Chapter I: Part 1

International Education Series

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_INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES_

ESSAYS ON
EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS

BY
ROBERT HEBERT QUICK
M. A. TRIN. COLL., CAMBRIDGE

FORMERLY ASSISTANT MASTER AT HARROW, AND LECTURER ON
THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION AT CAMBRIDGE
LATE VICAR OF SEDBERGH

_ONLY AUTHORIZED EDITION OF THE WORK
AS REWRITTEN IN 1890_

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1896

COPYRIGHT, 1890,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

To

DR. HENRY BARNARD,

_The first United States Commissioner of Education_,

WHO IN A LONG LIFE OF
SELF-SACRIFICING LABOUR HAS GIVEN TO THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE AN EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,

WITH THE ESTEEM AND ADMIRATION OF

THE AUTHOR.

Οὺ γὰρ ἔστι περὶ ὅτου θειοτέρου ἄνθρωπος ἄν βουλεύσαιτο, ὴ
περὶ παιδείας καὶ τῶν αὑτοῦ και τῶν οἰκείων. _Plato in initio
Theagis_ (p. 122 B).

Socrates saith plainlie, that “no man goeth about a more godlie
purpose, than he that is mindfull of the good bringing up both
of hys owne and other men’s children.”—_Ascham’s Scholemaster.
Preface._

_Fundamentum totius reipublicæ est recta juventutis educatio._

The very foundation of the whole commonwealth is the proper
bringing up of the young.—_Cic._

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

Many years ago I proposed to my friend Mr. Quick to rewrite his Educational Reformers, making some additions (Sturm and Froebel, for example), and allow me to place it in this series of educational works. I had read his essays when they first appeared, and noted their great value as a contribution to the right kind of educational literature. They showed admirable tact in the selection of the materials; the “epoch-making” writers were chosen and the things that had been said and done of permanent value were brought forward. Better than all was the running commentary on these materials by Mr. Quick himself. His style was popular, taking the reader, as it were, into confidential relations with him from the start, and offering now and then a word of criticism in the most judicial spirit, leaning neither to the extreme of destructive radicalism, which seeks revolution rather than reform, nor, on the other hand, to the extreme of blind conservatism, which wishes to preserve the vesture of the past rather than its wisdom.

I have called this book of Mr. Quick the most valuable history of education in our mother-tongue, fit only to be compared with Karl von Raumer’s Geschichte der Pädagogik for its presentation of essentials and for the sanity of its verdicts.

I made my proposal that he “rewrite” his book because I knew that he considered his first edition hastily written and, in many respects, not adequate to the ideal he had conceived of the book. I knew, moreover, that years of continued thinking on a theme necessarily modifies one’s views. He would wish to make some changes in matter presented, some in judgments rendered, and many more in style of presentation.

Hence it has come about that after this lapse of time Mr. Quick has produced a substantially new book, which, retaining all or nearly all of the admirable features of the first edition, has brought up to their standard of excellence many others.

The history of education is a vast field, and we are accustomed to demand bulky treatises as the only adequate ones. But the obvious disadvantage of such works has led to the clearly defined ideal of a book like Mr. Quick’s, which separates the gold from the dross, and offers it small in bulk but precious in value.

The educational reformers are the men above all others who stimulate us to think about education. Every one of these was an extremist, and erred in his judgment as to the value of the methods which prevailed in his time, and also overestimated the effects of the new education that he proposed in the place of the old. But thought begins with negations, and originality shows itself first not in creating something new, but in removing the fettering limitations of its existing environment. The old is attacked—its good and its bad are condemned alike. It has been imposed on us by authority, and we have not been allowed to summon it before the bar of our reason and ask of it its credentials. It informs us that it presented these credentials ages ago to our ancestors—men older and wiser than we are. Such imposition of authority leaves us no choice but to revolt. We, too, have a right to think as well as our ancestors; we, too, must clear up the ground of our belief and substitute insight for blind faith in tradition.

These educational reformers are prophets of the clearing-up period (_Aufklärung_) of revolution against mere authority.

While we are inspired to think for ourselves, however, we must not neglect that more important matter of thinking the truth. Free-thinking, if it does not reach the truth, is not of great value. It sets itself as puny individual against the might of the race, which preserves its experience in the forms of institutions—the family, the social organism, the state, the Church.

Hence our wiser and more scientific method studies everything that is, or exists, in its history, and endeavors to discover how it came to be what it is. It inquires into its evolution. The essential truth is not the present fact, but the entire process by which the present fact grew to be what it is. For the living force that made the present fact made also the past facts antecedent to the present, and it will go on making subsequent facts. The revelation of the living forces which make the facts of existence is the object of science. It takes all these facts to reveal the living force that is acting and producing them.

Hence the scientific attitude is superior to the attitude of these educational reformers, and we shall in our own minds weigh these men in our scales, asking first of all: What is their view of the world? How much do they value human institutions? How much do they know of the substantial good that is wrought by those institutions? If they know nothing of these things, if they see only incumbrance in these institutions, if to them the individual is the measure of all things, we can not do reverence to their proposed remedies, but must account their value to us chiefly this, that they have stimulated us to thinking, and helped us to discover what they have not discovered—namely, the positive value of institutions.

