Utile Dulci

In Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773), Hester Mulso Chapone suggests that her young readers read "moral philosophy." These are, she notes, works that help readers understand "human actions." Such works "are particularly useful to young people . . . [and] introduce many ideas and observations that are new to them--and lead to the habit of reflecting on the characters and events that come before them in real life." Reading these books and essays, she claims, will help the reader to understand the world and the people around them. While many students in college (and high school) may be assigned to read Plato, Aristotle, or Plutarch--the ancient writers she may be thinking of--or Addison and Steele or Samuel Johnson--the eighteenth-century authors of moral essays--are these texts assigned as ways of understanding "the characters and events that come before [students] in real life"? Some of these texts, of course, reflect profound philosophical and ethical debates that continue today, but, as advice for real life, Chapone's recommendations seem a bit quaint.

Articulating a debate that sounds even odder to modern ears, Chapone sees a conflict between texts on moral and ethical matters and "fictitious stories," or novels. While she acknowledges the appeal of novels, she also worries that they compromise the "chief purpose of education" which is to "moderate and restrain" the "passions of youth." Here, we see clearly that Chapone is living in a world very different from our own. Surely very few people today would phrase the purpose of education in language that sounds so restrictive. Similarly, we now encourage students to read anything--and there are many recent attempts to prove the importance of reading fiction in particular (see "Your brain on Austen"; ""Read Chekhov"; "Novel Reading Improve Empathy" or just google "encourage students to read!).

In another way, though, Chapone sounds very contemporary--she wants education to be fun. She uses an idea that occurred often in eighteenth century discussions of education: utile dulci. The recommended books are "entertaining as well as instructive"; they will "afford you great pleasure and improvement"; there are "many agreeable and useful books"; these books will "introduce instruction in a easier dress." Utile dulci is a Latin phrase usually translated as "useful and agreeable." Chapone gets at the range of meanings: entertaining and instructive; pleasing and improving; agreeable and useful. This idea of utile dulci remains as important as ever--or maybe even more important. As a teacher, I am constantly bombarded with advice about how to keep my students engaged: don't just lecture; use different media; cycle through ideas within in each class period; use different kinds of activities; have students tweet about lectures.

While I applaud many of these techniques (and employ some), I do wonder about the line between entertaining and instructing. Does entertain and instruct mean education has to be fun all the time? Should we change the material we assign so that it is always agreeable? Who gets to define what is agreeable, anyway? I don't want to "moderate and restrain" my students' passions--or minds--but I do want them to be disciplined, rigorous thinkers. The process of becoming a disciplined thinker might not afford "great pleasure" all of the time! To what extent is it students' responsibility to stretch or change their notions about what counts as agreeable or entertaining? To what extent is it the teacher's responsibility to clothe learning in "easy dress?

Hester Mulso Chapone, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, London, 1773. Quotations are from 186-187.

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