We have seen that Herbart founded his pedagogy on ethics and psychology, the former supplying the aim of education, and the latter the means thereto. On its ethical side, pedagogy is purely speculative; but on its psychological side it must take counsel with experience. Viewed, then, in relation to ethics, it is a science (that which is known); in its relation to psychology to experience, it is an art (that which is done). Education as an art is classified as government, instruction, and discipline. 1. Government. The highest and necessary aim of education is morality. But the boy when grown to manhood will set other aims beside this before himself; therefore the teacher must consider not only the necessary, but these other possible aims of his pupil also aims which will answer to his talents, dispositions, and inclinations. Since the teacher cannot know what these aims will be, he must qualify the pupil to attain them by preparing inward power, and this can only be done by giving a general stimulus to the mind. The starting point of education is individuality, - what the pupil is and has. The idiosyncrasies of the individual are to be respected, for in them lies the strength of individuality, which is to be maintained as unimpaired as possible, that the child may not become a mere type of the race. The sole object of government, the first division of education, is to create order and keep the child within bounds; it therefore deals with the present alone. Authority and love support its measures, which are occupation, supervision, threatening and punishment. These must gradually be made dispensable and then withdrawn. 2. Instruction. Instruction, the second division of education, is the most important. Education must determine the will towards virtue. But both will and wisdom have their roots in the circle of thought, that is to say, in the combination and coöperative activity of the presentations acquired, and the true cultivation of that circle instruction alone can give. The more immediate aim of instruction on its way to its ultimate aim is a balanced, many-sided interest; that is, an intellectual activity prompted by instruction, and directed towards many objects, in which no single effort preponderates, but all are as far as possible of equal strength. Interest as such depends immediately upon its object, and is thereby differentiated from desire, which strives toward something in the future. When the mind becomes concentrated on the future more than the present, interest passes into desire. Observation and expectation are conditions of interest, demand and action of desire. . . . Interest, whose object is to create a many-sided activity, is directed first to the natural already-existent presentations, i.e., those which have been given by experience and intercourse. Since experience leads to knowledge of nature, and intercourse to the disposition toward human beings (sympathy), instruction must be brought to bear on both in order that it may correct and complete them. . . . To place all in balanced action is to create the perfect manysided culture of the mind. The course of instruction is determined accordingly. It will be analytical in so far as it separates and dissects, moreover corrects and completes; in it the chief work will fall on the pupil. Or it will be synthetical in so far as the elements are given and combined; in this the teacher will determine the order of connection. Both analytical and synthetical instruction are classified in conformity with the six classes of interest, and the two must naturally support each other. Instruction must universally point out, connect, teach, philosophise; the first is productive of Clearness, the second of Association, the third leads to System, the last to Method. In matters appertaining to sympathy, instruction is observing, continuous, elevating, active in the sphere of reality. And these conditions are again in like manner productive in order of clearness, association, system, and method. 3. Discipline. Discipline, the third division of education, consists in direct action on the child, with intent to form him. This cannot be accomplished, however, by merely exciting the feelings. Through the influence of discipline, the circle of thought itself must receive additions, and the desires be transformed into action. Therefore its work is indirect, so far as it prepares the way for instruction to determine the circle of thought, and direct so far as it transforms the contents of that circle into action, and thus lays the foundation for character. The aim of discipline is moral strength of character, that is steadfastness in progress to virtue. Character consists in uniformity and firmness of will, as these are exhibited both in what the man will, and what he will not do. . . . The attitude which the teacher assumes toward the pupil is the most important aid to discipline - his expressed satisfaction or dissatisfaction, freedom granted or restraint imposed, etc., throughout which, the pupil's susceptibility is to be observed, made use of carefully, and not over-stimulated. The book on discipline closes with suggestions as to its method of procedure. It is the formation of character by the light of psychology. Special stress is laid on the importance of keeping the mind as a whole. tranquil and clear, so that the æsthetic judgments may form, and the character become moral. In proportion as the pupil has gained trust in his opinions and principles, discipline must retreat and allow room for self-education. 357. Herbart and Modern Psychology (Titchener, E. B., in Journal of Education. Boston, May 19, 1898) The following is not only a good brief statement of the origin of modern psychology, but also a good brief presentation of the larger stages in the history of the progress of science. The history of science is a history of differentiation. When the human race first began to reflect upon the universe, it took the universe in the large; early Greek "science" is cosmic philosophy. Little by little, the sciences have split off from philosophy, far more recently than one is apt to believe. Descartes (1596-1650) included both medicine and mechanics under philosophy; Wolff (1679-1754) thought that physics was as much a part of philosophy as was empirical psychology. Even to-day we find physical apparatus catalogued under the title of "philosophical instruments." The first thing that a science has to do, then, in order to be a science, is to shake itself free of philosophy, of speculation about the ultimate nature of the universe. It must assert its independence, and declare itself lord and master over a certain range of facts. But many a "science" has made this