the nineteenth

century varieties. Deism, in some forms, also expresses

the naturalistic point of view.

Modern naturalism would seem to begin with the thought

of several Renaissance thinkers who borrowed from the

naturalistic philosophers of ancient Greece. The natural­

istic scholars of the Renaissance made a cult of the

observation of nature. When they could not explain some

aspect of nature they had recourse to the occult studies.

By their excessive exaltation of nature, some of those men

2
came to deify it and thus they tended toward pantheism.

1. Cf. Geoffrey 0 fConnell, Naturalism in American Education.

New York, Benziger Bros., 1938, p. 3.
2. Cardinal Mercier, A Manual of Scholastic Philosophy.
London, Keagan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1923,
Vol.11, p. 402.

L _!
 35

r n

Among the prominent empirical naturalistic thinkers of the

period were the Italians, Cardano and Telesio, who lived in

the sixteenth century. Cardinal Mercier thinks that to

Telesio should go the distinction of being called the

founder of the naturalism of the Renaissance.^ However,

it is often said that the thought of the Italian, Giordano

Bruno, a pantheistic naturalist, contained in germ most of

2
the important doctrines of modern philosophy.

Francis Bacon and John Locke were influential in

originating the naturalistic trend in modern thinking, in

rz
life, and in education.

Bacon advised a separation of physics, which dealt

with proximate causes, from metaphysics, which dealt with

final causes. He advocated that more consideration be

given to a study of nature for Mthe search of the physical

causes had been neglected and passed over in silence."^

He emphasized the inductive method of reasoning as a

means of acquiring useful knowledge. To Bacon can be

Ibid.. p. 422.
2. Mary Whiton Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy.
New York, Macmillan Co., 1936, p. 484.
3. Cf. Pierre J. Mari^ue, The Philosophy o f ‘Christian
Education. New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1939, p. 45.
4. Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning;. William A.
Wright, E,, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926, p. 119.

L J
 36

r i

attributed the beginnings of the shifting of interest from

humanistic to scientific school subjects.^

John Locke is generally thought to be the successor

of Bacon in philosophy. Locke by arbitrarily blurring the

nature of the idea, included within its denotation sensory

perception, and thereby, laid the foundation for sensism.

Sensism makes thinking a form of sensation. His Essays

opened the way for a more outspoken expression of natural­

ism in the ’enlightenment’ of the eighteenth century.

The rationalists placed reason upon a pedestal and

they attacked revealed religion, tradition, and the authority

of the Church, the State, society and morals. There was a

reaction to the rationalism of the first half of the

eighteenth century. Against the overemphasis placed upon

reason was put the claims of sentiment as a more valid

expression of human nature. The sentimentalists proffered

a ’natural religion’ to take the place of the supernatural

elements in Christianity.

The naturalists of the fifteenth to the nineteenth

centuries exercised their influence upon the educational

1. Marigue, The Philosophy of Christian Education, p. 45.

2. Cf. John Locke, An Essay Concerning: Human Understanding.
London, George Routledge and Sons, Ltd*, 1689, p. 71.

L
 37

r -i

philosophies of those centuries just as the naturalists of

this century are doing.

The basic tenets of naturalistic education can be

summed up in the expression, let human nature develop

freely. Little authority should be exercised over the

pupil by teacher or p a r e n t T o frustrate the child in

his desires will mean an unhappy future life for him.

Thus, naturalistic education would adopt, as a first

principle, the motto: !*let the child alone,”

Spencer, as a philosopher, was an agnostic and an
evolutionary naturalist. His agnosticism was expressed

with respect of ultimate reality. Thinkers ask such

questions asst What is the ultimate nature and origin of

the universe? What is the ultimate nature and origin of

man? To these questions agnostics say there is no ansv^er.

Spencer said that the answers to such questions were

unknown and unknowable. His agnosticism is to be found in

the first section of his work First Principles. Spencer

said that all one could have knowledge of was knowable

reality; one could know only those things that could be

perceived through the senses. Of course, such a view

flows from his agnosticism, which is a form of skepticism.

1. Marique, The Christian Philosophy of Education, p. 48.

L -I
 38

r. ■ T
His views on knowable reality, that is, his views on nature

in the forms nature presented itself to the senses; through

matter, through motion, through energy, are to be found

in the second section of his First Principles, This section

therefore, of his First Principles expresses his

evolutionary naturalism.
Spencer's evolutionary naturalism can be defined

briefly and simply as the action and reaction of the

forces of nature upon eaeh other, that is, the forces of

matter and of energy. Through this action and reaction

there slowly evolves from nature everything that is in the

universe; plant, animal, man, morals, religion, society,

the state, etc. In short, nature' ‘is the source of all

that exists.

Turning to Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable1 or

as it is popularly called, his agnosticism, one finds that

he is concerned with showing that the usual explanations

on the origin of the universe and on the nature of the

universe are not adequate.

With respect to the origin of the universe, Spencer

declares that there are three intelligible suppositions
that may be made; the universe may be viewed as self-

existent, it may be seif-created; or it may be created

by an external agency.^

1. Cf. Herbert Spencer, First Principles, New York, D.

•Appleton Co., 1862, pp. 25-35.
L -I
 39

Analyzing the concept of self-existence, he asserts

that, nIn the first place, it is clear that hy self­

existence we especially mean an existence independent of

any other - not produced by any other: -the assertion

of self-existence is an indirect denial of creation.

Further, the term self-existence negates the need of an

antecedent cause and hence, necessarily excludes the

idea of a beginning. If there were a beginning, this

'/.beginning would have to be determined or caused by

something and this-would involve a contradiction in

the t e r m s . H e continues and asserts that:
Self-existence, -therefore, necessarily means
existence without a beginning; and to form a
conception of self-existence is to form a
conception of existence without a beginning. Now,
by no mental effort can we do this. To conceive
existence through infinite past-time, implies
the conception of infinite past-time, which is an
impossibility. To this let us add that even were
self-existence conceivable, it would not be an
explanation of the Universe.2

The theory of self-existence, Spencer labels as

the Atheistic theory. He declares that it is not only
absolutely unthinkable but that if it were thinkable

1. Ibid., p. £5.
2. Ibid.. pp. 25-26.

L -I
 40

r l

it would not constitute a solution of the problem of

the origin of the universe.^* The assertion of the

self-existence of the universe, merely, provides a

cognition of its present existence and hardly explains

the mystery.

The second supposition of self-creation, which

Spencer says practically amounts to Pantheism, is likewise

incapable of being represented in thought. It is, according

to Spencer, inconceivable.

The successive stages through which the visible

universe passed in culminating in its present visible

form may, perhaps, be comprehended as in a sense self-

determined, However, this comprehension gives one not a

real concept but a symbolic one. The impossibility, of

obtaining a real concept of self-creation remains.

To conceive of self-creation requires the concept of

potential existence passing into actual existence by

inherent necessity. Spencer declares that this

transition cannot be made by the mind.^

We cannot form any idea of a potential
existence of-the universe, as distinguished from
its actual existence. If represented in thought
at all, potential existence must be represented
as something, that is, as an actual existence:
to suppose that it can be represented as nothing

1. Ibid., p. 26.
2. Ibid., p. 26.
3. Ibid., p. 26.

L -I
 41

r n

involves two absurdities - that nothing is more

than a negation, and can be positively
represented in thought, and that one nothing is
distinguished from all other nothings by its
power to develop into something.^

Spencer continues the argument against the

coneeivability of a self-created universe by averring that

the expression fan inherent necessity by which potential

existence becomes actual existence* has no state of

2
consciousness ans?rering to the expression. To make
the terms of the proposition thinkable, the concept of

existence must be thought of as being in potentia for

an indefinite period of time. Then, without any

outside impulse, changed into actual form. But, he

declares, the change from the potential to the actual

form of existence without a cause involves the concept

of change without someone or something that does the

changing. This kind of change cannot be conceived. He

contends, "Thus, the terms of this hypothesis do not

stand for real thoughts, but merely suggest the vaguest

symbols not admitting of any i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s . E v e n

if it were possible to visualize mentally the changes

from potential to actual existence and to realize the

actual and potential existence in the mind as distinct

1. Ibid., p'. 26.

2. Ibid.. p. 27.
3. Ibid., p. 27.

L -1
 42

entities, and tlien to conceive of the change as self-

determined, the problem of the self-creation of the

universe would still remain.^ For the ’why’ of the

potential universe would still require explaining. In

Spencer’s own words: "The self-creation of a potential

Universe would involve over again the difficulties first

stated - would imply behin?d this potential universe

a more remote potentiality, and so on in an infinite

series, leaving us at last no forwarder than at first."2

The assigning of an external cause to account for the
potential universe would be "to introduce the notion of

a potential Universe for no purpose whatever.*3

The third alternative, namely, the theistic

explanation of the creation of the universe by external

agency, is treated in the following manner. He declares

that in the rudest creeds and in the cosmogony of his

day, it has been assumed that the Universe was made

"somewhat after the manner in which a workman makes a

piece of f u r n i t u r e . T h i s assumption, according to

him, is the property of theologians and of most

philosophers. In Plato, and in the writings of not a

few living men of science, there is assumed an analogy,

1. Ibid., p. 27.
2# Ibid., p. 27.
3. Ibid., p. 27.
4. Ibid., p. 27.

L -J
 43

r n

says Spencer, between the process of creation and the

process of manufacture. Spencer would argue that the pro­

cess of creation was inconceivable, that is, that it

*
could not be ’pictured1 or imagined.^ However, that one

could not, as Spencer says, imagine the creative process

does not negate the certainty that man can conceive of

God creating the universe*- -There is a vast difference

between the term ’conceive* as used by Spencer and as

used by men like Thomas Aquinas. This fact must be

remembered. There is surely no difficulty for one to

conceive of the creation of the universe by God, if one

is aided by Revelation. Spencer, of course,

was not a believer in Revelation. He-could not imagine

a self-existing Creator, Who could create out of nothing,
2
the materials of the universe. To him, the production of

matter out of nothing was the real problem. Wasmann gives

the Christian answer to that, he says:

We cannot picture to ourselves by means of our

fancy how anything, that previously did not
exist, can come into existence and be produced
out of nothing. It would be impossible unless
an infinitely perfect Being existed, virtually
containing beforehand the finite being in
Himself.^

1. Ibid., p. 28.
2. Ibid., p . 28.
3. Ibid., p. 28.
4. Erich Wasmann, S.I., The Problem of Evolution, St. Louis,
B. Herder Book Co., 1912, p. 28.

L _i
 44

Spencer-summed up his analysis of the only three

possible hypothesis offered to explain the origin of the

universe. He declared that although to their respective

adherents these explanations seem rational, nevertheless,

they "turn out, when critically examined, to be literally

u n t h i n k a b l e . T h u s , does Spencer rule out the Christian

concept of God in his philosophy. The origin of the

universe, for him, is unknown and unknowable.

With respect to the nature^ of the universe, Spencer

declares his agnosticism; the nature of the universe for

him was unknown and unknowable. He would argue that if

one submitted "to the hypothesis of a First Cause"^ then

it would be natural to ask "what is the nature of this

First Cause.n4 He then contends that the question would
lead "by an inexorable logic to certain further conclusions. "5

He summarizes his lengthy arguments on the nature of

the universe by saying that:

Certain conclusions respecting the nature of the

Universe, thus seem unavoidable, in our search
after causes, we discover no resting place until
we arrive at a First Cause; and we have no
alternative but to regard this First Cause as

1. Spencer, on.cit.. p. 29
2* Tbid..pp. 30-32.
3. Ibid., p. 31.
4. Ibid., p. 31.
5. Ibid., p. 31.

L -1
 45

Infinite and Absolute. These are inferences

forced on us by arguments from which there
appears no escape.!
P
By borrowing heavily from Henry Longueville Mansel,

Spencer alleges to show that the terms First Cause,

Absolute, and Infinite are contradictory in meaning.®

He concludes, therefore, that the nature of the universe

could not be known for it is unknowable.

Pagan and Christian philosophers have held that the

human mind through the use of reason could come, from a

knowledge of things, to ”a certain, though inadequate
knowledge of God...”4 On the basis of the observation

of things around them, men have reasoned that the mental

effects produced in them required their assent to the

existence of "an intelligent and free self-existing being,

a personal God, distinct from and superior to this material

world and to mankind.”®

This summary statement of the argument for an

"unprodueed First Cause, endowed with intelligence and

free will, in other words a personal God”® is one Spencer

denied as being imaginable.

I* I®i^«> p« 32.
2. Cf. lames McCosh, Realistic Philosophy. New York, Scribner's
Sons, 1890, Yol.ll, pp. 256-257.
3. Spencer, on.cit.. pp. 33-36.
4. Bernard Boedder, S.J., Natural Theology, London, Longmans
Green Co., 1927, p. 10.
5. Ibid., p. 32.
® • Ikid., p. 32.

L- _1
 46

This sums up briefly and simply Spencer's basic

agnostic position. It is his agnosticism with respect to

the origin and nature of the universe that logically forces

him to explain everything 'knowable* in terms of his

evolutionary naturalism.

Turning now to consider Spencer's position with

respect to the origin of man one finds that his view

on the origin of human life is consistent with his

view on the origin and the nature of the universe.1

He attacks the special creation theory as a valid

explanation of the origin of man. Spencer could not

accept the theory because "no one ever saw a special

creation; no one ever found proof of an indirect kind,

that special creation had taken place.

With advancing knowledge he asserted, "we everywhere

see fading away the anthropomorphic conception of the

"Unknown Cause.""3 Spencer concludes his analysis of the

claims for the theory of special creation by declaring

that it was worthless.^
As was to be expected he favors the hypothesis of

1. Cf. Herbert Spencer, The Principles of biology. Hew York,

D. Appleton Co., 187S, Vol.l, pp. 331-345.
2. Ibid., p. 336.
3. Ibid., p. 335.
4. Ibid*, p. 345.

L
 47

r ~i

organic evolution as an explanation for the origin of life.l

If a single cell, under appropriate conditions,

becomes a man in the'spaee of a few years; there
can surely be no difficulty in understanding how,
under appropriate conditions,, a cell may,, in the
course of untold millions of years, give origin
to the human race.2

Spencer predicted that the special creation theory would

no longer be held as tenable. He remarks that:

... and as, on the one hand, the hypothesis that

each species-resulted from.a supernatural act,
having lost nearly all its hypotheses, may be
expected soon to become extinct.3
The plan for the Synthetic Philosophy included a pro­

vision for two volumes on Inorganic Evolution. Spencer

never wrote this contemplated work. Evolution was alleged

by him to be a universal principle; his work, therefore,

on inorganic evolution would have to be intimately con­

nected to his work on organic evolution as developed in the
Principles of Biology. In short, the very important link

between non-life and life is missing from his philosophical

volumes. He explains this significant omission in the

Preface to First Principles.

In logical order should here come the applica­

tion of these first principles to Inorganic Mature.

1. Ibid.. pp. 346-347.

2. Ibid., pi"350.
3. Ibid., p. 347.
 48

r T

J But this great division it is proposed to pass over:

partly because, even without it, the scheme is too
extensive; and partly because the interpretation
of Organic Mature after the proposed method, is
of more immediate importance.^
An attentive reading of the section in First Principles

on "Simple and Compound Evolution1* would give the impression

that Spencer thought, that once the proper chemical and

physical combinations obtained, organic matter would

proceed from inorganic matter.2

John Fiske wrote his Outlines, that were largely

illustrative of Spencer’s thought, while he was in England

during the year 18*73.

■ With Spencer and Huxley he discussed very
fully the various aspects of the doctrine of
Evolution and its implications upon the future of
philosophic thought.*5
Fiske’s chapter in the Outlines on "The Beginnings of

Life” reflects Spencer’s thought. In that place Fiske

asserts:
That an evolution of organic existence must
at some time have taken place, is rendered certain
by the fact that there was once a time when no

1. Herbert Spencer, First Principles. (6th and Final Ed.),

London, Williams and Margate, Ltd., 1928, Preface.,-.p. xii.
2. Herbert Spencer, First Principles. Mew York, D. Appleton
Co., 1862, pp. 262-279.
3. lohn Spencer Clark, The Life and Letters of lohn Fiske.
Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917, Vol.l, p. 361.

L
 49

3
life existed upon the earth’s- surface.*

Spencer refers to the missing volumes on the Inor­

ganic in his Principles of Biology. He asserts in the

first volume of the Biology, that;

Two volumes are missing. The closing chapter
of the second, were it written, would deal with
the evolution of organic matter - the step pre­
ceding the evolution of organic forms.2
In this statement there is implied that Spencer would

show how organic matter evolved from inorganic matter.

Ward is devastatingly critical of that implication.^ Ward

very caustically remarks that:

During the thirty years in which Mr. Spencer
has been engrossed with this interpretation, a
whole generation of biologists has striven hard,
but striven in vain, to bring the truth to light.
For all but Mr. Spencer, at any rate, the origin
of life has remained a mystery.^
It is not necessary to depend for Spencer’s position

on the origin of life upon inference drawn from First

Principles and from the implication in his Biology, nor is

it necessary to depend either upon Fiske’s statement or

upon Ward’s critique. Spencer gives his unequivocal

1. John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Based on the

Doctrine of Evolution, with Criticisms on the Positive
Philosophy. New York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1887, Vol.l,
p. 426.
2. Spencer, The Principles.of Biology. Vol.l, p. 480.
5, James Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism. New York,
Macmillan Co., 1915, Vol.l, pp. 262-266.
4. Ibid., pp. 262-263.

L
 50

r T

stand on the problem of human lifein an essay published

in 1886. In the periodical Nineteenth Century! he asserted

among other things that:

Biologists in general agree that in the present
state of the world, no such thing happens as the
rise of a living creature outof non living matter.
They do not deny however thatat a remote period
in the past, when the temperature of the earth1s
surface was much higher than at present, and
other physical conditions were unlike those we
know, inorganic matter through successive compli­
cations gave origin to organic matter. So many
substances once supposed to belong exclusively
to living bodies, have now been formed artificially,
that men of science scarcely question the con­
clusion that there are conditions under ?/hich,
by yet another step of composition, quaternary
compounds of lower types pass into those of
higher types. That there once took place a
gradual divergence of the organic from the in­
organic, is indeed, a necessary implication of
the hypothesis of Evolution,...£
Turning from Spencer's Biology to his Brineinies of

Psychology one finds a further manifestation of his evolution­

ary naturalism.

Spencer alleged that nothing could! be known concerning

the substance of the mind. -He contended that the symbols

used to designate the substance were only symbols and should

be recognized as such for "the substance-of mind cannot be

1. Spencer, "The Factors of Organic Evolution,” Nineteenth

Century. May, 1886, pp. 749-770.
2. Ibid., pp. 768-770. Cf. John Gerard, S;J., The Old
Riddle and the Newest Answer. London, Longmans Green Co.,
1928, pp. 56-58. Criticism of Spencer* s yi-ews
of life. Cf. Joseph Husslein, S.J., Evolution and Social
Progress. New York, P!J. Kenedy and Sons, 1920, p. 60.
Quotes Spencer on this article.

L _1
 51

r n
known."I

Like everything else in the universe, the mind of man

conforms to the laws of general evolution. The evolution

of mind is from a "confused sentieney" to an ever-increas­

ing integration of feelings with one another and with feel-

p
ings of other kinds. The term feelings, as employed by

Spencer, is comparable to sensations, percepts, ideas; in

short, the products of the cognitive processes.^

In the evolution of mind, Spencer says, applying his

evolutionary principle, that there goes on subjectively a

change "from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a
definite, coherent heterogeneity*"4 ^

For Spencer, instinct is a product of the development

from simple reflex actions. The development of instinct,

memory, reason, and the feelings of pleasure and pain, is

from the simple to the complex. Thus, memory and reason
c;
evolve from instinct. He says that: "The commonly as­

sumed hiatus between Reason and Instinct has no existence."®

What scholastic philosophers demonstrate is the essen­

1. Spencer, The Principles- of Psychology. New York, D. Apple­

ton, 1876, Vol.l, p. 162.
2. Ibid.,p. 189.
3. Ibid..pp. 163-168.
4. Ibid.,p. 189.
5* Ibid.,p. 452.
6. Ibid.,p. 453.

L J
 52.

tial difference between man and the brute, namely, man’s

rationality, is denied by Spencer. He alleges that; ”...it

cannot consistently be asserted that there is. any essential

difference between brute reason and human reason*”^

Speaking of the will Spencer claims that it does not

have a separate existence*2 All human actions in Spencer’s

thought are determined by the psychical connections "which

experience has generated** either in the life of the indi­

vidual, "or in that general antecedent life of which the
accumulated results are organized in his constitution*’’3*

He then asserts that if psychical changes ’’conform to law,

there cannot be any such thing as free will.”4 It becomes

obvious that Spencer’s views on the freedom of the will are

at variance with the current tenets.

I will only further say that the freedom of
the will, did it exist, would be at variance with
the beneficent necessity displayed in the evolution
of the correspondence between the organism and
its environment.5

Spencer’s Principles of Ethics show the application of

the "first principles’’ of his evolutionary naturalism to

1* Ibid., p. 462.
2. Ibid., pp. 500-503.
Ibid., pp. 500-503.
4. Ibid., p. 503.
5. Ibid., p. 503.

L
 53

r .i

human; conduct.

He defines life as "the continuous adjustment of in­

ternal relations to external relations."I In other words

life is the adjustment of individuals to their environment.

His chapter on the "Evolution of Conduct" presents his de­

finition of conduct as the making of numerous and better

adjustments of acts to ends, having for their purpose the

preservation of the life of the species.? Spencer avers

that:

tWe saw that evolution, tending ever towards

self-preservation, reaches its limit when indi­
vidual life is the greatest, both in length and
breadth; and now we see that, leaving other ends
aside, we regard as good the conduct furthering
self-preservation, and as bad the conduct tending
to self-destruction.3

Both pessimists and optimists are agreed "that life

is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring
a surplus of agreeable feelings.”^ Pleasurable feelings

or painful feelings are the sanctions for conduct. It thus

happens that good conduct is good because it is accompanied

by pleasurable feelings. Bad conduct is bad because of

the painful feelings accompanying such conduct.^

1. Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics. I\ievir York, D.

Appleton Co., 1893, Vol.l, p. 19.
2. Ibid.. pp. 10-15.
3. Ibid., p. 25.
4- Ibid.. p. 27.
5* Ibid., pp. 44-46.

L -I
 54

r i

So that no school can avoid taking for the

ultimate moral aim a desirable state of feeling
called by whatever name - gratification, enjoy­
ment, happiness. Pleasure somewhere, at some
time, to some being or beings, is an inexpugnable
element of the conception. It is as much a
necessary form of moral intuition as space is a
necessary form of intellectual intuition.!

The natural consequences of one’s acts, says Spencer,

are based upon ultimate causal connections, and hence are

very strong motives for conduct.^ Therefore, sentient

existence, he asserts, can only evolve on condition that

pleasure giving acts are life-sustaining acts.^

for Spencer the moral man is one whose functions 11are

all discharged in degrees duly adjusted to the conditions

of existence.”4 This reads like a justification for any

kind of act.
Strange as the conclusion looks, it is never­
theless a conclusion to be drawn, that the per­
formance of every function is, in a sense, a
moral obligation.5
Is it any wonder then that Spencer's naturalistic

ethics created such a stir and furore in right thinking

men's minds?

A'
1. Ibid. . P* 46 •
a. Ibid.. pp. 47-49
3. Ibid., PP. 79-83
4. Ibid.. P. 76.
5. Ibid., p. 76.

L J
 55

r l

Spencer realized that some qualification should be

placed upon the ethics which involved adjustment of acts to

ends, since they ttare components of that struggle for ex­

istence carried on both between members of the same species

and between members of different species;:"^* therefore, he

advised that altruism should rectify the excesses of egoism.s

However, since egoism precedes altruism in the order of

imperativeness, its claims should, he declared, take pre-

eedence over altruistic claims. Nevertheless, there

should be effected a compromise between the claims of the

two.4 He thought that this compromise could be made by

allowing individuals to pursue their own happiness and by

so doing would help to contribute to the happiness of all.

The happiness of individuals might also be accomplished,

in part, by their efforts on behalf of the general happi­

ness of the group. Through such means the end of ethical

development, the ideal man in the ideal state, might be

achieved.§
Before proceeding to a consideration of Spencer*s educat­

ional thesis, it will be advisable, at this point, to sum up

!• Ifria* , P* 17.
Ibid.. pp. 187-218.
3. Ibid., pp. 187-218.
4. Ibid., pp. 189-191.
5. Ibid., pp. 237-241.
6. Ibid.. pp. 238-239.

L _i
 56

r *1

the main principles of Spencer’s agnosticism and his

evolutionary naturalism which flows from his agnosticism.

When Spencer denied the validity of the theistic

hypothesis concerning the origin of the universe and when

he denied the validity of a First Cause as the explanation

of the nature of the universe, he denied, what all Christians

believe in, namely, a benevolent God, Who is the Creator

of the universe, and from Whom all things proceed. The

denial of God’s existence as Creator and First Cause implies

the denial of Revelation, from which, the main dogmas of

Christianitystem. Spencer would, by inference, therefore,

deny the Divinity of Christ, the supernatural law and the
natural law that flows therefrom, original sin, heaven and

hell, grace, the Divine establishment of the Church, the

sacraments, and the supernatural sanctions for conduct.

