Part 47

=Professional Knowledge.=—A. What a pity it is that in English we have no name for _Kernsprüche_! When an important truth has been aptly expressed, the very expression may be an important event in the history of thought. Take _e.g._ Milton’s words which I observe you have quoted more than once, about “the understanding founding itself on sensible things” (p. 510). Here we have a “kernel-saying” that might have sprung up and yielded a rich crop of improvements in teaching if it had only taken root in teachers’ minds. Why don’t you make a collection of such “kernel-sayings”? E. I have had thoughts of doing so, and I have a collection of collections of _Kernsprüche_ in German. A. Well, German is _not_ the language I should choose for the expression of thought. According to Heine, in everything the Germans do there is a thought embodied; and we may add that in everything they say a thought is embedded; but I rather shrink from the labour of digging it out. E. You would find a collection of “kernel-sayings” in any language rather stiff reading. And after all, the sayings which strike us are just those which give utterance to our own thought. This is probably the reason why in reading such a book so few sayings seem to us worthy of selection. I had intended prefacing these essays with some mottoes, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson used to do when he wrote, but finally I have left my readers to collect for themselves. A. I should like to know the sort of thing you intended for your “first course.” E. Here is one of them from Professor Stanley Hall, of Worcester, Mass.: “Modern life in all its departments is ruled by experts and by those who have attained the mastery that comes by concentration.” (New England _J. of Ed._, 27th February, 1890.) A. According to you, sayings strike us only when they express our own thought. In that case Professor Hall’s saying would not make much impression on the generality of your scholastic friends. Many of the best paid schoolmasters in England would burst out laughing if anyone spoke of them as “educational experts.” Educational experts? Why they have never even thought of the art of teaching, leave alone the science of education. They are “good scholars” who at one time thought enough of preparing for the Tripos or the Honour Schools; and having got a good degree they thought (and small blame to them!) how to employ their knowledge of classics so as to secure a comfortable income for life. Accordingly they took a mastership, and soon settled down into the groove of work. But as for the science of education they have thought of it about as much as they have thought of the sea-serpent, and would probably tell you with Mr. Lowe (now forgotten as Lord Sherbrooke) that “there is no such thing.” E. No doubt they feel the force of Dr. Harris’s words: “For the most part the teacher who is theoretically inclined is lame in the region of details of work.” It would be a pity indeed if their “resolution” to make a good income were “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” A. They had to think how to prepare for the Tripos; and before long they will have to think how to do their work of teaching and educating better than they have done it hitherto. The future will demand something more than “a good degree.” Professor Hall is right. The day of the experts is coming. But does not even Dr. Harris warn teachers against being “too theoretical”? E. It is rather jumping at conclusions to assume with some of our countrymen that if a man does not think, he does act. Goethe’s aphorism which Dr. Harris quotes is this: “Thought expands, but lames; action narrows, but intensifies.” Now a good many men who do not expend energy in thought are by no means strong in action. In education they have no desire either to think the best that is thought or to do the best that is done. They won’t inquire about either; and they show the most impartial ignorance of both. Like Dr. Ridding they are of opinion that professional knowledge is to be sought only by persons without the advantages of having been at a public school and of “a good degree.” As for reading books about teaching they leave that sort of thing to national schoolmasters. And yet if teaching is an art, they might get at least as much good from books as the golf-player gets or the whist-player. “How marvellous it is when one comes to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently distinguished themselves in it and have systematised for the benefit of others the results of the experience of a lifetime!” Mr. James Payn who wrote this (_Some Private Views_, p. 176) was thinking of books not on teaching but on whist; but his words would come home to teachers if they took as much interest in teaching as he takes in whist. A. I fancy you have spotted the real deficiency; it is want of interest. It is only when a man becomes thoroughly interested in whist that he desires to play better, and when he becomes thoroughly interested in teaching that he desires to teach better. And if only he _desires_ to improve he will seek all the professional knowledge within his reach. “Every one,” says Matthew Arnold, “every one is aware how those who want to cultivate any sense or endowment in themselves must be habitually conversant with the works of people who have been eminent for that sense, must study them, catch inspiration from them. Only in this way can progress be made.” (Quoted by Momerie). Let us hope that you have incited some young teachers to study and catch inspiration from the great thinkers and workers in the educational field. E. This is the object I have aimed at. If I wanted a motto I think I should choose this from Froebel interpreted by Miss Shirreff:

“The duty of each generation is to gather up its inheritance from the past, and thus to serve the present, and prepare better things for the future.”

