Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth. What we should aim at producing is men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. We have to remember that the valuable intellectual development is self development, and that it mostly takes place between the ages of sixteen and thirty. As to training, the most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve. A saying due to Archbishop Temple illustrates my meaning. Surprise was expressed at the success in after-life of a man, who as a boy at Rugby had been somewhat undistinguished. He answered, "It is not what they are at eighteen, it is what they become afterwards that matters."
In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call "inert ideas" -- that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.
In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful -- Corruptio optimi, pessima. Except at rare intervals of intellectual ferment, education in the past has been radically infected with inert ideas. That is the reason why uneducated clever women, who have seen much of the world, are in middle life so much the most cultured part of the community. They have been saved from this horrible burden of inert ideas. Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.
Let us now ask how in our system of education we are to guard against this mental dryrot. We enunciate our two educational commandments, "Do not teach too many subjects," and again, "What you teach, teach thoroughly."
The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illumined with any spark of vitality. Let the main ideas which are introduced into a child's education be few and important, and let them be thrown into every combination possible. The child should make them his own, and should understand their application here and now in the circumstances of his actual life. From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery. The discovery which he has to make, is that general ideas give an understanding of that stream of events which pours through his life, which is his life. By understanding I mean more than a mere logical analysis, though that is included. I mean "understanding" in the sense in which it is used in the French proverb, "To understand all, is to forgive all." Pedants sneer at an education which is useful. But if education is not useful, what is it? Is it a talent, to be hidden away in a napkin? Of course, education should be useful, whatever your aim in life. It was useful to Saint Augustine and it was useful to Napoleon. It is useful, because understanding is useful.
I pass lightly over that understanding which should be given by the literary side of education. Nor do I wish to be supposed to pronounce on the relative merits of a classical or a modern curriculum. I would only remark that the understanding which we want is an understanding of an insistent present. The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. No more deadly harm can be done to young minds than by depreciation of the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future. At the same time it must be observed that an age is no less past if it existed two hundred years ago than if it existed two thousand years ago. Do not be deceived by the pedantry of dates. The ages of Shakespeare and of Molière are no less past than are the ages of Sophocles and of Virgil. The communion of saints is a great and inspiring assemblage, but it has only one possible hall of meeting, and that is, the present, and the mere lapse of time through which any particular group of saints must travel to reach that meeting-place, makes very little difference.
Passing now to the scientific and logical side of education, we remember that here also ideas which are not utilised are positively harmful. By utilising an idea, I mean relating it to that stream, compounded of sense perceptions, feelings, hopes, desires, and of mental activities adjusting thought to thought, which forms our life. I can imagine a set of beings which might fortify their souls by passively reviewing disconnected ideas. Humanity is not built that way -- except perhaps some editors of newspapers.
In scientific training, the first thing to do with an idea is to prove it. But allow me for one moment to extend the meaning of "prove"; I mean -- to prove its worth. Now an idea is not worth much unless the propositions in which it is embodied are true. Accordingly an essential part of the proof of an idea is the proof, either by experiment
Furthermore, we should not endeavour to use propositions in isolation. Emphatically I do not mean, a neat little set of experiments to illustrate Proposition I and then the proof of Proposition I, a neat little set of experiments to illustrate Proposition II and then the proof of Proposition II, and so on to the end of the book. Nothing could be more boring. Interrelated truths are utilised en bloc, and the various propositions are employed in any order, and with any reiteration. Choose some important applications of your theoretical subject; and study them concurrently with the systematic theoretical exposition. Keep the theoretical exposition short and simple, but let it be strict and rigid so far as it goes. It should not be too long for it to be easily known with thoroughness and accuracy. The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable. Also the theory should not be muddled up with the practice. The child should have no doubt when it is proving and when it is utilising. My point is that what is proved should be utilised, and that what is utilised should -- so far, as is practicable -- be proved. I am far from asserting that proof and utilisation are the same thing.
At this point of my discourse, I can most directly carry forward my argument in the outward form of a digression. We are only just realising that the art and science of education require a genius and a study of their own; and that this genius and this science are more than a bare knowledge of some branch of science or of literature. This truth was partially perceived in the past generation; and headmasters, somewhat crudely, were apt to supersede learning in their colleagues by requiring left-hand bowling and a taste for football. But culture is more than cricket, and more than football, and more than extent of knowledge.
Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge. This is an art very difficult to impart. Whenever a textbook is written of real educational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be difficult to teach from it. Of course it will be difficult to teach from it. If it were easy, the book ought to be burned; for it cannot be educational. In education, as elsewhere, the broad primrose path leads to a nasty place. This evil path is represented by a book or a set of lectures which will practically enable the student to learn by heart all the questions likely to be asked at the next external examination. And I may say in passing that no educational system is possible unless every question directly asked of a pupil at any examination is either framed or modified by the actual teacher of that pupil in that subject. The external assessor may report on the curriculum or on the performance of the pupils, but never should be allowed to ask the pupil a question which has not been strictly supervised by the actual teacher, or at least inspired by a long conference with him. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they are exceptions, and could easily be allowed for under the general rule.
We now return to my previous point, that theoretical ideas should always find important applications within the pupil's curriculum. This is not an easy doctrine to apply, but a very hard one. It contains within itself the problem of keeping knowledge alive, of preventing it from becoming inert, which is the central problem of all education.
The best procedure will depend on several factors, none of which can be neglected, namely, the genius of the teacher, the intellectual type of the pupils, their prospects in life, the opportunities offered by the immediate surroundings of the school and allied factors of this sort. It is for this reason that the uniform external examination is so deadly. We do not denounce it because we are cranks, and like denouncing established things. We are not so childish. Also, of course, such examinations have their use in testing slackness. Our reason of dislike is very definite and very practical. It kills the best part of culture. When you analyse in the light of experience the central task of education, you find that its successful accomplishment depends on a delicate adjustment of many variable factors. The reason is that we are dealing with human minds, and not with dead matter. The evocation of curiosity, of judgment, of the power of mastering a complicated tangle of circumstances, the use of theory in giving foresight in special cases -- all these powers are not to be imparted by a set rule embodied in one schedule of examination subjects.
I appeal to you, as practical teachers. With good discipline, it is always possible to pump into the minds of a class a certain quantity of inert knowledge. You take a text-book and make them learn it. So far, so good. The child then knows how to solve a quadratic equation. But what is the point of teaching a child to solve a quadratic equation? There is a traditional answer to this question. It runs thus: The mind is an instrument, you first sharpen it, and then use it; the acquisition of the power of solving a quadratic equation is part of the process of sharpening the mind. Now there is just enough truth in this answer to have made it live through the ages. But for all its half-truth, it embodies a radical error which bids fair to stifle the genius of the modern world. I do not know who was first responsible for this analogy of the mind to a dead instrument. For aught I know, it may have been one of the seven wise men of Greece, or a committee of the whole lot of them. Whoever was the originator, there can be no doubt of the authority which it has acquired by the continuous approval bestowed upon it by eminent persons. But whatever its weight of authority, whatever the high approval which it can quote, I have no hesitation in denouncing it as one of the most fatal, erroneous, and dangerous conceptions ever introduced into the theory of education. The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual activity, delicate, receptive, responsive to stimulus. You cannot postpone its life until you have sharpened it. Whatever interest attaches to your subject-matter must be evoked here and now; whatever powers you are strengthening in the pupil, must be exercised here and now; whatever possibilities of mental life your teaching should impart, must be exhibited here and now. That is the golden rule of education, and a very difficult rule to follow.
The difficulty is just this: the apprehension of general ideas, intellectual habits of mind, and pleasurable interest in mental achievement can be evoked by no form of words, however accurately adjusted. All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of the mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. There is no royal road to learning through an airy path of brilliant generalisations. There is a proverb about the difficulty of seeing the wood because of the trees. That difficulty is exactly the point which I am enforcing. The problem of education is to make the pupil see the wood by means of the trees.
The solution which I am urging, is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children -- Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in the midst of the living of it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a world, and has not yet determined how to put it together.
Let us now return to quadratic equations. We still have on hand the unanswered question. Why should children be taught their solution? Unless quadratic equations fit into a connected curriculum, of course there is no reason to teach anything about them. Furthermore, extensive as should be the place of mathematics in a complete culture, I am a little doubtful whether for many types of boys algebraic solutions of quadratic equations do not lie on the specialist side of mathematics. I may here remind you that as yet I have not said anything of the psychology or the content of the specialism, which is so necessary a part of an ideal education. But all that is an evasion of our real question, and I merely state it in order to avoid being misunderstood in my answer.