With respect of man, Spencer denied that man was

created by God and asserted that man was a product of

biological evolution. It therefore follows and Spencer

explicitly states, that man is not essentially different

from brute life. Man, according to Spencer, has no one,

abidingj permanent, substantial, unifying principle of

life, namely, the soul. Further, he has no free will.

Man’s destiny, after this life, is to mingle with dust, for

immortality is not for man. Since man is merely an animal

that has evolved from nature and is the product of the

L _l
 57

actions and-reactions of matter and energy, the mental

powers of man are a consequence of biological evolution.

Hence, memory, reason, the feelings all evolve from

instinct and are not essentially different from it. The

chief end of life in Spencer's system becomes self-

preservation and all is good that leads to this end; all

conduct that frustrates this end is evil. The sanctions

for conduct, according to Spencer, are pleasurable and

painful feelings. For him, good conduct is good because

it is accompanied by feelings of pleasure and bad conduct

is bad because it is accompanied by painful feelings. The

moral man is one who according to his circumstances per­

forms all his functions. Man, the individual, is the

measure of all things. Truth for man is relative and

never alsolute, and he is the judge of it. It follows,

therefore, that in the struggle for existence, man must

use means that he considers good and tf'ue in terms of his

own welfare. According to Spencer, it will be through the

moral evolution of man, that altruism will develop and

then rectify the excesses of egoism, and then the end of
ethical development, the ideal man in the ideal state will

be achieved.

Consider now, what such a philosophy would mean when

applied to education. All religious instruction would be

L
 58

Vanished from the curriculum; the concepts of God, Christ,

heaven, hell, redemption, soul, immortality, would have but

a secular and historical interest. Significant for education

is Spencer's implied denial of original sin, the consequences

of which, according to Catholic thought, are a darkened

intellect, a weakened will, and disorderly inclination to

evil. This denial of original sin and its consequences is

reflected in Spencer’s theory of discipline based upon

natural consequences. This Spencerian theory disregards the
true nature of the child with its inherent weakness of the

will and its consequent tendency to evil. Then it would

view the child as good by nature. Such a view is essentially
false since it would make the child a la?<r unto himself. It

would deny the need of supernatural sanctions, as necessary

to insure good conduct.

in educational system founded upon the thought of

Spencer would have to recognize that the pupils were little

animals with a basic, ruthless instinct of self-preservation

that had to be catered to, and therefore, would require a

curriculum that would emphasize the useful subjects, the

breadwinning subjects, which would be the scientific subjects.

To put it briefly, such an educational system would breed

selfishness, little restraint, aggresiveness, intolerance,

and achieve its own end of producing good animals, but at

a tremendous cost to the individual and to society.

L
 59

Spencer1s evolutionary naturalistic philosophy, as will

he seen, is to he found reflected in his views on education.

It will he remembered that the very unorthodox Spencer, as

a hoy received, for the times in which he lived, a very

unorthodox education. Some of this educational unorthodoxy

appears, as was to he expected, in his volume on education.^

Spencer ranted against what he called the

artificiality of the,practices and methods current in

education during his time'. It was man that was to he

educated and not an imitation of man. Of what use, Spencer

would ask, would it he to educate the ghost of man, the

spiritual in man, the nohle in man when everyone should

know that first and foremost, man was an animal, with

senses to deal with things, practical things, things with

utilitarian values to man?3 An educational first principle

for Spencer was since man was an animal, education should

fit man for life, present life, and all subjects that did
not lead to this end, were ornamental, and hence super­

fluous. The ideal of education should he, he asserted,

1. Of. Marique, The Philosophy of Christian Education, pp.

49-51. Gives an excellent summary of the applications
of Spencer’s philosophy to his education.
2. Herbert Spencer, Education: Intellectual. Moral and
Physical. New York, D, Appleton Co., 1861.
3 * Ibid. , pp. 2-7.

L J
 60

r t

complete living, and the way to determine what constituted

complete living was to examine the activities of man.’*’

Now, according to Spencer, those activities could be

classified in the order of their importance; activities

concerned with the preservation of life and health;

vocational activities related to earning a living;
domestic activities related to family life and the

upbringing of children; social and political activities

concerned with citizenship; leisure activities related

2
to the satisfaction of tastes and feelings. The fore­

going activities primarily and secondarily, affect manTs

welfare in his individual, vocational, social, political,

and aesthetic relationships and education should aim at

preparing man for those activities. Spencer asked, how

best to do this; what knowledge could' be used to train man

that would be of most worth in preparing man in these

activities? Any Christian educator,.past, present, and

future, would say the'answer to this question, of what

knowledge is of most value, must of necessity have its

beginning and end in the knowledge, of God, and in the

1. Ibid.. pp. 11-17.

2. Cf. Marique, The Philosophy of Christian Education, pp.
49-50.

L J
 61

knowledge of a future life.”1-

Spencer, on the other hand, since he explained every­

thing in terms of nature and man as an evolution therefrom,

would insist and did insist that the knowledge derived

from the sciences dealing with nature were of most worth.

These sciences of most worth were the natural, mathematical,

and social sciences.2
What specific sciences would most help man in pre­

serving his life and health? According to Spencer, the

most useful would be-biology, physiology, and hygiene.

Mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology would be

most practical in respect to man's needs as a worker in

industry. Man’s family life involving as it does the

proper rearing of offspring, should be prepared for by

courses in biology, hygiene, psychology, and ethics. For

preparation for his social and political activities, man

would require a knowledge of history, economics, and

politics. Since man should occupy his leisure time

profitably, some -littie provision should be made in his

education for such leisure periods, and consequently, a

knowledge of music, aesthetics, and literature should be

acquired. From what has already been seen concerning his

1. Ibid., p . 50.
2. Spencer, Education, pp. 74-84.

L
 62

ethiGs, biology, psychology, etc., it is not necessary to

say what type of content these sciences would deal with.

It is enough to say, as Spencer would say himself, all

of them and all that they represent would have no

practical and no true value unless they portrayed and

taught one cardinal alleged fact, the alleged fact, that

what man does, what he thinks, what he aspires to, what he

has written, what he has built is explicable in terms of

natural evolution. The sciences, therefore, which should

be the basis of all others, should be the natural sciences,
for they explain the mathematical and social sciences.

Spencer*s predilection for the natural sciences was

noted in the preceding chapter. His resentment against the
classics was indicated in the same chapter. Spencer asserted

that the classics irked him because of their authoritative

manner. In his discussion of science versus the classics,

in the Education, he unequivocally expresses his preference

for the sciences over the classics on the grounds that they
2
more suitably prepare for life.

He attempted to demonstrate that they were as good as the

1. Cf. Marique, The Philosophy of Christian Education, p. 50.

2. Cf. Spencer, op.cit.. pp. 74-84.

L
 63

classics for intellectual and disciplinary purposes and

superior to the classics for what he called religious and

moral training. It should he clear from what has been

stated in this chapter that SpencerTs views on religion

and morality were not sound. It should also be clear

why he would oppose the classics. They might generate

respect for authority. The exercise of authority in

school or in life, on the individual was considered by

Spencer as an infringement.

In SpencerTs essay on intellectual education the

necessity of a training in things is emphasized,^ Sense

observation, for Spencer,, was important and should be

developed. Since sense is limited to perception of

things he is, at least, consistent with his views on

the nature of intellect. However, he violates that

consistency when he urges that method in education should

abide by the principle of development from the concrete

to the abstract.** The principle is sound enough but only

an immaterial soul can make abstractions and hence form

ideas. Spencer does not believe in a soul nor does he

have much faith in what scholastics call ideas. His

Ibid., p. 90,
2. Ibid.. p. 155.

L
_l
 64

education is an education in particulars as against an

education that emphasizes universal ideas as of more

intellectual importance.

In the preceding chapter it was observed that Spencer

expressed his admiration for the principle of self-help.

He advocated this principle on the grounds that the child

learns best by doing. It should be remarked that the

pupil learns also by reflection, instruction, example,
and imitation.

As was to be expected, since Spencer did not believe

in institutionalized religion, there is no mention made

in his essay on “Moral Education” of the need for

religious instruction that should stem from an established

religion. Further, there is no appeal to supernatural

sanctions to promote right conduct and to deter evil

conduct. As has been seen, the great teachers of right and

wrong conduct, for Spencer, were pleasurable and painful

feelings respectively, and their sanctions were in human

nature itself. --In education, therefore, reliance should
o
be placed upon the natural sanctions of pleasure and pain.

It might be asked at this point; Are there not many

things that man can do that will give him pleasure, yet
constitute a violation of self-respect, of decency, of

1* Ibid., p. 155.
2. Ibid., p. 176; 182.

L
 65

virtuous pride, of others rights and privileges, etc.?

The answer, of course, is in the affirmative. Man can

violate decent standards and gratify his feelings and, by

Spencer’s norms, these violations would be interpreted as

right and good for the individual. Would an educational

program that implicitly or explicitly accepted the

Spencerian standards of right and wrong last long;

contribute to individual or social well-being?-*- The answer

has to be in the negative. Such a system would produce a
generation of anarchists, if it were not restrained and

inhibited by other sanctions, legal and supernatural. The

discipline of natural consequences would not be enough to

p
promote a good, sound,"wholesome system of moral education.

The only thing good one can say about Spencer’s main idea
on moral education is that it was consistent with the views

he held concerning the origin, the nature, and the destiny

of man. Any system of moral education to be fruitful and

practical in a Christian sense, must stem from Revealed

religion, must have its origin in Cod and its ultimate

sanction in His moral law, which is made known to man by

Revelation, reason, and conscience.

It was natural for Spencer, in his essay on ’’Physical

1. Ibid., p. 133; 176; 227.

Ibid., pp. 176-182.

L
 66

r 1

Education”, to insist that since man was primarily and

essentially an animal, education should strive to make men

healthy, strong, robust animals.^ In keeping with this

view, Spencer advocated the efficacy in physical education

of the natural value of play and of games. ^ These forms

of physical functioning were regarded by Spencer to be

superior to formal gymnastics.^ He emphasized that play

should not be suppressed but encouraged since it was of

4
biological origin.

He advocated a general principle for all three types

of education; the intellectual, the moral, arid the. phy­
sical, and that was, that all three should be accompanied

by interest and pleasure. This principle was in keeping

with his naturalistic ethics and consequently should be

recognized for its limitations. All learning cannot be

accompanied by interest and pleasure. There is much

learning that can only be acquired, and is acquired for

its value, at the expense of pleasure and of interest.

Further, such a principle if applied universally might

very likely lead to the extreme that one finds in some

1. Ibid., PP . 231-232
2. Ibid.. P. 272.
3. Ibid., P* 272.
4. Ibid.% PP . 299-301
5. Ibid., P* 123.

L -I
 67

r 1

education today. He made a pointed remark when he said

that "education should be a repetition of civilization

in little"-*- since the genesis of knowledge in the individu­

al follows the same course as the genesis of knowledge in

the race. Hall said practically the same thing, as will

be seen in the following chapter. This recapitulation

theory is evolutionary in character and when applied to

education is called the culture epoch theory. The

culture epoch theory argued that since the child in his

development from the zygote to adulthood recapitulated the

main stages of the biological evolution of the race, his

education should conform to these stages. The materials of

instruction for the child's development should be taken

from the corresponding stage in the evolution of the race.2

Hall and others in this country, at the end of the

century, preached the culture epoch theory. It is likely

that Hall, who attended Leipzig in the 1870's, was

influenced by this theory through hearing of it at Leipzig,

for it was at that institution that filler and other

Herbertians developed the culture epoch theory.

The culture epoch theory was recognized as absurd by

educators in this country and consequently did not make

1* Ifrid., P. 118.
2. Marique, History of Christian Education. Vol.Ill, pp.
124-138.
3. Ibid., p. 126*

L -I
 68

r T

very much of an impression upon the curriculum.

Spencer made a very significant observation that had

reference to the relations of the state to education. He

contended that since, in the order of time, the family

precedes the state, the state should not provide for or

control education. That the family precedes the state in

the order of time is, of course, the case.^ But the

family is an imperfect society, in the sense that it has

not all the means at its disposal to fulfill its wants.3

It follows, therefore, that since the Church and the state

are perfect societies, both of them must within their
respective spheres contribute to the family. Speneer, of

course, came to his conclusion with respect of the relations

of the state to education, on the basis of his evolutionary

naturalism. He would argue that the family precedes the

state in the order of time because the state is a proximate

evolution from the family and therefore would have no

existence but for the family.

It is now time to consider the influence of SpeneerTs

thought on certain American educators and theorists.

1, Spencer, Education. p. 15.

2, Cf, Pius XI, The Christian Education of Youth. (Rev. Ed.),
New York, The America Press, 1956, p. 4.
3, Ibid., p. 4.

L
 69

r i

CHAPTER IV

THE DIRECT INFLUENCE OF SPENCER’S EVOLUTIONARY NATURALISTIC

PHILOSOPHY ON AMERICAN EDUCATORS AND THEORISTS

The purpose of this chapter is to show the direct

influence of Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary naturalistic

philosophy on eight distinguished American educators and

theorists. Two of these men, John Fiske and Edward L.

Youmans were acknowledged by distinguished authoritative

writers on American life, such as Charles Beard, Allan

Nevins, Vernon Lewis Farrington, and Ralph Barton Perry,
to be the foremost exponents of Spencer’s evolutionary

naturalism in this country. Fiske interpreted and ex­

pounded Spencer’s system for the enlightenment of the
educated classes. Youmans, on the other hand, enlightened

the masses of the people with respect to Spencer’s thought.

He was called the ’Interpreter of Science to the People.*

The two men., who along with Fiske and Youmans, are
treated in some detail, were President Charles W« ELiot of

Harvard and President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University.

Both of these men, partly because of their abilities and

partly because of their dignified positions, were able to

command public and professional attention that did much to

influence American education. All four of these men, in

their separate ways, were influenced by Spencer*s thought

L -I
 70

r 1

and all four of them made their individual impacts on

American life, and particularly on American education*

About these four men, some generalizations can be

made which will be validated in the following pages* These

generalizations will help to serve as guideposts in con­

sidering the detailed materials presented to show Spencer's

influence upon them* All of these men were evolutionary

naturalists* Fiske and Youmans were delstic evolutionary

naturalists, and Eliot and Hall were pantheistic and

materialistic evolutionary naturalists, respectively. None
of them could be thought of as Christians in the traditional

sense that they believed in the validity and authenticity of

revealed religion. The Bible was not to them, the Divine

Word of God. Their concept of God, therefore, varied from

the traditional idea of God. Logically, certain religious

ideas'for them had no validity; the Divinity of Christ, the

Divine establishment of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the

sacraments, grace, original sin, supernatural sanctions, etc.

were, by them viewed in the light of history as having some

secular Interest. Their ideas on religion were, therefore,

the views held by the devotees of natural religion. Their

principle of authority had to be some form of nature; the

individual, society, or a combination of the two, or physical

nature itself. Authority under.these conditions lost its

-i
 71

r . ■»

traditionally eternal character and became centered usually

in the individual who naturally would make it serve his own

ends; even though these be couched in the phrase, enlight­

ened self-interest.
With respect to the individual's education, it seemed

that his interests, and therefore, society's interests,

could best be served by giving him a training in scientific

method in the subjects most conducive to such training, in

short, in the various branches of science. In the following

chapter, it shall be seen that the thought of these men and

others of less distinction who followed their lead, did

have its effect upon the aim and upon the curriculum of the
schools from top to bottom. These men advocated a practical

curriculum for the purpose of achieving a practical aim. To

what extent they were successful in their efforts is indicated

in the next chapter. It can easily be understood how these

men, by their naturalistic views, would contribute to bring

about the secularization of the school system. In terms of

the Influence these men exercised on American education, it

can be said that since Spencer influenced them, he also,

through them, influenced American education.

The four other men treated in this chapter are

discussed very briefly. Barnard, President of Columbiaj

L -I
 72

r -j

seems to have been a genuinely sincere Christian of the

Episcopalian faith. Late in life, he did acknowledge his

belief in Spencerfs philosophy. That Spencerfs views on

scientific education made their impress upon him cannot

be.doubted. He did introduce scientific subjects into

Columbia; by so doing, he helped to standardize the pattern

set by Eliot. Andrew D. White, was unquestionably an

evolutionary naturalist and he played a prominent part in

introducing science into Cornell. That he was an advocate

of secular education is clear from his own testimony. It

must be remembered that these two men were presidents of
two important eastern universities when the southern and
western universities were just beginning to develop. What

little these men had to say would be heeded by the public.

In addition to Barnard and White, Spencer influenced

Lester Ward and William G. Sumner. As was the case with

Barnard and White, these men accepted parts of Spencerfs
philosophy; particularly those phases of Spencer1s thought
that touched upon their specialized field, sociology; in

the field of sociology they were the outstanding men of

their day in this country. In the following chapter,

there appears a description of the way in which sociology

gradually appears in the colleges toward the end of the

century and these two men, who were influenced by Spencer,

L J
 75

r t

helped indirectly, by their work, to get the subject

recognized. As was the case with all the other men, the

sympathies of these men aided in the introduction of the

sciences into the curricula of the schools.

In passing it might be observed that, although these

men were in favor of Spencerfs position with respect to

science teaching there were other men who held similar

views before them. For example, Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, and George Combe, to mention

a few. The point to be made, however, is that these men

were Spencerians and were influenced by him. That, by
their views, most of them helped to bring about the elim­

ination of sectarian teaching and the elimination of the

Bible from the schools seems to be a valid inference.

One realizes that men before them; for example, Jefferson
and Mann also contributed to this effect.

The discussion of the influence of Spencerfs evolution­

ary naturalism upon the eight men will proceed in the

following order; Fiske, Youmans, Eliot, Hall; then Barnard,

White, Ward, and Sumner.

John Fiske was born at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1842*^

1. Of. John Spencer Clark, Life and Letters of John Fiske,

Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917, "Vol. 1, p • 24*

L _!
 74

r "i

In 1859, Fiske gave up dogmatic Protestantism. The

following year he matriculated at Harvard as a sophomore.

At that time, the evolutionary theory was beginning to be

discussed, by some few men, in America., At the advent of

evolutionary thought in America, it was frequently

identified with Comte’s Positivism.^ It was Fiske who
made clear to American scholars that Comtism and Spencer’s

evolutionary philosophy were distinct and separate systems

of thought.^
It was in the early summer of 1860 that Fiske dis­

covered the prospectus of Spencer’s contemplated system of

thought. He was so excited about the Spencerian plan of

philosophy that he wrote a friend of his, one Roberts,

Urging him to subscribe. On the same day he wrote to his-

mother that he felt bound to subscribe and he asserted?

"...‘if I had $2,000,000 I would lay $1,000,000 at Mr.

Spencer’s feet to help him execute this great work.”^ Fiske

did not lay any large sums of money at Spencer’s feet, but

he did, as shall be seen, offer the services of his voice

and pen to further Spencer’s plans^ and to expound his

1. Ibid*, p. 137.
2. Thief., p. 137.
3. Ibid., p. 139.
4. John Fiske, A Century of Science and Other Essays, Boston
Houghton MifflirT Co., p. 26*

L -I
 75

r n
evolutionary naturalism, toward the end of the nineteenth

century, Fiske had occasion to refer to the prospectus and

said:
Mankind have reason to be grateful that the
promise of that daring prospectus is at last ful­
filled: that after, six-and-thirty years, despite
all obstacles and discouragements, the Masterfs
work is virtually done*

Fiske recognized Spencer as his master long before the

end of the century, it was while he was an undergraduate at

Harvard that he began to adopt the Spencerian terminology*

Through a review of Buckle1s History of Civilization in

England. Fiske eventually met Spencerfs American friend and
popularizer, Edward L. Youmans. The Fiske review had been
published in 1861 and it had been “ *•• inspired by his
tto
acceptance of Spencerfs theory of Evolution* A Youmans
recognized that the author was a Spencerian and would make

a worthy e xpounder of Spencer *s views. On this point, Clark

observes that the Fiske review appealed to tt..* the champion
II
in this country of the doctrine of Evolution, ° and, it was
sent by him to Spencer as evidence that the latter fs

philosophy was becoming known in America*

1* John Fiske, A Century of Science, p. 26*

2* Clark, op.cit*. Vol. 1, p. 215*
3* Ibid.. pT 217.

L J
 76

Youmans sought out Fiske in 1863 after Fiske had

written an essay on “The Evolution of Language” from the

Spencerian point of view for The Horth American Review#

In Clark's words: “Youmans saw the need of such a thinker

and writer properly to present the new philosophy of science

w-
to the American public, and he sought out Fiske,•• x It-was
Spencer who advised Youmans to meet Fiske*
Youmans had represented Fiske *s review on Buckle to

Spencer as the ablest one that had been written on that

subject* Spencer told Youmans to search for the author*

Youmans therefore urged Fiske to send his two articles to

Spencer and await a reply*2

Fiske wrote to Spencer in February of 1864* Among

other things he said to Spencer:
The influence of your writings is apparent
alike in every line of my writings and every
sentence of my conversation: so inextricably have
they become intertwined with my own thinking, that
frequently on making a new generalization, I
scarcely know whether to credit myself with it or
not*5
Spencer answered Fiske in March of the same year*4

He thanked Fiske for his two articles, for his sympathetic

1. Ibid., p* 277.
2# Ibid., pp. 273-274.
3* Ibid., p. 294.
4. I H S .« pp. 295-296

J
L.
 77

r i
attitude toward the Spencerian philosophy and then declared
that: ^It Is a satisfaction to me to find t hat after tra­

versing such wide and various fields of speculation as

those you describe , you should express so decided an a d-

hesion to the doctrines I have set forth. ±

Among scholars in America, Fiske stood practically alone
2
in his advocacy of the philosophy of evolution*
However, Youmans had considerable difficulty in the

early 1860 *s in publishing Fiske *s views as the Spencer-

Fiske correspondence shows* It was not until 1869, under
Eliot, at Harvard that Fiske got any kind of audience for
his views* By 1866, Harvard was ready to eliminate clerical
4
control over the institution* Fiske was urged to suggest
in writing, the nature of the reforms. His essay was pub­
lished as "University Reform11 In April, 1867 by the Atlantic
Monthly*5 The points he emphasized are interesting in

that later he was to credit Spencer with bringing about

changes at Harvard* He argued that the whole duty of the

university was to give the student material that would

1* Ibid*, p* 296*
2* Ibid*, p. 308* Cf* Vernon Lewis Parrington, Main Currents
in American Thought. Ndw York, Harcourt Brace Co*, 1927-
30, Vol* 111, p. 203* Cf* Allan Nevins, The Emergence of
M o d e m America. Hew York. Macmillan Co*. 1932, p. 286*
3* Ibid/, p* 519*
> P* 322.
5* Cf* John Fiske, Darwinism and Other Essays, Boston, Houghton
Mifflin Co., 1886, pp* 287-331*

L J
 78

exercise his thought processes* f,The object of the

■university is not to enforce doctrine but to point out

tin o
method* x By method, he meant scientific method* The
command of method was to be achieved through the sciences,

natural, mathematical, and social. The classics were also

considered as subject matter*®
Beyond those s tudies given as a minimum he recommended

that ”••• the university should introduce an extensive and

®A
well regulated system of electives. 4 This article was very
well received. Piske refers to the influence of this
article in a letter to Spencer, September, 1868, wherein he
asserted, that Harvard based some reforms on his article*^
Fiske wrote a second article in the Nation for December,

1868* Under the title 11The Presidency of Harvard College11

he urged the candidacy of Professor Gurney*6 This article,

according to Clark, paved the way for the election of

Charles W* Eliot in that it stated: "... what we do not want

is a mere business man, a fossil man, an ultra-radical man,

or a clergyman.”^ Peabody, the candidate running against

1* Ibid*, p. 295.
2. Ibid.. p. 300.
3. Ibid*, p. 314.
4. Ibid.. p. 314.
5. Ibid., p. 318.
6* Cf* Clark, op.cit..
7. Ibid#* p. 343*

L _i
 79

r l

Gurney, w as a clergyman# Gurney, himself, was considered too

convervative# W it h E l i o t fs election, Fiske was appointed to

lecture at Harvard on recent philosophic thought ” ••• thoughts

tt*i
which had been particularly taboo at Harvard# x
Fiske accepted the offer# Certain sections of the press
were outspokenly in opposition to the proposed lectures, to

the Lecturer, and to Eliot# It is to be noted again that

Fiske was at this time a Spencerian and not a Comtist# His
lectures were to be on the contrast between Comtism and

Spencerianism. Referring to Fiske, Clark says;

In the years to come we are to see him battllng
vigorously to defend the doctrine of Evolution -
which was charged with (having) Comtean characteristics
- against any affiliations with the Comtean philosophy#g
Writing to Spencer in October, 1869, among other things,
Fiske asserted that he had applied Spencerfs doctrine and

method to the evolution of language; that he had been called

by Harvard to give a course of lectures on, what Fiske

called then, the Positive Philosophy and because of which,

©-S shall be seen Spencer was very much perturbed# Most

significant of all, in terms of pointing out what Fiskefs
position was in philosophy and what he was trying to do,

was his request to Spencer that the latter give a more

IMS** P* 347#
£• Ibid## p# 138#

L -I
 80

r i

specific title than fSynthetic Philosophy* to his phil­

osophy* Fiske.made this request so that Spencerfs thought
4-

would not he, as it was at that time, confused with Comtek

thought**1* The ending of Fiske *s letter indicates that he

was a Spencerian at that time*

So the university governs itself: the
alumni elect competent men for Overseers, who
choose a m o d e m man for President, who appoints
a Spencerian as lecturer — and this is the
house that Jack built*2
It is obvious that the expression used by Fiske f,and
this is the house that Jack built" applies to the indirect
influence exercised by Spencer*s evolutionary naturalism in

the secularizing of Harvard* Spencer answered Fiske1s letter

In November of 1869* The quoted contents reveal the fact

that Fiskefs allusion to Spencer1s naturalistic influence

upon the reform of Harvard was taken seriously by Spencer*

He shows this when he says:
I congratulate you, Harvard, and myself, on
the event of which your letter tells me* It is
equally gratifying and surprising* That eight years
should have wrought such a change as to place the
persecuted undergraduate in the chair of lecturer
is something to wonder at, and may fill us with
hope, as it must fill many with consternation*5

1* Ibid*, pp* 385—386*

2. Ibid** p* 356.
3. Ibid.* p. 356.

L _I
 81

The course of lectures to be delivered by Fiske bore

the title "Lectures on the Positive Philosophy." The use

of this title disturbed Spencer for he had for some time

been repudiating any essential connection between his evolu­

tionary philosophy and that of Positivism. That his annoy­

ance was genuine is testified to by Spencerfs letter to
Youmans where, in reference to Fiskefs lectures, he writes
plainly that llI am very much annoyed that he should have
Hi
used the title he has done#.. A more accurately descrip­
tive title would have been, s ays Clark, wLectures on the
t» o
Evolutionary Philosophy versus the Positive Philosophy.