All education deals with the boundary between ignorance and knowledge and between bad habits and good ones. The pupil as pupil brings with him the ignorance and the bad habits, and is engaged in acquiring good habits and correct knowledge.

This situation gives us a general recipe for a frequently recurring type of educational reformer. Any would-be reformer may take his stand on the boundary mentioned, and, casting an angry look at the realm of ignorance and bad habit not yet conquered, condemn in wholesale terms the system of education that has not been efficient in removing this mental and moral darkness.

Such a reformer selects an examination paper written by a pupil whose ignorance is not yet vanquished, and parades the same as a product of the work of the school, taking great pains to avoid an accurate and just admeasurement of the actual work done by the school. The reformer critic assumes that there is one factor here, whereas there are three factors—namely, (_a_) the pupil’s native and acquired powers of learning, (_b_) his actual knowledge acquired, and (_c_) the instruction given by the school. The school is not responsible for the first and second of these factors, but it is responsible only for what increment has grown under its tutelage. How much and what has the pupil increased his knowledge, and how much his power of acquiring knowledge and of doing?

The educational reformer is always telling us to leave words and take up things. He dissuades from the study of language, and also undervalues the knowledge of manners and customs and laws and usages. He dislikes the study of institutions even. He “loves Nature,” as he informs us. Herbert Spencer wants us to study the body, and to be more interested in biology than in formal logic; more interested in natural history than in literature. But I think he would be indignant if one were to ask him whether he thought the study of the habits and social instincts of bees and ants is less important than the study of insect anatomy and physiology. Anatomy and physiology are, of course, important, but the social organism is more important than the physiological organism, even in bees and ants.

So in man the social organism is transcendent as compared with human physiology, and social hygiene compared with physiological hygiene is supreme.

To suppose that the habits of plants and insects are facts, and that the structure of human languages, the logical structure of the mind itself as revealed in the figures and modes of the syllogism and the manners and customs of social life, the deep ethical principles which govern peoples as revealed in works of literature—to suppose that these and the like of these are not real facts and worthy of study is one of the strangest delusions that has ever prevailed.

But it is a worse delusion to suppose that the study of Nature is more practical than the study of man, though this is often enough claimed by the educational reformers.

The knowledge of most worth is first and foremost the knowledge of how to behave—a knowledge of social customs and usages. Any person totally ignorant in this regard would not escape imprisonment—perhaps I should say decapitation—for one day in any city of the world—say in London, in Pekin, in Timbuctoo, or in a _pueblo_ of Arizona. A knowledge of human customs and usages, next a knowledge of human views of Nature and man—these are of primordial necessity to an individual, and are means of direct self-preservation.

The old trivium or threefold course of study at the university taught grammar, logic, and rhetoric—namely, (1) the structure of language, (2) the structure of mind and the art of reasoning, (3) the principles and art of persuasion. These may be seen at once to be lofty subjects and worthy objects of science. They will always remain such, but they are not easy for the child. In the course of mastering them he must learn to master himself and gain great intellectual stature. Pedagogy has wisely graded the road to these heights, and placed much easier studies at the beginning and also made the studies more various. Improvements in methods and in grading—devices for interesting the pupil—so essential to his self-activity, for these we have to thank the Educational Reformers.

W. T. HARRIS.

WASHINGTON, D. C., 1890.

PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1868.

“_It is clear that in whatever it is our duty to act, those matters also it is our duty to study._” These words of Dr. Arnold’s seem to me incontrovertible. So a sense of duty, as well as fondness for the subject, has led me to devote a period of leisure to the study of _Education_, in the practice of which I have been for some years engaged.

There are countries where it would be considered a truism that a teacher in order to exercise his profession intelligently should know something about the chief authorities in it. Here, however, I suppose such an assertion will seem paradoxical; but there is a good deal to be said in defence of it. De Quincey has pointed out that a man who takes up any pursuit without knowing what advances others have made in it works at a great disadvantage. He does not apply his strength in the right direction, he troubles himself about small matters and neglects great, he falls into errors that have long since been exploded. An educator is, I think, liable to these dangers if he brings to his task no knowledge but that which he learnt for the tripos, and no skill but that which he acquired in the cricket ground or on the river. If his pupils are placed entirely in his hands, his work is one of great difficulty, with heavy penalties attached to all blundering in it; though here, as in the case of the ignorant doctor and the careless architect, the penalties, unfortunately, are paid by his victims. If (as more commonly happens) he has simply to give a class prescribed instruction, his smaller scope of action limits proportionally the mischief that may ensue; but even then it is obviously desirable that his teaching should be as good as possible, and he is not likely to employ the best methods if he invents as he goes along, or simply falls back on his remembrance of how he was taught himself, perhaps in very different circumstances. I venture to think, therefore, that practical men in education, as in most other things, may derive benefit from the knowledge of what has already been said and done by the leading men engaged in it, both past and present.

All study of this kind, however, is very much impeded by want of books. “Good books are in German,” says Professor Seeley. I have found that on the history of Education, not only _good_ books but _all_ books are in German or some other foreign language.[1] I have, therefore, thought it worth while to publish a few such imperfect sketches as these, with which the reader can hardly be less satisfied than the author. They may, however, prove useful till they give place to a better book.