SYLLABUS OF QUICK’S EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS.

_From the International Reading Circle Course of Professional Study._

Pages 1 to 62.

I. THE RENASCENCE.

1. The essential element in literature.

2. Classical literature in education.

3. The educational classes produced by renascence tendencies.

4. How much of the error of the “renascence ideal” still survives?

5. Is this harm overbalanced by the good influences of that ideal?

II. STURM.

(_See Painter, pp. 160-162, for Sturm’s Course of Study._)

1. What two or more influences of Sturm’s school would you mention as most prominently retained in our larger schools of to-day?

2. How far are these influences good, and in what ways are they evil?

III. THE JESUITS.

1. Their motive.

2. Their elements of excellence.

3. What value attaches to their provisions for securing thoroughness?

4. What to their instruction in morals?

5. What to their physical training?

Pages 63 to 171.

RABELAIS.

1. His products of education: wisdom, eloquence, and piety.

2. His emphasis upon the study of _things_.

3. His standard of physical training.

MONTAIGNE.

1. His prime product of education: wisdom, in thought and action; not knowledge.

2. The practical errors in his theory of educational methods.

ASCHAM.

1. His method of Latin instruction.

MULCASTER.

1. His principles of education as identical with the best of to-day.

2. His recognition of the need for trained teachers.

RATKE.

1. His practical failure due to the characteristics of the man, not to faults in his principles of education.

2. Nine cardinal principles of didactics as gathered from his writings upon method.

COMENIUS.

1. The first to treat education in a scientific spirit.

2. Based educational method upon an understanding of the nature of the child.

3. Insisted upon the direct study of external Nature, and upon the learning of words only in connection with things.

4. Recognized education as the development of all the faculties of body and of mind.

5. Demanded the equal instruction of both sexes.

6. Taught that languages must be learned through practice, not by means of rules.

7. Made provision for education through the hand as well as through the eye and ear.

Pages 172 to 218.

THE PORT-ROYALISTS.

1. Purpose and method of Saint Cyran’s “Little Schools.”

2. Actual results of English public-school influences as opposed to St. Cyran’s theory.

3. Port-Royalists’ restoration of the mother tongue as the subject-matter of elementary instruction.

4. Literature study as distinguished from grammar study of Latin and Greek.

5. Logic, or the act of thinking.

6. The principles set forth in the pedagogic writings of the Port-Royalists.

SOME ENGLISH WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.

1. Francis Bacon: first great leader of the _realists_—of those who sought to know the facts of Nature rather than the thoughts of man.

2. Charles Hoole: “one of the pioneer educators of his century.”

3. Dury and Petty: extending the doctrines of _realism_.

4. Milton: elevating the moral nature to the first place in his theory of a complete education.

Pages 219 to 238.

JOHN LOCKE.

(See Painter’s History, pp. 218-223.)

1. From the standpoints of reason he rejected the established methods.

2. His definition of knowledge.

3. Development of body and mind, and formation of right habits the true aim of education.

4. Locke’s comparison of the child to white paper or wax.

5. The _naturalistic_ school of educational thinkers.

6. Objections to classing Locke as a utilitarian.

Pages 239 to 289.

ROUSSEAU.

1. To be classed with the thinkers, not with the doers, in educational work.

2. The value of his destructive work.

3. His three kinds of education—from Nature, from men, from things.

4. The first essential in the work of education is to understand the mind of childhood.

5. Some characteristics of the mode of acting of the child’s mind.

6. Evil of over-directing in both discipline and instruction.

7. Right and wrong views of the value of self-teaching.

BASEDOW.

1. His mode of thought and manner of life.

2. The theory outlined in his Elementary and in his Book of Method.

3. Interesting devices used at the Philanthropinum.

4. The training of the senses and acquirement of knowledge through the senses pre-eminent both in Rousseau’s and in Basedow’s theories.

Pages 290 to 383.

PESTALOZZI. I. HIS LIFE.

1. His personal characteristics as shown in his early life and in his farming venture.

2. His view of the nature and purpose of education.

3. The first experiment at Neuhof and its failure.

4. The orphanage at Stanz.

5. The experiences at Burgdorf.

6. The Institute at Yverdun.

7. The last success at Clindy.

8. Death of Pestalozzi at Neuhof.

II. PESTALOZZI’S PRINCIPLES.

1. The main object of the school not to teach but to develop.

2. The child first to be trained to _love_; moral education.

3. The child next to be trained to _think_; intellectual education.

4. The child also to be trained to _work_; physical education.

5. The _self-activity_ of the pupil the real force in all true education.

Pages 384 to 413.