Fiskefs Harvard audiences were quite small and the

implications for religion in the philosophy that he expounded
%
passed without comment#*' However, a bitter assault on Fiske,
Eliot, and Harvard was in the offing for, says Clark:
,,Professor Youmans in Hew York, ever on the lookout for op­

portunities to advance the Spencerian philosophy of Evolu­

tion, arranged, with Fiske's consent, for the publication

of the lectures unabridged in the *New York Worldtn.^ The

explosion came when in the World for November 13, 1869, the
first lecture appeared. 11Immediately,11 declares Clark,

1# David Duncan, .Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, Hew

, York, D. .Appleton Century Co., 190®,".p# 156#
2# Clark, op.cit., Vol. 1, p. 359.
3. Ibid., p." 3 W .
4. Ibid., p. 360.

L J
 82

r n

“an alarm was sounded on what was called *Harvard*s Raid

on Religion1, and a wave of bitter objurgation and denunci­

ation broke forth from the religious and a portion of the

«1
secular press* Harvard, Eliot, Fiske, and the World were
the objects of the attack. ©ie charge was made that the
institution and publication of these lectures was “part of

a plan obtaining among free-thinkers to disseminate far and

wide attacks upon the ^stern of revealed religion1**2 Spencer,

Fiske and Eliot did not, at that time or later, believe in

revealed religion* Fiske was, if anything, a Deist* He
used Spencer*s doctrine on the unknowable to come to his
deism, as shall be seen* It would seem that the press was
not completely right in saying that there was a plan to
attack revealed religion, but Fiske*s lectures from the
Spencerian point of view could certainly be regarded as

antagonistic to revealed religion* Ihe main point to keep

in mind is that Fiske, as a lecturer at Harvard, was
presenting Spencerian views on religion as against Comte*s

views*
Amidst the furore, Eliot approved Fiske*s lectures*
For the following year he was asked by Eliot to present

1* Ibid*, p. 360*
2* Ibid., p* 360.

L _i
 83

r
i»-i
“the philosophy of Evolution from the English viewpoint, *
that is, to present Spencer*s philosophy# By his lectures

at Harvard, Fiske ranked at that time as "##• foremost among

tip
the leaders of liberal thought in America# *
To prepare for his lectures on Spencerian evolutionary

thought, Fiske planned to visit England to consult with

Spencer on his contemplated lectures# In the meantime,

Spencer wrote to Fiske and told him, and this is important,

that his views on the relativity of knowledge and the

deanthropomorphization of m e n 1s concepts were not the dis­

tinctive features of the Spencerian philosophy# He then went

on to emphasize that:

The general doctrine of universal Evolution as a

necessary consequence from the Persistence of Force
is not contained or implied either in Comtism or
Positivism as you define it#®
This is clear enough# Although Fiske fs lectures at

Harvard in 1869 were entitled 'Lectures on the Positive

Philosophy1 they were really lectures on evolutionism and

that was the point Spencer was t rying to make Fiske see and

also the reason why he expressed his annoyance with Fiske to

Youmans# The letter Spencer sent to Fiske indicated to the
latter that Spencer was ignoring the potential religious

1# Ibid## p. 361#
2# Ibid#, p# 363#
3# Ibid#. p# 368.

L _l
 84

implications in his doctrine of the Unknowable* Fiske

considered this to be very unwise*1

Fiske, thus, differs on one essential point from
Q
Spencer* Spencer was an evolutionary naturalist* Fiske
was a Deistic evolutionary naturalist* Spencer was indiffer­

ent to the possible interpretation of his doctrine in terms

of an enlargement of ttthe Christian conception of God from

a purely finite anthropomorphic conception to that of an

Infinite Eternal Being incapable of being conceived by the

human mind; a Being of whom the cosmos is but a phenomenal

ft«2
manifestation* ° This was Fiske *s interpretation derived
from Spencerfs doctrine of the Unknowable*^ Clark® is
clear on this point when he writes that:

And further, these philosophico-religious

implications were of supreme importance in Fiske fs
mind; not only because they formed the highest
aspect of Spence r*s profound definition of life -
ttthe continuous adjustment of internal relations
to e xternal;11 but also because they were intel­
lectually constructive in their nature, and
prepared the way for higher and purer religious
and social ideals than had obtained in any
previous system of philosophy*®

1. Ibid., p. 372*
2* IBId*. p. 372.
3* Ibid*, p* 372.
4. Ibid*, p. 372.
5* This man was one of the e arliest of American followers of
, Spencer*
6* Ibid*.* pp. 372-373.

L
 85

r 1
It will be seen that as Fiske fs thought matured he did
unequivocally announce his belief in God and in the immor-

tality of the soul*

Although Fiske had been opposed by many influential

Harvardians, his second course of lectures on Spencerfs

evolutionary philosophy were given in 1871 without inter­

ruption*
There were three important points emphasized by him in
his treatment of the thirty-seven lectures on Spencerfs

Evolutionary theory*
1* He completely divorced Comtism from Evolutionism*-**
2* He unequivocally directed his exposition to:
**• the positive, teleological, constructive nature
of a philosophy founded on Evolution, in that it
posits an infinite and Eternal Being 11everywhere
manifested in the phenomenal activity of the Universe,
alike the cause of all and the inscrutable essence of
all, without whom the world would become *like the ttp
shadow of a vision1, and thought itself would vanish* ^
3* Fiske identified the religious implications of
Spencer*s evolutionary philosophy with the principle of the
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man*

Referring to these three points emphasized by Fiske

in his lectures, Clark meaningfully asserts that:

1* Ibid** p. 381* Cf* Duncan* op*cit*, p* 157*

2. Ibid** p* 38i;

L _]
r 1

On the first point, Spencer and Fiske were in

accord: the second and third points, as we have
seen, Spencer regarded as of incidental and second­
ary importance.1
In practically every other philosophical and .'religious

principle, the master and the disciple were in accord, but

on these two last points their views differed radically*

Fiske wanted to know if Spencer would not approve the

terms "Cosmism” and "Cosmic Philosophy” as applicable to

his system of thought*^ Fiske believed that such des­
criptive titles would prevent identification of Spencer’s
philosophy with that of Comtean Positivism* In the same
letter, Fiske told Spencer that his fondest hope was to see
the latter finish his gigantic works
**• and then go back and insert the unwritten
portion on Inorganic phenomena; and one of my
earnest labors will be to do what little I can
in helping to secure for the results of your
profound studies, the general recognition they
deserve, and are surely destined to obtain*3

Fiske tried to obtain from Spencer a criticism on

several of his contemplated lectures dealing with the applic­

ation of .Spencerian evolutionism to theistic, moral, and

religious ideas*^ It would seem that Spencer wanted to

Xbid*. pp* 381-382*

2* Cf* Duncan, op.cit*. p. 157* Spencer did not approve*
Cf. Clark* op.cit *. Vol. 1, p. 387*
3. Clark, op.cit*. Vol. 1, pp. 384-385.
4. Ibid., pp. 384-385

L -I
 87

i“ -i
evade committing himself for in his answer to Fiske he
ignored the latter^ request*^ Naturally, Fiske was dis­

appointed*^ In later life, Fiske was alleged to be infer­

ring more from Spencerfs doctrine of the Unknowable than

either the premises or Spencer himself would admit

Fiske, in 1872, gave his complete course of Harvard

lectures to a Boston audience* They were well received*

However, he was barred from speaking before the Lowell

Institute in Boston by a provision made by the founder

which prevented anyone, who did not believe in the Old or
New Testaments, from speaking there* Eliot, who tried to
arrange for Fiske *3 appearance, remarked to Fiske that he
did not believe in the usual connotation of the tena
fDivine Itevelation* and that he did not believe Fiske

could either*^
Nevertheless, Fiskefs influence spread* He delivered
lectures on Spencer fs thought in New York at the Century

Club and at the Cooper Union* The Century Club was made

up of prominent scientists, artists, and literary people*

They radiated “Influences in his favor, as the chief
Wc
exponent of the new philosophy of Evolution* During

£kid* * pp* 385-388.

2* Ibid*, p* 388*
3* Fiske, A Century of Science, p* 86*
4* Clark, op.cit♦* p* 396*
5* Ibid*. p. 396*

L _l
 88

r i

the time of his New York appearance, Fiske was offered b y

Andrew D* White a non-resident professorship of History at

Cornell* The author of A History of the Warfare of Science

with Theology^ was, according to Claik, ttin full sympathy
with Fiskefs philosophical views, and he very much de­

sired to have the new university rising at Ithaca, New

York, give recognition to the new school, as it was called,
of scientific philosophy. Very properly, therefore, he
up
turned to Fiske for assistance*
While in New York, his friends at Harvard, Gurney and

Eliot, were able to secure approval of his appointment to

the post of Assistant Librarian at Harvard College* In

the visits to New York, Fiske learned t hat his fame had pre­

ceded him and that it had spread to the West. He delivered

4
his lectures on Spencerian evolution in Milwaukee* He
repeated with greater success than hitherto the lectures
c
in Boston* To Fiske *s evolutionary views with their
theological implications was drawn f,an ever-widening circle
11fi
of thoughtful minds* u

1* Andrew D. White,A History of theWarfare ofScience with

Theology s in Christendom.New York, D.Appleton Co*. 1901*
2* Clark . op *cit. . Vol'* 1* pp * 397-398*
Ibid*. pp* 3§8-399*
4* Ibid,. p* 403*
5* Ibid*, p, 405*
6* Ibid., p* 397*

L
 89

The year 1873 found Fiske in England* He talked with

Spencer and with Huxley on the various aspects of the

doctrine of evolution* Fiskefs two volumes on the Outlines

of the Cosmic Philosophy were published in 1874* The
Outlines made no pretense to he original* The work was

a **. an appreciation or an interpretation of the philo­

sophic system outlined and partially worked out by
Herbert Spencer **»lfl The decision to publish his lec­

tures *••• was at fiyst but carrying out a project formed

several years earlier, of writing a series of essays

«o
illustrative of Mr* Spencer*s philosophy* 15

In the preface to his Outlines he makes it quite clear

that the work is, in the main, an exposition of Spencer*s
thought* He writes:
Without implying that Mr* Spencer should be
held repsonsible for everything that is maintained
in the following pages, I believe that the system
here expounded is essentially his, and that such
supplementary illustrations as I have added are
quite in harmony with the fundamental principles
which he had laid down*3

It must be pointed out, however, that Fiske developed

a deistic position from Spencer’s agnosticism* In his ,

chapter on ’Cosmic Theism* in the Outlines * Fiske derives

1. Clark, op.cit** Vol* 11, p* 2*

2* John Fiske» Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy* New York,
Houghton Mifflin Co*, 1887, Vol* 1, PrefT, p* vii* .
3* Ibid., p* xi.

L
 90

r -v 1

from Spencerfs idea on the persistence of force, the

concept of the existence of God#'** This idea of God,
however, was not the traditionally accepted one* His
idea of God was opposed to the anthropomorphic concept
w *•* which affirmed a knowable personal God who was

endowed with human characteristics; yet, he affirmed a

likeness, for in both there was an element of anthro­

pomorphism,^ but his idea of God was more refined*^

The doctrine which represents wGod as immanent in the

universe and revealing himself in the orderly succession

of events, ° is called Cosmic Theism* Having found that
a God exists Fiske then asserts the immortality of the
soul* He asserts that:

For my own part, therefore, I believe in the

immortality of the soul, not in the sense in which
I accept the demonstrable truths of science, but
as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness
of God’s work*6
Thus Fiske was able to say that the charges of atheism
and pantheism leveled against the Cosmic Theists 1 God, were
absurd for his position was neither atheistic nor pantheistic.^

1* Clark, op.cit*. Vol. 11, pp* 414-415*

2* John Fiske, Studies in Religion. Boston, Houghton Mifflin
Co*, 1902, p* 169*
3* Ibid*, p* 169.
4* Ibid*, p. 169*
5* Ibid.* p. 169.
6. John Fiske, The Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of his
Origin, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 168V, p. 116.
7. Fiske, Outlines of the Cosmic Philosophy* Vol. 11, pp#
422-423.

L _1
 91

r “l
On the nature of mind, Fiske asserts that the material-
tln
istic view is "irretrievably doomed* i Materialism as an

explanation of mind should be "relegated to that limbo of

crudities to which we sometime since consigned the hypoth-

no „ .
esis of special creations* ° He asserts on the problem of

matter versus mind thatj

The latest results of scientific inquiry whether
in the region of objective psychology or in that of
molecular physics, leave the gulf between Mind and
Matter quite as wide as it was judged to b e in the
time of Descartes* It still remains as true as then,
that between that of which’the differential attribute
is thought and that of which the differential
attribute is extension, there can be nothing like
identity or similarity*3
Thus on this point, as has been seen, there seems to
be a definite difference of view between Fiske and Spencer.
in conclusion it can be said that John Fiske was in­
fluenced to a considerable extent by Spencer* The chief points
of difference between them lay in the admission by Fiske of the

existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the wide

gulf obtaining between mind and matter. Fiske did present to

the educated public Spencer’s evolutionary naturalistic

views and was instrumental in getting these philosophical

1* Ibid*, p* 445*
2* Ibid.* p. 445*
5* Ibid** p. 445* Cf* Clark, op*cit*. Vol. 11, p. 36*

L _J
 92

r l

views accepted by students, teachers, and professional men*

Despite his theistic position he was assuredly a force for

the destruction of Christian faith and of the Christian

dogmas# His concept of God not the same idea of God

that had been accepted by the people of the country prior

to the 1860fs* In the main his preaching of the Spencer­

ian philosophy had a haimful effect upon believers in revealed

religion and unquestionably contributed to the gradual

secularization of American life* He helped to s ecularize
Harvard and through Harvard, under Eliot, he can be said
to have contributed to the secularization of the school
system* Fiske was one of the first to advocate the
inclusion into the curricula of the schools the various
scientific subjects. He was also one of the first to

advocate the elective principle* Eliot, as we shall see,

used this principle as a means of getting the sciences

into the curricula of the schools*

The acceptance of Spencer fs ideas in America !fmay no

ffn
doubt be largely explained by a reference to general causes, x
but there were along with these general causes

1* Cf* Clark, op.cit*, Vol* 1, p, 217* Cf* Parrington,

op.cit*, Vol* 111, p* 207. Cf* Hevins, op.cit**
p. 286* Nevins refers to Youmans and Fiske as Spencer fs
chief disciples*

L -J
 93

r 1
the exercise of the influence of individuals*^ Outstanding
as an individual in providing a hospitable reception for

Herbert Spencer!s philosophy in the United States, was

Edward Youmans* Fiske, in 1899, asserts thati

It is safe to say that among the agencies which

during the past fifty years have so remarkably
broadened the mind of the American people, very
few have-been more potent than the gentle but
pervasive work done by Edward Youmans with his
lectures, and to this has been largely due the
hospitable reception of Herbert Spencer*s ideas *
Youmans and Fiske were among the outstanding leaders

in the bitter struggle waged upon the issue of the origins

of the universe, and consequently upon the origins of man.^
n*
These two men ntook up the cudgels for Darwin and Spencer*
and ttled the fight all along the line on the tenacious
||r-
Miltonic hypothesis of creation* o
Of some passing interest is the manner in which

Youmans came to learncf Spencer’s evolutionary philosophy*

The latter had in 1855 finished his task on psychology and

presented the work to his publishers# Spencer alleged

1* John Fiske, A Century of Science and Other Essays. p* 86#

2. Ibid.. pp.
3* Charles A* Beard and Mary R* Beard, The Rise of American
Civilization, New York, Macmillan Co., 1^35, Vol* 11,
p* 415# Of* Nevins, op*cit*. p* 286*
4# Ibid*. p. 415*
5# Beard and Beard, op*cit»* Vo* 11, p. 415#
6* Cf* Herbert Spencer. Autobiography, New York, D* Appleton^
Century, 1904, Vol* 1, pp. 546-547*

L J
 94

r 1

that the majority of the critics had shown in their re­

views a hostility to the fundamental hypothesis upon which

the Psychology was predicated**** This fundamental hypothesis

declared nthat the various species of animals and plants

have arisen through the successive modifications slowly
ttp
produced by the working together of natural causes* This

was Spencerfs .evolutionary hypothesis applied to life, or

what he then called the development hypothesis*

However, there was one critic who manifested in his
review of the work a* sympathetic attitude to its evolution­

ary basis.® This review of the sympathetic critic, Dr*

Morrell, fell into the hands of Edward Youmans in 1856*

This was three years before Darwin fs Origin was to envelop

Americans in a long and bitter quarrel over its implications *

Some of the potentialities in the development hypothesis,

as d escribed by Morrell in his review, did not escape
Youmans who made haste to s ecu re a copy of The Principles
of Psychology from London*^ For Youmans,^ as will be seen,

1* Ibid*, pp* 546-547*

2. Ibid., pp. 546-547.
3* Ibid., pp# 546-547*
4* Cf* Duncan, -op.cit♦» p* 99.
5* Cf* Edward L. Youmans, Herbert Spencer on the Americans
and the Americans on Herbert Spencer? Being a Full Re­
port of His Interview and of the Proceedings of the
Farewell Banquet of November 11« 1882. New York, D*
Appleton Co*, 1883, pp* 67-76* Youmans develops 1he his­
tory of Spencerfs evolutionary thought and alludes to the
manner in which he learned of Spencer and his work*

L
this was the beginning of an all-embracing life as an

apostle of the new theory of development* However, time

was to elapse before he became the representative and au­

thoritative champion of evolution in America and before he

started his campaign to enlist men like Piske in the dif­

fusion of Spencerrs philosophy* John Piske, Youmans1

friend and biographer, describes the latterfs perception

of a potential general theory of evolution evolving from the

Spencerian work of Psychology* He says that:

After struggling for a while with the weighty
problems of this book, Youmans saw that the theory
expounded in it was a long stride.in the direction
of a general theory of evolution*
Youmans, during this period of infancy in American

evolutionary thinking was one of the first, if not the first

person in this country, to grasp the Spencerian concept of
evolution. It was apparent also to John Fiske that 11this

extension of the doctrine of evolution to psychical phen­

omena was what made it a universal doctrine, on account of
tip
the way in which the world, as we know it, has been evolved*
It is not difficult then to understand why young Youmans,

1* Piske, A C e n i o f Science, p. 87; p. 49. Piske thought

that Spencer sychology was ftindub it ably the most
suggestive book upon mental phenomena that was ever
written*11
2* Ibid*, p. 49*
 96

r i

eager for knowledge, would want to exploit the possibilities

implicit in the Spencerian theory of evolution* Being thus

intrigued he read Social Statics, and the miscellaneous

essays by Spencer that illustrated "various portions or

segments of his newly discovered law of evolution.

Youmans * interest in the Spencerian treatises on the

2
philosophy of evolution continued to command his attention*

Therefore, when he, in February of 1869, secured a copy of

Spencer’s prospectus of the Synthetic Philosophy *3 he be­

came very enthusiastic, as did Fiske about the same

time, over the possibilities for human understanding and
for the scientific, social, educational, and theological

ramifications in the alleged all-embracing Spencerian plan*

Fiske asserts that:

The very next day^ Youmans wrote a letter to

Spencer, offering his aid in procuring American
subscriptions and otherwise facilitating the
enterprise by every means in his power. With this
letter and Spencer’s cordial reply began the life­
long friendship between the two m e n . ^

Youmans, prior to the date on which he opened corres­

pondence with Spencer had become familiar with various of

!• Ibid., p. 87.
2* Youmans, on.cit., pp. 70-71.
3. Fiske, A Century of Science* p. 88.
4. Cf. Duncan, on*cit*. p. 88.
5. Fiske, A Century of Science* p. 88.

L -1
 97

r n

Spencerfs essays* Among these, Youmans had seen the huge

possibilities in the essays on Education for the introduc­

tion into America, via these essays, of Spencerfs proposed

■i
philosophical system* At the time when Youmans learned of

Spencer fs prospectus, he w a s engaged in writing a book and

it occurred to him that incorporation into his own work of

two of Spencer fs educational essays would help to popular­

ize Spencer in this country. Consequently, Youmans*

letter to Spencer suggested this plan for the reason given*

Even though Youmans wrote that Spencer was "almost unknown
to the people1* in this country and for that reason his

philosophical project might be difficult to popularize,

Spencer declined to sanction Youmans 1 plan*^

By 1860, Spencer had begun to think that his various

works might profitably be introduced into America through

the publishing house of Ticknor and Fields in Boston*^
However, his work on Education, in 1860, was refused pub­
lication by that firm*^

Youmans then arranged to have the Appletons take over

1* Cf* John Fiske, Edward Livingston Youmans. Interpreter

of Science for the People, ^ew York. Houghton Mifflin Co..
1894, pp. 104-110*
2* Ibid.. pp. 104-110*
3* Cf. Youmans, op*cit». pp* 73-74*
4* Fiske, A Century of Science, p* 89*

L
 98

the publication of the essays on Bduc at ion♦^ The Applet ons 9

through Youmans, subsequently secured the publication of

other of the works of Spencer* It was, therefore, through

the performance of these offices that Youmans was brought

into "pemanent relations with Spencer and his work*11

This relationship blossomed into genuine affection* Spencer

achieved a double stroke of good fortune for he had ac­

quired a devoted personal friend who was indefatigable in

spreading Spencer1s philosophical thought, as well as de-

S
fending it against its adversaries* At the same time,
Spencer acquired a keen, resourceful business manager to
attend to his interests in America. That Spencer was
doubly fortunate in his selection of Youmans to help him

spread his thought and attend to his American business

affairs will be evident* United now with the man he had
earlier admired for the views that he then professed,

Youmans energetically engaged in the task of diffusing the

Spencerian philosophy* To this end Youmans directed his

efforts along two lines: the writing of reviews on

Spencerfs works and the pressing into service of lecturers

Ibid*, p. 90.
2* Ibid*» p* 90* Cf. Spencer, Autobiogr aphv« Vols. 1 and
11; Piske, Edward Livingston "Youmans ; Duncan. on.nit -,
Clark, op*cit♦ These men give details concerning the
Spenc er-Youmans rel at ions *
Ibid*• P» 91• Cf* Parrington, op.cit* * Vol. Ill, p. 207.
Cf. Duncan, op.cit*. p. 109*

L
 99

r 1

and writers for the cause*

Iiumediately upon the appearance of any of Spencerfs

works in this country, Youmans would see to it that they

received favorable notice from his pen* For it was his

avowed purpose, expressed to Spencer:

To circulate your writings as extensively as
possible, and do it in such a manner that you might
share the pecuniary re suit s**^
Consequently, Youmans saw to it that his articles and
reviews relating to Spencerfs evolutionary naturalistic

thought, as expressed in Spencerfs works, were "scattered

about in the magazines and newspapers where they would do
lto
the most good***
The treatment of Fiske*s career described the circum­
stances under which he was enlisted by Youmans to help
propagate the "master fs,r thought* Fiske was not the only
lecturer and writer that Youmans pressed into service for

the publicizing of Spencer rs evolutionism*^ Anyone with

ability that Youmans could make enthusiastic over the doc­

trine of evolution and its implications, would be given

1* Duncan*QP»cit ** p* 109* Letter of Fiske to Spencer*

2* Fiske, A Century of Science* p* 91*
3* Clark, op*cit* * Vol* 1, p* 221*

L
 100

r i

Spencerfs books 11and set to writing for the press ."•*• Fiske
highly praises -Youmans * unselfishness in the cause of evolu­

tion:
The most indefatigable vender of wares was
never more ruthlessly persistent in advertising
for lucre's sake than Edward Youmans in preaching
in a spirit of the purest disinterestedness the
gospel of evolution.^

Although Youmans had, in a visit to England in 3862,

met Spencer, Huxley, and other men of science and aided
most of them in getting their works published in America,
nevertheless "no one else got so large a measure of this
support as Spencer*"®

In the early 1860's "there were so few people then who

had any conception of what Spencer's work meant that they
could have been counted on one's fingers*" Youmans through
his lectures, essays, and books became, in a national sense,

an "Interpreter of Science to the People"® which figur-

atively meant that he was another Spencer* His whole life

after reading Spencer was devoted to the spreading of the

rj
latter *s philosophy.