Several of the following essays are nothing more than compilations. Indeed, a hostile critic might assert that I had used the scissors with the energy of Mr. Timbs and without his discretion. The reader, however, will probably agree with me that I have done wisely in putting before him the opinions of great writers in their own language. Where I am simply acting as reporter, the author’s own way of expressing himself is obviously the best; and if, following the example of the gipsies and Sir Fretful Plagiary, I had disfigured other people’s offspring to make them pass for my own, success would have been fatal to the purpose I have steadily kept in view. The sources of original ideas in any subject, as the student is well aware, are few, but for irrigation we require troughs as well as water-springs, and these essays are intended to serve in the humbler capacity.

A word about the incomplete handling of my subjects. I have not attempted to treat any subject completely, or even with anything like completeness. In giving a sketch of the opinions of an author one of two methods must be adopted; we may give an epitome of all that he has said, or by confining ourselves to his more valuable and characteristic opinions, may gain space to give these fully. As I detest epitomes, I have adopted the latter method exclusively, but I may sometimes have failed in selecting an author’s most characteristic principles; and probably no two readers of a book would entirely agree as to what was most valuable in it: so my account must remain, after all, but a poor substitute for the author himself.

For the part of a critic I have at least one qualification—practical acquaintance with the subject. As boy or master, I have been connected with no less than eleven schools, and my perception of the blunders of other teachers is derived mainly from the remembrance of my own. Some of my mistakes have been brought home to me by reading works on education, even those with which I do not in the main agree. Perhaps there are teachers who on looking through the following pages may meet with a similar experience.

Had the essays been written in the order in which they stand, a good deal of repetition might have been avoided, but this repetition has at least the advantage of bringing out points which seem to me important; and as no one will read the book as carefully as I have done, I hope no one will be so much alive to this and other blemishes in it.

I much regret that in a work which is nothing if it is not practically useful, I have so often neglected to mark the exact place from which quotations are taken. I have myself paid the penalty of this carelessness in the trouble it has cost me to verify passages which seemed inaccurate.

The authority I have had recourse to most frequently is Raumer (_Geschichte der Pädagogik_). In his first two volumes he gives an account of the chief men connected with education, from Dante to Pestalozzi. The third volume contains essays on various parts of education, and the fourth is devoted to German Universities. There is an English translation, published in America, of the fourth volume only. I confess to a great partiality for Raumer—a partiality which is not shared by a Saturday Reviewer and by other competent authorities in this country. But surely a German author who is not profound, and is almost perspicuous, has some claim on the gratitude of English readers, if he gives information which we cannot get in our own language. To Raumer I am indebted for all that I have written about Ratke, and almost all about Basedow. Elsewhere his history has been used, though not to the same extent.

C. A. Schmid’s _Encyclopädie des Erziehungs-und-Unterrichtswesens_ is a vast mine of information on everything connected with education. The work is still in progress. The part containing _Rousseau_ has only just reached me. I should have been glad of it when I was giving an account of the Emile, as Raumer was of little use to me.

Those for whom Schmid is too diffuse and expensive will find Carl Gottlob Hergang’s _Pädagogische Realencyclopädie_ useful. This is in two thick volumes, and costs, to the best of my memory, about eighteen shillings. It was finished in 1847.

The best sketch I have met with of the general history of education is in the article on _Pädagogik_ in _Meyers Conversations-Lexicon_.[2] I wish someone would translate this article; and I should be glad to draw the attention of the editor of an educational periodical, say the _Museum_ or the _Quarterly Journal of Education_, to it.

I have come upon references to many other works on the history of Education, but of these the only ones I have seen are Theodore Fritz’s _Esquisse d’un Système complet d’instruction et d’éducation et de leur histoire_ (3 vols., Strasburg, 1843), and Carl Schmidt’s _Geschichte der Pädagogik_ (4 vols.). The first of these gives only the outline of the subject. The second is, I believe, considered a standard work. It does not seem to me so readable as Raumer’s history, but it is much more complete, and comes down to quite recent times.

For my account of the Jesuit schools and of Pestalozzi, the authorities will be found elsewhere (pp. 34 and 383). In writing about Comenius I have had much assistance from a life of him prefixed to an English translation of his _School of Infancy_, by Daniel Benham (London, 1858). For almost all the information given about Jacotot, I am indebted to Mr. Payne’s papers, which I should not have ventured to extract from so freely if they had been before the public in a more permanent form.

I am sorry I cannot refer to any English works on the history of Education, except the essays of Mr. Parker and Mr. Furnivall, and _Christian Schools and Scholars_, which are mentioned above, but we have a very good treatise on the principles of education in Marcel’s _Language as a Means of Mental Culture_ (2 vols., London, 1853). Edgeworth’s _Practical Education_ seems falling into undeserved neglect, and Mr. Spencer’s recent work is not universally known even by schoolmasters.

If the following pages attract but few readers, it will be some consolation, though rather a melancholy one, that I share the fate of my betters.

R. H. Q.

INGATESTONE, ESSEX, _May, 1868_.

PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1890.