Quadratic equations are part of algebra, and algebra is the intellectual instrument which has been created for rendering clear the quantitative aspects of the world. There is no getting out of it. Through and through the world is infected with quantity. To talk sense, is to talk in quantities. It is no use saying that the nation is large, -- How large? It is no use saying that radium is scarce, -- How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and to music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves. Elegant intellects which despise the theory of quantity, are but half developed. They are more to be pitied than blamed, The scraps of gibberish, which in their school-days were taught to them in the name of algebra, deserve some contempt.
This question of the degeneration of algebra into gibberish, both in word and in fact, affords a pathetic instance of the uselessness of reforming educational schedules without a clear conception of the attributes which you wish to evoke in the living minds of the children. A few years ago there was an outcry that school algebra, was in need of reform, but there was a general agreement that graphs would put everything right. So all sorts of things were extruded, and graphs were introduced. So far as I can see, with no sort of idea behind them, but just graphs. Now every examination paper has one or two questions on graphs. Personally I am an enthusiastic adherent of graphs. But I wonder whether as yet we have gained very much. You cannot put life into any schedule of general education unless you succeed in exhibiting its relation to some essential characteristic of all intelligent or emotional perception. lt is a hard saying, but it is true; and I do not see how to make it any easier. In making these little formal alterations you are beaten by the very nature of things. You are pitted against too skilful an adversary, who will see to it that the pea is always under the other thimble.
Reformation must begin at the other end. First, you must make up your mind as to those quantitative aspects of the world which are simple enough to be introduced into general education; then a schedule of algebra should be framed which will about find its exemplification in these applications. We need not fear for our pet graphs, they will be there in plenty when we once begin to treat algebra as a serious means of studying the world. Some of the simplest applications will be found in the quantities which occur in the simplest study of society. The curves of history are more vivid and more informing than the dry catalogues of names and dates which comprise the greater part of that arid school study. What purpose is effected by a catalogue of undistinguished kings and queens? Tom, Dick, or Harry, they are all dead. General resurrections are failures, and are better postponed. The quantitative flux of the forces of modern society is capable of very simple exhihition. Meanwhile, the idea of the variable, of the function, of rate of change, of equations and their solution, of elimination, are being studied as an abstract science for their own sake. Not, of course, in the pompous phrases with which I am alluding to them here, but with that iteration of simple special cases proper to teaching.
If this course be followed, the route from Chaucer to the Black Death, from the Black Death to modern Labour troubles, will connect the tales of the mediaeval pilgrims with the abstract science of algebra, both yielding diverse aspects of that single theme, Life. I know what most of you are thinking at this point. It is that the exact course which I have sketched out is not the particular one which you would have chosen, or even see how to work. I quite agree. I am not claiming that I could do it myself. But your objection is the precise reason why a common external examination system is fatal to education. The process of exhibiting the applications of knowledge must, for its success, essentially depend on the character of the pupils and the genius of the teacher. Of course I have left out the easiest applications with which most of us are more at home. I mean the quantitative sides of sciences, such as mechanics and physics.
Again, in the same connection we plot the statistics of social phenomena against the time. We then eliminate the time between suitable pairs. We can speculate how far we have exhibited a real causal connection, or how far a mere temporal coincidence. We notice that we might have plotted against the time one set of statistics for one country and another set for another country, and thus, with suitable choice of subjects, have obtained graphs which certainly exhibited mere coincidence. Also other graphs exhibit obvious causal connections. We wonder how to discriminate. And so are drawn on as far as we will.
But in considering this description, I must beg you to remember what I have been insisting on above. In the first place, one train of thought will not suit all groups of children. For example, I should expect that artisan children will want something more concrete and, in a sense, swifter than I have set down here. Perhaps I am wrong, but that is what I should guess. In the second place, I am not contemplating one beautiful lecture stimulating, once and for all, an admiring class. That is not the way in which education proceeds. No; all the time the pupils are hard at work solving examples drawing graphs, and making experiments, until they have a thorough hold on the whole subject. I am describing the interspersed explanations, the directions which should be given to their thoughts. The pupils have got to be made to feel that they are studying something, and are not merely executing intellectual minuets.