1* Fiske* A Century of Science, p* 91.

2* Ibid., p. 91.
3. Ibid.* p. 91.
4. Ibid.* p. 92.
5. Clark, op.cit.* Vol. 1, p. 276.
6. Fiske, A Century of Science* p. 92*
7. Duncan, op.cit.. p. 277.

L -J
 101

r . i

Besides lecturing and writing, Youmans founded the

International Scientific Series and The Popular Science

Monthly* For seventeen years he lectured throughout the

country# Fiske believed that there were few things done
during that seventeen year period of more vital and
lasting benefit to the American people than this broad­

cast sowing of the seeds of scientific thought in the

■»
lectures of Edward Youmans*” 'Through the medium of these
lectures Fiske also believed that Youmans? ”influence in
educating the American people to receive the doctrine of

evolution was great and widespread*”^

Youmans was chiefly responsible for b ringing Spencer
to America in 1882* At the dinner given to Spencer

Delmonicofs in New York, in November of 1882, Youmans

would have praised Spencer, if the latter had been in good

health by telling him and the audience, among other things,

that to Spencer and to him alone, belonged the title of
founder of the theory of evolution*
Mr* Darwin will remain the illustrious
Reformer of biology and the most distinguished
naturalist of the age, but with Mr# Spencer will
abide the honor of complete originality in
developing this greatest conception of m o d e m
times, if not, indeed, of all times*®

1* Fiske, A dentury of Science# p* 82*

2* Ibid., pT 84*
3. Youmans, op#cit*. pp* 75-76.
 102

r 1

Not only by word of mouth did Youmans labor in behalf

of Spencer*s philosophical views but he was able through

his written works to contribute to an acceptance of the

theory of evolution. It will be remembered t hat Spencer

based much of his philosophical system upon the concept of

energy, orrwhat he called the "persistence of force*"

Youmans, therefore, gathered the essays of the men who had

been responsible for establishing and promulgating the

principle of the correlation of physical forces, and under

that title he had the essays published with an introduction

contributed as his share of the volume. Youmans1 introduc­

tion to the work, The Correlation of Physical forces «•**

manifested the historical and philosophical implications in
o
the doctrine of force•
Previously it was remarked that Youmans arranged to

have Spencer fs Educ at ion printed in this country in 1860#

After the publication of this volume he championed its
fundamental thesis that science, natural, mathematical, and

social was of most value in preparing for life#

To obtain a wide acceptance of Spencerfs basic educa­

tional position, Youmans had organized and had published a

series of essays which were designed to present the views

1# Of# Fiske, A Century of Science# pp# 97-98#

2. Ibid., pp. §7-98.

L _J
 103

p i
of distinguished scientists and educators on the legitimate
claims of science in educational curricula# Hie favorable

views on this question of men, such as Faraday, Lyell,

Hooker, Draper, F# A. P# Barnard, and Spencer himself, were

presented to the public in the book entitled, The Culture

Demanded J2L M o d e m Life# In the introduction to the volume,

Youmans pointedly argued that the then accepted curriculum
in the American colleges was the traditional one, and hence,

was of little value in preparing for American life# He

showed that the curriculum was "limited chiefly to the ac­

quisition of the mathematics, and of the ancient languages

and l i t e r a t u r e , w h i c h were adequate in the past, but "it

o
has become inadequate to existing r e q u i r e m e n t s H i s whole

argument was in keeping with the Spencerian view on educa­

tion that "science is of most worth.

Nevins testifies that "E. L. Youmans, the leading
.apostle of a new movement to give science a large place in
education**^ issued a manifesto on that subject in 1867#
Youmans 1 most effective means for the dissemination

of scientific and evolutionary views were founded after his

1# Edward L# Youmans, The Culture Demanded by M o d e m Life#

New York, D. Appleton Co#, 1871, p# 2#
2* Ibid#, p. 2# Cf# Fiske, A Century of Science# P* 98#
Ibid##. pp# 2-56#
4# Nevins, op.cit# # p. 281#

L
 104

r 1

visit to England which he made in 1871* He discussed,

during that visit, the feasibility of founding an agency

for promulgating the views on science and the philosophy of

science, with Spencer and the other leading English men of

the new philosophy and the new science* This was the back­

ground for the founding by Youmans of the Internat ional

Scientific Series*^ Youmans thus inspired and furthered
the scientific movement. The Series eventually was com­

prised of fifty volumes on various scientific andevoiu-

2
tionary topics* Youmans next founded The Popular Science
Monthly* Originally, it was intended to be an organ for the

exposition of every significant new principle and new

hypothesis of science* It became a popular medium for the

discussion of various problems in science, philosophy, and
*2
education that were of some practical and c urrent interest*

The Popular Science Monthly* says Piske: "has unques­

tionably been of high educational value to the general
p u b l i c A c c o r d i n g to the Beards:

**• the Popular Science Monthly founded b y E* L.

Youmans, afforded the English philosopher and audi­
ence, that was astounding in its range and enthusi­
asm* Suffused with the optimism dominant in New
World life, Spencerfs theories were employed to
fortify at every point the idea of progress that

1* Piske, A Century of Science* op. 96-97.

2, Ibid.. p. §7. "
3. Ibid.. p. 98.
4* Cf• Piske, A Century of Science, p* 96*

L
 had been so potent in earlier years .-**

The burden of Youmans’ essays in the Popular Science

Monthly was expressed in his own words when tie said science

.should be the characteristic and controlling element

of c u l t u r e T h e aim of these scientificstudies was to be
practical^ as was advocated by Spencer.

In conclusion, it can be said that Youmans, like

Fiske, accepted the Spencerian philosophy in all important
respects. He was, however, like Fiske, a deist deriving
this position from Spencerfs agnosticism.^ His popular pre­

sentation of Spencer’s philosophical views did much to

enlighten the American people on the philosophy of
evolution. Youmans must be credited with influencing

students, teachers, and average people in accepting the

Spencerian evolutionary naturalism. There can be no

question that he helped, along with Fiske, to shake

people’s faith in the Christian religion and in the Chris­

tian dogmas. That be was a force in the naturalizing of
American life and of American education, seems to b e the

case. Perhaps, the most significant work that he did

1. Beard and Beard, op.cit.. Vol. 11, p. 407.

2. Youmans, flM o d e m Studies in Education” , The Popular
Science Monthly.' 1872. Vol. 1. pp. 496-498.
3. Of. Youmans, 11The Place of Science in the Higher
Education” , The Popular Science Monthly. 1872, Vol. 1,
pp. 624-627. Cf* Youmans, flAim of Scientific Educa­
tion”, The Popular Science Monthly. 1873, Vol. Ill,
pp. 639-642.
4. Cf. Fiske, Edward Livingston Youmans. pp. 492-499.
 106

r i

was to adopt the Spencerian position on the superiority of

the sciences over the classics for a practical education

and lead the fight after the Civil War, in 1867 to be

exact, for the more extensive use of scientific studies

on all levels of the school system, This fight continued

down to his death in 1887; by that time most of the

public schools and many of the private institutions, as

will be seen were 1science minded* and tending to

utility as an aim of education; and to Youmans, as much

as to any other man, must credit go for introducing

through his lectures, essays, and various publications,

particularly The Popular Science Monthly, the sciences

into the curricula of the American school system and

emphasizing their practical value. Likewise, to him

must go much of the blame for the gradual loss of faith

in the classics as valid educational content,

Charles W. Eliot was born in Boston in 1834. He was

graduated from Harvard in 1853 and in the following year

was appointed a tutor in mathematics at Harvard. In

1858, he was made an assistant professor in mathematics

and chemistry. By July of .1861, he was advanced to the

teaching of chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School,

L -I
 107

r 1

then a loose part of the University. ^ Spencer fs work on

Education had Just been published and he advocated subjects
that Eliot was teaching* Further, while Eliot was but

twenty years of age, he had decided to adopt !tthe pro­

fession of a student and teacher of science*1*^ and there­

fore, should have welcomed Spencer fs views on the utility

of scientific education* In 1861-1862, Eliot proposed a

plan for the Lawrence Scientific School which was a square
challenge to the existing order in that it pointed out

that the traditional curriculum in the colleges was not

*2
suitable for all students# Eliot, in 1862, wanted to

publicize his views on the need of scientific instruction

as is evident from a letter sent to him by his friend, W*
P* Atkinson, who answereds
Let me answer your question in regard to the
best means of communicating with the public* I
fear that, as a general rule, you will not find
much help in the schoolmasters* The schools ares
now in gear to grind for the college* The teach­
ers are college men who can teach the classics
well, but not science*^5

That Spencer*s work on Education influenced Eliot can­

not be doubted* Beyond this point it would be hard to say

1* Henry James, Charles W« Eliot* President of Harvard

University. 1869-190§, New York, Houghton Mifflin Co.,
1930, Vol. 1, pp* 67-88*
2. Ibid*, p* 60.
3* Ibid*, p. 97*
4# Ibid*, pp. 97-98*

L _J
 108

r 1

whether Emerson or Spencer exercised more influence on the

shaping of Eliot’s religious and philosophical thought*

Referring to the twin influence upon Eliot, of Spencer’s

thought and the thought of Emerson, Henry James, Eliot’s

biographer makes this significant observation:

That Spencer helped him clarify and formulate
his ideas is not to be doubted* In fact, it seems
probable that some of Spencer’s doctrines became
imbedded in his thinking before he found in
Emerson’s writings a more complete and more
sympathetic expression of what he felt impelled
to believe*^*
That Eliot did not think much of Emerson during the
1860’s is made clear when in 1903, he admitted that when he
was a young man, he ”•*• found the writings of Emerson un­
attractive and seldom- intelligible* He stated that
since, at that time, he was engaged in routine teaching and
discipline, and very much ”concerned with physical science,
he thought Ekerson’s writings to be speculative and visionary*
Now both Spencer and Emerson were evolutionary naturalists

and since Eliot’s biographer, Henry James declares that both

influenced him in his naturalism, it will be well to stop at

this point concerning the influence of Spencer’s naturalism on
Eliot* It will be enough to remark that Eliot was a pantheistic

naturalist which position could have originated, at first,

1* Ibid,* p* 350*
2* William Allan Neilson, E*, Charles W* Eliot* The Man and
His Beliefs* New York, Haiper Bros*, 1926, Vol* 11, p* 537*
3* Ibijl*_, p * 537*

L _J
 109

i
*
from Spencer#
In this connection, it should be remembered that Eliot

was quite a young man when he became President of Harvard#

He was thirty-five years of age and it was he who appointed

an avowed Spencerian to lecture on the Spencerian philosophy,

during the years 1869 and 1870-1871, and then tried to get

Fiske an appearance at the Lowell Institute#

Just prior to his election to the presidency of Harvard,

Eliot wrote his, articles on ’The New Educationf# They stressed
the need of scientific education that Youmans, Fiske, and

Spencer had promoted# These articles indicate a strong

Spencerian influence#, iteferring to Spencer*s educational
influence on Eliot, as it manifested itself in these articles,

Henry James asserts:

Eliot’s articles on **The New Education** in the
Atlantic showed that these views had ihecome his
own#-I-

James then goes on to say, concerning Spencer’s influ­

ence on Eliot that:
When the student of Eliot ’s record examines al­
most any piece of work that he undertook inci­
dental confirmation of what has. just been said
will appear#2

1# James, op#cit#. Vol# 1, p# 551#

2 ♦ rbid# # P. 351#

L -I
 110

Many of the educational principles advocated by Spencer

and promulgated by Eliot were, it is true, advocated by

Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Proebel, and Herbert. Spencer himself,

never acknowledged obtaining any of his views, philosophical

or educational, from other writers with exception of Mansel.

Eliot, in the early 1860»s, had been, according to James,

influenced by Spencer and he does not give credit to any­

one but Spencer for the views on education held by Eliot.

It is true that Eliot later recognized that Comenius,

Montaigne, Locke, Milton, Rousseau, Pestalozzi.had educa­

tional principles similar to Spencer and that through him

their thoughts on education w ... are winning their way into

practice*11^ This recognition was publicly expressed, and

this is significant, in a book called Spencerfs Essays on

Education, to which Eliot wrote the introduction.

What then were the principles and practices that

Spencer advocated in his Education that Eliot reflected in

his article on the »Hew Education*?

First of all, f,they were the work of an advocate of

p
practical education,11 and they answered the conservatives

1* Cf. Charles W. Eliot, Spencer*s Essays on Education, Hew

York, E. P. Dutton, 1911, p. viii.
2. James, o^^cit., Vol. 1, p. 196.

L J
 Ill

among the alumni who believed that classical education best

typified the college man* M... the advent to power of men

who preferred science to the classics and the investigation

of natural history to preaching from the themes of the Old

and Hew Testaments, was going to produce an entirely new

type of educated man, as the result of the instruction af­

forded by the college.*1^ To this prophetic contention, Eliot

argued the vulgar argument that the study of the

classics is necessary to make a gentleman is beneath

contempt*

One of the first points made by Eliot in his *New

Education* was that the American colleges had taken and were

still taking their precedents from the clerical profession

almost exclusively, and “it is gradually becoming apparent

that they are suffering from this too exclusively clerical

administration.11^ He helped to change matters when he was

elected,

Eliot described the efforts, in his first article, of

those who had tried in this country to organize a curricu­

lum of practical studies based chiefly on the pure and ap-

1* Ibid., p, IB5,
2. ibid., p. 196*
5. ibid., p. 188.

-I
L
 112

plied sciences, the modern languages and mathematics. He

opposed this kind of training to the traditional one pre­

dicated upon the value of Greek, Latin, and mathematics. He

was in almost complete accord with Spencer on this opposi­

tion of science to the classics. In the same articles he

discussed the kind of preparation that a young man should

have who planned to enter a technical or scientific school

by the time he was seventeen. Eliot argued the need of a

first class technical education for A m e r i c a fs youth, wto

be developed harmoniously side by side with, and out of

similar preparatory schooling, for the broadest;collegiate

education.
Eliot was unquestionably influenced by Spencerfs be­

lief that education did not have to be authoritative.

Spencer had vigorously challenged the validity of authori­

tative education and Eliot was sympathetic to Spencerfs
p
grounds for this challenge. Eliot himself, in many res-
't
pects, was a non-conformist like Spencer* Eliot objected

to the simple process of telling pupils what they ought to

1* Cf. Clark, op.cit*, Vol. 1, p. 344*

2. Henry James, op.cit.,Vol. 1, p. 350.
3. Ibid., p* 328. Eliot had occasion to say* f,It is small
virtue in me to speak plainly. It is rather ah Eliot
quality -- some people would say.vice.w

L -1
 113

r "I

see, believe, and speak*'*' While at the Lawrence Scientific

School, Eliot tried to teach inductively rather than try

to proceed from the abstract* The Spencerian principle of

following the method of the concrete to the abstract was be­

lieved in by Eliot.^ Eliot approved of Spencer’s doctrine

that young people should habitually experience the natural

consequences of their conduct* There should not be a sub-

stitution, except in extreme cases for this theory. He

agreed with Spencer that school work could be made, as
could life work, both pleasurable and interesting. The

recommendations for health education and for physical edu­

cation advocated by Spencer, found in Eliot a champion.

Observation through the senses, self-help in learning,
teaching children to draw from the objects of nature,

development of learning from the simple to the complex, all

these Spencerian educational positions were accepted and

approved by Eliot.

James observes that these Spencerian views had been

accepted by Eliot and though Eliot had been for some years

1. Ibid., p. 350.
2. CT7“Eliot, Spencer’s Essays on Education. Eliot wrote
an ’Introduetion* for this volume. Most of the views
expressed above can be found in this Eliot introduction.
3. Cf. James, op.cit., Vol. 1, p. 350.

L -J
 114

“I

after his Atlantic articles very completely occupied by

Harvard*s affairs, nevertheless5

••• It was inevitable that sooner or later he

should renew his efforts to secure recognition
among schools for principles which were no less
‘ applicable to their work than to that of the
colleges*^
Through the use of the elective system Eliot got the

sciences into Harvard and this lead was followed by other

institutions, both secondary and collegiate. The dis­

integrating tendency in a widespread system of electives

offered to college students was demonstrated cogently by

the Reverend Timothy Brosnahan, S. J. at the end of the

nineteenth century* Among other pointed observations

Father Brosnahan significantly asserted that, wThis is the

fundamental ground on which the Jesuit method is at variance

with the system of elective studies in use at Harvard. That

system of itself has no unity.1*^

Beyond this point there is little evidence to show that

Spencer influenced Eliot*s thinking. He was an evolutionary

naturalist in the 1860*s at which time he declared Emerson,

who later molded his philosophical and religious views, was

too visionary and speculative for him. One infers, therefore,

using his biographer, James, as an authority*; that his

naturalism in part was attributable to Spencer*s influence,

1. Ibid., p. 350.
2. Rev. Timothy Brosnahan, S. J*, President Eliot and the
Jesuit Colleges, Boston, Review Publishing Co., 1900,
pp. 26-27.
 115

in 1872, he professed to Piske that he was not a believer

in Divine Revelation and the inference is drawn that at that

time Spencer had made his contribution to that belief. His

naturalistic views were partly responsible for his interest

in, and promulgation of, Spencer’s views on the practical

value of the sciences. His advocacy of scientific method or

the method of sense observation, plus his practical aim and

scientific content influenced the aim and the curriculum

of both the elementary school and the high school due to

his influence and active participation, as will be seen, on

the Committee of Ten in 1893* He also influenced, according

to Babbitt, Foerster, and others, the aim and curriculum

of the college. Indirectly, therefore, Spencer influenced

the aim and the curriculum through Eliot.

The influence of Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary

naturalistic philosophy on G. Stanley Hall will be consid­

ered now.

Ihe year after the publication of Spencer’s First

Principles in America and the year after Youmans had

visited Spencer In England, witnessed Granville Stanley

Hall’s entrance as a freshman at Williams College in 1863.

Fiske was graduated from Harvard and had entered, upon the
advice of Youmans, the lists for Spencer,

Hall was graduated from Williams in 1867 and in the same

L -1
 116

year matriculated as a divinity student at the Union Theo­

logical Seminary in New York. His mother was anxious to

see him become a minister. It thus becomes understandable

how Hall went to Union considering that while he was in

college he had been censured for advocating **the view that

man had sprung from apehood.’*^ Hall observes:

As soon as I first heard it in my youth
I think X must have been almost hypnotized by
the word **evolution,** which was music to my
ear and seemed to fit my mouth better than
any other.^

Hall’s stay of a year at the Seminary was marked by

his occasional attendance at the meetings of **a little club

of Positivists who were interested In the study of C o m t e . **^

At these meetings was Stephen Pearl Andrews whose

work, Unlversology. Hall tried to understand. Other visitors

to the club were George Ripley and John Fiske.4 The

latter, who had published ^articles in the M o d e m Thinker, a
progressive journal printed in many hues of paper and ink,
4
undertook to spread this cult.1* Hall’s visits to these

1* G. Stanley Hall, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist.

New York, D. Appleton Co., 1^23, p. £58.
2. Ibid., p. 557.
3. TuTU., p.179.
4* Ibid., p. 179.We have already seen that George Ripley
and Henry Ward Beecher in the early 1860*s had come
under the influence of Spencer through Youmans.

L
 117

meetings, as well as visits to other places of interest,

tended to make him less devout than he was.**’

It was at this time that Hall came under the

influence and patronage of the then tremendously popular

2
preacher, Henry Ward Beecher. This man, as was the case
with Piske and Ripley, had some years earlier become inter­

ested in Spencerfs philosophy through Youmans. Later,

he was to observe when the fight against evolution had

subsided a bit, that;

A minister of the gospel no longer had to

creep into a scientist’s precincts under cover
of darkness - he could purchase John Fiske*s
books and read his evolution at his leisure.3
Beecher, in 1867, was living in Brooklyn Heights.

To Beecher’s study, Hall and the other seminarians

frequently repaired on certain Monday evenings. Hall

asserted ’’that these meetings I shall always remember
for his disagreement with many of the things we were

1. Ibid., pp. 179-181. Piske was not at this time, 1867,

a Comtist as was indicated. Hall apparently fails to
distinguish between Comte and Spencer.
2* Ibid., p. 182*
5. Paxton Hibben, Henry Ward Beecher: An American
Portrait, New York, Gr. H. Doran Co., 1927, p. 348*

J
L
 118

taught at the seminary was very m a r k e d A t this time,

Beecher was able to say to a friend that he regarded the

labors of naturalists as necessary for the final adjust­

ment of truth, ”and I would encourage such men as

Spencer to say whatever is given them, not because they

bare the full truth, but because they bring out the

truth.”2
It was Beecher who enabled Hall to divorce himself
from the seminary to study philosophy in Europe. When

asked by Beecher if such a study would make him less religi

ous, Hall asserted that, ”it would make me religious In

a larger sense*”.
Hall’s intellectual outlook had expanded considerably

since his days at Williams* He had engaged in rather wide

reading and was able, at that time, to claim that:

I had been profoundly influenced by Darwin,

Spencer and Tyndall, Renan, Strauss, Emerson,
and Carlyle:4 ... j. p. Clarkefs Ten Great

1. Hall, op.cit., p. 181.

2. Hibben, op.cit., pp. 215; 333. Beecher became a
popularizer of Spencer’s ideas in the 1870*3.
”Herbert Spencer might not have recognized his con­
cepts via Beecher. But it was a vast deal nearer to
Spencer, to rationalism, than ninety-nine in a hun­
dred of Beecher’s hearers were apt to get by their
own efforts.” Beecher lectured on these ideas in
the Middle West and the South.
3. Hall, op.cit., p. 182*
4 * Ibid., p. 184.

j
u
 119

Religions, when it appeared, absorbed me, as

did John’Piske *s Cosmic Philosophy and his
Myth Makers .3-
During most of the period of his seminary life he was

applying himself to the study of the works of the men men­

tioned; to those works, that is, that had up to 1867 been

published. Hall was aware of the fact that his wide reading

had given him but a superficial understanding. However, he

believed that those writers:

... influenced me vastly more than did the topics

in the curriculum, and altogether this constituted
a most effective disqualification for interest in
the ministry of that cfay and hardly less so for
success in teaching in the field of my dominant
interests.2
Hall had gone quite far along the road to agnosticism

before he left the Seminary and before he had matriculated

3
at the University of Bonn in 1868# He remained in Germany
until 1871. Upon his return to America, good fortune

seemed to be favoring him. Hall hoped to obtain a teaching

position at a large midwestern state university. A letter

from the president of the institution disillusioned Hall.
The former indicated in his letter that he thought that

the course in the history of philosophy that Hall desired

to present to the students would ^unsettle men and teach

1* Ibid., p. 185.
2. Tblcf., p. 185.
3. Ibid., p. 186.

L
 120

r , i
them to hold no opinions.nJ- Naturally, Hall was disappointed

and spent the next sixteen months in tutoring the youngsters

of the Seligman family of New Yorl£.

An offer of a teaching position at Antioch College,

Yellow Springs, Ohio, signalled the end of his tutoring ex­

perience. Antioch College was founded ttas a western outpost

of Unitarianism which here sought to amalgamate with the

denomination, which believed in the Bible without Theology."^

This alleged fusion was more apparent than real. Horace

Mann was the first president of Antioch and spent the last

fourteen years of his life there in that position.^

A new president of Antioch was inaugurated at the be­

ginning of Hall’s second year. The new man was Edward

Orton, an expert geologist, who later became president of

Ohio State University. Under this administrator, Hall was

given the opportunity to teach philosophical subjects in

any manner, he chose.^

I was an enthusiast for Darwin, Spencer,

and Huxley, and as the religious spirit was free
I could 'do practically what I would.5

Four years were spent at Antioch. There then came dn

offer of an instructorship in English at Harvard. He

1. Ibid., p. 196.
2. Ibid., p. 198.
3. Ibid.. pp. 198-199.
4. Ibid., p. 199. Of. Lorine Pruette, G. Stanley Hall. A
Biography of a Mind. New York, D. Appleton Co., 1926, p.
85.
5. Ibid., p. 199. Of. Pruette, op.cit.. p. 85. "...and he
was able to introduce his students to the theories of
Darwin, Spencer. and;Huxley,"
L _J
 121

became a Harvard faculty member in 1875, He went to Harvard

because he hoped that the rumor that the conservative pro­

fessor of philosophy, Francis Bowen, might retire would

shortly be a fact. Hall was disappointed that Bowen did not

retire and make way for himself in the philosophy depart­

ment Hall left Harvard at the end of the academic year to

study at Leipzig under Wilhelm Wundt in the field of exper­

imental psychology# At the end of this period of university

training in Germany, he took stock of his mental acquisi­

tions in philosophy. He had been impressed by Buchner,

Moleschott and by the portions of Karl Marx that he had

read. These and other thinkers had enriched and enlarged

his mental outlook. Nevertheless, he returned to Spencer

and Darwin for his position. He says*

But the only whole-hearted scheme of things

which I had accepted with ardor and abandon was
that of an evolution which applied no whit less
to the soul than the body of man. This was bed­
rock. Darwin, Haeckel, and especially Herbert
Spencer seemed then to me to represent the most
advanced stage of human t h o u g h t . ^
After the freedom experienced in Germany, Hall
thought that New England was decidedly oppressive. Much

that he saw about him he loathed and hated. His rank

heresies and socialistic leanings he did not express. He

1. Ibid., p. 204#
2. ibid,, p, 222, This thinking was done about 1880,
Most of Spencer^ works had been published.

L
 122

r i

was, therefore, not stigmatized as dangerous, wat least for

any academic career, where the motto was Safety First.*1

In the year 1882, Hall became professor of psychology

and pedagogy at Johns Hopkins. At Hopkins, Hall met Charles

Pierce:

... one of the ablest and most original philosophic

minds this country has ever produced, and I think
at one time an intimate friend of Chauncey Wright
and John Piske, two of the most brilliant men in
the Harvard circle though not of the faculty*2
Referring to his new position at Hopkins,^ he says his
courses in pedagogy were limited to semi-public lectures

delivered on Saturdays. Teachers who were interested were

weloome to attend. Hall thought that at that time there
had been no chair of pedagogy in the country save at
M i c h i g a n . H e also believed that the example in pedagogy
created at Hopkins was destined for a successful and fruit­

ful career. The lectures given by Hall were on the philoso­

phy, the psychology, and the history of education.