When I was a young man (_i.e._, nearly forty years ago), I once did what those who know the ground would declare a very risky, indeed, a fool-hardy thing. I was at the highest point of the Gemmi Pass in Switzerland, above the Rhone Valley; and being in a hurry to get down and overtake my party I ran from the top to the bottom. The path in those days was not so good as it is now, and it is so near the precipice that a few years afterwards a lady in descending lost her head and fell over. No doubt I was in great danger of a drop of a thousand feet or so. But of this I was totally unconscious. I was in a thick mist, and saw the path for a few yards in front of me _and nothing more_. When I think of the way in which this book was written three and twenty years ago I can compare it to nothing but my first descent of the Gemmi. I did a very risky thing without knowing it. My path came into view little by little as I went on. All else was hid from me by a thick mist of ignorance. When I began the book I knew next to nothing of the Reformers, but I studied hard and wrote hard, and I turned out the essays within the year. This feat I now regard with amazement, almost with horror. Since that time I have given more years of work to the subject than I had then given months, and the consequence is I find I can write fast no longer. The mist has in a measure cleared off, and I cannot jog along in comfort as I did when I saw less. At the same time I have no reason to repent of the adventure. Being fortunate in my plan and thoroughly interested by my subject, I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations in getting others to take an interest in it also. The small English edition of 500 copies was, as soon as I reduced the price, sold off immediately, and the book has been, in England, for twenty years “out of print.” But no less than three publishing firms in the United States have reprinted it (one quite recently) without my consent, and, except in the edition of Messrs. R. Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, with omissions and additions made without my knowledge. It seems then that the book will live for some years yet, whether I like it or not; and while it lives I wish it to be in a form somewhat less defective than at its first appearance. I have therefore in a great measure re-written it, beside filling in a gap here and there with an additional essay. Perhaps some critics will call it a new book with an old title. If they do, they will I trust allow that the new book has at least two merits which went far to secure the success of the old, 1st, a good title, and 2nd, a good plan. My plan in both editions has been to select a few people who seemed specially worth knowing about, and to tell concerning them in some detail just that which seemed to me specially worth knowing. So I have given what I thought very valuable or very interesting, and everything I thought not particularly valuable or interesting I have ruthlessly omitted. I have not attempted a _complete_ account of anybody or anything; and as for what the examiner may “set,” I have not once given his questions a thought.

As the book is likely to have more readers in the country of its adoption than in the country of its birth, I have persuaded my friend Dr. William T. Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education, to put it into “The International Education Series” which he edits. So the only authorized editions of the book are the English edition, and the American edition published by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.

R. H. Q.

EARLSWOOD COTTAGE, REDHILL, SURREY, ENGLAND, _28th July, 1890_.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

