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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Principles of Education. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Principles of Education.

“Education is a series of conduct directed to an end: before any directions can properly be given for the education of any person, the end of his education must be settled.

“The common end of every person’s education is Happiness.

“Happiness depends—1st, In the possession of the instruments; 2ndly, In the right method of applying them. The Happiness that can be proposed for a subject of education is either, 1stly, That stock that is obtainable from the stock of instruments man in appearance is born to the possession of: or that further stock that is to be hoped for from the acquisition of more.

“This divides education into—1stly, Defensive; 2dly, Active. The instruments productive of happiness are either—1st, Inherent; or, 2dly, External.

“Inherent, again, are either—1st, Of the body; 2dly, Of the mind. The most generally useful education is the defensive: the active never can be the education of the many. The active leads to preëminence: every man cannot be preëminent over every other.

“The only active plan of education the state ought to encourage, is that which tends no otherwise to increase the happiness of the individual than by increasing, at the same time, the happiness of the community.

“This is done by improving the arts and sciences which produce the instruments of happiness, or directing them in their application.

“This, too, is the only plan of active education the preceptor ought to promote by his instructions. The arts of supplanting and competition (where the advancement of one man is the depression of another) ought to be noticed in no other view than that of pointing out the means of frustrating them: they are of that sort of pernicious or unprofitable secrets, which it is right to teach only to make them inefficacious.

“A state rendered less happy, made up of individuals rendered more happy by the same circumstances, is a curious contradiction. This, however, is a notion advanced by Dr Johnson, in his Tour to Scotland, where he speaks of emigration.”