Finally, if you are teaching pupils for some general examination, the problem of sound teaching is greatly complicated. Have you ever noticed the zig-zag moulding round a Norman arch? The ancient work is beautiful, the modern work is hideous. The reason is, that the modern work is done to exact measure, the ancient work is varied according to the idiosyncrasy of the workman. Here it is crowded, and there it is expanded. Now the essence of getting pupils through examinations is to give equal weight to all parts of the schedule. But mankind is naturally specialist. One man sees a whole subject, where another can find only a few detached examples. I know that it seems contradictory to allow for specialism in a curriculum especially designed for a broad culture. Without contradictions the world would be simpler, and perhaps duller. But I am certain that in education wherever you exclude specialism you destroy life.
We now come to the other great branch of a general mathematical education, namely Geometry. The same principles apply. The theoretical part should be clear-cut, rigid, short, and important. Every proposition not absolutely necessary to exhibit the main connection of ideas should be cut out, but the great fundamental ideas should be all there. No omission of concepts, such as those of Similarity and Proportion. We must remember that, owing to the aid rendered by the visual presence of a figure, Geometry is a field of unequalled excellence for the exercise of the deductive faculties of reasoning. Then, of course, there follows Geometrical Drawing, with its training for the hand and eye.
But, like Algebra, Geometry and Geometrical Drawing must be extended beyond the mere circle of geometrical ideas. In an industrial neighbourhood, machinery and workshop practice form the appropriate extension. For example, in the London Polytechnics this has been achieved with conspicuous success. For many secondary schools I suggest that surveying and maps are the natural applications. In particular, plane-table surveying should lead pupils to a vivid apprehension of the immediate application of geometric truths. Simple drawing apparatus, a surveyor's chain, and a surveyor's compass, should enable the pupils to rise from the survey and mensuration of a field to the construction of the map of a small district. The best education is to be found in gaining the utmost information from the simplest apparatus. The provision of elaborate instruments is greatly to be deprecated. To have constructed the map of a small district, to have considered its roads, its contours, its geology, its climate, its relation to other districts, the effects on the status of its inhabitants, will teach more history and geography than any knowledge of Perkin Warbeck or of Behren's Straits. I mean not a nebulous lecture on the subject, but a serious investigation in which the real facts are definitely ascertained by the aid of accurate theoretical knowledge. A typical mathematical problem should be: Survey such and such a field, draw a plan of it to such and such a scale, and find the area. It would be quite a good procedure to impart the necessary geometrical propositions without their proofs. Then, concurrently in the same term, the proofs of the propositions would be learnt while the survey was being made.
Fortunately, the specialist side of education presents an easier problem than does the provision of a general culture. For this there are many reasons. One is that many of the principles of procedure to be observed are the same in both cases, and it is unnecessary to recapitulate. Another reason is that specialist training takes place -- or should take place -- at a more advanced stage of the pupil's course, and thus there is easier material to work upon. But undoubtedly the chief reason is that the specialist study is normally a study of peculiar interest to the student. He is studying it because, for some reason, he wants to know it. This makes all the difference. The general culture is designed to foster an activity of mind; the specialist course utilises this activity. But it does not do to lay too much stress on these neat antitheses. As we have already seen, in the general course foci of special interest will arise; and similarly in the special study, the external connections of the subject drag thought outwards.
Again, there is not one course of study which merely gives general culture, and another which gives special knowledge. The subjects pursued for the sake of a general education are special subjects specially studied; and, on the other hand, one of the ways of encouraging general mental activity is to foster a special devotion. You may not divide the seamless coat of learning. What education has to impart is an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structure of ideas, together with a particular body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it.
The appreciation of the structure of ideas is that side of a cultured mind which can only grow under the influence of a special study. I mean that eye for the whole chess-board, for the bearing of one set of ideas on another. Nothing but a special study can give any appreciation for the exact formulation of general ideas, for their relations when formulated, for their service in the comprehension of life. A mind so disciplined should be both more abstract and more concrete. It has been trained in the comprehension of abstract thought and in the analysis of facts.
Finally, there should grow the most austere of all mental qualities; I mean the sense for style. It is an aesthetic sense, based on admiration for the direct attainment of a foreseen end, simply and without waste. Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic, style in practical execution have fundamentally the same aesthetic qualities, namely, attainment and restraint. The love of a subject in itself and for itself, where it is not the sleepy pleasure of pacing a mental quarter-deck, is the love of style as manifested in that study.
Here we are brought back to the position from which we started, the utility of education. Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style hates waste; the engineer with a sense for style economises his material; the artisan with a sense for style prefers good work. Style is the ultimate morality of mind.