=Chapter I.—Effects of the Renascence= 1-21

No escape from the Past 2

“Discovery” of the Classics 3

Mark Pattison’s account of Renascence 4

Revival of taste for beauty in Literature 5

What is Literature? 6

Renascence loved beauty of expression 7

No translations. The “educated” 8

Spread of literature by printing 9

School course settled before Bacon 10

First defect: Learner above Doer 11

Second: Over-estimate of literature 12

Literary taste not common 13

Third: Literature banished from school 14

Translations would be literature 15

The classics not written for children 16

Language _versus_ Literature 17

Fourth: “Miss as good as a mile” 18

Fifth: Neglect of children 19

Child’s study of his surroundings 20

Aut Cæsar aut nihil 21

=Chapter II.—Renascence Tendencies= 22-26

Reviving the Past. The Scholars 23

The _Scholars_: things for words 24

_Verbal Realists_: things through words 25

_Stylists_: words for themselves 26

=Chapter III.—Sturmius. (1507-1589)= 27-32

His early life. Settles in Strassburg 28

His course of Latin. Dismissed 29

The Schoolmaster taught Latin mainly 30

Resulting verbalism 31

Some books about Sturm 32

=Chapter IV.—Schools of the Jesuits= 33-62

Importance of the Jesuit Schools 34

The Society in part educational 35

“Ratio atque Institutio.” Societas Professa 36

The Jesuit teacher: his preparation, &c. 37

Supervision. Maintenance. Lower Schools 38

Free instruction. Equality. Boarders 39

Classes. Curriculum. Latin only used 40

Teacher Lectured. Exercises. Saying by heart 41

Emulation. “Æmuli.” Concertations 42

“Academies.” Expedients. School-hours 43

Method of teaching. An example 44

Attention. Extra work. “Repetitio” 45

Repetition. Thoroughness 46

Yearly examinations. Moral training 47

Care of health. Punishments 48

English want of system 49

Jesuit limitations 50

Gains from memorizing 51

Popularity. Kindness 52

Sympathy with each pupil 53

Work moderate in amount and difficulty 54

The Society the Army of the Church 55

Their pedagogy not disinterested 56

Practical 57

The forces: 1. Master’s influence. 2. Emulation 57-58

A pupil’s summing-up 59

Some books 60

Barbier’s advice to new master 61

Loyola and Montaigne. Port-Royal 62

=Chapter V.—Rabelais. (1483-1553.)= 63-69

Rabelais’ ideal. A new start 64

Religion. Study of Things 65

“Anschauung.” Hand-work. Books and Life 66

Training the body 67

Rabelais’ Curriculum 68

Study of Scripture. Piety 69

=Chapter VI.—Montaigne. (1533-1592.)= 70-79

Writers and doers. Montaigne _versus_ Renascence 71

Character before knowledge. True knowledge 72

Athens and Sparta. Wisdom before knowledge 73

Knowing, and knowing by heart 74

Learning necessary as employment 75

Montaigne and our Public Schools 76

Pressure from Science and Examinations 77

Danger from knowledge 78

Montaigne and Lord Armstrong 79

=Chapter VII.—Ascham. (1515-1568.)= 80-89

Wolsey on teaching 81

History of Methods useful 82

Our three celebrities 83

Ascham’s method for Latin: first stage 84

Second stage. The six points 85

Value of double translating and writing 86

Study of a model book. Queen Elizabeth 87, 88

“A dozen times at the least” 88

“Impressionists” and “Retainers” 89

=Chapter VIII.—Mulcaster. (1531(?)-1611.)= 90-102

Old books in English on education 91

Mulcaster’s wisdom hidden by his style 92

Education and “learning” 93

1. Development 2. Child-study 94

3. Groundwork by best workman 95

4. No forcing of young plants 96

5. The elementary course. English 97

6. Girls as well as Boys 98

7. Training of Teachers 99

Training college at the Universities 100

Mulcaster’s reasons for training teachers 101

Mulcaster’s Life and Writings 102

=Chapter IX.—Ratichius. (1571-1635.)= 103-118

Principles of the Innovators 104

Ratke’s Address to the Diet 105

At Augsburg. At Koethen 106

Failure at Koethen 107

German in the school. Ratichius’s services 108

1. Follow Nature. 2. One thing at a time 109

3. Over and over again 110

4. Everything through the mother-tongue 111

5. Nothing on compulsion 112

6. Nothing to be learnt by heart 113

7. Uniformity. 8. Ne modus rei ante rem 114

9. Per inductionem omnia 115

Ratke’s method for language 116

Ratke’s method and Ascham’s 117

Slow progress in methods 118

=Chapter X.—Comenius. (1592-1671.)= 119-171

Early years. His first book 120

Troubles. Exile 121