He remained at the Baltimorean institution for six

years, until 1888. He became very much interested in genet­

ic, or evolutionary psychology and child study during his

1. Ibid. j, p. 223.
2. Ibid., p. 226. Charles Peirce, according to James was
the" father of American pragmatism. Cf. Woodbridge Riley,
American Thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism, Hew
York, H. Holt and Co., 1916, p. 253.
3. Cf. Fabian Franklin, TheLife of_Daniel Coit Gilman,
New York, Dodd, Mead and Co., 19l0, pp. 182-31$. Gives
a brief history of Johns Hopkins, under Gilman, the
first president.
4. Hall, op.cit., p. 226.
 123

labors at the university.^

Besides launching the American Journal of Psychology,

he was able to help launch many of his students into the

professorial life. Among his students, many became eminent

in American life. John Dewey, J. Cattell, B. Sanford,

Burnham, Jastrow, and others of importance in education came

under his instruction.^

Hallfs aim in teaching graduate students was research

leading to specialization. This type of specialized research

was ably refuted by the Reverend George Bull, S.^*- Father

Bull contrasted the m o d e m view of research in graduate educa­

tion with the Catholic view and pointed out that the Catholic

approach to learning looked toward the organic unity of

knowledge as against disintegration, toward humanism as against

dehumanization, toward the sense of tradition and of wisdom

achieved as against ’progress1, toward principles as against

•z
facts, and toward contemplation as against research.

Hall left John Hopkins to accept the offer of the

Presidency of the contemplated Clark University in 1888.

Throughout the period of his teaching experience Hall

was developing, accumulating, and expanding in his mind the

doctrine of evolution. The progress of his thought is

from Darwin to Spencer’s evolutionary naturalism and then,

1. Pruette, op.cit., pp. 90-91.

2. Hall, op.cit., pp. 226-227. Cf. Pruette, op.cit., p. 91.
3. Rev. George Bull, S. J., wThe Function of the Catholic
Graduate School11, Thought, New York, The America Press,
L Sept., 1938, Vol. XIII, No. 50, pp. 364-378. _j
logically, it seems that from SpencerTs ideas he accepts

Haeckel’s materialistic naturalism.

Working under Trendelenberg in Germany, Hall came to

understand the Hegelian evolutionary concept of ’’becoming.”

It then seemed that Hegel’s dialectic and Schelling’s ab­

solutism could explain all the ultimate philosophical

questions for Hall, However, Hall realized that German ab­

solutism was but a preliminary step ’’by which Darwin, Hux­

ley, Haeckel, and even Tyndall”**- were prepared for in the

development of his philosophic thought.

This development of his evolutionary philosophy was

o
most rapid during the teaching at Antioch.6, He confesses
that?

To conceive the whole world, material and

spiritual, as an organic unity, to eliminate all
breaks and supernaturalism, and to realize that
every thing within and without was hoary with
age, so that in most experiences we were dealing
only with the topmost twigs of vast but deeply
buried trees, gave me a totally new aspect of
life.3
Hall admitted that breaks in the developmental order

were ignored by him and that objections to the evolutionary

hypothesis frequently occasioned his impatience. Implicit

faith, he had, in the ’’breaks” being filled by further ad­

vance In knowledge.

1 * P* 359 *
2. iMct., p. 359.
3. iSIcf., p. 359.
 125

It las in psychology that Spencer’s views were intro^

duced into American education by Hall, Hall fully realized

that psychology had been but little exercised by the pos­

sibilities in the new evolutionary point of view and he was

ambitious to introduce evolutionary concepts into that field.

Had not the soul been so long and so in-

vet erately considered as a separate entity such
an issue could never have arisen, and if monism
is true the problems this antithesis raises are
all surds,-*-
Hall’s plans for the training of a psychologist would

require that a candidate for that profession, before being

allowed to teach, be capable of manifesting a good knowledge
2
of Darwin, Spencer, and Haeckel. '
It will be recalled that Spencer applied the evolution­

ary principle to mind back in 1855, Hall called his psy­

chology ’genetic* and it was based upon the evolutionary

principle, Beferring to the German psychologist, Wilhelm

Wundt, under whom Hall studied in Germany, the latter asserts

that Wundt did not apply the evolutionary principle to mind,

and ’’Hence his disciples have little use for evolution or the

genetic aspects of psychic powers and activities.

It was to Spencer’s application of evolution to the

human mind that Hall was indebted, in all probability,
for his ’genetic psychology,” Moreover, it will be

1. Ibid., p. 431.
2 . YbTd., p. 476,;
3. Ibid.. p. 10.

L
 126

r n
seen in the following chapter, that Hall, through his

application of evolution to the mind became the prime

mover in, what was called in 1893-1894, the *new

psychology1 which profoundly affected American teachers*

Hall believed, therefore, as Spencer did, that the

development of mind should be from the simple to the

complex, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from simple

differentiations in children to the more complex ones in

adult s •
In his educational principles he was influenced by
Spencer* A study of the sciences, particularly, the natural
and the social sciences was advocated*
Consider his curriculum at Clark; it was topheavy with
the sciences. However, he thought that not in his lifetime
was**a more calamitous pedagogical blunder** made than that
in the report of the Committee of Ten. The Committee sug­

gested and approved, as an opening wedge for the introduc­

tion of science into the schools, the study of physics* Hall
in condemning this move, argued that biology should have been

the chosen subject. He claimed, and notice the similarity

of his argument to that used by Spencer with reference
to the same subject, that:

Biology should have this place by every

pedagogic right, not only because of its immediate
applicability to economic uses, to personal and
community hygiene, etc., but because of its per­
vading humanistic interests culminating in
eugenics *3*

L1 • Ibid*, p* 518*
 127

Hall, therefore, like Spencer would rate biology very

♦

high ingiving knowledge that was of most worth. That

biology was rated highly by both men is understandable, for

to be a good animal, one must be able to provide for the

stress and strain on the biological organism. Hall asserted

that; ”to succeed one must, first of all, be a good animal.*1^

Shades of Spencer. To be successful in preserving the body

from injury or disintegration one must know the laws of

health. This end, health, was emphasized greatly by both

P
Hall and Spencer. There certainly is a likeness, if not
identity, between Spencer?s theory that the genesis of

knowledge in the individual repeats the genesis of knowledge

in the race and therefore neducation should be a repetition

of civilization in little.11^ Hall said; MIf the individual

does or ought to repeat the history of the race in

his development, this is the real beginning of every truly

genetic psychology.*1^ It is common knowledge that the

Culture Epoch Theory was supposed to have a German origin.

Whatever be the origin of the theory as found in Hall, Eng­

lish or German, the influence of Its educational application

1* Ibid., p. 453*
2. Ibid., p. 451.
5. Spencer, Education, p. 118.
4. Hall, op.cit., p. 369.

L -J
 128

r "i

in the Recapitulation Theory was at one time rather exten­

sive.
Hall repeatedly insisted upon the play element in edu­

cation^* while Spencer contended that since play was of bio-

logical origin it should not be suppressed. They both

agreed that the educational process should be both inter­

esting and pleasurable. To effect this, things should be

studied and the learning about things should develop natur­

ally from the simple and concrete to the complex and ab­

stract.^
Drawing in the minds of both men was considered good

training.^
Hall*s Confessions frankly reveal a tendency on his

part to experience the sensations of pleasure and pain,

either actually, or vicariously. The pleasure and pain

psychology of both Spencer and Hall are very noticeable in

their treatment of the mind. For the Spencerian the ulti­

mate sanctions for conduct were those of pleasure and pain,

as we have seen. Hall asserted that*

Perhaps the very deepest appeal which the

New Testament makes to psychology is found in the

1. Ibid., p. 498.
2. Spencer, Educations pp. 299-301.
3. Hall, op.cit.s PP* 500-501.
4. Ibid., p. 4fe8.

L J
 129

fact that it gives to the world in concrete form

the supreme portrayal of pleasure and pain, which
are the sovereign masters of life, in their am­
bivalent relations
He contended further that the young live in exquisite

rapport with the present under the influence of the pleasure-

2
pain principle*
With respect of one of his principles of education,

Hall differed radically from Spencer and most m o d e m educa­

tors. The difference, perhaps, despite what Piske said con­

cerning the great insight that Spencer had into the workings

of the human mind, was due apparently to Hall*s greater

perception of the need of religion for people, especially

the young.
... childhood and youth need religion more than
anything else and more than at any other time of
life for the very formation of character, and that
education without it lacks heart and s o u l . 3

In conclusion, it can be said that Hall was a Spencerian

evolutionary naturalist, who developed from Spencer's ag­

nosticism the materialistic position of Haeckel. Spencerfs

system of philosophy it must be remembered could lead to

either of two fundamental alternatives of thought; a

spiritualistic one or a materialistic one. The whole

Spencerian system was there; all one needed to do was to

It Ibid.,'p. 426.
2. T O ,, p. 586..
3. ibid., p. 518.

L
 130

r i

give it a materialistic interpretation or a spiritualistic

one* The fact is that Spencer reprimanded Haeckel for in­

sisting on giving to his philosophy a materialistic inter­

pretation* Not only is Haeckelfs materialistic influence

on Hall a negligible one but the German influence on Hallfs
psychology, deriving from Wundt, is also negligible in the

sense that Hall was both philosophically and psychologically

a Spencerian evolutionist* The evolutionary principle
applied to mind was the chief feature of Hall*s *newf
psychology as will be seen in the following chapter*

Through his direct influence on his students at Antioch,

at Johns Hopkins, and at Clark he was a force for spreading

the evolutionary philosophy, and especially, the naturalistic

evolutionary or *geneticf psychology in American education*
Also through his publications and child associations, as
will be seen in the next chapter, he had a great influence
upon teachers, particularly, the elementary school teacher*

He helped to naturalize the school and the school child* Hall

exercised his influence in helping to introduce the natural

and social sciences into the curriculum. His curriculum at

Clark was top-heavy with the natural sciences* In all this,
Spencer, through Hall must be given his due in indirectly

influencing American education*

Besides Piske, Youmans, Eliot, and Hall, Spencer*s

influence was acknowledged by Barnard, White, Ward, and Sumner*

Barnard became president of Columbia College in 1864*

L -I
 131

r 1

The subject of his address at his inauguration was a signi­

ficant one,-. .•*The Relation of Science to Revealed Religion.

Among other things he said that ”1 do not recognize such a

conflict, nor admit its p o s s i b i l i t y . S c i e n c e to Barnard

was a form of revelation ”... from the one great Author of

all truth.” Although he thought that the colleges should not

be sacrificed to the demands of the fNew Education* to make

them practical, he did suggest the creation, in 1864, of a

School of Physical Sciences to be run in connection ”with

a college of the older learning.”^ Three years later he

wrote one of the chapters for Youmans1 book, The Culture
Demanded by Modern Life. Therein he declared that he

recognized the valid claims both of the older learning and

5
of the sciences and he recommended that the schools below

the college level teach botany, zoology, mineralogy,

chemistry, and physics for the satisfying of curiosity, for

their method of observation and experiment, and for their
6
practical value. He justifies these studies in Spencerian
language:
Now I hold it to be a first principle of
a sound educational philosophy, that the powers
of the mind should be subjected to culture in the

1. Cf. John Pulton, Memoirs of Frederick A. P. Barnard,

New York, Macmillan Co., 1696, p. 344.
2. Ibid., p. 345,
3. Ibid., p. 345.
4. Ib'Id., p. 346.
5. Cf. Youmans, The Culture Demanded by Modern Life,
pp. 312-313.
6. Ibid., pp. 329-331*
L -*
 132

r T

most natural order; and what I understand by

natural order, is the order in which the powers
unfold themselves when they are subjected to no
artificial control at all. If this is not the
true test of what is natural, then we have no
test.I
Thus studies should be arranged to conform to the nat­

ural order of learning and under proper guidance the pupils

will learn pleasantly. While insisting on pleasurable

learning through the natural order he indicated that

Spencerfs arguments for the natural order were unassailable

yet, he thought Spencer insisted too much on the pleasant

in education. He asserted;

They who, like Herbert Spencer, take such a ground

as this, only injure the cause they would befriend,
and weaken the force of their otherwise unanswerable
arguments.2

In 1874, Barnard went on record as approving a practical

aim for American education and a practical content for the

schools, as well as, approving the tendency to promote

scientific method. He was well on the way to accepting and

publicly acknowledging Spencer*s influence upon him. He did

this on the occasion of the dinner given to Spencer in this

country on November 11, 1882, at Belmonico*s. Pressure of

official duties prevented him from attending. His letter

explaining his absence and his views on Spencer was

1. Ibid., p. 325.
2. ibid., p. 325.
3. Cf • A Statement of the Theory of Education in the United
States of America, Washington D. C., Government Printing
Office'7 1874, pp. 13-14.
L -J
 133

published with the speeches given and the letters received

from other of the invited guests,

Barnard expressed regret at the need for his absence at

the dinner. He asserted that ttIt is impossible that anyone

should feel more profoundly than I do the magnitude of the
m2
debt which the world owes to that great roan,” «This cer­

tainly is inconsistent with the view he expressed in his

inaugural address made in 1864 when he declared that the

evolutionary theory, or what he cautiously called !,the

doctrine of progressive development” was only seemingly

gaining a wide acceptance and this was due to ”the ingenuity

displayed by its advocates which has secured for it more

than a momentary attention. The strength of the scientific

world has always been enlisted against it.” This accusa­

tion he repudiated when in his letter to Youmans, he said
that Spencer:

In revealing and demonstrating the laws which

govern all progress, physical, moral, or social, he
has himself contributed the most powerful impulse
to the progress of the human race toward the good
and the true that this or any century has k n o w n . 4

To Barnard at this time Spencer seemed immeasurably

superior to the German absolutists. Kant, Schelling, Fichte,

c
and Hegel were ”gropers in the dark by the side of him.11

1* Cf. Edward L. Youmans, E . , Herbert Spencer on the Ameri­

cans and the Americans on Herbert Spencer, pp. 88-69.
2. Ibid., p . 86»
3. Fulton, op.cit., p. 358.
4. Youmans, op.cit., pp. 86-87.
5. Ibid., p. 87,
L -I
 134

Spencer was the superior of Aristotle and his master in

philosophy*

Barnard writes;
. His philosophy is the only philosophy that
satisfies an earnestly inquiring mind. All other
philosophers (at least in my experience) serve
more to perplex than to enlighten,I
Spencer was to Barnard the profoundest thinker of the

times and it seemed to him that Spencer had the most

2
capacious and most powerful intellect of all times*
The letter ended with the following tribute to Spencer;

To have testified, therefore, by my presence

or my voice, last evening, to my sense of the inap­
preciable value of the services rendered by this
great man to the race of humanity, would have af­
forded me a satisfaction, I find it difficult here
to express*3

As he changed his views on the theory of evolution, he

also changed his views on what should constitute the curricu­

lum. of the college. He more or less followed the lead given

to the **New Education*1 by the election of Eliot to the

Presidency of Harvard. Electives were adopted at Columbia

College and the sciences were introduced into the curriculum.

Pulton says that;

In Dr. Barnardfs opinion, the scheme adopted

by. Harvard Universi ty was nothing more than was*
required by a frank recognition of the fact that
a college cannot expect: to teach every individual

1. Ibid., p. 87.
2. Ibid., p. 87,
3. Ibid., p. 87. J
 135

student everything it is prepared to teach,

and that in offering to each a choice of studies,
it was simply making it possible for him to make
himself proficient in those which he could pursue
with profit.3-
According to Fulton, the new movement at Harvard under

Eliot was one which, Barnard did not hesitate to say,

Q
!,all colleges would be compelled to pursue sooner or later.w
Barnard died, as he lived, in communion with Christianity.

In conclusion, it can be said that Barnard was eventually

influenced to a considerable extent by Spencerfs philosophy.

However, he did not repudiate his Christianity. He ex­

pressed his conviction in 1867 that the sciences should be

given a place in the curricula of the schools, and at the

same time, acknowledged that Spencerfs arguments for the

sciences and practical education were unanswerable. Barnard

helped to promote Spencer*s views on the practical value of

scientific education, while at the same time he acknowledged

that the classics had their place in the curriculum. He

was responsible for introducing the sciences into the cur­

riculum of Columbia and of using the elective principle to

achieve this end.

Andrew D. White became President of Cornell in 1868.

He offered John Fiske a position at Cornell in 1872 because,

1, Fulton, op.oit., p. 382.

2• Ibid., p7 382•
3. CTT”Andrew Dickson White, Autobiography of Andrew Dickson
White# New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1932, Vol. 1 and 11

L _I
 156

r i

”he was in full sympathy with Piskefs philosophical views.

These views, of course, were Spencer ’s. He wanted Fiske at

Cornell in order to **... give recognition to the new school

of scientific philosophy.”^ White ”... was much influenced

by an idea broached in Herbert Spencer’s ’’Treatise on

Education”, The idea referred to was Spencer’s insistence

upon physiology as a necessary first subject of instruction

and ?/hite introduced the study because ”... it formed a

very good beginning for scientific study in general.”^

White did not attend the Spencer dinner in New York.

He added, by letter, his testimony to ”... that of others

regarding the services rendered to this country by Mr.

c
Herbert Spencer.”
That White was in full sympathy with Spencer’s
philosophical and educational thought seems quite clear

from the contents of this letter. He expressed the belief

that any person who was desirous of finding out who was
responsible for the changes in education since 1862 could

survey the history of education'in this country and learn,

for ’’the then last twenty years, that Spencer’s ideas have

been among the principal forces in bringing about the great

1. Clark, op.cit., Vol. 1, pp. 397-398.

2. Ibid., pp. 397-398.
3. WhTEe,op. ci't., Vol • 1, p .36 3.
4. Ibid.,p. 363.
5. Cf. Youmans, op.cit., p. 85.
L _j
 137

and happy changes which have taken place.tt^ He declared that

the reforms leading to physical education as the basis for in­

tellectual training, and the making of mental training accord

with the methods and sequences of nature were due to

Spencer. He further believed that*

... the tendency more and more toward a moral

training based upon ascertained natural law, the
prominence given to studies in science and to a
more scientific method in pursuing every study —
in short, the bringing of all human development
into harmony with the methods stamped upon the
constitution of the universe -- for all this pro­
gress, our debt to him is great i n d e e d . 2
White thought that new reforms were in the offing

and that they would produce beneficent changes and Spencer

would have to be credited with having ttdone so much to set

in motion.n As Spencerfs ideas become better known each

year they become, according to White embodied in the prac-
4
tice of our best schools from highest to lowest." To him
it seemed clear that this educational development stimulat-
K
ed by Spencer!s thought would continue.w
White, as was the case with Barnard, showed his approval

of the Spencerian position on the practical value of scienti­

fic education when he signed, in 1874, The Statement of the

1. Youmans, Herbert Spencer on the Americans and the Americans

on Herbert Spencer, p. 85.
3. Ibid., p. 86.
4. Iblcf., p. 86.
5* Ibia., p. 86.

L Jl
 138

Theory of Education in the United States.1 In the same

year, in an address before the Department of Superintendence
of the National Educational Association, White declared

that the fNew Education1 was producing results that were

o
better than those produced by the old classical curriculum.
He praised the natural sciences, condemned text-book, teach­

ing of them, and advocated the laboratory method. He insist­

ed that natural science teaching was not Godless, but made

men better.
In conclusion, it can be said that White helped Spen­
cer to promulgate his views on the practical value of

scientific education. He was recognized as having some

influence and he exerted this influence to emphasize the

educational views of Spencer to educators and teachers.

The two remaining men considered in this study were

primarily sociologists and it was in this department that

Spencer exercised his influence upon Ward and Sumner.

Lester P. Ward acknowledged that Spencerfs evolutionary

theory was basic to the various departments of science that

were then known but also to n... the new and unexplored,;"

1. Ibid., pp. 13-17; 20.

2. Cf. U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information,
No. 1, 1874, Proceedings of the”~Department of Superin­
tendence of the N. 1. A., Washington, D. C., Government
Printing Office, 1875, pp. 27-41.
3. Ibid., pp. 36-37.

L
 139

r i

realms of life, mind and a c t i o n , W a r d admitted that he

had acquired, while reading Spencer a 11... long-continued
o
habit of communing with his thoughts.**

According to Ward, Spencer had built the science of

sociology. Upon the basis of this Spencerian science, Ward

thought, the corresponding art of sociology would develop.^

That Spencer influenced Ward’s sociological and educa­
tional principles is made clear by Kimball in her special
study of these two men. She observes that*

In spite of the small amounts of attention

paid to It, the connection between Spencerrs and
Ward’s educational doctrines and their sociologi­
cal principles are >unmis takable.4

One of the significant differences between them in

their educational sociologies was that Spencer emphasized

individualism in education and the ”... philosophic

justification for the new emphasis on the social purpose of

education was In part provided by Auguste Comte and Lester

Ward."5

'The important consideration -concerning Spencer’s

influence upon Ward, is that through Ward indirectly,

sociology was introduced into the colleges during the 1890’s.

1. Youmans, Herbert Spencer on the Americans and the Ameri­

cans on Herbert Spencer, pi 1WI Cited In a letter to
Youmans•
* 2. Ibid., p. 77,
3. T5I8., p. 77.
4, Elsa Peverly Kimball, Sociology and Education: An Analysis
of the Theories of Spencer and Ward, New York, Teachers
College, Columbia University, 1952y* p, 13'*
l5. Merle Curti, Social Ideas of American Educators, New York,
Scribner’s Sons, 1936, p. 257.
 140

r "J

Spencer must be given a place as contributing to the intro­

duction of this study.

Unlike Ward, William Graham Sumner, of whom Giddings

observed that he was ”... perhaps the most consistently

sociological if not the greatest of sociologists,

emphatically stressed the individualistic position of
p
Spencer in life and in education.
Sumner rebelled against the conservatism obtaining at

Yale in the 1870*3 under the presidency of Noah Porter,

Porter raised emphatic objections to Sumnerfs use of Spencer’s

The Study of Sociology as a text-book in his classes. The

controversy between Porter and Sumner initiated ”... a

vigorous fight for academic freedom which through news-

rz
paper reports attracted wide attention.”
At Yale, Sumner ” ... deplored the prominence given to
the classics, and labored against much opposition, to broad­

en the curriculum, especially by introducing scientific

studies into the academic department.”

In 1882, after referring to sociology as still being in

its earliest stages, he recognized Spencer’s influence upon

him when he asserted that for the philosophy underlying the

1. Franklin H. Giddings, Studies in the Theory of Human

Society, New York, Macmillan Co., 1926, p. 293.
2. Cf. Beard and Beard, op.clt., Vol. 11, pp. 429-430.
3. Harris E. Starr, Dictionary of American Biography, New
York, Scribner’s Sons, 1936,~VolY XVIII, p. 218,
4. Ibid., p. 218.

L
 141

material of sociology, we still need the master to show

us how to handle and apply its most fundamental doc trines.