But above style, and above knowledge, there is something, a vague shape like fate above the Greek gods. That something is Power. Style is the fashioning of power, the restraining of power. But, after all, the power of attainment of the desired end is fundamental. The first thing is to get there. Do not bother about your style, but solve your problem, justify the ways of God to man, administer your province, or do whatever else is set before you.
Where, then, does style help? In this, with style the end is attained without side issues, without raising undesirable inflammations. With style you attain your end and nothing but your end. With style the effect of your activity is calculable, and foresight is the last gift of gods to men. With style your power is increased, for your mind is not distracted with irrelevancies, and you are more likely to attain your object. Now style is the exclusive privilege of the expert. Whoever heard of the style of an amateur painter, of the style of an amateur poet? Style is always the product of specialist study, the peculiar contribution of specialism to culture.
English education in its present phase suffers from a lack of definite aim, and from an external machinery which kills its vitality. Hitherto in this address I have been considering the aims which should govern education. In this respect England halts between two opinions. It has not decided whether to produce amateurs or experts. The profound change in the world which the nineteenth century has produced is that the growth of knowledge has given foresight. The amateur is essentially a man with appreciation and with immense versatility in mastering a given routine. But he lacks the foresight which comes from special knowledge. The object of this address is to suggest how to produce the expert without loss of the essential virtues of the amateur. The machinery of our secondary education is rigid where it should be yielding, and lax where it should be rigid. Every school is bound on pain of extinction to train its boys for a small set of definite examinations. No headmaster has a free hand to develop his general education or his specialist studies in accordance with the opportunities of his school, which are created by its staff, its environment, its class of boys, and its endowments. I suggest that no system of external tests which aims primarily at examining individual scholars can result in anything but educational waste.
Primarily it is the schools and not the scholars which should be inspected. Each school should grant its own leaving certificates, based on its own curriculum. The standards of these schools should be sampled and corrected. But the first requisite for educational reform is the school as a unit, with its approved curriculum based on its own needs, and evolved by its own staff. If we fail to secure that, we simply fall from one formalism into another, from one dung hill of inert ideas into another.
In stating that the school is the true educational unit in any national system for the safeguarding of efficiency, I have conceived the alternative system as being the external examination of the individual scholar. But every Scylla is faced by its Charybdis -- or, in more homely language, there is a ditch on both sides of the road. It will be equally fatal to education if we fall into the hands of a supervising department which is under the impression that it can divide all schools into two or three rigid categories, each type being forced to adopt a rigid curriculum. When I say that the school is the educational unit, I mean exactly what I say, no larger unit, no smaller unit. Each school must have the claim to be considered in relation to its special circumstances. The classifying of schools for some purposes is necessary. But no absolutely rigid curriculum, not modified by its own staff, should be permissible. Exactly the same principles apply, with the proper modifications, to universities and to technical colleges.
When one considers in its length and in its breadth the importance of this question of the education of a nation's young, the broken lives, the defeated hopes, the national failures, which result from the frivolous inertia with which it is treated, it is difficult to restrain within oneself a savage rage. In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.
We can be content with no less than the old summary of educational ideal which has been current at any time from the dawn of our civilisation. The essence of education is that it be religious.
Pray, what is religious education?
A religious education is an education which inculcates duty and reverence. Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events. Where attainable knowledge could have changed the issue, ignorance has the guilt of vice. And the foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.