Pedagogic studies at Leszna 122

Didactic written. _Janua_ published. Pansophy 123

Samuel Hartlib 124

The _Prodromus_ and _Dilucidatio_ 125

Comenius in London. Parliamentary schemes 126

Comenius driven away by Civil War 127

In Sweden. Interviews with Oxenstiern 128

Oxenstiern criticises 129

Comenius at Elbing 130

At Leszna again 131

Saros-Patak. Flight from Leszna 132

Last years at Amsterdam 133

Comenius sought true foundation 134

Threefold life. Seeds of learning, virtue, piety 135

Omnia sponte fluant. Analogies 136

Analogies of growth 137

Senses. Foster desire of knowledge 138

No punishments. Words and Things together 139

Languages. System of schools 140

Mother-tongue School. Girls 141

School teaching. Mother’s teaching 142

Comenius and the Kindergarten 143

Starting-points of the sciences 144

Beginnings in Geography, History, &c. 145

Drawing. Education for all 146

Scientific and Religious Agreement 147

Bishop Butler on Educating the Poor 148

Comenius and Bacon 149

“Everything Through the Senses” 150

Error of Neglecting the Senses 151

Insufficiency of the Senses 152

Comenius undervalued the Past 153

Literature and Science 154

Comenius’s use of Analogies 155

Thought-studies and Label-studies 156

Unity of Knowledges 157

Theory and the Practical Man 158

Mother-tongue. Words and Things together 159

Janua Linguarum 160

The Jesuits’ Janua 161

Comenius adapts Jesuits’ Janua 162

Anchoran’s edition of Comenius’s Janua 163

Change to be made by Janua 164

Popularity of Janua shortlived 165

Lubinus projector of Orbis Pictus 166

Orbis Pictus described 167

Why Comenius’s schoolbooks failed 168

“Compendia Dispendia” 169

Comenius and Science of Education 170

Books on Comenius 171

=Chapter XI.—The Gentlemen of Port-Royal= 172-196

The Jesuits and the Arnaulds 173

Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal 174

Saint-Cyran an “Evangelical” 175

Short career of the Little Schools 176

Saint-Cyran and Locke on Public Schools 177

Shadow-side of Public Schools 178

The Little Schools for the few only 179

Advantages of great schools 180

Choice of masters and servants. Watch and pray 181

No rivalry or pressure. Freedom from routine 182

Study a delight. Reading French first 183

Literature. Mother-tongue first 184

Beginners’ difficulties lightened 185

Begin with Latin into Mother-tongue 186

Sense before sound. Reason must rule 187

Not Baconian. The body despised 188

Pedagogic writings of Port-Royalists 189

Arnauld. Nicole 190

Light from within. Teach by the Senses 191

Best teaching escapes common tests 192

Studying impossible without a will 193

Against making beginnings bitter 194

Port-Royal advance. Books on Port-Royal 195

Rollin, Compayré, &c. 196

=Chapter XII.—Some English Writers before Locke= 197-218

Birth of Realism 198

Realist Leaders not schoolmasters 199

John Brinsley. Charles Hoole 200

Hoole’s Realism 201

Art of teaching. Abraham Cowley 202

Authors and schoolmasters. J. Dury 203

Disorderly use of our natural faculties 204

Dury’s watch simile 205

Senses, 1st; imagination, 2nd; memory, 3rd 206

Petty’s battlefield simile 207

Petty’s realism 208

Cultivate observation 209

Petty on children’s activities 210

Hand-work. Education for all. Bellers 211

Milton and School-Reform 212

Milton as spokesman of Christian Realists 213

Language an instrument. Object of education 214

Milton for barrack life and Verbal Realism 215

Milton succeeded as man not master 216

He did not advance Science of Education 217

Milton an educator of mankind 218

=Chapter XIII.—Locke. (1632-1704.)= 219-238

Locke’s two main characteristics 220

1st, Truth for itself. 2nd, Reason for Truth 221

Locke’s definition of knowledge 222

Knowing without seeing 223

“Discentem credere oportet” 224

Locke’s “Knowledge” and the schoolmaster’s 225

“Knowledge” in Geography 226

For children, health and habits 227

Everything educative forms habits 228

Confusion about special cases. Wax 229

Locke behind Comenius 230

Humanists, Realists, and Trainers 231

Caution against classifiers 232

Locke and development 233

Was Locke a utilitarian? 234

Utilitarianism defined 235

Locke not utilitarian in education 236

Locke’s Pisgah Vision 237

Science and education. Names of books 238

=Chapter XIV.—Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (1712-1778.)= 239-272

