Fit fabricando faber: of all systems of
education the most absurd is that which separates intelligence
from activity, and divides man into two impossible entities,
theorizer and automaton. That is why we applaud the just
complaints of M. Chevalier, M. Dunoyer, and all those who demand
reform in university education; on that also rests the hope of
the results that we have promised ourselves from such reform. If
education were first of all experimental and practical, reserving
speech only to explain, summarize, and coordinate work; if those
who cannot learn with imagination and memory were permitted to
learn with their eyes and hands,--soon we should witness a
multiplication, not only of the forms of labor, but of
capacities; everybody, knowing the theory of something, would
thereby possess the language of philosophy; on occasion he
could, were it only for once in his life, create, modify,
perfect, give proof of intelligence and comprehension, produce
his master-piece, in a word, show himself a man. The inequality
in the acquisitions of memory would not affect the equivalence of
faculties, and genius would no longer seem to us other than what
it really is,--mental health.
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