一、生平与著作
艾尔弗雷德·诺思·怀特海（Alfred North Whitehead,1861?947）是现代著名的数学家、哲学家和教育理论家。他于1861年2月15日出生于英国东南部的拉姆斯盖特。他的祖父是当地一位有名望的教育家，曾任当地一所私立学校的校长。他的父亲先后从事教育、宗教工作，十分关心教育事业。受家庭的影响，怀特海对教育也很感兴趣。
怀特海童年时期是在家乡接受教育的。1875年，他来到多塞特郡的谢伯恩学校就学。主要学习拉丁语、希腊语、数学和历史。1880年，他考入剑桥大学三一学院，主攻数学。课余，他经常阅读和讨论文学、哲学、政治、宗教等著作。1885年，怀特海大学毕业，留在母校任数学和力学教师。1887年和1905年，他分别获得硕士和博士学位。他在母校任教25年，主要从事教学、著述和一些政治活动。
1910年，怀特海迁居伦敦。1911?914年，他在伦敦大学担任许多职务。1914?924年，在肯欣顿皇家科技学院担任应用数学教授。这段时期，他受柏格森、爱因斯但思想的影响，把兴趣转向科学哲学问题的研究。1924?937年，他应聘到美国哈佛大学担任哲学教授。退休后，担任哈佛大学名誉教授，居住在坎布里奇市。1947年12月30日，怀特海去世，终年86岁。
怀特海一生在数学、哲学、教育等领域留下了大量著作。其中主要的是：《泛代数论》（1898）、《数学原理》（与罗素合著，1910－1913）、《相对论原理》（1922）、《自然知识原理》（1919）、《科学与近代世界》（1925）、《宗教的形成》（1926）、《过程与实在》（1929）、《观念的历险》（1933）、《思维的方式》（1938）、《教育的目的》（1929）是他的教育代表作，还有一些有关教育的讲演和论文收入了他的《科学与哲学论文集》（1948）。
怀特海是“过程哲学”（也称“有机哲学”）的创始人。他受直觉主义的影响，反对“科学的唯物主义”，认为自然和宇宙不是由物质组成的，而是由连续不断的经验的事物和独立存在的“永恒客体”结合而成的，从而走上了唯心主义道路。他一方面强调现实世界的存在离不开个人感觉，认为在人的直接感受之外不可能有任何独立的客体存在，另一方面又承认上帝的存在，把主观唯心主义和客观唯心主义混合在一起。但在他的哲学思想中也含有不少合理因素，如强调事物的整体性和相互联系，承认事物的运动、变化、发展等。
二、对“无活力”的教育的批判
怀特海对当时英国教育制度中的弊端进行了猛烈的抨击。他说：“由于对人类心理的可悲的无知，有些教育制度就用它自己所造成的无活力的概念重新把人类束缚住了。”所谓无活力的概念是指仅仅被吸收而未经运用、检验或重新组合的概念。教育上有了无活力的概念，这种教育不仅是无用的，而且是有害的。那么，这种无活力的概念体现在哪些方面呢？
第一，学校课程中存在着各门学科互不联系的现象。传统教育传授的是一些分割的、不连贯的知识，如：代数、几何、自然、历史、古典语言等。这种学科间互不关联的状态本身是不谐调的。因为“事物的细节仅只是为了要恢复它们的本来面目就必须放在整个事物的系统中一起观察，这种事物体系包含着逻辑理性的谐和与审美成就的谐和。”
第二，传统学校把古典学科作为主要课程是缺乏生命力的。他认为，任何时代都不可能死板地重复祖先的情况，“过去的知识，它仅有的作用，是武装我们对付现在。”使知识保持活力和防止知识僵化是一切教育的中心问题。
第三，传统数学方法满足于学生被动地吸收知识，忽视学生对知识的理解和运用。他指出，只要学生纪律好，总能把一定分量的无活力的知识灌进他们脑子里去。但这种食而不化的知识并没有多大的用处。重要的是“儿童应该使这些概念成为他自己的概念，并且应该懂得这些概念此时此地在他实际生活环境中的应用。”
怀特海认为，每个有机体内部都有自我发展的“创造冲动”，儿童是充满活力的有机体。他指出，为了避免无活力的概念的毒害，“我们要提出两条教育的诫律。一条，‘不要教过多的学科’，另一条，‘凡是你所教的东西，要教得透彻’。”
三、教学价值观
学校应该传授哪种类型的知识，这历来是人们重视的问题。怀特海根据当时的实际，论述了普通教育与专业教育。形式教育与实质教育。装饰教育与实用教育的关系。
1. 普通教育与专业教育