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.

1. The best tendencies of educational thought embodied in Froebel’s teachings.

2. Froebel imperfectly understood even by the most earnest students.

3. Influence of his own neglected youth upon his after consideration for children.

4. His communion with Nature in the Thuringian Forest.

5. His transfer from the study of architecture to the practice and study of education.

6. His association with Pestalozzi at Yverdun.

7. The influence of his military experience in showing him the value of discipline and united action.

8. His experiences in teaching prior to his first kindergarten.

9. The edict forbidding the establishment of schools based upon Froebel’s principles.

10. His death at threescore years and ten.

FROEBEL’S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES.

11. To find in science the expression of the mind of God.

12. To view education as founded upon religion, and leading to unity with God.

13. To regard the educational process as a process of development.

14. To seek development, or evolution of power, in the exercise of those functions, in the use of those faculties, that it is desired to develop.

15. That the exercise productive of true development must be in harmony with the function or faculty to be developed, and proportioned to its present strength.

16. That to be most truly efficient the exercise must arise from and be sustained by the _self_-activity of the function or faculty to be developed.

17. That this self-activity must manifest itself not in receptive action or acquisition alone, but in expressive action or production.

18. Practically, that children should be busied with things that they can not only see but can handle and use in the making or representing of new things to express their growing ideas.

Pages 414 to 469.

JACOTOT.

1. Set pupils to learning by their own investigation and refrained from giving them direct instruction.

2. Asserted that all human beings are equally capable of learning.

3. Declared that every one can teach; and, moreover, can teach that which he does not know.

4. Has done great service by giving prominence to the principle that the mental faculties must be developed and trained by being put to actual work.

5. By his doctrine “All is in all,” he gave prominence to the correlation of knowledge.

6. Made the thorough mastery of a single book and the retention of it all in the memory his basis of all further accumulation.

7. His methodology summarized: Learn something, repeat it, reflect upon it, test all related facts by it.

HERBERT SPENCER.

1. The value in the views of one who comes to educational problems free from tradition and prejudice.

2. The teaching that gives the most valuable knowledge also best disciplines in the mental faculties.

3. The end and aim of education is to prepare us for complete living.

4. The test of the relative value of knowledge lies in its power to influence action in right or wrong directions.

5. In method we must proceed from the simple to the complex; from the known to the unknown; from the concrete to the abstract.

6. Every study should have a purely experimental introduction, and children should be led to make their own investigations and draw their own inferences.

7. Instruction must excite the interest of pupils and therefore be pleasurable to them.

Pages 470 to 503.

I. THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

1. The ideal of public-school work is to beget a healthy interest and pleasure in the doing of hard work.

2. The interest to arise from the nature of the subject itself, or from the recognized usefulness of the subject, or from emulation.

3. The value of pictures in the teaching of children as a means of awakening active interest.

4. The first teaching in reading and number to begin with the objective method and pass thence to the subjective.

5. In geography and history the lively description and the interesting story to precede the formal compend.

II. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.

6. Sources and means of the teacher’s influence upon his pupils.

7. Causes of the loss of his good influence.

8. The influence of a few leading spirits among the pupils themselves.

9. A mode of religious training.

Pages 504 to 547.

REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.

1. The good and the ill influences of the Jesuits as the “first reformers” in educational practice.

2. Rabelais, the first to advocate training as distinguished from teaching.

3. Comenius, founder of the science of education, recognizing in his scheme the threefold nature of man.

4. Rousseau, the originator of the “new education” as based upon the inherent nature of the child.

5. Pestalozzi and Froebel, reformers of the processes of education, seeking to secure the development of each faculty by its own activity in appropriate exercise.

INDEX.

