§ 1. The science of Pedagogics may be called a secondary science,
inasmuch as it derives its principles from others. In this respect it
differs from Mathematics, which is independent. As it concerns the
development of the human intelligence, it must wait upon Psychology for
an understanding of that upon which it is to operate, and, as its means
are to be sciences and arts, it must wait upon them for a knowledge of
its materials. The science of Medicine, in like manner, is dependent on
the sciences of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc. Moreover, as Medicine
may have to deal with a healthy or unhealthy body, and may have it for
its province to preserve or restore health, to assist a natural process
(as in the case of a broken bone), or to destroy an unnatural one (as in
the case of the removal of a tumor), the same variety of work is imposed
upon Education.[1]
§ 2. Since the rules of Pedagogics must be extremely flexible, so that
they may be adapted to the great variety of minds, and since an infinite
variety of circumstances may arise in their application, we find, as we
should expect, in all educational literature room for widely differing
opinions and the wildest theories; these numerous theories, each of
which may have a strong influence for a season, only to be overthrown
and replaced by others.[2] It must be acknowledged that educational
literature, as such, is not of a high order. It has its cant like
religious literature. Many of its faults, however, are the result of
honest effort, on the part of teachers, to remedy existing defects, and
the authors are, therefore, not harshly to be blamed. It is also to be
remembered that the habit of giving reproof and advice is one fastened
in them by the daily necessity of their professional work.[3]
§ 3. As the position of the teacher has ceased to be undervalued, there
has been an additional impetus given to self-glorification on his part,
and this also--in connection with the fact that schools are no longer
isolated as of old, but subject to constant comparison and
competition--leads to much careless theorizing among its teachers,
especially in the literary field.
§ 4. Pedagogics, because it deals with the human spirit, belongs, in a
general classification of the sciences, to the philosophy of spirit, and
in the philosophy of spirit it must be classified under the practical,
and not the merely theoretical, division. For its problem is not merely
to comprehend the nature of that with which it has to deal, the human
spirit--its problem is not merely to influence one mind (that of the
pupil) by another (that of the teacher)--but to influence it in such a
way as to produce the mental freedom of the pupil. The problem is,
therefore, not so much to obtain performed works as to excite mental
activity. A creative process is required. The pupil is to be forced to
go in certain beaten tracks, and yet he is to be so forced to go in
these that he shall go of his own freewill. All teaching which does not
leave the mind of the pupil free is unworthy of the name. It is true
that the teacher must understand the nature of mind, as he is to deal
with mind, but when he has done this he has still his main principle of
action unsolved; for the question is, knowing the nature of the mind,
How shall he incite it to action, already predetermined in his own mind,
without depriving the mind of the pupil of its own free action? How
shall he restrain and guide, and yet not enslave?
If, in classifying all sciences, as suggested at the beginning of this
section, we should subdivide the practical division of the Philosophy of
Spirit, which might be called Ethics, one could find a place for
Pedagogics under some one of the grades of Ethics. The education which
the child receives through the influence of family life lies at the
basis of all other teaching, and what the child learns of life, its
duties, and possibilities, in its own home, forms the foundation for all
after-work. On the life of the family, then, as a presupposition, all
systems of Education must be built. In other words, the school must not
attempt to initiate the child into the knowledge of the world--it must
not assume the care of its first training; that it must leave to the
family.[4] But the science of Pedagogics does not, as a science,
properly concern itself with the family education, or with that point of
the child's life which is dominated by the family influence. That is
education, in a certain sense, without doubt, but it does not properly
belong to a science of Pedagogics. But, on the other hand, it must be
remembered that this science, as here expounded, presupposes a previous
family life in the human being with whom it has to deal.
§ 5. Education as a science will present the necessary and universal
principles on which it is based; Education as an art will consist in the
practical realization of these in the teacher's work in special places,
under special circumstances, and with special pupils. In the skillful
application of the principles of the science to the actual demands of
the art lies the opportunity for the educator to prove himself a
creative artist; and it is in the difficulty involved in this practical
work that the interest and charm of the educator's work consists.