怀特海对当时学校中教育专门化的趋势进行了批评。他认为，专人专职的做法在古老的社会中是一种大赐之福，但在未来世界中将对公众贻害无穷。现代知识专门化的结果使得某些专家的思想局限在一个角落里，如：一个现代化学家可能对动物学方面的知识很差，而对伊利莎白时代的戏剧的一般知识就更差，对英文诗的韵律毫无所知，对古代史的知识更是一窍不通。从一方面来说，这种专家思想上的偏于一隅对社会发展是不利的。片面的专业教育将使“知识界的领导人物失去了平衡。他看到的只是这一种或那一种环境，而没有看到全面。调度的问题只交给庸碌无能、因而不能在某种事业中获得成就的人。简单他说，社会的专门化职能可以完成得更好、进步得更快，但总的方向却发生了迷乱”。另一方面，它对个人发展也是有害的。怀特海指出，任何抽象角落都是不足以包括人生的。教育所要达到的目的是个性的平衡发展。
但是，怀特海认为，普通教育与专业教育并非截然对立的，它们之间存在着一些必然联系。首先，没有任何只给学生普通陶冶或专门知识的课程。为了普通教育的目的而学习的学科，也就是专门学科。在普通教育的课程中，学生将会产生特殊的兴趣中心；在专门化学习中，学科的外部联系会使学生的思想向外引发，产生广泛的兴趣。其次，从教学方法上讲，培养一般智力活动的方法之一就是培养一种专门的爱好。学生只有通过专门学习才能评价一般概念的确切表达、语言所表达的各种概念之间的关系以及概念对了解生活的作用。
如何把普通教育与专业教育结合起来呢？他认为，不可能有一种万应灵丹式的方法。每一所学校必须有权联系它的特殊环境来考虑问题。然而，“在一般理论上，仍可以用一种简单的方式来作指导原则。学生应当集中在一定的领域里……伴随着这种集中过程，还有一些辅助的学习，如科学的语言等。”这样，可以在培养专家的过程中不失去业余工作者的主要长处。他强调，教育不能没有专门化，“要是你在教育上排除专门化，你就毁灭了生活。”
2.形式教育与实质教育
教育应该传授知识还是发展能力，外国教育史上存在不同的看法。怀特海对形式训练说提出了批评。他指出，自古以来就有人认为心智是一个工具，先要使它锋利，然后才能运用它。他认为这是所有引进教育理论中的最致命、最错误、最危险的概念之一。他说：“心智决不是被动的；它是一种永不休止的活动，灵敏、富于接受性、对刺激反应快。你不可能推迟它的生命，到你使它锋利了的时候才有生命。”
怀特海主张在传授知识的过程中发展儿童的心智。他说：“教育是一个一分钟一分钟、一小时一小时、一天一大地耐心地掌握细节的过程。不存在一条灿烂的概括铺成的空中过道通往学问的捷径……教育的问题就在于使学生通过树木而见到森林。”因此，教师必须使学生感觉到他们是在学一些什么东西，不仅仅是跳跳智力的小步舞而已。
3.装饰教育与实用教育
怀特海对装饰教育提出了批评。他指出，在中世纪时代，宗教界的领袖、伟大的思想家、诗人、作家及全部神职人员都没有什么创造能力。而现代教育仍然追随装饰教育的陋习，牛津的希腊学者最大的用处只是写一篇颂词而已。
他主张教育应该是有用的。“要是教育没有用，它算是什么呢？它是藏着不用的才能吗？当然，不管你生活的目的是什么，教育总是应该有用的。教育过去对圣奥古斯丁是有用的，对拿破仑是有用的。它现在还是有用的，因为理解是有用的。”
四、教育的节律
教育的节律即教育原则，它是指：“学生应该在适合的时间，在他们到达恰当的心理发展阶段时，学习不同的学科，采用不同的学习方式。”怀特海认为，不注意学生心理发展的节律和性质是教育上无活力的主要根源。他把学生的智力发展分为奇异阶段、准确阶段和概括阶段。
奇异阶段，即开始理解阶段。学生主要是直接认知事实，断续地、零碎地对事实进行系统的解剖。教育者必须把学生已经在头脑中搅动着的兴奋安排好，教材应具有新奇性和生动性。准确阶段是知识增长的阶段。它是奇异阶段的必然延伸，但并不停留在前一阶段所引出的事实的范围，而是系统地获得另外一些事实，从而揭露奇异阶段的一般材料，并对这些材料进行分析。这个阶段是打基础的阶段，必须使学生掌握一定的分析事实的方法。
概括阶段相当于黑格尔体系中的综合。这个阶段又返回到富有传奇色彩的阶段，并且增添了分类的观念和恰当的技术。它既是准确训练的结果，也是准确训练的目标。
