of the old Winchester plan of “Standing up”? In the regular “exams.”
(“trials” as we called them at Harrow), each boy had to state in how much
Homer and Virgil he was ready to “stand up.” The master examined into the
boy’s power of saying this by heart, and of construing all he said. From
the very first the boy always gave in the _same_ poetry, only adding to
it each time. E. I have heard of it. Why, I wonder, was this plan given
up? A. I have asked old Wykamists, but nobody seems to know. Perhaps the
quantities learnt became absurdly large. But this method of accretion,
if not overdone, would leave something behind it for life. Let me show
you a passage from Æschines (Agnst Ktesip. § 135) which I have seen, not
in Æschines, but in J. H. Krause’s “Education among the Greeks” (_Gesch.
d. Erziehg bei d. Griechen_). It is so simple that even _you_ may
construe it. Διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οἶμαι ἠμᾶς παῖδας ὄντας τὰς τῶν ποιητῶν γνώμας
ἔκμανθάνειν ἵν’ ἄνδρες ὄντὲς αὐταῖς χρώμεθα. E. There is very little
left of my Littlego Greek, but I will try: “For it is, I suppose, with
this object that, when we are boys, we thoroughly commit to memory the
sayings of the poets—in order to turn them to account when we are men.” I
wish the old Greek custom were continued. I believe in learning by heart
what is worthy of it (see _supra_, p. 74, _n._). A. But the poetry that
appeals to children they grow out of. E. This cannot be said of the best
of it; but of this best there is, to be sure, a very small quantity. By
“appeals to,” I suppose you mean “written on purpose for.” But in a sense
much melodious poetry appeals to children even when they can get only
a vague notion that it _has_ a meaning. I have known children delight
in “The splendour falls on castle walls,” and Hohen Linden pleases them
much better than anything of Jane Taylor’s. But here, at all events,
there can be no doubt about the wisdom of Tranio’s rule: “Study what you
most affect.” As I have said in an old paper of mine (_How to Train the
Memory_; Kellogg’s _Teachers Manuals_, No. 9), the teacher may read aloud
some selected pieces, and let the children separately “give marks” for
each. He can then choose “what they most affect.”
=Books for Teachers.=—A. Don’t you think you might give some useful
advice to young teachers about the books they should read? E. I had
intended giving some advice, but in reading tastes differ widely, and
after all the best advice is Tranio’s, “Study what you most affect.”
There are three Englishmen who have written so well that, as it seems,
they will be read by English-speaking teachers of all time. These are
Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. If a teacher does not know these he
is not likely to know or care anything about the literature of education.
These authors have attained to the position of classics by writing short
books in excellent English. After these, I must know something of the
student before I ventured on a recommendation. If he (or more probably
_she_) be a student indeed, nothing will be found more valuable than
Henry Barnard’s vols. especially those of the _English Pedagogy_. But
the majority of mankind want books that are readable, _i.e._, can be
read easily. I do not know any books on teaching that I have found
easier reading than D’Arcy Thompson’s _Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster_ and
H. Clay Trumbull’s _Teaching and Teachers_ (Eng. edition is Hodder and
Stoughton’s). But some very valuable books are by no means easy reading.
Take _e.g._ Froebel’s _Education of Man_ (trans. by Hailmann, Appletons).
This book is a fount of ideas, but Froebel seems to want interpreters,
and happily he has found them. The Baroness Marenholtz-Bülow has done
good work for him in German, and in English he has had good interpreters
as _e.g._, Miss Shirreff, Mr. H. C. Bowen, and Supt. Hailmann. In the
case of Froebel there is certainly a want of literary talent; but even
where this talent is clearly shown, a book may be by no means “easy
reading.” It may make great demands on our thinking power, and thought
is never easy. This will probably prevent Thring’s _Theory and Practice
of Teaching_ (Pitt Press, 4_s._ 6_d._) from ever being a popular book,
though every teacher who has read it will feel that he is the better for
it. Sometimes the size of a book stands in the way of its popularity.
This seems to me the case with Joseph Payne’s _Science and Art of
Teaching_ (Longmans, 10_s._); but this book is popular in the United
States, and I take this as a proof that the American teachers are more
in earnest than we are. All the essentials of popularity are combined in
Fitch’s _Lectures on Teaching_ (Pitt Press, 5_s._), and this is now (and
long may it continue!) one of our most read educational works. A. But
what about less known books? Cannot you recommend anything as yet unknown
to fame? E. Ah! you want me to tell you what books deserve fame, that is,
to—
“Look into the seeds of time
“And say which grain will grow, and which will not.”
But I have no intention of posing as the representative of the readers of
our day, still less of the future. Indeed, far from being able to tell
you what other people would like or should like, I can hardly say what
I like myself. Perhaps I come across a book and read it with delight.