Abbott, E. A., on Montaigne and Locke, 231, _n._

— Jacob; Teacher, 544

Accomplishments, 451

Action, the root of Ed., 403

“Advice to a Young Lord” (1691), 234, _n._

Æschines on memorizing, 541

Æsop’s Fables, Locke’s, 238, _n._

Alexander De Villa Dei, 80, 532

All can learn, Jacotot, 416

— Education for, 356

— Education for. Comenius, 515, 522

— is in all. Jacotot, 423

— to be educated. Comenius, 146

Altdorf burnt, 326

Analogies for illustration not proof, 155

Anchoran edits C.’s _Janua_, 163

Andreæ, J. V., 122

_Anschauung_, Pestalozzi on, 360

— Froebel for, 408

Apparatus, 462

Aquaviva and Jesuit schools, 36

Arber, Prof., 82, _n._, 83

Arithmetic, Children’s. Comenius, 145

— for children, 479, 482

Armstrong, Ld., on cry for Useless Knowledge, 78, _n._

Arnauld, his _Règlement_, 189

— the Philosopher of Port-Royal, 187

Arnaulds, The, and the Jesuits, 173

Arnold, Dr., educator of English type, 219

— History Primer, 487

— on citizens’ duties, 447

Arnold, M., about the Middle Age, 240

— Barbarian’s inaptitude for ideas, 178

— on importance of reading, 539

— on studying great authorities, 547

— on Words and Things, 154

Arnstädt, F. A.: _Rabelais_, 69

Art learnt by right practice, 420

— of observing children, 252

Ascham against epitomes, 486, _n._

— and Jacotot, 425

Ascham’s method for Latin, 84

— “six points,” 85

“Ascott Hope,” quoted, 498, _n._

Athletic public schoolmen, 514, _n._

Audition, Hint for, 429, _n._

Augsburg, Ratke at, 106

Bacon against epitomes, 446, _n._

— for Jesuits, 33, _n._

— for study of Nature, 408

— on “young plants,” 406

— studied by Comenius, 122, 149

Baconian teaching, Effect of, 510

Bahrd, 289

Balliet, T. M., quoted, 156, _n._

Banzet, Sara, 408

Barbauld, Mrs., on women’s concealment of knowledge, 98, _n._

Barbier, _La Discipline_, 60, _n._

Bardeen’s _Orbis Pictus_, 168

Barnard, H., _English Pedagogy_, 542

— _Eng. Pedagogy_, 91, _n._, 212, _n._

— on Kindergarten, 409

— Opinion of _Positions_, 91, and _n._

— _The Kindergarten_, 413

Bartle Massey in _Adam Bede_, 507

Basedow and Goethe, 277

_Basedow_, Pinloche’s mentioned, 289, _n._, 527

Bateus, 160, _n._

Bath, W., 160, _n._

Beaconsfield, Ld. His “two nations,” 371

Beautiful, Pestalozzi on sense of the, 339

Beginners shall have best teachers. Mulcaster, 95

Bell, Dr., at Yverdun, 352

Bellers, John, for hand-work, 211, _n._

Benham, D. His _Comenius_, 119

— His trans. of _Sch. of Infancy_, 142

Besant, W. Readings in Rabelais, 67, _n._

Biographies before history, 489

Birmingham lecture quoted, 193, _n._

Blackboard, Drawing on, 476

Blunder of insisting on repulsive tasks, 467

— of not getting clear ideas about definitions, 460

— of giving only book knowledge, 458

— of teaching epitomes, 485

— of teaching words without ideas, 475

— of “cramming” children, 374, 375

— of not beginning at the beginning, 468

— of assuming knowledge in pupil, 468

— of neglecting interest, 464, 474

— of teaching the incomprehensible, 195

— about “first principles,” 461

Bluntschli warns Pestalozzi, 293

Bodily health, Jesuits cared for, 48, 507

Bodmer, 291

Body, its part in education, 566

— must be educated, 411

— Rabelais’s care of the, 508

Boileau’s _Arrêt_, 187, _n._

Bookishness of Renascence. Montaigne, 76

Book-learning, connected with life, 459

Books for teachers, 541

“Books, Miserable,” 153

— Reaction against, 510

— Respect for, 481

— Rousseau against, 259

— useful in learning an art, 546

Bowen, E. E., 118, _n._, 532

Bowen, H. C., on connected teaching, 424, _n._

— on development, 399

— on Kindergartens without idea, 410

Bréal, M., quoted, 286, _n._

— on child-collectors, 429, _n._

— on teachers, 455, _n._

Brewer, Prof., 98

Brinsley, J., 200

— on training teachers, 99, _n._

Brown, Dr. John, _Ed. through senses_, 458, _n._

— _Horæ Sub._, quoted, 169

Browning, Oscar, on Humanists, &c., 231

