Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/700

678 EDUCATION 1. All men have an equal intelligence ; 2. Every man has received from God the faculty of being able to instruct himself ; 3. Every thing is in every thing. The first of these principles is certainly wrong, although Jacotot tried to explain it by asserting that, although men had the same intelligence, they differed widely in the will to make use of it. Still it is important to assert that nearly all men are capable of receiving some intellectual education, provided the studies to which they are directed are wide enough to engage their faculties, and the means taken to interest them are sufficiently ingenious. The second principle lays down that it is more necessury to stimulate the pupil to learn for himself, than to teach him didactically. The third principle explains the process which Jacotot adopted. To one learning a language for the first time he would give a short passage of a few lines, and encour age the pupil to study first the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the full meaning of the expressions, until by iteration and accretion a single paragraph took the place of an entire literature. Much may be effected by this method in the hands of a skilful teacher, but a charlatan might make it an excuse for ignorance and neglect. Among those who have improved the methods of teaching, we must mention Bell and Lancaster, the joint- discoverers of the method of mutual instruction, which, if it has not effected everything which its founders expected of it, has produced the system of pupil-teachers which is common in our schools. Froebel also deserves an honour able place as the founder of the Kindergarten, a means of teaching young children by playing and amusement. His plans, which have a far wider significance than this limited development of them, are likely to be fruitful of results to future workers. >ert The last English writers on education are Mr Herbert cer < Spencer and Mr Alexander Bain, the study of whose writ ings will land us in those regions of paedagogics which have been most recently explored. We need not follow Mr Spencer into his defence of science as the worthiest object of study, or in his rules for moral and physical training, except to say that they are sound and practical. In writing of intellectual education, he insists that we shall attain the best results by closely studying the develop ment of the mind, and availing ourselves of the whole amount of force which nature puts at our dfsposal. The mind of every being is naturally active and vigorous, indeed it is never at rest. But for its healthy growth it must have something to work upon, and, therefore, the teacher must watch its movements with the most sympathetic care, in order to supply exactly that food which it requires at any particular time. In this way a much larger cycle of attainments can be compassed than by the adoption of any programme or curriculum, however carefully drawn up. It is no good to teach what is not remembered ; the strength of memory depends on attention, and attention depends upon interest. To teach without interest is to work like Sisyphus and the Danaides. Arouse interest if you can, rather by high means than by low means. But it is a saving of power to make use of interest which you have already existing, and which, unless dried up or distorted by injudicious violence, will naturally lead the mind into all the knowledge which it is capable of receiving. Therefore, never from the first force a child s attention; leave off a study the moment it becomes weari some, never let a child do what it does not like, only take care that when its liking is in activity a choice of good as well as evil shall be given to it. Bain. Mr Bain s writings on education, which are contained in some articles in the Fortnightly Review, and in two articles in Mind (Nos. v. and vii.) are extremely valuable. Perhaps the most interesting part of them consists in his showing how what may be called the "correlation of forces in man" helps us to a right education. From this we learn that emotion may be transformed into intellect, that sensation may exhaust the brain as much as thought, and we may infer that the chief duty of a schoolmaster is to stimulate the powers of each brain under his charge to the fullest activity, and to apportion them in that ratio which will best conduce to the most complete and harmonious develop ment of the individual. It seems to follow from this sketch of the history of Concla- education that, iu spite of the great advances which have sion - been made of late years, the science of education is still far in advance of the art. Schoolmasters are still spending their best energies in teaching subjects which have been universally condemned by educational reformers for the last two hundred years. The education of every public school is a farrago of rules, principles, and customs derived from every age of teaching, from the most modern to the most remote. It is plain that the science and art of teach ing will never be established on a firm basis until it is organized on the model of the sister art of medicine. "We must pursue the patient methods of induction by which other sciences have reached the stature of maturity ; we must discover some means of registering and tabulating results ; we must invent a phraseology and nomenclature which will enable results to be accurately recorded; we must place education in its proper position among the sciences of observation. A philosopher who should succeed in doing this would be venerated by future ages as the creator of the art of teaching. It only remains now to give some account of the very Biblio- large literature of the subject. graphy. The history of education was not investigated till the beginning of the present century, and since then little original research has been made except by Germans. Whilst acknowledging our great obligations to the German historians, we cannot but regret that all the investigations have belonged to the same nation. For instance, one of the best treatises on education written in the 16th century is Mulcaster s Positions, which has never been reprinted, and is now a literary curiosity. Mangelsdorf and Ruhkopf attempted histories of educa tion at the end of the last century, but the first work of note was F. H.Ch. Schwarz s Geschichte d. Erziehung (1813). A. H. Niemeyer, a very influential writer, was one of the first to insist on the importance of making use of all that has been handed down to us, and with this practical object in view he has given us an Ueberblick der allgemeinen Geschichte der Erziehung. Other writers followed; but from the time of its appearance till within the last few years, by far the most readable and the most read work on the history of education was that of Karl von Raumer. Raumer, however, is too chatty and too religious to pass for " wissenschaftlich," and the standard history is now that of Karl Schmidt. The Roman Catholics have not been content to adopt the works of Protestants, but have histories of their own. These are the very pleasing sketches of L. Kellner and the somewhat larger history by Stoeckl. When we come to writers who have produced sketches or shorter histories, we find the list in Germany a very long one. Among the best books of this kind are Fried. Dittes s Geschichte and Drb se s Pddagogische CharacterUlder. An account of this literature will be found in J. Chr. G. Schumann s paper amon^ the Fadago- gische Studien, edited by Dr Reiss. For biographies the pedagogic cyclopaedias may be consulted, of which the first is the EncyUopddie des gesammten Erziehung swesens of K. A. Schmid, a great work in 11 or 12 vols. not yet

completed, although the second edition of the early vols.