At the same time Sumner expressed the view that SpencerTs

fundamental evolutionary principles had been verified by

scientific method2 and that, if there was to be formulated

a science of society then it would have to be based upon

Spencerfs evolutionary philosophy* Sumner could see no

limits to the scope of Spencer^ philosophy of evolution. He

considered that one of its greatest triumphs would be effected

when it brought light and order into the social problems that

were of universal interest to all mankind. Sumner declared;

Mr. Spencer is breaking the path for us. into this

domain. We stand eager to follow him into it, and
we look upon his work in sociology as a grand step
in the history of science.5
Long after this year of 1882, in 1927 to be exact, Sumner

acknowledged Spencer in the preface to the huge four volumes

of The Science of Society* Sumner and his co-author in

referring to the older works in sociology assert*

Again, we have no idea of rejecting Spencer,

Morgan, and others because they are old ...
Pacts do not become fold’, nor, indeed, the
conclusions drawn from them by men of p o w e r . 6

1. Youmans, The Culture Demanded by Modern Life, p. 36.

2. Ibid., p. 36.
3. T5Td., p. 39.
4. Ibid., p. 39.
5. TbTcL, p. 39.
6. William Graham Sumner, and Albert Galloway Keller, The
Science of Society, We?/ Haven, Yale University Press,
1927, Vol.~T, pp. xxvii-xxviii.
L -I
 148

Both authors acknowledged that Lipper’s work on

sociology, had influenced them deeply and they paid their

respects to him and to Spencer, when they wrote, BWe pay to

*»1
the master and to Herbert Spencer our respectful homage.

In conclusion, it can be said that Spencer influenced

Sumner in his philosophy and in his views on science

education. More important is the fact that a man who

became one of American’s outstanding sociologists, as well

as one of its pioneers in that field, acknowledged Spencer

as his master and declared that Spencer’s evolutionary

naturalistic philosophy should pervade any valid science

of sociology* In the 1890’s sociology as a college subject

became a significant addition to the curricula of many
schools and Sumner, indirectly, had much to do with this
fact.

The preceding pages in this chapter were devoted to

showing the direct influence of Spencer’s philosophy on eight

prominent educators and theorists. Fiske, Youmans, Eliot, Hall,

Barnard, White, Ward, and Stunner were men of influence and
prestige, and thus, their philosophical, educational and
sociological views, when proclaimed or when translated
into practice commanded widespread attention* They,

therefore, helped directly to spread Spencer’s system of

Ibid♦. pp. xxvii-xxviii.

L _l
 143

r n

thought.
Through John Fiske, S pe ncer^ evolutionary naturalistic
philosophy with its spiritualistic connotations, was pre­
sented to the educated public in America and it was accepted

by many students, teachers, and professional men. Fiske*s

deistic position, derived from Spencerfs agnosticism, could
not be a very satisfactory substitute f orth© traditional

concept of God held by Americans before 1860. It would

seem legitimate to infer, that Spencerfs agnosticism rather

than Fiske fs deism would be held by many of the fliberals 1
who listened to Fiske, or who read his Cosmic Philosophy.
That Fiske fs preaching of the Spencerian philosophy had a
baleful effect upon religious persons and consequently,
upon Christian faith and the Christian dogmas seems quite
evident from the attacks made upon him by the denominational
press. He certainly helped to get a layman, Eliot, elected
to Harvard, and therefore, contributed to breaking the
clerical control over that institution and thus, Implemented
the movement for secular controlled schools which had

found such stalwart advocates, prior to this period, in men

like Jefferson, Horace Mann, and others. Fiske, also
implemented the movement for the introduction of scientific

subjects into the curriculum which also had its earlier

advocates in men like Franklin, Jefferson, George Combe,

Mann, and others. His advocacy of the elective principle

antedated Eliotfs use of it to get the sciences into the

L
 144

r i
curricula of the schools*
Like Fiske, Youmans was an avowed Spencerian, who
derived a deism from Spencer's agnosticism. Along with

Fiske, Youmans must be credited with presenting the phil­

osophy of Spencerian evolution to the American people and

in having it gradually accepted* He influenced students,

teachers, and the average man to accept Spencer's evolu­

tionary naturalism* There is no doubt that, along with

Fiske, he helped to weaken people's faith in the Christian

religion and in the Christian dogmas* He was certainly
the spearhead, on the popular front, of the movement to

give a place to the sciences in the curricula of the schools

on every level* He must also be credited with emphasizing
the Spencerian aim of utility in education and of having
this aim become more pronounced as a legitimate one of

education before his death* To Youmans must go much of the

' blame for the gradual loss of faith in the classics as valid

educational content* He did as much as any man to achieve

the realization of Spencer's educational aim and content

in the American school system*

Eliot, in the 1860's, according to his biographer, was

a Spencerian. At what time after his election to the

presidency of Harvard in 1869, he adopted the poetical

evolutionary naturalism of Emerson is not made clear either

by his own writings or by his biographer* It seems clear,

however, that before coming under the Influence of Emerson*

L -1.
 145

r l

he had been influenced in his rejection of Christianity by

Spencer; consequently he was an evolutionary naturalist#

There is no doubt that his educational views expressed in

the 1868 articles on the *New Education* were influenced by

pencer# Eliot argued for the Spencerian views on the need

for scientific education that would be practical and also
for scientific method in teaching#. Fiske, during the
period had, as others before him had, advocated the
&ective principle# Eliot adopted this principle for the
sole purpose of getting the ‘m o d e m subjects* particularly
the sciences introduced into the schools# The end,
scientific instruction, was Spencer*s end# The means
employed was not unknown before Eliot# Eliotfs later
insistence on non-authoritative teaching, self-help in
education, the value of the sciences over the classics, the
concrete as against the abstract, the simple to the complex
technique in learning, the appeal to the senses, and to
the discipline of natural consequences, health education,
physical culture, pleasurable learning, and drawing frcaa the
objects of nature, all these Spencerian principles can be
traced back to his articles of 1868, and from them to Spencer.

These views made their impact upon the American educational

system, particularly on the elementary and secondary school
levels, and Spencer thro ugh Eliot must be acknowledged as
contributing to their adoption.
On the college level, Eliot set the example for other

L -I
 146

r 1

institutions to follow when he introduced scientific

subjects and when he stressed both their practical value
and their discipline through the scientific method* He
also must be credited with helping to devalue the

classics as worthwhile educational content# Certainly,

some of his naturalistic views must be regarded as
deriving from Spencer, and tie se views influenced the
thinking of his collegues, of teachers, and of Americans

in general#
G. Stanley Hall was a Spencerian evolutionary
naturalist who accepted the materialistic alternative of
thought in Spencer’s agnosticism# through his teaching
positions at Antioch and Johns Hopkins, as well as

through his position as President of Clark University,

he helped to spread amongst his students, most of them
preparing for collegiate instruction, the Spencerian
philosophy and, especially, the Spencerian evolutionary

principle as applied to the mind. His ’genetic1 psychology

had a Spencerian foundation; in the 1890’s it was hailed
as the ’new psychology’ which influenced many of the
elementary and secondary school teachers. In addition to
these influences, Hall emphasized the value of the sciences
by the introduction of such courses in his curriculum at

Clark University# His child study programs with its

evolutionary philosophy was in vogue for some time in

American education. Further, Hall was mainly responsible

L
 147

r , i

for that amazing educational aberration of attempting

to apply literally the Culture Epoch Theory, the basis

for which was evolutionary.
Thus did Hall help to naturalize the child and
the school system, and through him, Spencer*s thought
on philosophy and on education took root,
Barnard also acknowledged the influence of Spencer fs
philosophy upon him* He was a Spencerian in his promotion

of the practical value of scientific studies# White acknowl­

edged Spencerfs influence upon him and credited Spencer with

being responsible for many of the educational changes that

took place in the schools, particularly, the introduction of
the sciences into the curricula and the scientific method
into education. He advocated Spencer*s views on the practi­
cal value of scientific education.
The two sociologists, Ward and Sumner, recognized that
Spencer*s evolutionary philosophy influenced them. They

both helped to introduce sociology into college curricula

by tb&ir pioneering work in that field, and they acknow­

ledged that Spencer*a philosophical and sociological views

were basic to the formulation and study of sociology.
Indirectly, therefore, Spencer contributed to introducing
sociology into the higher institutions* Sumner was in­

fluenced, it would seem, by Spencer*s arguments for the

sciences,

L _J
 148

CHAPTER V

THU INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF SPENCER’S THOUGHT ON AMERICAN

EDUCATION

The purpose of this chapter is to try to show the

indirect influence of Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary

naturalistic thought -on the aim and on the curriculum of

American education during the last half of the nineteenth

century. To accomplish this end certain facts and

conditions bearing upon American education are set forth

in the chapter. The reasons for their presentation and
their relevancy to the purpose of the chapter are indicat­

ed clearly throughout the chapter.

■To avoid unnecessary repetition the intimate connection

between the educational facts and conditions presented in

this chapter and the work and influence of Spencer’s

disciples described in the preceding chapter is referred
to only when deemed necessary. One should remember,
however, this intimate connection between the two
chapters, particularly when one is judging the validity

of the inference drawn from the educational facts and

conditions described in this chapter. The educational
facts and conditions presented in this chapter, in

general, show that some of the schools were becoming

practical in aim and scientific in content. This trend

in American education when viewed in the light of Spencer’s

L - J
 149

direct influence would seem to indicate that Spencer very

likely made his contribution to the aim and content of

American education. It is most assuredly not contended

that Spencer, and Spencer alone, was responsible for the

changes in the aim and in the content of the schools.

I'he naturalistic ethics of Spencer advocated by his

followers offered no principle of order, no principle of

restraint beyond the individual, and consequently, rugged

individualism had its day. Perhaps, nothing is more
apparent than the gradual emasculation of a recognized,
submitted to, principle of order during the period.
lohn i/ewey is no innovator in his affirmation of
education for science, industry, and democracy. He was
the intellectual heir to these slogans or the late nine­
teenth century. Youmans, Bliot, Hall, Barnard, White,

Fiske, Ward, and summer, all made their contributions to

the popularization or these terms and helped to show

their interdependence. i*he times demanded that these

terms be linked together.

I3hese men were the voice of Spencer in America and

made him, in their separate ways, the champion of science,
industry, and democracy. Ilhey were the outspoken

advocates of the value of science to industry, to

L J
 150

mankind, to democracy, A knowledge of science and

scientific method was useful for subduing, controlling,

and exploiting nature’s resources for the benefit of

mankind, and they would ask; was not democracy intended
to serve the interests of mankind?
Nothing is clearer in the educational history of the
latter part of the nineteenth century than the/i’aet that

the natural sciences were, in one form or another,

elementary or complex, introduced into the school system

from top to bottom. It is also very clear that the

subject matter of the sciences gradually came to mean less

in all the schools than the method of the sciences.

Scientific method emphasizing the training of the senses,

observation and experimentation, and where possible,

verification, became the method of education. The content

of science and its method were brought into the schools for

one dominating reason and that was for utility. If

Herbert Spencer had been the designer of the aim and the

curricula of the schools in this country, during this

period, he could not have desired much more than he had

asked for in his Education, He was not, of course, the

direct designer, but indirectly through the men he influenc­

ed he played a prominent part in designing the aim and the

curriculum of the schools. Going hand in hand with the

increase in scientific instruction in the schools La

increase in sectarianism in the schools. The ellr

St
 151

r n

of religious instruction and Bible reading in the schools

was symptomatic of the spirit of individualism, of loss

of respect for a central principle of authority, Spencer,

Youmans, Hall, and isliot particularly, as well as others

of lesser calibre, must be charged with creating, what

was called in the 1890's , the agnostic schoolhouse.

The educational chaos that obtained in the 1890's was

observed by the state superintendent of schools for Hew

York, A. S. Draper, who significantly remarked, "Speciali­

zation and experimentation are the order of the day. The
schools are sympathetic to this spirit,"1 In this educa­

tional confusion the Homan Catholic Church was not a party,

not having been a contributor to it. With her usual
prudence, generated by two thousand years of Experience,
guided by an infallible source of authority she did not
waver from her traditional course. This steadfastness
enabled her to distinguish between, what Bishop John

Lancaster Spalding called, means and ends in education.

Nature was not the source of all that exists for the

Church, God was the source of all that exists and so

with an admirable prudence and discretion the church

weighed the good and the bad in the 'New Bducaxion*

1, U.S, Commissioner of h’ducation Heport, 1889-1890.

Washington, D.C,, Government Printing Office, 1895,
Vol.11, p. 1168,

L
 152

and deliberately, but gradually, without fuss or furore,

introduced the valuable in the sciences sponsored by the

devotees of the movement. The Church, despite subtle and

overt criticism of her slowness in adopting the best

features of the TNew Education*, retained her ideal of

a Christian humanistic education for which she received

but scant praise when Irving Babbitt, a distinguished

critic of American life, and particularly of the *New

Education*, recognized in the Church the only principle

of order that could serve civilization. The sanity of

her educational position is tardily, but justly, being

recognized today by the efforts of the humanists in

education to get back to solid educational principles.

These men are, at last, beginning to recognize what

Babbitt recognized in 1908, namely, the "crying need of

a principle of r e s t r a i n t t o which he added that all

that the scientific and sentimental humanitarians could

offer was a scheme of training for service and training

for power. He recognized at that early date that society
was beginning to feel the impact of a brutal naturalism.2

Who was responsible for the confusion and naturalism

in American life at the end of the nineteenth century?

1. Irving Babbitt, Literature and the American College.

Boston, .Houghton Mifflin Co., 1908, p. 67.

L
 153

In his presidential address before the National Education

Association in July, 1895, significantly entitled 'What

knowledge is of Most Worth'? Nicholas Murray Butler

struck a note of optimism in analyzing the great confusion

in life and. in thought. He declared that amidst the

confusion a light has been steadily growing brighter for

those who had eyes to see. To whom he called the two

great masters of thought in the nineteenth century he gave

credit for placing "in our hands the guiding thread that

shall lead us through the labyrinth - the German, Hegel,

and the Englishman, Herbert Spencer.*’^ Butler then

rhapsodized on the superiority of these two over others

as representing the best and most earnest endeavors of

all those who were seeking for light in the darkness.

According to Butler, Spencer "formulated into a single

and irrefutable law of progress the terms of that
development and evolution which has been more or less

dimly before the mind of man since thought began.

Instead of attributing the confusion in thought and

in life to Spencer, Butler thought Spencer’s evolutionary

1. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1895-1896.

Washington, B.C., Government Printing Office, 1897, Vol.11,
p. 1314.
S. Ibid.. p. 1314.

L
 154

r 1

theory would clarify the confusion; he puts the cart

before the horse. In the same year and in the same

volume Dr* Gabriel Gompayre who represented the French

Ministry of Public Instruction at the Columbian Ex~

position in 1893 asserted significantly ^Critical

expositions of the doctrines of Stuart Mill and Spencer

have been published and scientific instruction is

thoroughly impregnated with the evolution theory.

In this chapter it is not contended that other educ­

ators and theorists did not have their influence on the

aim and the curriculum. To Froebel, Pestalozzi, Herbart,
Rousseau and others credit must be given for influencing

the content and methods of our system in various directions,

particularly, on the lower levels. To Spencer, at least

through his followers here, must be given an important

place in introducing science, the scientific method, and

utility as an aim in education, then it is remembered that

most of the men influenced by Speneer lived to see the

sciences introduced into some of the schools from top to bottom

and when it is remembered that they were perhaps the most

prominent group of educators and theorists espousing the

cause of the sciences from 1860 to 1890, then the

exposition now to be presented will be seen in its

relationship to Spencer’s indirect influence on the aim

1 . Ibid., p. 1167.
L -1
 155

and on the curriculum of the American schools*

that was the condition of the schools at the time

Spencer’s volume on education was published in this country?

The answer to this question, given here in brief form, will

serve as a basis of comparison for the remainder of the

material in this chapter dealing with Spencer’s indirect

influence on the aim and on the curriculum of the schools.

In practically all of the institutions from the

elementary school to the college the usual method of

instruction was, the text-book method. By 1860 the elemen­

tary school was preparing pupils for active life and also for

the public high schools. In general, the elementary school

did not include the sciences. Beading, writing, arithmetic,

grammar, geography, and orthography were the constants. The

public high school movement was well under way by 1860. The

aim of the-Mgh schools varied. Some adopted the practical

aim of the Boston English Classical School. Others adopted

the twofold aim of preparing for college or for practical

life. These latter schools tended gradually to emphasize

the collegiate aim over the preparation for life aim. This

is significant when considered in the light of the fact

that the American college in the I8601s was generally

dominated by the classical curriculum. The curriculum of

the high schools was made up of a wide variety of subjects.

Some of the schools did offer practical sciences, such as,

L _I
 156

r n
surveying, engineering, and navigation* There was little

natural science offered in most of the schools.

The ideal of liberal culture was the dominant aim of

the academy. The backbone of the whole system of instruc­

tion in the better academies was the college preparatory

course and the admission requirements of the colleges, in the

main determined their standards of scholarship. The academies

did make concessions to the times and taught certain branches

of natural science. In the study of the sciences the

speculative and liberal ideal ran alongside of the motive

of practical usefulness. Turning to the college one finds

that by 1860 eight subjects were required for admissionj

Latin, Greek, arithmetic, geography, English grammar,

algebra, geometry, and ancient history. No natural sciences

were required. In most general terms the aim of collegiate

instruction was to train gentlemen through mental and

moral discipline. The classical curriculum was emphasized

as the best means for such training. If one wanted a scientific

education one would have to attend the various scientific

schools, such as, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Sheffield

scientific school, Lawrence.scientific school, Chandler

school of science, or take the technological courses offered

by the University of Pennsylvania, or those offered by

Michigan and also by Union College at Schenectady.

Before 1860 there were no such institutions as graduate

L
 157

r n
schools and teachers* colleges. There were, however,

normal schools and teachers institutes. The curricula of the

normal schools, in general, were designed to instruct the

prospective teacher in those subjects taught in the elemen­

tary schools and in the high schools and there was little

emphasis placed upon the natural sciences. The teachers*

institute since Henry Barnard*s time emphasized general and

special preparation for teachers. The sciences were not

emphasized in the institutes.

It was because of the lack of scientific instruction in

the schools in 1860 that Spencer’s arguments for the sciences

impressed men like Youmans, Fiske, F.A.P. Barnard, Eliot and

others. In this connection it will be recalled that as

early as 1862, Atkinson, a friend of Eliot’s told the latter

that his appeal to the schoolmasters for help in giving

scientific subjects a place in the schools would not receive

much encouragment, because, "The schools are now in gear to

grind for the colleges. The teachers are college men who
can teach the classics well, but not science.”^ It was

because of this fact that Youmans engineered the great

assault on the college curriculum, dominated by the classics,

through the medium of the work sponsored b y him and

published in 1867 as The Culture Demanded by Modern Life.

1. Henry lames, Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard. 1869-

1909, New York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1930, Vol.l, p. 95.

L _j
 158

It will be recalled that F.A.P* Barnard contributed an

essay to this volume. There can be little doubt that

Spencer, Fiske, Youmans, Eliot and Barnard did much to

attack and to weaken the end and the content of the

liberal arts college in the 1860Ts and thereby help to

emphasize the need of scientific instruction on all the

levels of education. It will be remembered that Eliot

in the late 1860’s ridiculed the accepted aim of college

education when he asserted that the vulgar argument that

the classics were necessary to make a gentleman was

beneath contempt.

This summary digest indicates, in general terms, the

educational conditions in this country by 1860. The people

and the leaders of the people, particularly, were not

satisfied with these educational conditions* Kane expresses

very well what the people and the leaders were thinking when

he says in reference to Spencer;

He made articulate what millions of men
gropingly felt; their emotional revolt from the
teachings of the Christian religion, and from a
philosophy inspired and guided by Christianity;
their impatient despair over the apparent failure
of education, as hitherto conducted; and their
eager hope that, by concentrating its efforts on
the immediate, tangible affairs of life, mankind
with the magic aid of "science" might be able to
make our life on earth more comfortable - or, as
they would say, happier. Spencer’s work, fitted
in very well with the grandiose dreams of
"democracy" in education.3*

1. W. Kane, 3.J., An Essay Toward a History of Education.

Chicago, Loyola University Press, 1955, pp. 467-468.
 159

Spencer’s presentation of the case for science in

i
education aroused widespread comment. A new concept of

liberal education was formulated as adjustment to life and

it found expression in the rapid introduction of science-

study into the curriculum of the elementary schools, the

secondary schools, and the colleges before the end of the

century.^ Spencer’s influence on these schools will be con­

sidered in the order mentioned.

That the arguments for the sciences made in the 1860’s
by Spencer, Youmans, Barnard, Fiske, and Eliot, and referred

to in the last chapter made some impact on American

educational theory is indicated by a series of-questions

that the U.S. Commissioner of Education formulated in 1870

and addressed to three thousand persons representing ’’every

class in every section of the c o u n t r y . T h e general

point the Commissioner was trying to establish was that
common school education improved one’s capacity to be a

more productive worker. Workmen, employers, and qualified

observers were questioned. The Commissioner summed up the

results of the inquiry and asserted that all those questioned

agreed, in the main, that a common school education

positively increased the worker’s value to the community and

1. Cf. Ellwood P. Cubberly, Public Education in the United

States, Boston, Houghton Mifflin C o . , 1934, p. 471.
2. John Eaton, Jr., Report of the Commissioner of Education.
for the Year 1870, Washington, Government Printing Office,
1870, p. 39.
 160

r T

his own power as a producer*'*' He then observes that which

is more pertinent to our purpose: ”That a knowledge of

the sciences that underlie the occupation gives greatly

increased value to their possessor as a laborer is agreed

on all hands *..

The common citizen, according to the Commissioner,

pleads for nartisan, industrial, and scientifie schools, as

a part of the common school system - a plea based upon the

economic value to the state of such training to its

citizens*.“3

Briefly stated the aim of the common schools should

be practical and the sciences were conceived as valid

means for achieving this aim. The connection between

what Spencer advocated and what was being advocated here

in 1870 is obvious. Even in the early seventies little

change was made in the elementary school curriculum in the

direction of Spencer's proposals. Nevertheless, there does

appear an authoritative statement4 concerning the elementary

school aim and concerning the content of elementary school

i- p. 5i.
15id*, p. 51.
3* ^5id.* p. 52.
4. Of. A Statement of the Theory of Education in the United
States of America, as Annroved by Many Leading Educators.
. Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, 1874.

L _J
 161

r n

education that might be construed as showing the influence

of Spencer’s thought upon the elementary school.

The purpose of the public elementary school in this

country after the Civil War was clearly formulated in 1872

and published in 1874, This document was prepared so that

it could "be signed generally by the educators of the country

as a declaration of their sentiments."i More than seventy

leading educators throughout the country indicated their

approval of the content of A Statement of the Theory of

Iducation in the United States of America. Among the

signers were college and university presidents, for

example, F.A.P. Barnard and Andrew D. White* In addition,

city and state superintendents of schools, secretaries of

state boards of education, and normal school principles

affixed their signatures

The language employed to denote the purpose of

elementary education is strikingly similar to Spencer’s.

The statement contended that the course of study was

designed to give to the elementary school pupil "the

readiest and most thorough practical command of those

conventialities of intelligence, those arts and acquirements

which are the means of directive power and of further self-

education.

1. Ibid., p. 4.
Ibid•> PP* 20-22.
3. Ibid., p. 14.
L _J
 162

This report continues with the declaration that by

such preliminary educational means the minds of the pupils

are opened in two opposite directions. These two were;

(a) the immediate mastery over the material world,
for the purpose of obtaining food, clothing, and
shelter, directly; (b} the initiation into the
means of association with one’s fellow-men, the
world of humanity.^
According to those educators the elementary school

should dedicate itself to the practical end of providing

the pupils with the means for securing the necessities

of life in order that the pupils could be successful in

life and contribute to the nation’s welfare.

To say the least there is a striking resemblance

between this authoritative definition of the purpose of

elementary schooling and the general aim of education as

proposed by Spencer. There is recognition in the aim,

approved by the educators, of the necessity of training

pupils for direct and indirect self-preservation and also

for those activities the pupil needs in his social and

political relations. Preparation for life was the aim of

these educators and of Spencer.

Whereas in 1860 the natural sciences had no place in the

common school curriculum the educational statement of 1874

1* Ibid., pp. 14-15.

L
 163

r n

indicates that, at least in the city school systems, the

rudiments of natural science were taught. Physiology,

hygiene, and biology, in general, had no place in the

curriculum at that time.

By 1890 the constants and variables of the elementary

school curriculum were natural science, reading, writing,

English grammar, arithmetic, geography, United States

history, drawing, vocal music, and declamation. By the

same year most of the important school systems had added

spelling, physiology, and physical culture.-*- These last

two subjects Spencer considered necessary in order to

make good, healthy animals.

In February, 1893, a committee was appointed by the

department of superintendence of the National Educational

Association to report on the training of teachers; on the

correlation of studies in elementary education; and on the
organization of the city school systems. This committee

became known as the Committee of Fifteen.^

Among other things, the report of the subcommittee on
the correlation of studies in elementary education made

certain suggestions and proposals which are quite relevant

1. Of. William T. Harris, "Elementary Education”, Education

in the United States. Nicholas Murray Butler, E. , New York,
American Book Co., 1910, pp. 33-35.
£• Cf. Report of the Commission of Education. 1895-1894.
Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1896, Vol.
1, pp. 469-470.

L -I
 164

r i

to this study. -The subcommittee emphasized that it

eoneeived the end of any program of correlating subjects

to be one that should give the child such studies that he

would acquire "an insight into the world he lives in and

a command over its resources such as is obtained by a

helpful cooperation with one*s fellows.**1 The aim of

elementary education, as conceived by this committee,

should be utilitarian.

According to the Committee, "In an age whose proudest

boast is the progress of science in all domains, there

should be in the elementary school, from the first, a

course in the elements of sciences.”2 Eliot, in about

the same language, had expressed the- idea some years

previous. The committee suggested the teaching of botany,

zoology, and physics in a manner appropriate for the child's

understanding. Lessons in physiology and hygiene were also

recommended as parts of the natural science program.

