[Inquiries from teachers in different sections of the
country as to the sources of information on the subject of
Teaching as a Science have led me to believe that a
translation of Rosenkranz's Pedagogics may be widely
acceptable and useful. It is very certain that too much of
our teaching is simply empirical, and as Germany has, more
than any other country, endeavored to found it upon
universal truths, it is to that country that we must at
present look for a remedy for this empiricism.
Based as this is upon the profoundest system of German
Philosophy, no more suggestive treatise on Education can
perhaps be found. In his third part, as will be readily
seen, Rosenkranz follows the classification of National
ideas given in Hegel's Philosophy of History. The word
"Pedagogics," though it has unfortunately acquired a
somewhat unpleasant meaning in English--thanks to the
writers who have made the word "pedagogue" so
odious--deserves to be redeemed for future use. I have,
therefore, retained it in the translation.
In order that the reader may see the general scope of the
work, I append in tabular form the table of contents,
giving however, under the first and second parts, only the
main divisions. The minor heads can, of course, as they
appear in the translation, be easily located.--_Tr._]