从婴儿期到成年期，整个发展时期构成一个大周期。它的奇异阶段连绵在最初的12年，它的准确阶段包括整个中等教育的时期，它的概括阶段是进入成年期的时期。但是，并不是说每个人的心理发展阶段是相同的，怀特海的这种划分的主要依据是中等智力的学生。另外，对不同学科来说，这三个阶段的周期性也有差别。如，语言：11岁以前是奇异阶段，11-15岁是准确阶段，15~16岁半是概括阶段；科学：11～15岁是奇异阶段，15~16岁是准确阶段，16岁以后属于概括阶段。
怀特海认为，“教育应该就是这种周期的连续不断的反复。……如果教师能满足学生有节奏的希望，恰如其分地给以激励，那么学生就一定能不断地取得一些成果，而又走上新的起点。”
五、艺术与美学教育
怀特海认为，艺术和美学对自然、社会、人类都是十分重要的。世界的目的就是创造美。任何类型的事物，只要是美的，就有理由存在下去。对人来说，人的身体活动固然重要，“但人类精神上的活动却更重要，其中包括思想上的活动，感情上的活动和审美经验上的活动。”
但是，科学和技术发展造成的一个恶果是压制人们审美的创造性。“当西方世界都市化的过程迅速发展，需要对新的物质环境的美学性质进行最精微和最迫切的研究时，认为这类观念没有考虑价值的说法达到最高潮。在工业化最发达的国家中，艺术被看成一种儿戏。19世纪中叶，在伦敦就能看到这种思想的惊人实例。优美绝伦的泰晤士河湾曲折地通过城区，但在查林十字路上却大煞风景地架上了一座铁路桥，设计这座桥时根本没有考虑审美价值。”
因此，学校要加强艺术和美学教育。怀特海所说的艺术和美学既包括我们通常所讲的音乐、美术、戏剧等方面，也包括人们对现实价值的体验和享受。他说：“艺术含义非常广泛，我甚至不愿用艺术这个名词。艺术是一种特殊例子。我们需要的是培养出一种审美观念的习惯。”从这种思想出发，他一方面重视培养学生对音乐。美术。戏剧等学科的兴趣，另一方面主张在每一门学科中对学生进行美感教育。他认为，文学、数学、技术、科学等学科都有独特的艺术或美的价值。
作为一个教育理论家，怀特海的最主要的贡献在于他对一些教育理论问题提出了一些有参考价值的见解。他对传统教育弊端的抨击推动了新教育思潮的发展。他对普通教育与专业教育、形式教育与实质教育。装饰教育与实用教育关系的阐述不乏精辟之处，对当时教育内容的改革具有指导意义，有的看法对我们今天也有参考价值。他关于教育要适应儿童心理特点的思路是正确的。教育要遵循儿童身心发展规律至今仍是我们遵循的方向。他重视艺术和美学教育，这不仅在当时是切中时弊的，在我们今天也是一个亟需注意的问题。当然，我们也必须看到怀特海思想中的消极一面。例如：他的教育思想的哲学基础是唯心的；他对儿童心理发展阶段的划分具有思辨的性质，缺乏科学的依据；在他的教育理论中还具有浓厚的宗教色彩，等等。对他的不足之处，我们自然要持批判态度。
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The Aims of Education 中译本
教育的目的
作者: [英]怀特海 著; 徐汝舟 译
ISBM: 7108016230
页数: 153
定价: 9.8元
出版社: 生活・读书・新知三联书店
装帧: 平装
出版年: 2002-1-1
简介 · · · · · ·
怀特海，英国数学家、哲学家、教育家。他与罗素合著的《数学原理》标志着人类逻辑思维的空前进步，被称为永久的伟大学术著作之一；创立了庞大的形面上学体系，《过程与实在》、《观念的历险》等是其哲学代表作；他深刻的教育思想也得到了广泛承认。 本书是他有关教育的演讲论文集，比较全面地反映了他的教育观念。他主张教育应该充满生活与活力，反对学生灌输知识，面应引导他们自我发展；他强调古典文学艺术在学生智力发展和人格培养中的重要性，倡导使受教育者在科学和人文方面全面发展；他还重视审美在道德教育中的意义，认为受教育者“如果不能经常目睹伟大崇高，道路教育便无从谈起。”怀特海的教育思想对今天提倡的“素质教育”有很大的参考与指导价值。
作者简介 · · · · · ·
怀特海（Whitehead，Alfred North，1861-1947年），英国数学家、哲学家、教育家。他与罗索合著的《数学原理》标志着人类逻辑思维的空前进步，被称为永久性的伟大学术著作之一；创立了庞大的形而上学体系，《过程与实在》、《观念的历险》等是其哲学代表作；他深刻的教育思想也得到了广泛承认。