Physical culture was also advocated. Although it was rec­

ognized that the scientific method was inappropriate for the
elementary level, yet, the value of it was acknowledged and

the broad lines for future use should be started in the

elementary school.3

I* Ibid., p. 490.
2. Ibid., p. 510.
3. Ibid., p. 518.

L
 165

r 1

Thus, by the end of the century the case made for the

sciences by Spencer and his disciples, as well as by others,

unquestionably influenced, at least indirectly, the aim

and the content of the elementary school.

The method employed in the elementary school in 1860,

in 1874 and in 1900 was the text-book method. In 1874 the

text-book was used by the pupil "for the purpose of

obtaining information from the recorded experience of his

f e l l o w - m e n . I n 1900 W.T. Harris admitted that about

fifty percent of the teachers in the village and elementary

schools used fmemoriterf methods in text-books teaching and,

therefore, should be considered poor teachers. However,

there were many good teachers who used the text-book so that
"The pupil is taught to assume a critical attitude towards

the statements of the book and to test and verify them, or

else disprove them by appeal to other authorities, or to
actual e x p e r i m e n t s . "2 By the end of the century, therefore,

many elementary school teachers were applying scientific

methods to their subject matter. Spencer, along with others,

made his contributions in this respect.

1. A Statement of the Theory of Education in the United States,

p. 17.
S. Harris, op.cit.. p. 87.

L
 166

r -i

Did Spencer influence the aim and the curriculum of

the public high school? The Commissioner of Education's

report of 1870 indicated a demand that both the elementary

and the high' school become more practical and that this

manifested a close approximation to the Spencerian aim of

education cannot be doubted. Further, by 1874, the high

schools included some of the sciences within their

curricula and their purpose was frankly utilitarian.

The ease for the sciences as presented by Spencer,

Eliot, Barnard, Youmans, and the like made a great

impression, particularly, in the West. The colleges and

high schools reflected in their curricula the impact of

their arguments. For example, the state universities in

their desire to unite the secondary schools with their in-

stitutions adopted the plan of admission by certificate.

The modern subjects these institutions recognized as qual­

ifying for admission indicates the fact that by 1880 the

rz
sciences were being taught in the high schools. By that year

Michigan accepted six sciences; Illinois, three sciences; Iowa,

eight sciences; Wisconsin, five sciences; Minnesota, six;

1. Of. A Statement of the Theory of Education in the United

States, pp. 14-16.
2. Gf. Joseph Henderson, Admission to College by Certificate.
New York, Teachers College, Columbia University Press,
1912, p. 92.
3. Ibid., p. 89.

L -I
 167

r T
./

Ohio, four sciences* In this connection, Henderson observes

that "The minutes of the faculties record that contests

over the admission of new subjects occurred but that the

more liberal views p r e v a i l e d * T h e most potent factor in

admitting the modern subjects, languages and sciences,

"was the desire to adjust the entrance requirements to high

p
school conditions.”^ Not only did the state universities
help to promote the cause of science teaching but also did

other agencies.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science

in 1879 appointed a committee to investigate the question of

science teaching in the public school. Edward L, Youmans
was a leading member of this committee. The committee

condemned the method employed in the science teaching of the

day. The members advocated the scientific method of study

by the pupils. The methods in use in teaching the sciences
were condemned because "they were not made the means of

cultivating the observing powers, stimulating inquiry,

exercising judgment in weighing evidence, nor of forming

%
original and independent habits of t h o u g h t . I n connection

1* Ibid., p. 90*
E. Ibid., p. 90.
3. Gf. John P. Campbell, "Biological Teaching in the Colleges
of the United States” , Bureau of Education, Circular of
Information« No. 9. Washington, B.C., Government Printing
Office, 1891, p. 119.

L
 168

f" -i

with this it might be pointed out that Youmansf champion­

ship of the sciences continued well into the 18801s.

The American Society of Naturalists in pursuance of

its general aim to build up the methods of science teaching

appointed a-committee in 1887 to formulate a plan for
teaching the natural sciences which could be suggested to

the schools. The appointed committee reported its results

in 1888 and advocated that natural science be begun in the

primary schools and continued throughout all the grades of

the educational system. The materials should be presented

through object lessons. Systematic instruction of a

better calibre n... ought to be given in the high schools.
At least a fair acquaintance with one branch of natural

science should be required for admission to college.”!

Shortly after this, the same society circularized the

colleges of the country asking them to take steps to make
some scientific subject part of their entrance requirement.2

The suggestions of these various committees were taken

seriously by the members of the Committee of Fifteen and by

the personnel of the .Committee of Ten. It must be

remembered in this connection, that Youmans was on the
committee appointed in 1879 by the American Association for

the Advancement of Science.

1. Ibid.. p. 120.
2* Ibid,, p. 120.

L _l
 169

r -i

In 1889-1890, the Commissioner of Education reported

202,963 students in 2526 public secondary schools*1 There

were 7984 boys and 6915 girls who were registered in the
p
college classical course.* The total number was 14,899.

The number preparing for the college scientific course

totaled 14, 320 pupils; 6946 were boys and 7374 were girls*?

Of this total 8116 were in high schools in the Northwest

where the classical curriculum had not secured a firm

foothold on the public high schools before 1860 and where

the state universities," through certification, encouraged

the teaching of modern languages and sciences in the schools.

At least, it is certain that they assisted in developing

them when they were once introduced.4

The confusion in the elementary schools and in the

secondary schools in the early 1890fs helped to bring into

existence the Committee of Fifteen and the Committee of Ten.

In 1893 the Committee of Ten on secondary school

subjects, appointed by the National Educational Association

in July of 1892, made its report.5

The Committee agreed that physics and chemistry should

be given in the secondary schools; and that under natural

1. Gf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Rerort, 1889-1890.

Vol.11, p. 1392.
2. Ibid*, p. 1389.
3. Ibid*. p. 1389.
4. Henderson, on.cit.. p. 98.
5. Cf. XUS* Commissioner of Education Reuort. 1892-1893.
Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1895, Vol.
L 11, pp. 1415-1446. -1
 170

r i

history should be placed descriptive astronomy, meteorology,

botany, zoology, physiology, geology, and ethnology as

proper subjects for the secondary school.^ It was contended

by the sub-committees that drew up their reports on the

natural sciences that one-fourth of the time spent in

secondary school should be devoted to the natural sciences.

The main committee, however, advocated that one-fifth

of the school time be given over to the study of natural

science,*5 The intent of the Committee of Ten was to have

programs of study so arranged that no decision be made by

the pupil until the third year as to what course he was

to pursue for the subsequent two y e a r s . L a b o r a t o r y work

as the method to be pursued in the natural sciences was

recommended by the Committee.*5
The Committee seemed to endorse the theory that for

purposes of general education one subject was as good as

another,6 All the members signed the Committee report, but

Charles W. Eliot, the chairman of the Committee, wrote the

report.*^ The implication in the report that all studies

1. Ibid., p. 1435.
2. Ibid., P- 1437.
3. Ibid.. P* 1438.
4. Ibid.. p. 1440.
5. Ibid., PP . 1444--1445.
6• Ibid., P* 1439.
7. Ibid., P. 1446; pp. 1420-1421

L _l
 171

r -]

were of equal rank in mental training was objected to by a

member of the Committee, James H. Baker, President of the

University of Colorado. He held that 11 If I rightly

understood, the majority of the committee rejected the

theory of equivalence of studies for general education.

He pointed out, and rightly so, that studies vary in

value for the different mental powers. The emphasis in the

report upon the necessity for sense-training in things is
indicated by the criticism of Baker, he asserts:

The training of ”observation, memory, expression,

and reasoning* (inductive) is a very important part
of education, but is not all of education. The
imagination, deductive reasoning, the rich pos­
sibilities of emotional life, the education of the
will through ethical ideas and correct habits, all
are to be considered in a scheme of learning.^
He adda significantly: "Ideals are to be added to
scientific method.

It is clear from reactions to the report that the

proposal to give natural science so much time would be op­

posed by many-people. Nicholas Murray Butler after

tabulating the amount of time to be given to language,

history, mathematics, and natural science in the various

programs over the four years, tried to soothe the fears of

objectors. He remarked:

1* ibid., p. 1447.
2. Ibid., p. 1447.
3. Ibid., p. 1447.

L
 172

No scheme can he called radical that proposes

to give 52.3 percent of all secondary education
whatsoever to language study, or, adding history
62.8 percent to the humanities.

The Committee of Ten make it very clear that the main

function of the secondary schools was not conceived to be

preparation of pupils for college but "to prepare for the

duties of life."2

Eliot in order to bolster the principles underlying the

report of the Committee of Ten read a paper called "The Unity

of Educational Reform" before the American Institute of

Instruction in 1894. He urged an adoption of various prin­

ciples which he alleged were applicable in education from

the kindergarten to the university. After referring to the

relatively recent introduction into the schools of "object

lessons in color and form, drawing and modeling, natural

geology, and various kinds of manual training"4 he declared

that the old methods of teaching by illustrated books and

demonstrative lectures has been superseded from the kinder­

garten to the university "by the laboratory method, in

which each pupil, no matter whether he be 3 years old or

23, works with his own- hands and is taught to use his own

1. Ibid.. p. 1453; 1456.

., p. 1444.
3. Ibid., pp. 1465-1473.
4.. Ibid., p. 1466.

L _J
 173

f i

senses,"'*' This method of individual instruction, the

laboratory method, for all education, from kindergarten to

the university, according to Eliot "should be the steady

2
aim and the central principle of educational policy."

Eis seGond main principle reiterated what he conceived

the aim of all types of education to be. He says: "An

education which does not produce in the pupil the power of

applying theory or putting acquisitions into practice, and

of personally using for productive ends his disciplined

3
faculties, is an education which has missed its main end,"
Anent this practical aim, he stated that education was no

longer content with a variety of useful or ornamental types

of information, or with cultivating aesthetic taste or the

critical faculty in literature or art. He practically takes

credit for the development of the practical aim in American

education, when he says, and one must bear in mind that in

1894 he had been President of Harvard for twenty five years,

"A considerable change in the methods of education has been

determined during the past twenty five years by the general

recognition of the principle that effective power in action

Ibid,. p, 1466.
2* Ibid.. p. 1467.
3. Ibid.. p. 1468.

L -I
 174

r 1

is: the true end of education, rather, than the storing up of

information or the cultivation of the faculties which are

mainly receptive, discriminating, or critical."^

Were not Eliot’s arguments for science, scientific

method, and utility the main points in Spencer’s educational

creed? One is referred hack to the preceding chapter to

the remark made hy Henry James concerning Spencer*s influence

upon Eliot. There, it was pointed out that James asserted

that the influence of Spencer could he seen:

When the student of Eliot’s record examines almost
any piece of work that he undertook ...2

The Commissioner of Education in his report for 1903

stated that the standards recommended by the Committee of

Ten had been, during the ten year period, gradually approached

hy the high schools. The.number of public high schools had

increased from 2,526 in 1890 to 6800' in 1903. The student

population for the same years increased from 202,963 to 592,

213. Of the students 30,860 were enrolled in the classical
course preparing for college and.27,280 were preparing for

the college scientific course.^

1* Ibid.. pp. 1467-1468.

2. Henry James, Charles ¥. Eliot, Vol.l, p. 351.
3. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Heuort. 1905. Washington,
B.C.* Government Printing Office, 1904, Vol.11, p. 1815.
4. Ibid., •x>. 1816.

L -I
 175

Only 5940 schools out of the total 6800 reported

students in Latin. Only 877 schools reported students in

Greek.^
It is clear from these figures that by the end of the

century, Spencer*& work had been done well by his followers.

The agitation for scientific study started by Spencer

and continued by his followers here affected not only the

public schools but also the private secondary schools. All

the agencies mentioned in connection with the introduction

of scientific instruction and scientific method into the

elementary school and into the high school naturally made

their impact upon the private secondary schools. That this

must have been true is indicated by the report that 1,632

private secondary schools made to the Commissioner of
Education for the year 1889-1890. There was a total of

16,649 students preparing for the college classical course

and 9,649 preparing for the college scientific course.^

By 1901-1902 the figures for 1835 schools indicate that

courses preparing for the scientific curriculum in the colleges

were increasing in popularity; 11,212 students were reported

Ihid., p. 1816..
2. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Benort. 1889-1890.Yol.
11, pp. 1486-1487.

L _l
 176

r ~i

in such courses whereas only 14,362 were reported in the

college classical preparatory course.^* The influence of

Eliot’s work in the report of the Committee of Ten is

indicated in the 1901-1902 figures.

The liberal arts college in 1360 prescribed a regular

four years course of study. The course consisted of Latin,

Creek, mathematics, and these were followed by the elements

2
of mental and moral philosophy. At the completion of the
course the degree of bachelor of arts was conferred upon

the students. Writing in 1867 Youmans argued that the

system of culture prevailing in the country’s higher insti­

tutions was really limited to the acquisition of mathematics

and the ancient languages and literature. To him and to

others, as it was shown in the preceding chapter, this type

of training was inadequate for the conditions of the time.

He wrote at that time that since the highest use of knowledge

was for guidance "it is insisted that our Collegiate

establishments shall give a leading place to those subjects

of study which will afford a better preparation for the

duties and work of the age in which we live."®

The colleges by 1874 did make additions to its curricula

1. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1902, Washington,

B.C., Government Printing Office, 1903, Yol.il, p. 1667.
2. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report, 1889-1890. .Vol.
11, p. 756.
3. E.L.Youmans, The Culture Demanded by Modern Life. New
York, D,Appleton Co., 1871, p. 2.

L
 177

r n
and usually for the purpose of making their offerings more

practical. Besides offering Latin, Greek, mathematics, men­

tal and moral philosophy they began to give courses in French

and German. Courses were also offered in the "general

technics of the natural sciences and also of the social and

political sciences, belles-lettres and universal history."^-

Pressures exercised by high school and academy men as

well as strictures levelled against the colleges by Barnard,

Eliot, and Youmans made possible the loosening of the

entrance requirements to the A.B. course. Michigan accepted

Modern History in 1869; physical geography was accepted by

Michigan and Harvard in 1870; English composition was

accepted by Princeton in 1870; physical science was approved

by Harvard in 1872 as well as English literature and the

modern languages in 1874 and 1875, respectively.

Harvard1s example in accepting the physical sciences,

English literature, and the modern languages was in F.A.P.

Barnard’s mind one that all the colleges would have to

follow. Not only did Eliot loosen the entrance requirements

to Harvard but he advocated and practiced the principle of

election of studies. The elective principle was an expedient

means used by Eliot to introduce the natural sciences and

the modern' subjects into the curriculum. This action "of

1. A*Statement of the Theory of Education in the United States,

p. 17. -

L
 178

r 1

Harvard in offering electives to students was naturally

followed by other institutions.”^

Shortly after Eliot introduced the elective system

into Harvard, another Spencerian made his plea for the

study of science.
President Andrew D. Tftiite of Cornell University in an

address before the Department of Superintendence of the

National Educational Association in 1874^ spoke on scientific

and industrial education and the true policy of the national

and state governments in regard to it. He complained about

the class distinction obtaining between college scientific

students and the college student of the classics. He

criticized President McCosh of Princeton for condemning the

efforts made by Congress and the states to promote scientific

and industrial education. White stated that scientific

and industrial education was producing results that were

better than those obtained by the old classical curriculum.^

He condemned text-book teaching of the natural sciences and

advocated, among other things, the"laboratory method.4 The

1. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1889-1890. Vol.

11, p. 759.
£. Cf. U.S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information., N o .
1, Proceedings of the Department of Superintendence of the
N.E.A., ?fashington, D.U., Government Printing Office, 1874,
pp. £7-41.
3. Ibid.. p. 36.
4 * Ibid.. p. 37.

L
 1 7 9

last chapter indicated what White thought of Spencer’s

influence on American education and need not he repeated

here*

A tabulation of one hundred-courses of study used in

the colleges and universities of the country by 1888-1889

appears in the Commissioner of Education’s report for that

year.^ The courses of study establish conclusively that

the natural sciences had been introduced in some form or

other into these institutions* Practically all of the
schools gave courses in physics and chemistry* Ninety-one
courses of study indicated that biological science in some

branch was being taught**'

By 1890 it could be reported that the system of a

prescribed inflexible course of instruction had been
abolished by the greater part of all the institutions and

that considerable latitude in the matter of choice of

studies was allowed. The reason assigned for the adoption

of the elective system was attributed to the demand for

instruction in scientific studies as well as instruction in

the old classical curriculum.u

In the older portions of the country, namely, in the

North and South Atlantic States the classical curriculum

1* Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Reuort. 1888-1889,

Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1891, Vol.
11, pp. 1224-1361. Gives one hundred courses of study in
colleges and universities.
2. Ibid., pp. 1294-1361.
L 3. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report, 1889-1890, ^
Vol. 11, p. 756.
 180

r i
continued, desplt'e attacks upon it by the enthusiasts for

science study, to exercise its hold upon college students

while in the more recently settled regions "more attention

is given to the sciences and courses of study in which the

ancient classics seldom find a place."!

That the case for science had been heard and accepted

by college administrators and college students sometime

before the end of the century can be ascertained from the

following figures obtained by the Commissioner of Education

from the various colleges for the year 1886-1887.2
In 1886-1887, 360 colleges had a total enrollment of

41,906 students; 60 percent were reported in regular degree

courses. They were distributed as follows: classical course,
60 percent; scientific course, 22 percent; classical and

scientific, 8 percent; other degree courses, 8 percent.3

These figures not only show that the classical ’course
**
had to make room for the sciences in the colleges but that

the college curricula underwent considerable differentiation

to make room for other modern subjects besides the natural

sciences.
It will be recalled that the assault on the classics, as

!• Ibid.. p. 772.
2. Ibid., p. 775.
3. Ibid.. p. 773.

L -1
 181

r -[

the staple of collegiate training, made its first significant

appearance in this country with the publication of Spencer’s

work on Education. Youmans followed this attack with his

The Culture Demanded by Modern Life and with his various

articles on the scienee versus classics controversy in the

Popular Science Monthly. Eliot opened the door wide to the

science studies beginning in 1872. His example was followed

by other institutions. The elective system and the certif­

icate system enabled the sciences to get a hearing in the

colleges. There can be no doubt of Spencerfs part in

influencing, at least indirectly, the aim and the curriculum

of the American college. Gharles F. Thwing, an authority on
the American college, observed the materialistic tendencies

of the colleges in the country just at the turn of the

century.'*’ That utility and scientific method helped to

naturalize the colleges seems to be quite clear. In this

Spencer also made his indirect contribution.

According to Foerster the state universities "were

primarily organs for the exploitation of a continent by a

race of pioneers.“2 They gradually developed into a fairly

definite type of institution and Foerster declares that this

type was best exemplified in the Middle West.

1* Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1905. Yol.l,

pp. 293-312.
2. Herman Foerster, The American State University. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1932, p. 27.

L
 18 S

r T

Did the state universities experience, the impact for

the demand for more instruction in science? That they did

is a fact which is clearly demonstrated by the required or

accepted subjects for admission which developed over a

period of thirty years, 1870-1900. This is made manifest

in the records for eight state universities.

With respect of the entrance requirements established

by these state universities Henderson says that:

Starting with Latin, Greek, Mathematics, a little
English and a little History, admission subjects
advanced to include the Modern Languages, the
Sciences and finally, in some institutions, the
vocational subjects ...1

A1though new subjects were added to the admission

requirements there was some opposition raised in the

faculties to this liberal policy.^ The controversy over

science and the classics was waged in the West as well

as in the East.
That there were members of the State university faculties

who displayed a favorable attitude toward the ancient

languages was observed by Henderson. He declared that

about 1890, "There was some tendency, as noted in Missouri

and Texas, to force ancient languages, especially Latin,

upon the s c h o o l s . A t Michigan in 1887, "The question of

1 . Henderson, on.cit., p. .87.

2 . Ibid., p. 90.
3. Ibid., p. 68.

L
 183

adding certain science subjects to the list to be accepted

for entrance caused heated debates in the faculty*

Turning to the specific requirements for admission in

eight state universities in the West, namely, Michigan,

Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, and

Wisconsin, it is possible to indicate the years in which

these institutions accepted the natural sciences.

For purposes of greater clarity the natural sciences

will be treated under three heads; biological science, ,

physical science, and the earth sciences.

The required or accepted studies in the biological
sciences for admission to the various state universities
were decided upon at the various dates between 1870-1900.^

Mich* Minn. Mo. 111. Ind. la* 0. Wis.

Biology 1891 ---- 1894 1899 ---- ---- ----

Botany 1873 1876 1888 1873 1891 1870 1880

Physiology 1879 1876 1889 1873 1875 1876 1880
Zoology 1873 1897 1887 1893 1891 1879 ----

The required or accepted studies in the physical

sciences for admission to the various state universities

were decided upon at the various dates between 1870-1900.^

1. Ibid., p. 64.
2. Ibid., p. 85.
3. Ibid., p. 85.

L J
 184

Mich. Minn. Mo. 111. Ind. la. 0. Wis.

Physics 1873 1876 1880 1873 1891 1870 1880 1874

Chemistry 1879 1880 1888 1893 1891 1870 1896 ----

The required or accepted studies in the earth sciences for

admission to the various state universities were decided upon

at the various dates between 1870-1900.^

Mich. Minn. Mo. 111. Ind. la. 0. fis.

Geology 1873 1876 ---- 1899 1894 1879 1894 1871

Phys. Geog. 1891 1876 1889 1893 ---- 1877 1880 1870

Astronomy 1891 1876 ---- 1893 ---- 1876 1894 1894

It is clear what effect such admission requirements would

have on the lower schools. Through the certificate system the

state universities encouraged the modern languages and the

sciences in the schools. Of course, many men on the

administrative staffs and on the faculty had been trained in

the East where the classical curriculum had flourished and they
c
helped, a bit, to stem the tide toward the utilitarian subjects.
However, it is certainly clear that Spencer made his

indirect contribution to the introduction of science and to the

establishment of the utilitarian aim in the state universities

before the end of the century.

After the Civil War many factors contributed to promote

graduate work in this country,. The establishment of land

1. Ibid., p. 85.
2. Foerster, op.cit.. p. 25.

L _l
 185

r t

grant colleges and state universities and the supporting of

> those already established was promoted by the Morrill Act

of 186E. There were scientific schools in existence before

the Civil War, as was observed and after the War they took
on a new lease of life. Harvard under Eliot, Cornell under

White, Johns Hopkins under D.C. Gilman, and then later,

Clark University under Hall, all; played important parts

in advancing graduate' school work with its emphasis upon

research for the purpose of making practical use of its

findings.^

In 1870-1871, there were only 44 students registered in

American colleges for graduate work. In 187E-1873 the number

had increased to £19. By 1899 the number had increased to

1343.2

To Johns Hopkins under Daniel C. Gilman goes a great

deal of credit for developing the graduate work in the

country which emphasized creative work and discovery. Eliot

did much in the same direction and so did G. Stanley Hall

in his planning of Clark University which was designed for

«
graduate students only. Hall, as was observed, taught at

Hopkins shortly after that institution opened its doors.

1. Cf. W. Carson Ryan, Jr., "Notes on Some Pioneer Efforts in

Graduate Education**, The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching. 3£nd Annual Report, 1937. pp.
8Q-82.
2. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report, 1889-1890.
Vol.11, p. 819.

L J
 186

He was at that time an avowed Spencerian and believed that

philosophy should create open-mindedness. At Clark his

curriculum was top heavy with the sciences and there

emanated from Clark much of the new evolutionary point of

view in psychology. It will be remembered that Hall thought

that prospective teachers, and he was training many, should

have a good knowledge of Darwin, Spencer, and Haeckel.

That graduate study from 1870 to 1900 concentrated upon

science, scientific method, and the practical is the case*

White, Barnard, Eliot, and Hall, all helped to promote

directly this movement and Spencer helped indirectly to
influence the movement, and according to A.E. Winship,

editor of the Journal of Education, writing-in 1904,

"Every flush of life and flash of light that reinvigorates

the university of today is due to the rays that purpled

the dawn when Herbert Speneer said: "Let there be light

in every nook and corner of the educational world."1
Turning to the training and preparation for teachers it

becomes evident that in the late 1860*3 there was agitation

for improvement in the-quality and quantity of instruction

by more strict examination and certification methods.

Suggestions were made for a national certificate but this

method did not prevail. Complaints were' made about the

1. A.E. Winship, "Herbert Spencer as an Educational Force",

N.E,A., Journal of Proceedings and Addresses. 1904,
Chicago, N.E.A,, 1904, p. 231.
 187

r “i
elementary character of the instruction in the various

institutions for the training of teachers down to 1895,

Superintendent Draper of New York complained in 1888;!

"both the Committees of Ten and Fifteen argued for better

instruction in the fields that the elementary and

secondary school teachers would be required to teach,

Eliot, at that time, recommended that teachers specialize.

During the period from 1895-1905 many efforts'were made to

increase the length of the training period for teachers.
During that time most of the normal schools were still

admitting elementary school graduates but some required

p
graduation from high school.

The Report of the Committee on Normal Schools of the

N.E.A. in 1899 outlined what it considered was an ideal

curriculum for training teachers for the elementary school.