Middle Age system fell in 18th century 240

Do the opposite to the usual 241

Family life. No education before reason 242

Rousseau “neglects” essentials. Lose time 243

Early education negative 244

Childhood the sleep of reason 245

Start from study of the child 246

Rousseau’s paradoxes un-English 247

Man the corrupter. The three educations 248

The aim, living thoroughly 249

Children not small men 250

Schoolmasters’ contempt for childhood 251

Schoolroom rubbish 252

Ideas before symbols 253

Right ideas for children 254

Child-gardening. Child’s activity 255

No sitting still or reading 256

Memory without books 257

Use of the senses in childhood 258

Intellect based on the senses 259

Cultivation of the senses 260

Music and drawing 261

Drawing from objects. Morals 262

Contradictory statements on morals 263

The material world and the moral 264

Shun over-directing 265

Lessons out of school. Questioning. At 12 266

No book-learning. Study of nature 267

Against didactic teaching 268

Rousseau exaggerates about self-teaching 269

Learn with effort 270

Hand-work. The “New Education” 271

The Teacher’s business 272

=Chapter XV.—Basedow and the Philanthropinum= 273-289

Basedow tries to mend religion and teaching 274

Reform needed. Subscription for “Elementary” 275

A journey with Goethe 276

Goethe on Basedow 277

The Philanthropinum opened 278

Basedow’s “Elementary” and “Book of Method” 279

Subjects to be taught 280

French and Latin. Religion 281

“Fred’s Journey to Dessau” 282

At the Philanthropinum 283

Methods in the Philanthropinum 284

The Philanthropinum criticised 285

Basedow’s improvements in teaching children 286

Basedow’s successors 287

Kant on the Philanthropinum 288

Influence of Philanthropinists 289

=Chapter XVI.—Pestalozzi. (1746-1827.)= 290-383

His childhood and student-life 291

A Radical Student 292

Turns farmer. Bluntschli’s warning 293

New ideas in farming. A love letter 294

Resolutions. Buys land and marries 295

Pestalozzi turns to education 296

Neuhof filled with children 297

Appeal for the new Institution 298

Bankruptcy. The children sent away 299

Eighteen years of poverty and distress 300

“Gertrude” to the rescue. Pestalozzi’s religion 301

He turns author. “E. H. of Hermit” 302

Pestalozzi’s belief 303

The “Hermit” a Christian 304

Success of “Leonard and Gertrude” 305

Gertrude’s patience tried 306

Being and doing before knowing 307

Pestalozzi’s severity. Women Commissioners 308

Pestalozzi’s seven years of authorship 309

“Citizen of French Republic.” Doubts 310

Waiting. Pestalozzi’s “Inquiry” 311

Pestalozzi’s “Fables” 312

Pestalozzi’s own principles 313

Pestalozzi’s return to action 314

The French at Stanz 315

Pestalozzi at Stanz 316

Success and expulsion 317

At Stanz: Pestalozzi’s own account 318-332

Value of the five months’ experience 333

Pestalozzi a strange Schoolmaster 334

At Burgdorf. First official approval 335

A child’s notion of Pestalozzi’s teaching 336

Pestalozzi engineering a new road 337

Psychologizing instruction 338

School course. Singing; and the beautiful 339

Pestalozzi’s poverty. Kruesi joins him 340

Pestalozzi’s assistants. The Burgdorf Institute 341

Success of the Burgdorf Institute 342

Reaction. Pestalozzi and Napoleon I 343

Fellenberg, Pestalozzi goes to Yverdun 344

A portrait of Pestalozzi 345

Prussia adopts Pestalozzianism 346

Ritter and others at Yverdun 347

Causes of failure at Yverdun 348

Report made by Father Girard 349

Girard’s mistake. Schmid in flight 350

Schmid’s return. Pestalozzi’s fame found useful 351

Dr. Bell’s visit. Death of Mrs. Pestalozzi 352

Works republished. Clindy. Yverdun left. Death 353, 354

New aim: develop organism 354

True dignity of man 355

Education for all. Mothers’ part. Jacob’s Ladder 356

Educator only superintends 357

First, moral development 358

Moral and religious the same 359

Second, intellectual development 360

Learning by “intuition” 361

Buisson and Jullien on intuition 362

Pestalozzi and Locke 363

Subjects for, and art of, teaching 364

“Mastery” 365

The body’s part in education 366

Learning must not be play 367

Singing and drawing 368

Morf’s summing-up 369

Joseph Payne’s summing-up 370

The “two nations.” Mother’s lessons 371

Mistakes in teaching children 372

Children and their teachers 373

“Preparatory” Schools 374

Young boys ill taught at school 375

English folk-schools not Pestalozzian 376

Schools judged by results 377

Pupil-teachers. Teaching not educating 378

Lowe or Pestalozzi? 379

Chief force, personality of the teacher 380

English care for unessentials 381

Aim at the ideal 382

Use of theorists. Books 383

=Chapter XVII.—Friedrich Froebel. (1783-1852.)= 384-413

Difficulty in understanding Froebel 385

A lad’s quest of unity 386

Froebel wandering without rest 387

Finds his vocation. With Pestalozzi 388

Froebel at the Universities 389

Through the Freiheits-krieg. Mineralogy 390

The “New Education” started 391

At Keilhau. “Education of Man” published 392

Froebel fails in Switzerland 393

The first Kindergarten 394

Froebel’s last years. Prussian edict against him. His end 395

Author’s attitude towards Reformers 396

Difficulties with Froebel 397

“Cui omnia unum sunt” 398

Froebel’s ideal 399

Theory of development 400

Development through self-activity 401

True idea found in Nature 402

God acts and man acts 403

The formative and creative instinct 404

Rendering the inner outer 405

Care for “young plants.” Kindergarten 406

Child’s restlessness: how to use it 407

Employments in Kindergarten 408

No schoolwork in Kindergarten 409

Without the idea the “gifts” fail 410

The New Education and the old 411

The old still vigorous 412

Science the thought of God. Some Froebelians 413

=Chapter XVIII.—Jacotot, a Methodizer. (1770-1840.)= 414-438

Self-teaching 415

1. All can learn 416

2. Everyone can teach 417

Can he teach facts he does not know? 418

Languages? Sciences? 419

Arts such as drawing and music? 420

True teacher within the learner 421

Training rather than teaching 422

3. “Tout est dans tout.” Quidlibet ex quolibet 423

Connexion of knowledges 424

Connect with model book. Memorizing 425

Ways of studying the model book 426

Should the book be made or chosen? 427

Robertsonian plan 428

Hints for exercises 429

The good of having learnt 430

The old Cambridge “mathematical man” 431

Waste of memory at school 432

How to stop this waste 433

Multum, non multa. De Morgan. Helps. Stephen 434

Jacotot’s plan for reading and writing 435

For the mother-tongue 436

Method of investigation 437

Jacotot’s last days 438

=Chapter XIX.—Herbert Spencer= 439-469

Same knowledge for discipline and use? 440

Different stages, different knowledges 441

Relative value of knowledges 442

Knowledge for self-preservation 443

Useful knowledge _versus_ the classics 444

Special instruction _versus_ education 445

Scientific knowledge and money-making 446

Knowledge about rearing offspring 447

Knowledge of history: its nature and use 448

Use of history 449

Employment of leisure hours 450

Poetry and the Arts 451

More than science needed for complete living 452

Objections to Spencer’s curriculum 453

Citizen’s duties. Things not to teach 454

Need of a science of education 455

Hope of a science 456

From simple to complex: known to unknown 457

Connecting schoolwork with life outside 458

Books and life 459

Mistakes in grammar teaching 460

From indefinite to definite: concrete to abstract 461

The Individual and the Race. Empirical beginning 462

Against “telling.” Effect of bad teaching 463

Learning should be pleasurable 464

Can learning be made interesting? 465

Apathy from bad teaching 466

Should learning be made interesting? 467

Difference between theory and practice 468

Importance of Herbert Spencer’s work 469