assertion, and yet fallen back again under philosophical dominion. If the revolt is to be successful, it must be carried out with method. Method, a definite and fruitful way of arranging and discovering facts, is the conditio sine qua non of a science. The nineteenth century has witnessed a long series of victories for science over philosophy. We have the new biology of Darwin; the new physiology of Ludwig; the new pathology of Virchow; the new chemistry of Liebig; the new physics of Maxwell and Helmholtz and Thomson. There are some bodies of knowledge- ethics, æsthetics, sociology, for instance that have not yet succeeded in freeing themselves from metaphysical influence; but no one can doubt that they are well on their way to become sciences. And the place of philosophy has undergone a corresponding change. So far from dictating to science what it shall teach and what it shall refrain from teaching, metaphysics now follows in the train of the special sciences, and shapes its own doctrines in accordance with scientific results. Psychology has played its part in this revolution. At the beginning of the century it was an integral part of philosophy; at the end it is a science of the sciences, a "laboratory" science. Let us compare the two points of view for a moment, and see precisely wherein the difference consists: The change from philosophy to science was mediated very largely by the work of one man - Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841). Herbart dealt the power theory of mind its deathblow. So far, he may be accounted a "new" psychologist. Nevertheless, he still based his psychology directly upon metaphysics. The system of competing ideas which he substituted for the older faculties is meaningless and unsubstantial unless it is backed by his metaphysical system. The "new psychology" proper, psychology as natural science, is the combined work of four other men: Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795-1878), Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), and Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832). 358. Froebel's Educational Views (Marenholtz-Bülow, Baroness Bertha von, Child and Child Nature. Froebel's writings are so mystical and religious in character that they convey but little idea of the kindergarten as it is to-day developed, and the best conception as to his educational theory is found in the writings of those who have interpreted him, rather than in his own books. His greatest interpreter and propagandist was the Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Bülow (-Wendhausen) (1810-1893), who expounded his ideas in the leading countries of Europe, and, after 1870, in a training college in Dresden. The following extract from her "Contributions to the Understanding of Froebel's Educational Theories" gives a fairly good idea as to his educational ideas. "The purpose of nature is development. The purpose of the spiritual world is culture. The problem of this world is an educational one, the solution of which is proceeding according to fixed divine laws." Froebel. EDUCATION is emancipation - the setting free of the bound-up forces of the body and the soul. The inner conditions necessary to this setting free or development all healthily-born children bring with them into the world, the outer ones must be supplied through education. LAW OF DEVELOPMENT Everything in the kingdom of nature, however different the stages of progress may be, comes under one universal law, and development means the same as progress according to law, systematic going on from the unformed to the formed, from chaos to cosmos. And as does the physical so also must the spiritual development proceed in systematic fashion, or education would be impossible. For what we call education is influencing the development of the child, guiding and regulating it as well in its spiritual as in its physical aspect. But how common a thing it is to hear people maintain that during the instinctive, unconscious period of a child's life, it should be left to follow its impulses entirely, and no attempt made to deal with it systematically. But, as the soul undoubtedly begins to unfold and form itself in the period of unconsciousness in the same systematic manner as in later periods, any such assertion must be erroneous and based on false premises. Spiritual development must proceed in as regular and systematic a course as organic development, seeing that the physical organs are intended to correspond as implicitly to the soul, which they serve, as cause corresponds to effect. Psychology has determined the order of the development of the soul, as has physiology that of the circulation of the blood, but the former science has chiefly concerned itself with the already more or less formed soul of the adult, which, through self-will and voluntary deflection from the path of order, is always to a certain extent the slave of arbitrariness and the growth of the soul in the period of childhood has been little studied or observed. Froebel used to say constantly when lecturing: "If you want to understand clearly the regular working of nature you must observe the common wild plants, many of which are designated as weeds: it is seen more clearly in these than in the complexity of cultivated plants.” For this purpose he grew different species of wild plants in pots. The same holds true of the human plant. The young child's soul, while yet in its primitive and instinctive stage, without forethought and without artificiality, exhibits to the really seeing and understanding observer the systematic regularity, the logic of nature's dealings in her development process, in spite of the variety of individual endowment. CORRESPONDENCES INDIVIDUAL - THE RACE Froebel says: "There is a continuous connection in the spiritual life as a whole, as there is universal harmony in nature." And certainly it cannot be otherwise: the eternal law of order, which reigns throughout the universe, must also determine the development of the human soul. But the educator who would supply the human bud in right manner with light and warmth, rain and dew, and so induce it to emancipate itself from its fettered condition, and through the unfolding of all its slumbering forces to blossom into worthy life, must not only understand the law but must also possess the means of acting in accordance with the law: i.e., his method of education must follow the same systematic plan as nature does, and the outward practical means must correspond. No one will dispute the assertion that instruction is only worthy of the name when it is methodical. Instruction of such kind is a branch of education: but branch and stem spring from the same root. However |