The teacher must thus adapt himself to the pupil. But, in doing so, he
must have a care that he do not carry this adaptation to such a degree
as to imply that the pupil is not to change; and he must see to it,
also, that the pupil shall always be worked upon by the matter which he
is considering, and not too much by the personal influence of the
teacher through whom he receives it.[5]
§ 6. The utmost care is necessary lest experiments which have proved
successful in certain cases should be generalized into rules, and a
formal, dead creed, so to speak, should be adopted. All professional
experiences are valuable as material on which to base new conclusions
and to make new plans, but only for that use. Unless the day's work is,
every day, a new creation, a fatal error has been made.
§ 7. Pedagogics as a science must consider Education--
(1) In its general idea;
(2) In its different phases;
(3) In the special systems arising from this general idea,
acting under special circumstances at special times.[6]
§ 8. With regard to the First Part, we remark that by Education, in its
general idea, we do not mean any mere history of Pedagogics, nor can any
history of Pedagogics be substituted for a systematic exposition of the
underlying idea.
§ 9. The second division considers Education under three heads--as
physical, intellectual, and moral--and forms, generally, the principal
part of all pedagogical treatises.
In this part lies the greatest difficulty as to exact limitation. The
ideas on these divisions are often undefined and apt to be confounded,
and the detail of which they are capable is almost unlimited, for we
might, under this head, speak of all kinds of special schools, such as
those for war, art, mining, etc.
§ 10. In the Third Part we consider the different realizations of the
one general idea of Pedagogics as it has developed itself under
different circumstances and in different ages of the world.
The general idea is forced into different phases by the varying
physical, intellectual, and moral conditions of men. The result is the
different systems, as shown in the analysis. The general idea is one.
The view of the end to be obtained determines in each case the
actualization of this idea. Hence the different systems of Education are
each determined by the stand-point from which the general ideal is
viewed. Proceeding in this manner, it might be possible to construct a
history of Pedagogics, _à priori_, without reference to actual history,
since all the possible systems might be inferred from the possible
definite number of points of view.
Each lower stand-point will lead to a higher, but it will not be lost in
it. Thus, where Education, for the sake of the nation,[7] merges into
the Education based on Christianity, the form is not thereby destroyed,
but, rather, in the transition first attains its full realization. The
systems of Education which were based on the idea of the nation had, in
the fullness of time, outgrown their own limits, and needed a new form
in order to contain their own true idea. The idea of the nation, as the
highest principle, gives way for that of Christianity. A new life came
to the old idea in what at first seemed to be its destruction. The idea
of the nation was born again, and not destroyed, in Christianity.
§ 11. The final system, so far, is that of the present time, which thus
is itself the fruit of all the past systems, as well as the seed of all
systems that are to be. The science of Pedagogics, in the consideration
of the system of the present, thus again finds embodied the general idea
of education, and thus returns upon itself to the point from whence it
set out. In the First and Second Parts there is already given the idea
which dominates the system found thus necessarily existing in the
present.
{FIRST PART. {Its Nature.
{In its General {Its Form.
{ Idea. {Its Limits.
{
{SECOND PART. {Physical.
{In its Special {Intellectual.
{ Elements. {Moral.
{
{ { { {Family China.
{ { {Passive. {Caste India.
{ { { {Monkish Thibet.
{ { {
{ { { {Military Persia.
{ {National. {Active {Priestly Egypt.
{ { { {Industrial Phoenicia.
{ { {
{ { { {Æsthetic Greece.
E { { {Individual. {Practical Rome.
D { { { {Abstract {Northern.
U { { { { Individual{ Barbarians.
C { {
A { {Theocratic. . . . . . . . . . . . Jews.
T { {
I { {Monkish.
O {THIRD PART. {
N {In its {
{ Particular {
{ Systems. {
{ {Chivalric.
{ {
{ {Humanitarian. {For Special {Jesuitic.
{ { { Callings. {Pietistic.
{ {
{ { {The
{ { { {Humanistic.
{ {For Civil {To achieve {
{ { Life. { an Ideal of {The
{ { { Culture. {Philanthropic
{ { { {Movement.
{ { {
{ { {For Free Citizenship.