It also set the standard of high school graduation for

admission.^ This suggested course for the normal schools

included many of the subjects recommended by Spencer. The

natural sciences and the political and social sciences were

emphasized. Genetic psychology was one of the subjects

1. Cf. I. P. Gordy, nRise and Growth of the Normal School Idea

in the United States”, U.S* Bureau of Education, Circular
of Information, No.8, Washington, D.C., Government
Printing Office, 1891.
2. Cf. Edward C. Class, Prescription and Election in
Elementary School Teacher*s Training Curricula in State
Teachers Colleges. New Yor£, Teachers College, Columbia
University Press, 1931, p. 23.
3. ibid., p. 25.

L
 188

recommended and it was, of course, evolutionary psychology.

That Spencer*s work on Education was known in the

better class of normal schools by the end of the century

seems quite probable. That this would seem to be the case

is indicated by John W. Gook the President of Northern

Illinois State Normal School of De Kalb, Illinois. Referring

to Spencer*s educational essays he says that they make

so noteworthy a contribution to pedagogical literature that
to confess ignorance of them is to acknowledge unfamiliarity

with what every fairly informed teacher is assumed to know.-1'

Commenting on the emphasis Spencer placed upon scientific
studies Cook observes that Spencer*s advice was most

important for the times since the "age is essentially

scientific.-- This is but another way of saying that educated

mind has stripped itself of the last vestige of that
supernaturalism which has made men cowards and kept them

so through all the long cycles of e v o l u t i o n . T h i s language

is clear enough; Cook*s speech was delivered before the

National Educational Association*s department of super­

intendence in 1904. W. Rose at the same meeting took part

in the symposium on Herbert Spencer and declared he thought

1. John W. Cook, "Herbert Spencerfs Four Famous Essays,"

N.E.A., Journal of Proceedings and Addresses. 1904, p. 224>
lbid., p. 225.

L
 189

it was proper to have the assembled body of educators honor

Spencer not only for his educational essays but for the

contribution that came "from his system of thought as a whole.

Here again, it is the genetic method and the larger

synthetic view that have been e f f e c t i v e . H e then goes

on to attribute to Spencer’s influence the impulse one

will see given to the neiir psychology in the early 1890 Ts

under the leadership of G, Stanley Hall. He says:

The abstract child of the older psychology, with
its equipment of abstract faculties to be
artificially developed, has, in response to the
genetic method and the larger synthesis, given
place to the concrete child frankly recognized as a
living organism, with a past and a future, carrying
on its life-proeesses, like the plant, as a member of
a life-colony, and under conditions of environment
■ which set for it practical problems-to be.met and
solved.2

There can be little doubt that Spencer’s evolutionary

psychological views as well as his views on the sciences

made their indirect impact upon the normal schools of the

country from the last decade of the nineteenth century

and they contributed to naturalize both the child and the

educative process.

Now to consider certain subjects in the schools before

1900. These subjects of biology, sociology, and psychology,

1. Ibid., p. 234.
2* Ikid., pp. 234-235.

L -I
 190

toward the end of the century take on great significance for

this study. Biology teaching on the university and college

levels was fairly well organized by 1890.^* The aim was

practical and the courses usually emphasized scientific

methods. The state university played a large part in this

2
as well as in getting biological sciences into the schools.

That some of the colleges were teaching the biological

sciences from the evolutionary point of view is evident

from the texts used in 35 out of 91 courses of studies in

the colleges-.® Gray’s and Huxley’s texts were used and

these two men were, as is well known, evolutionists.

The failure on the part of the Committee of Ten to

recommended biology as a science subject was considered by

Hall to be a great injustice to the students. His

observation that the churches were responsible gives some

idea of what biology meant in the 1890’s.

Toward the end of the century many of the colleges

were using the evolutionary principle as the unifier in the

study of biology.4 Biological teaching in the colleges by

1. Campbell, op.cit., pp. 168-171.

2. Ibid.. p. 115.
5. Cf. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1888-1889. Yol.
11, pp. 1294-1361.
4. Cf. George E. Nelson, The Introductory Biological Sciences
in the Traditional Liberal Arts College. New York, Teachers
College, Columbia University Press, 1931, p. 7.

L -J
 191

r 1

the turn of the century was definitely evolutionary in

character and it must he considered as tending to naturalism.

Most assuredly, Darwin played a part in influencing the

method and the content of the biological sciences, but there

is no doubt that Spencer made his contribution to biological

courses of study, and particularly, to the practical

character of such study. For example, in 1903, W. Rose,

professor of education at the University of Tennessee, in

a symposium on Spencer's influence, pointed out that though

Spencer was not a botanist yet, "he formulated the law of

evolution and illustrated its application to vegetable life.

The genetic method has given us a new botany, and in the

hand of the specialist is today giving us a continued

revelation of the law of evolution in the plant kingdom.

Not only in biology but also in sociology did Spencer

exercise his influence, at least indirectly.
Daniel Fuleomer of the University of Chicago in 1895
wrote to 422 colleges and universities from which he

received 146 answers. Defining the term sociology as the

study of society, he learned that 24 of the colleges gave

such a course.^ In the one hundred courses of study

previously mentioned only six of the schools in the list

1. W. Rose, “Herbert Spencer as a Philosopher," N.E.A.,

•Journal of Proceedings and Addresses. 1904, p. 232.
2. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1894-1895T
Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1896, Yol,
11, p. 1211.
L J
 192

r 1

> reported courses in sociology.**' Yale, Cornell, Williams,

Trinity, Tulane, and Pennsylvania in 1889, Were teaching

sociology. The courses in sociology proper were hy 1895

expanding rapidly and their proper subject matter was v

viewed by biddings as studying "the elements that make up

society ... and the simplest forms in which they are

combined or organized ...w^
This is the point of view to be found in Spencer,'sr.works
. on sociology which were published in this country in the
' 1870*s and which were extolled by Ward and1Sumner in 1882
when Spencer visited .America. Certainly, there is to be

given to Spencer credit for helping to bring sociology into

the collegiate curriculum by the end of the century and

aiso for giving its study a practical turn.3

Closely connected to the emphasis placed upon biology

and sociology in the last decade of the nineteenth century

was the stress placed upon evolutionary psychology. The

old psychology in some instances was giving place to the

new psj^chology with its emphasis on the nervous system.

On the growth of this^materialistic interpretation of mind

The Committee of fifteen observed:

Instead of the view of mind as made up of faculties
like will, intellect, imagination, and emotion,

1. Ibid., p. 1212.
2. TbTd.. p. i-213.
3. Ibid., p. 1214.

L _]
 193

r
T

conceived to be all necessary to the soul if

developed in harmony with one another, the
concept of nerves or brain tracts is used as
the ultimate regulative principle to determine
the selection and arrangement of studies.!

This committee was simply expressing awareness of what

was called in 1893-1894 fthe psychological revival . * The

stimulus was given to this movement by Hall and his

associates at Clark University. The new psychology went

under the names experimental psychology or child study.

The movement expressed itself in a national sense under the

name of the American Association for the Study of Children,

"and Dr. 0, Stanley Hall, the pioneer of child study in this

country, was elected P r e s i d e n t . S h o r t l y after this Hall

was elected President of the department of child study

2
sponsored by the National Educational Association. One of

the advocates of the new psychology, W.L. Bryan of the

University of Indiana indicates the naturalistic basis of

the new psychology when he asserts:

We promise a science of conscious life. As
other sciences have traced the development of
the physical world, we promise to supplement
this by giving the natural history of conscious
life from its darkest beginnings to the highest
achievement of man.4
It is clear where he got these views of mind. Hall

1. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1893-1894. ¥ol.l,

pp. 490-491. It is to be noted the Committee used both
psychologies in making suggestions for the elementary schools.
£•.■ U.S. Commissioner of Education Report. 1892-1893, ¥ol.1,
p. 357.
3. Ibid., p. 357.
L4. Ibid.. p. 360.
 194

was his master as Spencer was HallTs master.

Hall was given credit for "having aroused teachers to a

sense of the value of this subject as a part of their

professional equipment, and then it was suggested that "it

is natural that they should follow particularly the direc­

tions in which he had led.

All students of the history of Aneriean education know

the story of the rapid growth and development of the new

psychology as applied to child study, that the new

psychology really meant is expressed well by Professor
Hugo Munsterberg when he said; "The modern psychologist is

indeed too often proud of the fact that the chief thing

which he has added to the old psychology is that he has no

p h i l o s o p h y . T h e new psychology had no soul and it swept

into the normal schools and teachersT colleges and Hall,

directly, and Spencer, indirectly, were its chief sponsors.

One must bear in mind that this movement started in 1893

just at the time the Committee of Ten was about to meet.

That the normal schools were influenced by the new

psychological movement in education is attested to by

Robinson who asserts "At the close of the nineteenth century

1. U.S. Commissioner of Education Report, 1893-1894. l/ol.l,

p. 425.
2. Ibid. p. 425.
3. Ibid., p . 540.

L -I
 195

came courses called Child Study, showing the influence of

G. Stanley Hall and his associates.

In' conclusion some few observations will be made on

the general character of education from 1900-1918.

In general, it can be said that the period from 1900

to 1918 was a period of consolidation in the various levels

of the schools. The various sciences were accepted as a

normal part of the school program and scientific method

continued to be emphasized. The utilitarian aim continued

to dominate as the aim of education on all levels. Education

for power and service continued to be preached.

The colleges promoted early specialization, superficial

scholarship, low standards of admission and of graduation,

and the deification of wealth.

The secondary schools were slowly adopting vocational

courses. They tended to make preparation for making a living

all important as an aim. By 1918 the Commission on the

Reorganization of Secondary Education established as educ­

ational objectives; health, command of the fundamental pro­
cesses, worthy use of leisure, citizenship, ethical

character, worthy home membership and vocation. Save

1. Clara L. Robinson, Psychology and the Preparation of the

Teacher for the Elementary School. New York, Teachers
College, Columbia University Press, 1930, p. ?.

L _I
 196

ethical character, the Commission's objectives corresponded

to Spencer*s divisions of life*s most important activities

and education, therefore, should prepare for these

activities*

The notable resemblance to Spencer’s objectives of

education is remarked upon by Douglass.**- The leisure time

activities were given more stress by the Commission than

Spencer gave to them. Douglass also tabulates the objectives

listed by prominent writers on secondary education, such as,

Inglis, Bobbitt, Chapman and Counts, Koos and also the

objectives of the North Central Association* The influence

of Spencer on these various objectives seems to be quite

clear.& The elementary school was* of course, guided by

similar principles.
Penetrating the entire school system, as well as, some
,-4

of the areas of the private schools, colleges, and universities

were the various sociological, psychological, and scientific

movements** These movements under leaders like E*L* Thorndike,

Dewey, Kilpatrick, Rugg, and Counts tended to perpetuate a

naturalistic education based on an evolutionary naturalistic

interpretation of the nature of the child. The work done by

Spencer, Youmans, Eliot, Hall, and Sumner, was bearing fruit

before the end of the first World War.

1. Cf. Aubrey A* Douglass, Modern Secondary Education, New

York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1938, pp. 229-230.
g. Ibid., p. BZ9,
 197

r n

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

The main purpose of this study was to try to show the

influence of Herbert SpencerTs evolutionary naturalistic

philosophy on American education. In the pages devoted to

the exposition of Spencerrs philosophical views it was

clearly shown that Spencer was an agnostic and that his

evolutionary naturalism flowed from his agnosticism.

Further, it was clearly shown that Spencerrs denials

concerning the validity of the theistic hypothesis and

concerning the validity of a First Cause constituted a

denial of God’s existence as the Creator and First Cause

of the universe. Spencer, therefore, denies the fact of

paramount significance in the Catholic philosophy of life,

namely, that God is the Creator and First Cause of the

universe and that all things proceed from God. The con­

clusive proofs of Godts existence as the Creator and First

Cause of the universe established during the centuries by

reason and through Divine Revelation were brushed aside by

Spencer. Naturally and logically, therefore, Spencer, by

implication, would deny the validity of Divine Revelation

and the Catholic dogmas that flow therefrom.

The most significant of these Catholic dogmas that

would be denied by Spencer are original sin and its

consequences, namely, man’s darkened intellect, weakened

L _l
 198

r ' i
will and disorderly inclinations to evil; in addition,

Spencer would deny the existence of heaven and hell, The

central fact in‘the Catholic concept of life, namely,

the Divinity of Christ would have no validity for Spencer.

Deriving from this denial would he the Spencerian denials
of the Divine establishment of the Church, supernatural

law and the natural law derived therefrom, supernatural

Sanctions, grace, the sacraments, the moral law, conscience,

the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, the

freedom of the will, absolute truth, the principles and
beliefs implicit in these Catholic truths.

Three things stand out in Spencer's philosophy; his

denial of God, his denial of the Divinity of Christ, and

his assertion that man was a product of biological evol­

ution and, thus not essentially different from brute life.

Consider the intimate relation of these Spencerian views?

If the notion of God, as Spencer would imply, was myth,

then the Divinity of Christ and the essential difference

between man and the brute also would be myths. The view
of man in the Spencerian philosophy necessarily degrades
man. Scholastic philosophers shov* quite conclusively

that this view of man is one-sided, inhuman, and fallacious

for the reason that man’s origin, nature, and destiny

cannot be adequately and validly explained merely in terms

of nature. These men prove that man has a spiritual and an

immortal soul. Further, they show that only in God can

L J
 199

manJs origin and destiny be fully explained. In short, the

Catholic philosophy of life contradicts the main tenets of

Spencer ’s evolutionary naturalistic philosophy and proves

that they are false.

In the pages where Spencer’s philosophy was described

it was clearly pointed out that the application of his

philosophical views to education would be productive of an
educational program that i^ould be one-sided and, therefore,

harmful to the individual and to society.

In the chapters dealing with the direct and indirect
influence of Spencer’s evolutionary naturalistic philosophy

on American education it was clearly demonstrated that

spencer exercised both a positive and a negative influence

on American education. His positive influence was shown

by the influence he exerted over the educators and theorists

studied and also by the influence he exerted over the aim

and the curriculum of American education. His .negative

influence was clearly suggested and oftentimes stated in

reference to the naturalizing of the child and the

secularization of the educational system. It is very

probable that many of Spencer’s philosophical views were

attractive to some of the modern experimentalists in

education. It is very probable also that Spencer’s

scientific•determinism and his opposition to traditional

ideas were acceptable to some of the experimentalists.

 soo

r n

The thing that is certain is that Spencer’s evol­

utionary naturalistic philosophy did influence American

education.

It suited the temper of the times for it was an

'individualistic philosophy which fitted into the pattern

of frontier democracy. From 1860 to 1890 there were new

■ frontiers to conquer; frontiers of land, of commerce, of

industry. These frontiers were conquered and conquered

under the leadership of individuals. Wealth and distinction

were the usual rewards and these acquisitions came to

symbolize the successful American. To be successful in

life meant that one had acquired material success. Education

could help make one successful, or at least, help one
particippte in material success.
The type of education advocated by Spencer was

particularistic; scientific education is always particular­

istic and it is so by the nature of its ends and content

since it is concerned with individual things. Things are

always limited in time and in place and in many other ways.

It thus came to pass that American education became

concerned with things, material things, under the aegis of

Spencer and his disciples in this country. The method of

understanding the nature of things and the method of

J
 SOI

r i

classifying them came to be important, for training in such

method was useful. No sane person can quarrel with

scientific method and with scientific achievement nor with

the beneficial results oftentimes obtained from science.

However, nothing seems to be clearer from today1s

happenings, and the events of the past, than that some

principle of restraint is necessary in order that science

and its fruits be used in the best interests of mankind.

American education in the last three decades of the nine­

teenth century, under the influence of Spencer and his

American devotees, became scientific in content, method,
■3)
and aim. It was an education concerned with mastery over

things for material gains. The restraining influence of

the traditional subjects in the curriculum was loosened

by the ironical and, sometimes, sneering attacks made by

the Spencerians upon it. Religious instruction was banned

from the schools, thereby, helping to bring about a more

than necessary regard for material things.
©

The traditional subjects of the curriculum, religion

particularly, emphasized man as against nature. Religious
ideas naturally gave precedence to man over nature. Such

ideas related man to God, his Creator and Final End. Ideas
that were of universal and eternal character, derived from

the classics and from religion, could transcend the

limitations and boundaries of things and could serve as a

 B02

r i

framework of reference for things*

In any sound system of education instruction in such
%
ideas is necessary and prominence should he given to the

universal and the eternal as against the particular and

the relative. Man should be made superior to nature.

It was against the authority of universal and eternal

ideas that Spencer and most of the American Spencerians
were contending* That seems to be clear. They called

such education traditional and authoritative. Naturally

and logically they saw that'the great source of authority

was the Christian religion and the Christian philosophy,

and they knew that once a respect for eternal and
universal ideas was established, naturalism of any type,

would not take root for eternal and universal ideas must

logically make one a supernaturalist.

It was just this contest between man and nature,

ideas and things, that was implicit in the controversy

between the classics and the sciences. It was an aspect

of the religion versus science controversy of the nine­
teenth century in America. Fortunately, for American,

education, the Catholic Church held close to her traditional

curriculum during the nineteenth century and only gradually

and judiciously made her curricula revisions. The wisdom

of such action seems justified by the passage of events.

L -1
 203

Fortunately also, for American education, was the Churchs'

insistence upon educational content that would include ideas

and things. Perhaps, in the current revision of education­

al aims and content, her educational theory and practice

will he given its proper place.

One thing seems necessary in American education today

and that is that the naturalistic basis of American

education, laid by Spencer and others, give way to the

supernaturalistic tradition which is assuredly more in
harmony with the developing democratic outlook and an

awakened belief in God.

L _1
 B I B L I O G B A P H Y

L
 205

A. BOOKS

Babbit, Irving, Literature and the American College,

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908
Baoon, Francis, The Advancement of Learning, William
A. Wright, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926.
Beard, Charles, and Mary Beard, The Rise of American
Civilization. 2 vols.. New York: The Maemillan
Company, 1935.
Boedder, Bernard, Natural Theology. London: Longmans
Green and Company, 1927.
Butler, Nicholas Murray, Education in the United States.
New York: American Book Company, 1910.
Galkins, Mary, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1936.
Clark, John Spencer, The Life and Letters of Iohn Fiske.
2 vols,, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 19l7.
Class, Edward C., Prescription and Election in Elementary
School Teachers Curricula in State Teachers Colleges.
New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1931.
Cubberly, Ellwood P., Public Education in the United
States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1934.
Gurti, Merle, Social Ideas of American Educators. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935.

Dampier, Sir William, A History of Science. New York:

The Maemillan Company, 1958.
Douglass, Aubrey A., Modern Secondary Education. New
York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938.
Eliot, Charles W., Spencer’s Essays on Education. New
York: 5.P. Dutton Company, 1911.
Fiske, John, A Century of Science and Other Essays.
Boston: Broughton Mifflin Company, 1899.
, Darwinism and Other Essays. Boston: Houghton
Mi'fflin Company, 1886.

L
 206

_______ , Fdwar djLivingston Youmans, Interpreter of Science

for the People# New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1894.
_______ , Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy. 2 vols., New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1887.

_____ , Studies in Religion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Company, 1902.

. The Destiny of Man Yiewed in the Light of his

Origin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1894.

Foerster, Norman, The American State University. Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1932.
Franklin, Fabian, The Life of Daniel Coit Gilman. New
York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1910.
Fulton, John, Memoirs of Frederick A.P. Barnard. New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1896.
Gerard, John, The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer. New
York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1928.
Giddings, Franklin H., Studies in the Theory of Human
Society. New York: The MacmTllan Company, 19§6.

Hall, G. Stanley, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist.

New York: D. Appleton and Company, T923.
Henderson, Joseph L., Admission to College by Certificate.
New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College*
Columbia university, 1912.

Hibben, Paxton, Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait.

New York: G. H. Doran Company, 1937.

Husslein, Joseph, Evolution and Social Progress. New York:

P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1920.

James, Henry, Charles W. Sliot, President of Harvard university ,

1869-1909. 2 vols., New York: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1930.

Kane, W., An 3Sssay Towards a History of Education. Chicago:

Loyola University Press, 1935.
Locke, John An Bssay Concerning Human Understanding♦ London:
George Routledge and Sons, 1689.

L
 207

Marique, Pierre J., History of Christiah Education. 3

vols., New York: Fordham University Press, 1924-1952.
_______ , The Philosophy of Christian Education. Mew York:
P r entice -Ha 11, Ine.,*"X939.
McCosh, James, Realistic Philosophy. 3 vols., Mew York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890.
Mercier, Cardinal, A Manual of Soho la stlc Philosophy. 2
vols., London: Keagan Paul, Trench, Trubner and
Company^ Limited, 1952-1933.
Mercier, Lopis J.A., The Challenge of Humanism. New York:
Oxford university Press, 1953.
Nelson, George II. ? The Introductory Biological Sciences
in the Traditional Liberal Arts College. Mew York:
Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia
University, 1931.

Neilson, William A., editor, Charles W. Eliot, The Man and

His Beliefs. 2 vols., New York: Harper Bros., 1926.

Nevins, Allan, The Emergence of Modern America. New York:

The Macmillan Company, 1932.
O ’Connell, Geoffrey, Naturalism in American Education. New
York: Benziger Bros., 19387 t
Parrington, Vernon Lewis, Main Currents in American Thought.
3 vols*, New York: Bareourt, Brace Company, 1927-1950.
Perry, Ralph Barton, Philosophy of the Recent Past. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926.
Pruette, Lorine, G. Stanley Hall. A Biography of a Mind.
New York: D. Jppleton and Company, 1926.

Riley, Woodbridge, American Thought from Puritanism to

Pragmatism. New Yoik: Henry Holt and Company, 19T5.
Robinson, Clara, Psychology and the Preparation of the
Teacher for the Elementary School. New York: Bureau
of Publieations, Teachers College, Columbia University,
1930.
Spencer, Herbert, An Autobiography. 2 vols.. New York:
D. Appleton anT“Gompany, 1904.

_______ , Education: Intellictual. Moral and Physical. New

York: D. Appleton and Company, 1861. J
 208

r “i

_______, Assays» New York: D, Appleton and Gompany, 1873•

_______ , First Principles, New York: B. Appleton and

G ompany, 1862.

, First Principles, London: William and Norgate.

— nsiteaTTgM:
. Social Statics, New York: D. Appleton and Gompany.
1877.
_____ The Principles of Biology, 3 vols., New York: D,
Appleton and Company, 1879,
_______ , The Principles of ethics, 3 vols;, New York: D,
Appleton and Gompany, 1893,
_______ , The Principles of Psychology, 8 vols,, New York:
D, Appleton and Gompany, 1876,
_______ , The Principles of Sociology, 2 vols,, New York:
D . Appleton and Gompany, 1896,
*
Sumner, William Graham, and Albert Galloway Keller* The
Science of Society, 4 vols,, New Haven: Yale,;UnTversity
Press, 1927,

Ward, James, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 2 vols,, New York:

The Macmillan Gompany, 1915,
Wasmann, Jsrich, The Problem,of Evolution, St. Louis: B.
Herder Book Gompany, 1918.

White, Andrew Dickson, Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White,

2 vols,, New York: t). Appleton and Gompany, 1938.

_______ . A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in

Christendom, New York: B, Appleton and Gompany, 1901,

Youmans, Udward Livingston, editor, Herbert Spencer on the

Americans and the Americans on Herbert Spencer. New York:
D. Appleton and Gompany, 1883.
_______, The Culture Demanded by Modern Life. New York:
D, Appleton and Company, 1871,

L J
 209

“i

B. PUBLICATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES

American Council of Learned Societies, Dictionary of

American Biography, 80 vols., New Yorlc: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 19B8-1936.
National Educational Association, Journal of Proceedings and
Addresses. 1894-1907. Chicago: National Educational
Association.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,
Thirty Second Annual Beport» Boston: The Merrymount
Press, 1937•

United States Bureau of Education, A Statement of the Theory

of Education in the United States""of America as Approved
By Many Leading Educators. Washington; Government
Printing Office, 1874.

_______ , Reports of the Commissioner of Education. 1867-1908.

Washington: Government Printing Office,
_______ , Circulars of Inf ormat ion, 1870-1898, ..Washington:
Government Printing Office.

C, ARTICLES, PERIODICALS, AND PAMPHLETS

Bull, Reverend George,S.J,, "The Function of the Catholic

Graduate School,” Thought. 13: 364-378, September, 1938.
Spencer, Herbert, nThe Factors of Organic Evolution,”
Nineteenth Century, 749-770.
Youmans, Edward Livingston, and William Livingston, editors,
Popular Science Monthly. 50 vols., New York: Popular
Science Monthly, 1872-1897.
Brosnahan, Reverend Timothy,S.J., President:Eliot and the
Jesuit Golleges. Boston: Review pub11shing Company.
1900.
Pius XI, The Christian Education of Youth. New Yoik: The
America Press, 1936•

l_
 VITA

Name John Richard Hart

Date of Birth December 17,. 1907

Elementary School Wendell Phillips, Boston

Graduated 1922

High School High School of Commerce

Graduated 1926

Baccalaureate Degree Ph.B*

College Boston College
Date 1931

Other Degrees Ed.M

College Boston College Graduate School
Date 1932