=Chapter XX.—Thoughts and Suggestions= 470-491

Want of an ideal 471

Get pupils to work hard 472

For this arouse interest. Wordsworth 473

Interest needed for activity 474

Teaching young children 475

Value of pictures 476

Dr. Vater at Leipzig 477

Dr. Vogel and Dr. Vater 478

First knowledge of numbers. Grubé 479

Measuring and weighing. Reading-books 480

Respect for books. Grammar. Reading 481

Silent and Vocal Reading 482

Memorising poetry. Composition 483

Correcting exercises. Three kinds of books 484

No epitomes 485

Ascham, Bacon, Goldsmith, against them 486

Arouse interest. Dr. Arnold’s historical primer 487

A Macaulay, not Mangnall, wanted 488

Beginnings in history and geography 489

Tales of Travelers 490

Results positive and negative 491

=Chapter XXI.—The Schoolmaster’s Moral and Religious Influence= 492-503

Master’s power, how gained and lost 493

Masters, the open and the reserved 494

Danger of excess either way 495

High ideal. Danger of low practice 496

Harm from overworking teachers 497

Refuge in routine work. Small schools 498

Influence through the Sixth. Day schools wanted 499

Teaching religion in England and Germany 500

Religious teaching connected with worship 501

Education to goodness and piety 502

How to avoid narrowmindedness 503

=Chapter XXII.—Conclusion= 504-526

A growing science of education 505

Jesuits the first Reformers 506

The Jesuits cared for more than classics 507

Rabelais for “intuition” 508

Montaigne for educating mind and body 509

17th century reaction against books 510

Reaction not felt in schools and the Universities 511

Comenius begins science of education 512

Locke’s teacher a disposer of influence 513

Locke and public schools. Escape from “idols” 514

Rousseau’s clean sweep 515

Benevolence of Nature. Man disturbs 516

We arrange sequences, capitalise ideas 517

Loss and gain from tradition 518

Rousseau for observing and following 519

Rousseau exposed “school-learning” 520

Function of “things” in education 521

“New Education” started by Rousseau 522

Drawing out. Man and the other animals 523

Intuition. Man an organism, a doer and creator 524

Antithesis of Old and New Education 525

Drill needed. What the Thinkers do for us 526

=Appendix.= Class Matches. Words and Things. Books for
Teachers, &c. 527-547

I

EFFECTS OF THE RENASCENCE.

§ 1. The history of education, much as it has been hitherto neglected, especially in England, must have a great future before it. If we ignore the Past we cannot understand the Present, or forecast the Future. In this book I am going to speak of Reformers or Innovators who aimed at changing what was handed down to them; but the Radical can no more escape from the Past, than the Conservative can stereotype it. It acts not by attraction only, but no less by repulsion. There have been thinkers in latter times who have announced themselves as the executioners of the Past and laboured to destroy all it has bequeathed to us. They have raised the ferocious cry, “_Vive la destruction! Vive la mort! Place à l’avenir!_ Hurrah for destruction! Hurrah for death! Make room for the world that is to be!” But their very hatred of the Past has brought them under the influence of it. “Do just the opposite of what has been done and you will do right,” said Rousseau; and this rule of negation would make the Past regulate the Present and the Future no less than its opposite, “Do always what is usual.”

If we cannot get free from the Past in the domain of thought, still less can we in action. Custom is to all our activities what the mainspring is to the watch. We may bring forces into play to make the watch go faster or slower, but if we took out the mainspring it would not go at all. For _our_ mainspring we are indebted to the Past.

§ 2. In studying the Past we must give our special attention to those periods in which the course of ideas takes, as the French say, a new bend.[3] Such a period was the Renascence. Then it was that the latest bend was given to the educational ideal of the civilized world; and though we seem now again to have arrived at a period of change, we are still, perhaps far more than we are aware, affected by the ideas of the great scholars who guided the intellect of Europe in the Revival of Learning.

§ 3. From the beginning to the end of the fifteenth century the balance was trembling between two kinds of culture, and the fate of the schoolboy depended on the result. In this century men first got a correct conception of the globe they were inhabiting. Hitherto they had not even professed to have any knowledge of geography; there is no mention of it in the Trivium and Quadrivium which were then supposed to form the cycle of things known, if not of things knowable. But Columbus and Vasco da Gama were grand teachers of geography, and their lessons were learnt as far as civilization extended.

The impetus thus given to the study of the earth might, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, have engrossed the mind of Europe with the material world, had not the leaning to physical science been encountered and overcome by an impulse derived from another discovery. About the time of the discovery of America there also came to light the literatures of Greece and Rome.

§ 4. When I speak of the discovery of the ancient literatures as rivalling that of America, this use of the word “discovery” may be disputed. It may be urged that though the Greek language and literature were unknown in the West of Europe till they were brought there by the fugitives after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, yet the works of the great Latin writers had always been known in Italy, and Dante declares himself the disciple of Virgil. And yet I cannot give up the word “discovery.” In the life of an individual it sometimes happens that he suddenly acquires as it were a new sense. The world around him remains the same as before, but it is not the same to him. A film passes from his eyes, and what has been ordinary and unmeaning suddenly becomes a source of wonder and delight to him. Something similar happens at times in the history of the general mind; indeed our own century has seen a remarkable instance of it. In reading the thoughts of great writers of earlier times, we cannot but be struck, not only with their ignorance of the material world, but also with their ignorance of their ignorance. Little as they know, they often speak as if they knew everything. Newton could see that he was like a child discovering a few shells while the unexplored ocean lay before him; but in those days it required the intellect of a Newton to understand this. To the other children the ocean seemed to conceal nothing, and they innocently thought that all the shells, or nearly all, had been picked up. It was reserved for the people of our own century to become aware of the marvels which lie around us in the material world, and to be fascinated by the discovery. If the human race could live through several civilizations without opening its eyes to the wonders of the earth it inhabits, and then could suddenly become aware of them, we may well understand its retaining unheeded the literatures of Greece and Rome for centuries, and at length as it were discovering them, and turning to them with unbounded enthusiasm and delight.

As students of education we can hardly attach too much importance to this great revolution. For nearly three centuries the curriculum in the public schools of Europe remained what the Renascence had made it. We have again entered on an age of change, but we are still much influenced by the ideas of the Renascence, and the best way to understand the forces now at work is to trace them where possible to their origin. Let us then consider what the Renascence was, and how it affected the educational system.