Remembering the very favourable impression made by the first reading I go
back to the book some years afterwards and I then in some cases cannot
discover what it was that pleased me. A. That reminds me of Wordsworth’s
similar experience—
“I sometimes could be sad
To think of, to read over, many a page,
Poems withal of name, which at that time
Did never fail to entrance me, and are now
Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre
Fresh emptied of spectators.” (_Prelude_ v.)
I suppose this has happened to all of us. We go back and the things
are the same and yet look so different. It is like after the night of
an illumination looking at the designs by daylight. E. Not many of our
designs will bear “the light of common day.” And if we tried to settle
which, we should probably be quite wrong. Of my three English Educational
Classics one can hardly understand why the peoples who speak English have
retained Ascham while Mulcaster, Brinsley, and Hoole are forgotten. Locke
had his reputation as a philosopher to keep his _Thoughts_ from neglect,
and yet at the beginning of 1880 1 found that there was no _English_
edition in print. Perhaps some of the old writers will come into the
field of view again. _E.g._, my friend Dr. Bülbring, of Heidelberg, the
editor of De Foe’s _Compleat Gentleman_, talks of reviving the fame of
Mary Astell, who at the end of the seventeenth century took up the rights
of women and put very vigorously some of the pet ideas of the nineteenth
century. A. I will not ask you to “look into the seeds of time,” and
I will not take you for a representative person in any way. On these
conditions perhaps you will give me the names of some of the books that
have made such a favourable impression on first reading—at least in cases
where that impression has not been effaced by further acquaintance. E.
Agreed. I ought to begin with psychology, but I must with sorrow confess
that I never read a _whole_ book on the science of mind; so this most
important section of the subject must be omitted. French and German books
I will also omit unless they exist in an English translation. About the
historical and biographical part of the subject I have already named
many books such as S. S. Laurie’s _Comenius_ and Russell’s Guimps’s
_Pestalozzi_. F. V. N. Painter’s _History of Education_ is pleasantly
written; but no really satisfactory history of education can be held
in one small volume. This objection _in limine_ also applies to G.
Compayré’s _History of Pedagogy_ (trans. by W. H. Payne) which is far too
full of matter. In it we find _many things_, but only a very advanced
student can find _much_. Little has been written about English-speaking
educators, but there are good accounts of Bell, Lancaster, Wilderspin,
and Stow in J. Leitch’s _Practical Educationists_ (Macmillans, 6_s._).
Turning to books about principles and methods I have found nothing that
with reference to the first stage of instruction seems to me better
than Colonel F. W. Parker’s _Talks on Teaching_ (New York, Kelloggs).
Fitch’s more complete book I have named already. A. Geikie’s _Teaching of
Geography_ (Macmillans, 2_s._ 6_d._) is a book I read with great delight.
For principles Joseph Payne seems to me one of our best educational
writers, and we shall before long have, I hope, the much expected volume
of his papers on the history of education. Some of the smaller books
that I remember reading with especial gratification are Jacob Abbott’s
_Teacher_, Calderwood _On Teaching_, A. Sidgwick’s lectures on _Stimulus_
(Pitt Press) and on _Discipline_ (Rivingtons), and Mrs. Malleson’s _Notes
on Early Training_ (Sonnenschein). There seemed to me a very fine tone in
a book much read in the United States—D. P. Page’s _Theory and Practice
of Teaching_. T. Tate’s _Philosophy of Education_ I liked very much, and
the book has been revived by Colonel Parker (Kelloggs). There are some
books that are worth getting “by opportunity,” as the Germans say, good
books now out of print. Among them I should name Rollin’s _Method_ in
three volumes, Rousseau’s _Emilius_ in four, De Morgan’s _Arithmetic,
Essays on a Liberal Education_ edited by Farrar. I know or have known
all the books here named, but my knowledge and time for reading do not
extend as far as my bookshelves, and I see before me some books that I
have not mentioned and yet feel sure I ought to mention. Among them are
Compayré’s _Lectures on Pedagogy_, translated by W. H. Payne, which seems
an admirable compilation (Boston, Heath; London, Sonnenschein); Shaw and
Donnell’s _School Devices_ (Kelloggs) in which I have seen some good
“wrinkles”; and T. J. Morgan’s _Educational Mosaics_ (Boston; Silver,
Rogers & Co.). J. Landon’s _School Management_ (London, K. Paul) I have
heard spoken of as an excellent book, and I like what I have seen of it.
But I set out with a promise to mention not all our good books, but those
which I thought good _after reading them_. There still remain some that
fall under this category and have not been mentioned, _e.g._, _The Action
of Examinations_, by H. Latham, Cotterill’s _Reforms in Public Schools_,
W. H. Payne’s _Contributions_, and a pamphlet from which I formed a very
high estimate of the writer’s ability to give us some first-rate books
about teaching. I mean _A Pot of Green Feathers_, by T. G. Rooper.
=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.