Buchanan and Infant Schools, 409

Buisson on Intuition, 361

Bülbring, Dr., and Mary Astell, 543

Burgdorf Institute, 341

— Pestalozzi at, 335

Burke, quoted, 437

Buss, 341, 365

Butler, Bp., on Ed., 147, 148, _n._

Butler, Samuel, quoted, 30

Cadet on Port-Royal, 195

Calkins, Prof., on learning thro’ senses, 150, _n._

Cambridge exam, of teachers, 219, _n._

— man, 40 years ago, 431, _n._

Campanella, 122

Campe, 287

Capitalizing discoveries, 517

Carlyle about the Schoolmen, 10, _n._

— on divine message, 401

— on History, quoted, 145, _n._

— on Knowledge, 223

— on “nag for sand-cart,” 467

— on teaching religion, 359, _n._

Carlyle’s “mostly fools,” 517, _n._

— “Succedaneum for salt,” 498

Carré on Port-Royal, 195

Cat, Rousseau on the, 258

Cato’s _Distichs_, 81, 121

Chambers, H. E., of N. Orleans, on “teams,” 531

Channing, Eva, Trans, of _L. and G._, 306, _n._

Children and poetry, 541

— care for things and animals, 475, 521

— not small men, 250

Childhood the sleep of Reason, 245

_Christopher and Eliza_, 309

Church, Dean R. W., on Montaigne, 71, _n._

Citizens’ duties, 447

Classics, “Discovery” of the, 3

— do not satisfy modern wants, 7

— in Public Schools, 76

— too hard for boys, 16

Classification, Thoughts on, 232

Classifiers, Caution against, 232

Class matches, 42, 529

Clindy, Pestalozzi at, 353

Clough, quoted, 358

Colet, Dean, 80, 533

Columbus and geography, 2

Comenius and Science of ed., 512

— Books about, 170

— at Amsterdam, 133

— in London, 126

— criticized by Lancelot, 186, _n._

— stiftung, 119

Compayré, _Hist. of Pedagogy_ and _Lectures_, 544

— on Jesuits, 56

— on Port-Royal, 196

Compendia Dispendia, 169

Complete living, H. Spencer on, 442

“Complete Retainers,” 89, 426, _n._

Composition, 483

Compulsion, Nothing on, 112

Concept, Larger, how formed, 457

Concertations, 42

Concrete, Start from, 461

_Conduct of Understanding_ and Reason, 221

_Conférences pédagogiques_, 362

Connexion of knowledges, 424

_Consolation_, &c., Brinsley, 200

Cooking should be taught, 540

Coote, Edward, _English Scholemaster_, 91

Corporal punishment, Pestalozzi for, 327

Cotterill, C. C., _Suggested Reforms_, 545

Cowley’s Proposition, &c., 202

Cowper on man and animals, 517

Creative instinct. Froebel, 404

Daniel, Canon, quoted, 155, _n._

Daniel, Le P. Ch., quoted, 62, _n._

_Day-dreams of a Schoolmaster_, 541

Day-schools wanted, 499

Dead knowledge, 524

Decimal scale universal, 479

De Garmo, Dr., on language work. 481, _n._

— quoted, 403, _n._

De Geer and Comenius, 130

_De Imitatione_, quoted, 398

De Morgan, quoted, 433, _n._

De Quincey, quoted, 153, _n._

Derby, Ld., on criminals, 358

— quoted, 256, _n._

Development, Froebel’s theory of, 400

Didactic teaching, Rousseau against, 268

Diderot, quoted, 365, _n._

Diesterweg on dead knowledge, 365

Diesterweg’s rule for repetition, 111

_Dilucidatio_ of Comenius, 123

_Discentem oportet credere_, 152

Dislike often from ignorance, 466

_Doctrinale_, 80, 532

Double Translating, 86

— translation judged, 89

Drawing, Comenius for, 146

— Pestalozzi on, 368

— Rousseau for, 261

Drill, Need of, 526

Drudgery defined, 472

Drummond, Henry, quoted, 502, _n._

_Dunciad_, quoted, 31, 422

Dupanloup, Bp., quoted, 113

Dupanloup against Public Schools, 179

Dury’s _Reformed Schoole_, 203

— watch simile, 205

Early education negative, 244, 402

Ecclesiasticus, quoted, 77

École modèle, books not used, 154, _n._

“Economy of Nature,” 440

_Education of Man_, published 1826, 392

_Educational Reformers._ History of the book, 527

— in America, 529

Educations. Rousseau’s three, 248

Edwardes, Rev. D., quoted, 499, _n._

Elbing, Comenius at, 130

_Elementarie._ Mulcaster’s, 92

Elementary, Basedow’s, published, 275

— course. Mulcaster, 97

— studies. Comenius, 141

Elizabeth, Queen, Ascham’s pupil, 88

Elyot’s _Governour_, 91, 202

Emerson, R. W., quoted, 501